A Despicable Mission (Olympia Brown Mysteries)

by Judith Campbell

  What she needed was Jim’s wisdom and point of view regarding real estate scams and elderly victims, which he agreed to research when he returned to Boston. He cautioned her to be careful about being too vocal or public about her concerns lest she tip her hand and put herself at risk. This last bit of advice was met with a dismissive wave of her hand and assurances that she wasn’t stupid, nor was she born yesterday. At this last, Jim shrugged his shoulders and asked for the bill.

  When they stepped outside on the hotel veranda, Olympia suggested they stroll out to the light house and look at the memory walk, a brick pathway engraved with the names of children who had died. Olympia plucked a pale pink beach rose from a bush growing along the path and placed it on the stone marked for Jack and Janney Winters’ son Allan. After that the two friends sat in silence at the edge of the water and watched the On-time ferry shuttling back and forth across the harbor. Olympia was idly scooping up handfuls of warm sand and letting it slide through her fingers onto the tops of her bare feet.

  Jim picked up a scallop shell and cleared his throat.

  “I went to see my doctor last week. “ He paused as if trying to find the words to continue. “I’ve been feeling tired and weak for the last couple of months, and I couldn’t seem to shake it. She did a bunch of tests and then called me in and told me that my numbers are up.”

  Olympia dropped her sand and turned to her friend. “What do you mean, your numbers are up? What are you talking about?”

  “My T-cells, Olympia. Although I’ve never actually said it, I suppose you figured out that I’m HIV positive?”

  “Actually, I hadn’t, but I’m not surprised to hear it. You told me that Paul died of AIDS, and you two were lovers.”

  “We were married, Olympia, in a Unitarian Church in Provincetown. One of your guys—a woman, actually—did the honors. Not legally, of course, but we had a ceremony. We even had a cake.”

  Olympia reached for Jim’s hand. Despite the heat, his fingertips were cool to the touch.

  “What are you telling me, Jim?”

  “I’m saying that I might not be able to continue at St. Bart’s, or at the very least, I might have to take a leave of absence for health reasons.”

  “Do they know? I mean the bishop or archbishop or whatever you call the head honcho around there.”

  Jim shook his head and looked away. “You know what would happen if I told them. No, they don’t know, but I don’t know how much longer I can hide it. I hate living a lie, Olympia, but I love being a priest. This is what I’m called to do, and if this gets out, I might not be able to continue. If I can’t be a priest, I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “You told me that when you met Paul, you left seminary and went into social work. But I think it’s a little early to start thinking in that direction. What else did the doctor say?”

  “To tell you the truth, I thought I’d dodged the bullet. I’ve been HIV positive for years, but I’ve been asymptomatic. I didn’t need to go on any kind of a drug regimen. My HIV was nothing more than a notation in my medical records, and I pretty much stopped thinking about it, but it seems that my luck has run out. She told me she would put me on ‘the cocktail,’ as they call it, and the side effects may or may not be bothersome. If I take really good care of myself and follow doctor’s orders, I should be able to continue working without too many problems.”

  “Did she give you any kind of a prognosis?”

  “She couldn’t or wouldn’t say. Every case is different. Every person is different. Every person’s response to the medication is different. She did say that because I was able to stay off the medication for as long as I have, that I could start with a minimal dose and monitor how I react. And because I’m physically fit and I don’t smoke and I don’t drink to excess, the prognosis should be encouraging. But come on, Olympia, how do you define encouraging?”

  Olympia chose her words carefully.

  “Did she actually tell you to take some time off?”

  “She said it would help if I could cut back to part-time. I know I’ve been working too hard, but with the shortage of priests these days, all of us are working too hard. If I have to explain why I have to back off a little bit, I could get asked to leave.”

  “Can they actually do that?”

  “They can do anything they want to, Olympia. I took a vow of obedience. As long as I’m a priest, I do what I’m told. My colleagues may have figured out that I’m gay, but it’s not something we talk about. We both know that people can be very good at looking the other way if it suits the purpose. You know, don’t ask what you don’t want to know.”

  “That kind of thing happens everywhere, my friend, but even priests must get vacations. You could come and be here with me on Martha’s Vineyard, or better yet, I can clear out another room in the Brookfield house. That way, you can come and go as you wish with no one in Rome or Boston any the wiser.”

  “Thanks, Olympia, that’s very generous of you. I don’t know what I’m going to do right now. It’s too much to think about. Besides, not all of the test results are back.”

  “But the doctor does recommend taking some time off?”

  Jim nodded.

  “OK, then we need to come up with a reason for your doing so that isn’t an outright falsehood but is close enough to the truth that it sounds plausible.”

  “Sounds like me trying to wangle a later curfew out of my mother when I first started to drive,” said Jim.

  Olympia grinned at her friend. “Some things never change.”

  “Oh, but they do … but, shouldn’t we be getting back before the whole island is talking about your sitting beside the Edgartown lighthouse holding hands with a strange man?”

  “Let ‘em!” said Olympia.

  Twenty-Four

  When Jim and Olympia returned to her purple and white cottage on West Maple Street, they were astounded to find Frederick sprawled in a wicker rocker on the front porch. There was a half-done crossword puzzle in his lap and a pencil lying across his upturned hand, and he was sleeping loudly.

  Olympia didn’t know whether to shriek in surprise, joy or dismay, so she did none of the above. She was delighted to see him, but her joy was tempered with the clear and present reality that trying to have any private time in such a small space with a house guest in the next room was going to demand some creative imagination.

  “Well, here’s a howdy-do,” said Jim, covering a knowing smile with his fingertips. “Wasn’t he due here at the end of the week?”

  Frederick opened one eye, surveyed the situation and said, “That was my original intention, but her ladyship seems to have gotten herself into another muddle, the likes of which I felt I needed to consider first hand.”

  At that, Olympia shook her head and then burst out laughing. “OK, you two, what will be, will be. I’m glad you’re all here, and among the three of us, we might be able to shed some light on this whole mess. And yes, Frederick, I’m delighted to see you, and no, Jim, don’t even complete that thought. You will not go back to Boston, nor will you go off to a B&B for the night. I invited you to come stay with me, and it’s here you shall stay.”

  “But …”

  “Jim, as far as I’m concerned, you’re family. I’ll give you some earplugs if the situation should require it.”

  “Where do you keep them?” asked Frederick.

  Before Olympia could respond, Jim took the car keys out of her hand and announced that he was going out to get some things for supper and would be gone for at least an hour.

  Later, and before Jim returned, Olympia was standing in the leaky shower when she heard the bathroom door open.

  “Frederick?”

  “You were expecting someone else?”

  “I’ll be out in a minute, what do you want?”

  “I want to ask you a question.”

  “Can’t it wait until I’m out and dried off?”

  “No.”

  “Good grief, what in the world can be so im
portant that you have to ask me in the shower when I have soap in my eyes, and I’m soaking wet?”

  “Come out, and I’ll tell you.”

  Olympia rinsed the lather off her arms and legs, turned off the water, and pulled back the shower curtain to find Frederick kneeling on the floor holding a black velvet box in his upturned hand.

  “What in hell are you …”

  “Olympia Brown, I’ve got you cornered, and you can’t escape, and I’m not going to let you change the subject. Will you marry me?”

  Olympia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she spluttered and snuffled while Frederick continued kneeling and holding out the box.

  Defeated, she wrapped herself in an oversized beach towel, sat down on the toilet and opened the box. The ring was exquisite.

  “It belonged to my mother. I measured one of your rings the last time I was here, and I had this one resized when I went back to England. I’d like you to have it as a token of my affection and my intentions.”

  Olympia took the ring out of the box and held it up to look at it more closely. The tiny antique rose-cut diamond sparkled in the dim overhead light, and Frederick held his breath.

  “Olympia?”

  She placed the ring in the palm of her hand and looked into the hopeful eyes of the man she loved so much it hurt and so much that she didn’t ever want to hurt him the way she herself had been hurt in the past.

  “Frederick, I do love you. That much I do know. But I can’t accept this if your intention is to marry me. I’ve seen too many wonderful relationships fall apart within the first six months of unholy matrimony. This has made me realize that I care about you far too much to risk that ever happening to us. Besides, I’m still getting to know you. Even if I were to change my mind someday and think about marriage, it’s far too soon now. Can you possibly understand me and not be angry?”

  Frederick sat back on his heels and looked up at Olympia. He was the picture of dejection.

  “Sad, maybe, but not angry, my darling. Even if you won’t agree to marry me, I’d still like to have you wear the ring. It is very precious to me, and so are you.” He paused, wide-eyed. “There isn’t anyone else is there?”

  She shook her head. “No, sweetheart, only you.”

  “So whatever we agree to call this arrangement of ours, it is exclusive. Am I correct?”

  Olympia nodded, and he sat up a bit straighter.

  “So in the belief and reality that we are by choice the two principles in an ongoing and mutually-agreed-upon exclusive relationship, one which has no formal or legal bonds or strictures, for now anyway, will you accept and wear this ring as a token of my admiration and affection for you and my commitment to our unnamed and undefined relationship?”

  Olympia looked into the eyes of the man on the floor and whispered, “Yes, Frederick, I will.”

  With that assurance, Frederick took the ring and placed it on her finger and then tried to get up off the floor so he might kiss the woman he loved; but in the telephone box-sized bathroom, this proved to be all but impossible. It was Jim, newly returned from his shopping trip, who heard the scuffle and discreetly knocked on the door.

  “Um, everything all right in there?”

  Olympia giggled and called out for Jim to open the door. When he did, he found a beatific Frederick sitting on the floor in a puddle of shower water and a teary eyed, towel-clad Olympia sitting on the john holding out her left hand.

  “Hey, look at what Frederick just gave me. I think this means we’re going steady.”

  Jim looked down at the pair of them, extended his free hand, and pulled Frederick awkwardly to his feet. In his other hand was a bottle of champagne.

  “Well, I was going to leave this for the two of you to enjoy after I left, but in view of the most current development, I think I’ll open it right now.”

  “I’ll go get dressed,” said a beaming Olympia.

  “I’ll go change my trousers while you do,” said an equally blissful and soggy-bottomed Frederick.

  “I picked up some Chinese food as well. It’s in the kitchen.”

  “I’m ravenous,” said Olympia.

  “I’m not surprised,” said Jim, “but let’s start with the champagne. You’ve earned it.”

  When the very expensive bubbly was a pleasant memory and the leftover food was wrapped and stashed in the fridge, the three friends got down to the business at hand. It was a tight fit in Olympia’s tiny sitting room. Olympia claimed her chair by the window, and Jim and Frederick were squeezed side-by-side on the futon by the front door. The two cats were stretched out on the fringed throw rug equidistant to the three of them. Over and above it all, on the bookshelf across from where Olympia was sitting, the antique wooden clock that didn’t work remained silent.

  Despite the rundown she’d given Jim earlier that day in the restaurant, Olympia decided, as much for her own sake as for Frederick’s, to go over it all again, beginning with her arrival only ten days earlier. She outlined the circumstances of the flood in the house next door and her landlady’s adamant insistence that she had not left the water running. Then she described finding the folder from Gingerbread Men Realty with all of Dory’s information in it. Frederick then reminded her of the suspiciously loosened stair tread. And while she had no direct evidence that Dory was being pressured to sell the property, Olympia allowed as she had more than a few questions surrounding that particular issue, more so since she’d had the conversation with Dan Parker and made note of the suspicious circumstances and uncomfortable parallels related to his mother’s untimely death.

  “So what I need now is answers, and since I suspect that William Bateson may have some of those, I propose to start with him.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Olympia?”

  “You must be upset, Jim. You almost never swear.”

  Jim threw out his hands in frustration. “Olympia, you’ve just finished telling the two us that something really nasty might be going on, and much of it surrounds this William Bateson person. Now you tell us you’re going to go and have a talk with him. Do you think that’s wise?”

  “Right now, he has no reason to think that I might be up to anything other than, as her minister, trying to help Dory sort things out. How can I possibly do that without knowing all aspects of the issue? Besides which, it’s possible I might find out even more if I could make Mr. Bateson think I’m in favor of him selling Dory’s house. See what I mean?”

  “The lady has a point,” said Frederick.

  Jim peered over his glasses. “She has also been known to get herself into awkward, spell that dangerous, situations.”

  Olympia held up her hands in the time-out position. “Look, you two. I’m going to call the man myself. I’ll tell him I’m concerned about Dory and that I agree with the daughter that the house is too big for her to continue to manage alone. Then I’ll ask him to meet me at the church and tell me what his thoughts are on the matter and ask what other people do in these situations. If you think about it, while some of the happenings are definitely suspicious, we can’t just jump to conclusions based on inconclusive evidence.”

  “The lady has yet another point,” said Frederick.

  Jim still looked doubtful. “OK, suppose you do manage that. Then what’s going to happen?”

  “I can’t say until I talk to William Bateson, can I? But in the meanwhile, you, my priestly friend, will see what you can uncover about real estate scams and the elderly when you go back to Boston. With so much on computers these days and your Boston Police connections, I’m sure you can come up with far more than I ever could. Even though I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for yet, I do know that scamming the elderly, as reprehensible as it is, is not anything new.”

  Jim nodded knowingly and twirled an empty wineglass in his long fingers.

  “What about me? Surely there’s something an eccentric Englishman can add to all of this?”

  Olympia smiled at the man she had so recently confess
ed to loving. “Being here and being someone I can talk to about all of this is just wonderful, Frederick. When you go do back to Brookfield, continuing to work on the house that it looks like we’ll be sharing is of prime importance, don’t you think?”

  Frederick nodded. “But I’d like to be a bit more involved, and like Jim, I’m inclined to think you could be putting yourself into a more precarious situation than you realize, Olympia. You do rush in sometimes …”

  “… where angels fear to tread,” finished Jim.

  Olympia set her mouth in a firm line.”Look, gentlemen, a conversation in a church office with the church administrator in the next room is hardly a dangerous situation. Best case scenario, I learn he’s legit but just wants to get his hands on a nice fat sale. Who could blame him for that? On the other hand, if he is up to something more underhanded, I’ll sense it, proceed with caution, and if necessary call in the troops.”

  “What troops, Olympia? You don’t know anyone here other than a few church members, and you told me yourself they don’t trust newcomers. Even if you do go to the police, what are the chances of them believing you?” Jim was shaking his head in despair.

  “One step at a time, Jim.”

  “Unless someone buggers up another stair tread,” said Frederick.

  “I’ll be careful, I promise, said Olympia, stretching and yawning. Suddenly she was very, very tired.

  “I can take a hint,” said Jim. “Um, where did you say you kept those ear plugs?”

  “Trust me, Jim,” said Frederick, “you are not going to need them.”

  Twenty-Five

  Olympia found William Bateson’s contact information in the church directory and dialed his home number. If he was surprised that she was calling him, it was not evident in his voice or his words.

  “I hope you don’t mind me calling you at home, but I wondered if I could talk to you confidentially about Dory West and the condition of her house?”