2 - Secrets: Ike Schwartz Mystery 2

by Frederick Ramsay

  Very curious, he thought.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lunch finished, he drove back to the vicarage. He hoped to get the deadbolt in place quickly before he called on the sheriff’s mother. It turned out to be bit more complicated than he’d expected. The thumb latch worked like a deadbolt, but the mounting in the door was different. He had to drill a new, larger hole in the door, reset the striker plate in the jamb, and enlarge the track for the bolt. He had nearly finished when Lanny Markowitz rounded the corner.

  “Vicar? Problem?”

  “You caught me, Lanny. I thought I could get this done without anyone from the Board finding out.”

  “Why would you care? After Sunday, it’s pretty clear you don’t much care what any of us think, or know.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Vicar, I came over here to talk to you. Someone needs to sit down and have some face time with you, and Quarles hasn’t the guts, so I will do it.”

  “I guess you’d better come inside, then. First, though, would you mind holding this key-set against the door while I run these bolts into place? Thanks.”

  Blake tightened the bolts, tried the key, and satisfied he now had some privacy, picked up his tools and gestured for Lanny to enter.

  “Deadbolt, Lanny. People have been wandering through here without my say-so or knowledge. I know the house belongs to the church, but while I am Vicar, I expect folks to respect my privacy. If someone wants to come in, they can knock, ask, and show me some common courtesy. What is it you wanted to tell me?”

  “It’s that attitude, Vicar. You seem to think that because Bournet put you here without any input from us you can say and do anything you want. You need to remember that we are the Board and we are in charge of the church.”

  “Wrong, Lanny, you are the Board. That part is true, but you do not pay my salary, Saint Anne’s does. Your job is advisory only. Are you here to give me advice?”

  “We never had any trouble with Taliaferro or the guy before him. How come you are trying to change us?”

  Change. There was that word again.

  “Are you afraid of change, Lanny? Most people are. I am—you too?”

  “Let me be straight with you, Fisher. We know all about what you did to that woman in Philadelphia. We know you are on a short string here and any screw up and you’re toast, so we expect you to toe the line, not make waves. Most of us are happy with the way things are, thank you.”

  Blake thought he heard a minuscule hesitation in most of us. “I see. You do understand that if this congregation is not ready to become an independent congregation in less than two years, the game is up? This beautiful church will be closed?”

  “That’s what they said before, but it didn’t happen. We’ll find another church to sponsor us.”

  “Not this time. Philip Bournet took this mission over against the advice and wishes of the Bishop. No one else will. It’s me or nobody, Lanny.”

  Lanny’s face turned a beet red. He started to say something and changed his mind.

  “Look, Lanny, you’re right. We need to have it out, but not the way you think. You said you knew about what happened in Philadelphia. Let me tell you, so that you understand—nothing happened in Philadelphia. An accusation was made, but nothing happened. It simply is not true. In spite of that fact, I had to leave. That is the way things work for clergy. Even the hint of scandal, however far-fetched, and we take the hit.”

  “I don’t believe you. We received letters from people up there that say otherwise.”

  “Letters from whom? Not from the Bishop, not from Bill Smart, not from anyone who would know—just letters from people who want to believe the worst about clergy in general and me in particular. Do you want to see the Bishop’s letter again? I have copies.” Blake walked to the small desk in the corner and retrieved a file. “Letters, Lanny, from the Bishop, from Smart, and from rectors of four other churches reporting the same behavior by the same woman in question in their churches. You want more?”

  Lanny stood an inch or two shorter than Blake. Had he been taller but proportioned the same, he might have made a success as a professional athlete. He’d tried, but except for a season in Class A ball, it hadn’t happened. He had one of those flat Slavic faces that you used to see on patriotic Russian posters—men and women sitting on tractors staring at the horizon or helmeted and armed, looking determined. That was back when it was still the USSR. He scanned the letters and then read them more carefully.

  “How come we never saw these? Why are you even here?”

  “About the first—I don’t know. They were sent to you. Look at the bottom of that cover letter, ‘cc: the Mission Board, Stonewall Jackson Memorial Episcopal Church, Picketsville, Virginia’. Somebody got them.”

  “We never saw these, I swear. And how can something like this happen?”

  “Lanny, you are a school teacher, right? Suppose a girl in your class accused you of some kind of misconduct. Even if it was a lie, what would happen to you?”

  “There’d be a hearing and hopefully, I would be cleared and….Oh, I see, even if I was exonerated, I would be reassigned to another school or district probably.”

  “Would you try to clear your name? After all, people would say, ‘Where there’s smoke there’s fire,’ wouldn’t they? Would you sue?”

  “No, I guess not. A friend of mine had that happen to him. By the time the lawyers got done digging around in his past, he would have been better off if he had really done something to the girl. No, no suit.”

  “You see my point, then?”

  “I’m sorry, Vicar. I have been thinking some pretty bad things about you. We all have, I’m afraid. The only letters we had were the other ones. They were the only ones in the file we received.”

  “Who compiled the files?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess Millie or Dan Quarles or Grace and Bob Franks—maybe all four.”

  The two men stared at each other, then, embarrassed, looked away.

  “What now, Lanny? Are we going to stay enemies or can we work together?”

  “I have to think this through, but yeah, we can work together, as long as you understand, most of us like things the way they are.”

  “No problem, as long as you understand it’s my job to change your mind.”

  Lanny left with a puzzled look on his face. Blake called Mary Miller—no answer. He walked to the front door and admired his handiwork one more time.

  ***

  Blake found the Schwartz place easily. The house sat back from the road and on a little rise. It reminded him of the farmhouses in Bucks County where he grew up. He parked and walked toward the front steps. An old man, but unmistakably Ike’s father, met him on the porch.

  “You’re the padre from the stone church,” he said and held out his hand. “Abe Schwartz, pleased to meetcha.”

  “Blake Fisher. I hope this is not going to—”

  “No indeed, Son. We’re all God’s children—that’s what I believe. My old granddaddy would have boxed my ears if he heard me say it, but times change. Come on in. The missus is expecting you.”

  Blake spent an hour with Mrs. Schwartz. When he came out, he wasn’t sure who had ministered to whom.

  “She’s an amazing lady,” he said. Abe smiled.

  “Ain’t she though.”

  “She knows—”

  “Oh, yeah. She knows. We all do. We don’t talk about it much, but we know.”

  “How about you, Mr. Schwartz, are you okay?”

  “Abe. You call me Abe. Everybody does.” Blake waited. “Been married near fifty years. Imagine that. Now I ask you, Padre, ain’t that something to hold on to forever. You have any idea how long it’s going to take me to run out of memories? I’ll be gone myself ’fore that happens. No sir, we’re okay fi
ne.”

  Blake left the farm lost in thought. This is what they taught him in Pastoral Care classes, what they meant when they said visiting the dying was sacramental. All those years he’d served in ordained ministry and this was the first time he’d really experienced what it was all about. He shook his head.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Billy Sutherlin scratched his head. Someone had taken the chair from the duty desk and he couldn’t figure out where or how to sit.

  “Ike,” he called, “there ain’t no chair out here. What’s up with that?”

  Ike stepped out of his glass cage—his office—and inspected the room.

  “It’s not anywhere? Did you check with Sam? She might have borrowed it.” Billy walked down the corridor to Sam’s space and peeked in.

  “Nope, in fact, she’s ticked off big time because somebody took her air cooler.”

  “Ike,” Sam said, rounding the corner, “that idiot Fairmont took my air conditioner.”

  “Essie, get Fairmont over here, now,” Ike said. The door swung open as if ordered, but not for Solly Fairmont. Instead, a very tall man who might as well have worn a sign saying “Hi, I’m from the FBI,” complete with blue suit, white shirt and red tie, ducked through the door. Sam’s jaw dropped. She looked him straight in the eye.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hey,” she replied and turned a bright red.

  “You are?” Ike said.

  “Hedrick, Special Agent Karl Hedrick. I’ve come to collect my prisoner. Didn’t you get our message?”

  “My office,” Ike said and tilted his head toward the door. “Deputy Ryder will join us. Sam, are you with us?”

  “Oh, right…do you need anything?”

  “Bring the files you have on Krueger, but hold the glossies for now.” She paused, squinted, understood, and went to her office.

  “This way, Special Agent Hedrick,” Ike said and ushered him into his office. Sam scurried in behind them.

  “Now then, about your man…we have a problem.”

  “You lost him? Listen, we need to know if something like that—”

  “We didn’t lose him. We have him—on ice, you could say.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “You killed him? Damn. I told the chief we needed to get here sooner. What did your guys do to him?”

  “Special Agent Hedrick,” Ike said patiently, “this is not a chapter from First Blood and Krueger is not Rambo. If your boss had taken the time or demonstrated a little inter-agency courtesy, you could have saved yourself a trip. But because you guys up there in Quantico think the folks out in the country are not worthy of your time, you blew a day and wasted my afternoon.”

  “Look,” Hedrick began, “I don’t know what this is all about but we sent you a directive to hold that man until we could come and get him. Now you say he’s dead. What am I supposed to think?”

  “Well to begin with, the operative words are, supposed to think. You didn’t and aren’t. You or your boss—what’s his name, Bullock—knew too little and assumed too much so you ignored my call.”

  “What do you mean, assumed?”

  “You all assumed we had a man in custody. What we had was a corpse. Krueger was found shot to death. He was known around here as Waldo Templeton. Nobody seemed to know anything more about him except he played the organ badly and some thought him ‘creepy.’ We had a murder to solve. So we ran his prints. You all picked up on that and then, instead of calling to find out the particulars, sent that imperious note dictating what we should do. This is my jurisdiction, Hedrick, and if you want something, you ask. You don’t demand.”

  “We’re not going to get into a pissing match here, are we, Sheriff?”

  “Stop right there, Sonny.” Hedrick flinched at Sonny. “There are a few things you need to know. In the first place, the fact we operate with limited budgets and resources out here in the country does not mean we are incompetent. Our unsolved crime rate is very low. I have four cold cases which, by the way, represents less than one percent of our total. How many do you have? Second, we deal with everything from murder to drug busts to major thefts, and we get the job done. We do it. Sometimes we get help but most times we just go and do it. Third, no one in this department wears funny sunglasses and talks like Boss Hogg, and finally, you are out of your depth here.”

  Hedrick started to say something and thought better of it.

  “You know, Hedrick, there is an important lesson here. With all the hoopla in Washington about reorganizing of the intelligence community, you all are missing a major point. All those plans and schemes address vertical rearrangements. Who will be top dog? Will he or she get budgetary authority and access to the president? Who reports to whom and you know what? It won’t amount to a hill of beans unless the horizontal part is fixed. Now this is just my take on the situation, but I think that unless and until you people learn to respect and communicate with people like me, nothing will change. If information has to run up the ladder and then back down, we will always be behind the curve. Your boss needed to return my telephone call. Why didn’t he?” Ike sat back in his chair, winced at the squeal it made, and waited for the FBI man to reply.

  “I don’t know…he…I don’t know. You’re right, I guess, but—”

  “The conventional wisdom in the Bureau is, don’t expect too much from the hicks in the sticks.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t. Rubes, yokels, maybe—look, you strike me as a bright guy. You are young and have a career ahead of you. If you are going to be a Special Agent for the foreseeable future, then start to change the way you and all the young guys up there react to local police. Some of us are good at what we do, some not. But you need to know the difference before you waltz into an office like this and make demands. Do you still want your ‘prisoner,’ or can we move ahead and share some information?”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Sam?”

  “The man known as Waldo Templeton, AKA Walter Krueger, was found shot to death in the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Episcopal Church Friday morning by a Millicent Bass, the church secretary. Cause of death, a .32 caliber bullet wound to the head. A second, but not lethal, wound was found in his left shoulder, no exit wound. The coroner puts the death at any time between nine pm and midnight. Choir practice ends about nine.”

  “Could one of the choir members have done it?”

  “We’re checking. We ran his prints—you know all about that—and we are now attempting to determine a motive—anything. Our search of the Internet revealed that Krueger was of particular interest to the FBI.”

  “How did he get in the church?”

  “How? Templeton had a key. We don’t know about the killer.”

  “You check out all the other key holders?”

  “Everyone has a key,” Ike and Sam said together.

  Sam continued her recital. “It appears he had something to do with the San Francisco mob, your people were after him, and if you wanted him for a witness, it’s too late. Someone got to him first. We’re hoping you can help us.”

  “Anything to add, Hedrick?” Ike asked. Hedrick looked upset.

  “Not now. Mind if I make a phone call?”

  “In a minute. First, I want to ask you a question. Except that he played the organ there once a week, can you think of any reason why this guy would be shot twice in a church in Picketsville, Virginia?”

  Hedrick paused, just for the briefest of moments, “No,” he said.

  Ike saw the flicker in his eyes, heard the lie. A song his father used to sing popped into his head—your lips tell me no, no, but there’s yes, yes in your eyes. What was this guy holding back? And why?

  “You’re ab
solutely sure?”

  “No idea, Sheriff.”

  “Bullshit, Special Agent Hedrick. As I said, unless and until….”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Agnes Ewalt ushered Ike into Ruth’s office.

  “He’s here,” she muttered, turned on her heel and left.

  Ike turned and watched her leave the room. “I don’t think Agnes likes me very much,” he said as the door clicked shut.

  “She thinks you are beneath me—socially that is.”

  “And sometimes recreationally.”

  “That worries her, too. So, here you are, as Agnes said. Question—why?”

  “Bad afternoon with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and I need to unload on somebody. If I buy you a drink out of the stash you keep in your filing cabinet, can it be you?”

  “Help yourself but use a paper cup. Agnes may pop in here any time and she’s a practicing Baptist.”

  Ike slid open the file drawer built into the base of a mahogany bookcase and lifted out a bottle. “I guess that explains the sour look I get every time I show up.”

  “It explains some of the looks—not all.”

  “The other times are—”

  “She is just naturally that way. ‘Weaned on pickles,’ as my dear old grandmother used to say.”

  Ike poured himself an inch and a half of Maker’s Mark and raised an inquiring eyebrow at her.

  “Very light. Put some water with it,” she said.

  They drank in silence. Maker’s Mark was usually out of Ike’s price range and the thought of drinking on the College’s dime had him feeling better already. He flopped down in one of the two crewelwork wing chairs with a groan and stretched out his legs.

  “Tell me something, Sheriff, what is it about my people you find so annoying? I mean, at my dinner you promised to behave and then you—”

  “You are still angry about the dinner.”