2 - Secrets: Ike Schwartz Mystery 2

by Frederick Ramsay

“Not exactly, but I’ve been thinking about you and Barstow.”

  “The old guy with the ponytail.”

  “One of my more important faculty members.”

  “Ah. By faculty, you mean that collection of highly educated elitists you keep on your payroll?”

  “What makes them elitists and worthy of your disdain? You are, after all, a product of the same system that produced them. Harvard and Yale Law pretty much put you in their league, wouldn’t you say?”

  “God forbid. Look, I only tried to steer the conversation along somewhat pleasanter lines.”

  She pivoted her leather desk chair back and forth, her toes barely touching the carpet guard, and inspected her cup. “Cardboard, even plastic coated, doesn’t do justice to the booze, does it?”

  “I’ve had worse. You were saying?”

  “Okay, Fat Guys in Speedos—good move, but pleasanter? I mean how do you figure that?”

  “Let’s just say my idea of unpleasant is sanctimonious blather from the intelligentsia.”

  “Look, they’re my bread and butter. If you and I are going to have anything more than the equivalent of going steady like a couple of high school kids, we have to come to an understanding about them.”

  “Do you know the only known physiological difference between intelligent people and everyone else?”

  She put her elbows on her desk pad and cupped her chin in her hands. “I give up. What, bigger brains?”

  “No, intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Internet.”

  “Oh, right. You are tapped into the ultimate source of information for a generation unwilling or unable to do real research.”

  “That’s the place.”

  “Sheesh. You don’t like my faculty even if they have all that copper and zinc?”

  “Two of your guys were bald, but Barstow’s ponytail is probably worth melting down.”

  “I have money problems. Gold is what I’m looking for in a man’s hair—the Golden Fleece. You have any gold in that mop of yours?”

  “No, but Abe probably does. Forensics people tell me that metals and drugs usually end up in a person’s hair. Abe takes some kind of gold-based medication for his arthritis. We could ask.”

  “Never mind. So, what’s the problem with my faculty?”

  Ike stood and paced, punctuating his sentences in the air with his forefinger. “It’s not that they’re faculty, or that they’re any more or less opinionated than the average guy on the streets of Picketsville. God knows. I listen to idiotic redneck philosophy all day long. No, it’s just that faculty, as the educated class, if you will, have a responsibility to remain objective. And they don’t.”

  “Don’t?”

  “No, they don’t. Their problem, the problem of most intellectuals, is they think they have been ordained by a God they do not believe in to design programs that do not concern them that affect the lives of people they do not respect.”

  “Wow, all that? Come on, Schwartz, you can do better than an aphorism that sounds like something lifted from H. L. Mencken.”

  “Not Mencken. He was one of them. They read him, you know, the way sophomores read Nostradamus—as if he were a great social prophet instead of a bright, cynical guy with a column to sell.”

  “Okay, you sound like Spiro Agnew, then.”

  “Better.” He sat down again, this time in the second wing-back chair. “Agnew’s one of Abe’s favorite bad guys, but he’s ancient history. How’d you—?”

  “I’m a history professor, remember, and besides I was raised by parents who could have been poster children for middle-class liberalism. Maybe we should get them together, my folks and yours. My guess is they have more in common than we do.”

  “Probably. That bodes well if we can move past a going steady, high school relationship.”

  “Don’t push it. And Mencken isn’t exactly contemporary, either.”

  “No, not for mortals. But for liberal thinkers—”

  “Ah, now I get it. That’s where this is leading, isn’t it? It’s Liberal versus Conservative and you’re the voice of conservatism.”

  “It’s Political Correctness versus Common Sense.”

  “I knew it,” Ruth crowed and sat up straight. “You are the spokesperson of the righteous right.”

  “Spokesman. And not right or left, just tired of the posturing by both.”

  “Admit it, Schwartz, you just hate liberals.”

  “I don’t hate them, but rich ones, especially those in legislatures and Congress, do scare me.”

  “Scare you? Why?”

  “Because their wealth insulates them from the consequences of their actions.”

  “And rich conservatives in legislatures and Congress aren’t insulated?”

  “On the contrary, they are usually the beneficiaries of their actions. More venal, but easier to track.”

  Ruth bit her lip. She hated it when Ike was in one of his “I don’t care if you piss in my eye, just don’t tell me it’s rain” moods. No matter how determined she was to shred his arguments, he inevitably staked out the moral high ground and left her mired in a rhetorical rut. She spun her chair so her back was to him and studied the expensively bound volumes on her credenza.

  “You know something, Schwartz? You are all show and no go. Peel away all that smart-ass Mr. Right and you are a caring sensitive man who, if push got to shove, would come down on the side of compassion and liberality. And you don’t fool me for a moment.”

  Ike sipped from his paper cup and hid a smile. “Fooling you is not an occupation I would wish on anyone, but as for your faculty—”

  “Enough already with the faculty.…Okay, here’s one for you,” she said, hoping to move the discussion to an area where she had the edge. “What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?”

  “They were all invented by women.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Saw it on the Internet.”

  “Shit. I think I need another one of these,” she said and lifted her cup over her shoulder. “This is going to be a long evening.”

  “What will Agnes say?”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Blake jerked awake. He’d overslept. He made some wheat toast, reheated the previous day’s coffee in the microwave, and gulped it all down as he dashed out the door and rushed to the church to set up for the first meeting of the Wednesday Bible Study. He placed a television set and VCR on a cart and arranged twenty chairs in rows facing the set. Twenty seemed optimistic. He put five away and frowned at the arrangement. In truth, he had no idea how many, if any, people would show. A commitment made at a church coffee hour was about as trustworthy as a teenager with a credit card. At ten minutes to eleven, Rose and her sister arrived, followed a few minutes later by the Digeppis, Dorothy Sutherlin, Sylvia Parks and eight others—fourteen plus himself. Good call. When everyone settled down, Blake announced they were going to watch a video. The group stirred and smiled and scrunched down in their chairs, getting comfortable in their TV posture. He hit the play button and the credits for Godspell materialized on the screen. He studied the expressions on their faces as the group watched—expressions that ranged from enjoyment, to mild disapproval, to looks he guessed were a combination of pleasure and guilt—guilt for enjoying something that might otherwise be construed as disrespectful or irreligious.

  When it ended, he turned up the lights and asked what they thought. The comments were vague and accompanied with looks of generalized confusion.

  “Okay,” he said, sensing their discomfort. “I’m sorry that took so long. I showed this video for a reason. It represents one person’s idea of how the gospel of M
atthew should be seen and understood. It is, however, only a particular person’s view. That’s important. I could have shown you Jesus Christ Superstar, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Ben Hur, or any of the hundreds of films made over the years. I chose this one because it is joyful, stays pretty close to the gospel narrative, and does not introduce or suggest ideas contrary to what the church teaches. I can’t say that about most of the others, including some of the well-known Hollywood epics like The Chalice or The Robe. I won’t even discuss Victor Mature as Sampson. But the point is—each of them, for better or for worse, presents one person’s vision of the story.

  “I want you to think about the gospels for a minute. They are living documents. Even though they were written almost two thousand years ago about events that happened earlier than that, they are as alive and as current for us today as they were for those who saw and heard them then, or for those eyewitnesses who were party to the events themselves.

  “Each of us sees the gospel through the lens of our own experience. The longer we live, usually, the greater our experience and the richer and deeper the story becomes.”

  “He’s talking about us,” Rose said and gave Minnie a nudge.

  “That is not to say,” Blake continued, “that young people cannot have experiences that can enrich the vision. I know some people in their late teens with life experiences equal to any octogenarian. Whatever our age or experience may be, when we read the gospels, we necessarily bring our own lives into the story. And the gospel becomes personal and relevant. I hope you will do that. It is important in helping us to understand the narrative and it is equally important in helping us to understand each other—a necessary first step in building a true faith community.”

  He paused and waited for a reaction. Everyone sat quietly, faces expectant.

  “Okay, here’s the second part. We will start with the Gospel of Matthew, the same as the video. I would like you to bring your own Bible to our sessions and in as many different translations as you can manage. And I expect you to talk, to share how the Book speaks to you. To let the rest of us look through your lens, so to speak. Do not wait for me. I have no intention of doing a teaching session. I will read what the scholars have to say. I will check commentaries and articles, but you will be responsible for most of the talking, not me.”

  Smiles and frowns.

  “You mean we have to read the Book before we come, and be prepared to tell everyone else what we think God meant?” Sylvia Parks asked.

  “That is a very nice summing up, Sylvia.”

  Blake understood Sylvia had practiced law briefly, but gave it up to raise her family. By the time her children were old enough to allow her to return to the law, her husband had built his personal fortune to the point where she no longer needed a career. She and her husband reportedly spent winters in the south of France, Hilton Head or one of the many playgrounds frequented by the rich. Sylvia had only recently joined the church but had thrown herself into volunteer work. She and her husband rented a place near Floyd, outside Roanoke, but she made the long commute up to Picketsville for church. Blake wondered about that, but was happy to have her as a parishioner. He guessed she had her reasons. In a small church, you couldn’t be too particular. Besides, she was part of the doughnut.

  Time and money had been kind to Sylvia. She dressed simply, but Blake guessed she paid large sums to dressmakers to achieve simplicity. Slender without being thin, she wore her hair parted in the middle and had let it go gray. It flowed naturally in a silver shower to her shoulders, interrupted only by dark streaks over both temples that created a dashing, almost devilish, look. Her outfits ran to silver, grays and blacks, usually accessorized with a pearl choker or a high-necked silk blouse. Basic black and pearls—the uniform of a superannuated debutante, but Blake doubted she had ever waltzed with any acne-cursed Ivy Leaguer. Hers was an acquired sophistication. He believed even her speech had undergone a major modification. She spoke with the carefully modulated tone people associate with newsreaders and actors. He supposed that somewhere, deep down, lurked an accent from her past—New York, New Jersey, maybe south Boston—and if she ever became stressed or excited, he guessed she would bawl like Eliza Doolittle.

  “Is everyone here perfectly clear about what we will be doing next Wednesday?” he asked the group. Heads nodded. Blake closed the meeting with a prayer and they broke for lunch.

  “The mall,” Rose announced. “I wanted to go to Nathan’s for a loaded hot dog, but Minnie said she needed something a little healthier, so we are meeting at Panda Express.” The group filed out, most to their cars, and then to the mall. A few begged off and went home. The video had run well over an hour and with his remarks, two hours had passed since he started. Blake checked his office for messages. Millie had already left for the day. He locked up and followed the others to the mall.

  Most of the group settled at small tables in the great foyer around which the several vendors had their stalls. Blake joined Rose, Minnie, and a young woman whose name he could only remember as Kathy. Rose turned to him and said, “Vicar, I need a word with you.” Blake nodded. “It’s about that secretary of yours.” Blake turned and faced her. “She is an unreconstructed guttersnipe, a mean-spirited harridan, and worst of all, a terrible gossip.”

  “Rose, really,” Minnie said, alarmed.

  “I get so angry, sometimes. The people in this church know what the Bass woman is. They have all been the subject of her nasty tongue and yet nobody has been willing to call her on it.”

  “Not even you?” Blake asked.

  Rose looked embarrassed. “No, not even me. Look, for most of the time, her talk was just petty. The kind of thing you expect from someone from an unhappy home. Lately, however, it has become very personal and about things in people’s lives they did not know anyone knew. I tell you, it’s got poor Grace Franks beside herself. You’ve got to rein her in before she really hurts someone, or someone hurts her.”

  “You think that’s possible? Someone might hurt her? I will speak to her, Rose, but I need the right moment.”

  “Well, make it soon before someone shoots the…that woman.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Blake spent the rest of the afternoon making calls and hospital visits in and around Lexington, and because it was nearly seven, decided to eat in the hospital cafeteria instead of going straight home. Sheriff Schwartz was sitting in his black and white waiting for him when he pulled into his driveway.

  “Sheriff, to what do I owe the honor?”

  “Brought you some news about your dead organist I thought you’d like to hear.”

  “You’ve caught the killer?”

  “No, and not likely to, either.”

  “That does not sound like good news. Maybe you’d better come in.”

  They walked around to the front door and Blake unlocked the newly installed deadbolt and the door latch. He turned on some lights and gestured for the sheriff to sit. He went into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee and returned.

  “So, the killer’s still at large. That it?”

  “Yes and no. We matched the victim’s fingerprints, but instead of Waldo Templeton, we got a Walter Krueger. That’s all the FBI will tell us. I don’t know why. Everybody has a history somewhere. We checked his driver’s license, for example—fake.”

  “And you concluded from that?”

  “Feds know something and aren’t willing to share. I’m working on a way around that but.…Anyway, when the FBI saw his prints they hopped down here to pick him up.”

  “They wanted the body?”

  “No, they made a mistake. They wanted him.”

  “So you think it was a hit? That’s what you call them, right?”

  “A hit? Well, why not?”

  “And you think his killer blew in from
out of town—a professional ‘hit man’ or something like that?”

  “That’s about it. Either way it’s not quite off my blotter and not quite on the feds’, but knowing those birds, they’ll do what they can to catch the guy. Then they’ll turn him, and hide him away somewhere. You want me to put in a word for you if he can play the organ?”

  “No, thanks anyway. So, why are you telling me all this?”

  “In a minute. There’s a problem.”

  “Oh please, what now?”

  “Where were you Monday, before the dinner?”

  “Here at home, alone.”

  “Alone? So nobody can verify you were here at all?”

  “I didn’t say that. Actually, I do have a witness of a sort—you.”

  “Me? I didn’t see you all day.”

  “No, but I saw you. You were here at this house at about one o’clock in the afternoon. You tried to break in, as a matter of fact.” Blake smiled and watched with delight as Schwartz’s face turned red. It started on his neck and crept up to the roots of his hair. “You must have realized I was home because you, unlike my other visitor and potential ‘B and E,’ gave up after one door. Now, if I know all that, I must have been here, right?”

  “Okay, you were here. I thought so. It seemed unlikely you’d be in Philadelphia and get back in time for dinner at the college. A really smooth operator could have arranged it, but not you. Anyway, I had to check.”

  “Thanks a lot, and why did you have to check?”

  “We had a complaint from Philadelphia. A woman said you were stalking her.”

  “Gloria Vandergrift. Is there no end to this?”

  “Police didn’t seem too excited but they wanted to be sure.”

  “Nice. But that doesn’t tell me why you were trying to get in the house Monday. If you had succeeded and found any evidence that implicated me, would it would be inadmissible in court?”

  “You think so? You watch too much television.”

  “Okay, you would have ‘found’ it later with a real search warrant. It’s nice to know the police are straightforward in their duties.”