The Last Suppers gbcm-4

by Diane Mott Davidson

  With the other crises hanging over us, neither Boyd nor I wanted to talk about the possibility of rescheduling. Instead, assuming a crisp tone, he rant through the names of Olson’s neighbors. None had seen anything this morning but nondescript cars coming down Upper Cottonwood Creek Road. Hard to believe that this was all the same day, that it was only this morning that Olson had been killed. Yes, Boyd was saying, the neighbors had heard two shots, but in rural Colorado, you heard shots all the time.

  Boyd’s tired brown eyes gave me a level, detached gaze beneath black eyebrows that stood up like magnetic filings. “I’m telling you this, Goldy, because it’s our policy to keep the next-of-kin informed of every detail when there’s a kidnapping. And something I tell you might jog your memory or make you remember some detail that could help. Try to concentrate, and then let me know.”

  I rubbed my temples and wondered how many times in his career Boyd had asked distracted and grieving folks to concentrate. The neighbors had heard shots. The common experience of hearing gunfire was true even in my own neighborhood off Aspen Meadow’s Main Street. Coloradans waste no time blowing away anything bothersome, from garden snakes to woodpeckers to bears; ecologists be damned.

  Helen reappeared with her customary silence and sat down next to the cold fireplace. Boyd snapped his ballpoint open and closed several times, then asked if he could run a few things by me. I murmured that I wanted to be helpful.

  He flipped through several crumpled pages of his notebook. “There doesn’t seem to be anything missing from Olson’s place. At least, nothing that we can tell, like a stereo ripped out of the wall, or pearls gone from a jewelry box. But you’re right, the guy was a packrat. Looks as if he kept every piece of mail since the time he moved there. But the audio equipment, computer, church supplies – plates and goblets and stuff made out of gold, silver, brass – all look untouched. We’re not sure what the guy had in the first place. But I’ll tell you this,” he said as he chewed furiously on the match, “I don’t want a bunch of churchwomen traipsing around in there looking for jewelry while we’re conducting an investigation.”

  I thought of Olson’s living room with its shelves of thick books, its ornate sacramental vessels – called paten and chalices, not plates and goblets – and his mantelpiece with its beautifully carved crčche from Santa Fe. I wondered if Olson ever made a pilgrimage to Chimayó. Boyd shifted his bulk, tapped his notebook, and said thoughtfully, “Anyway, especially after this church breakin, we can’t completely rule out burglary as a motive. Or somebody trying to destroy something. Here’s one thing that’s puzzling us: Olson’s Mercedes started right up. He didn’t have car trouble. So why d’you think he’d call Schulz to pick him up?”

  Involuntarily, I thought back to the silly disagreement Tom and I had in last night’s counseling session with Olson. Did any other couples argue about whether marriage lasted into the afterlife? Did they argue about it the night before their wedding? Probably not.

  “Maybe,” I said, then hesitated, imagining Olson’s desire to deal with conflict. He tried to bring about reconciliation no matter what. That was his way. Had been. “Maybe Olson wanted to talk to Tom before the wedding,” I ventured, “To reassure him that everything was going to be all right.” I sighed. “I blew a gasket in front of both of them after our supper last night. Maybe Olson felt the only way Tom would accept some pasturing before the wedding was by pretending to have car trouble.” I knew better than Boyd how reluctant Tom Schulz had been to see Father Ted Olson for counseling. Shrinks, he’d muttered, they can drive you crazy in court. I’d told him Father Olson wasn’t a shrink, he was a priest. A religious shrink, Tom had grumbled. But in the course of our sessions together, Father Olson had insinuated himself into Tom’s affections. Olson had genuinely admired Tom’s powers of observation; he even professed envy of Tom’s ability to bring about justice. All he ever go tot do, Olson complained, was forgive people.

  Boyd interrupted my thoughts. “Blew a gasket about what?”

  “Oh … just some dumb thing about marriage vows lasting forever. I was stressed out.”

  Boyd puckered his lips and shrugged. “Olson could have just talked to him at the wedding.”

  “No, there wouldn’t have been time. Do you think Tom’s disappearance has anything to do with needing to be in court next week? Someone involved in the case who needed him to conveniently disappear?”

  Boyd shook his head. “Nah, it’s a forger. The guy’s still in jail, I checked. And no known accomplices. About your theory of the reverend wanting to talk to Schulz before the wedding Maybe Olson was afraid of something. Didn’t want to tell Schulz his fear over the phone. So he got Schulz out there with a fairy tale about car trouble. Maybe he wanted Schulz for protection from somebody. Was Father Olson having problems?”

  “:What kind of problems?”

  “Woman problems. Money problems. Church problems. You tell me.”

  My fingers brushed over the moist crushed velvet of the box that held my wedding band. I felt my heart compress, the way that air become more dense when the temperature suddenly drops.

  Boyd scowled. “Goldy. He was your priest, he’d been at your parish for three years You must have known how he was doing.”

  I held the velvet ring box tightly. “There are a number of different groups within our church. One is the Old Guard. That would include priests like our former rector, Father Pinckney, and people like Lucille Boatwright, head of the Altar Guild and Art and Architecture Committee, and Zelda Preston, who was our organist. Emphasis on the was. Olson had just fired Zelda, and knowing how much he hated conflict, that must have been painful.”

  “Oh yeah? Zelda Preston?” Boyd wrote in his notebook. “What’d he ax her for?”

  “They fought continually over the music. He would pick the hymns and she would change them without telling him.” I stopped, uncertain of how to elaborate. “Father Olson was a charismatic, which means he wanted people to have a personal relationship with the lord. The kind of music he favored was sort of, ‘Jesus Loves Me’ set to folk music. The Old Guard, on the other hand, prefers, say, ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.’ “

  Boyd stopped writing and raised his eyebrows. The match drooped from the side of his mouth. “That’s it? Changed hymns? The Old Guard guards the hymns?”

  “Well … not exactly. When it comes to Zelda, I mean.”

  There was a silence in which Boyd drummed his knee with his free hand.

  “Okay, look,” I went on. “I know what I know about Zelda because we were in a Lenten discussion group together when we were both going through some difficult times.” Privacy was a precious thing, and little of it survived exposure, especially at church meetings. In a small town, gossip was the weapon of choice in destroying your enemies. And Zelda had been my friend.

  Boyd grunted. “I’m trying to find Schulz, not write an article for the local paper.”

  “Don’t even mention that local paper to me.”

  “Goldy!” interjected Helen Keene. They were her first words since she’d rejoined us from the kitchen. “For heaven’s sake!”

  All right, all right.” I pause. “It was five years ago. We were discussing something very innocuous, a book called In the Wilderness, and Father Pinckney was the leader. I went because I was depressed about the awful state of my marriage, and had to get out of the house. I figured a daytime church discussion group would be kind of nice.” I held out my hands in a helpless gesture. “one day Zelda very unexpectedly broke down. You see, she had two sons. One is Bob Preston, who is a parishioner at the church. His wife’s name is Agatha.”

  “Yeah, I want to talk to you about her,” Boyd said. “But go ahead.”

  “Zelda’s other son, Mark, had leukemia. Mark was the swimming coach at Elk Park Prep, and he was married to Sarah Preston, who lives in Elk Park with their son Ian, who was twelve at the time.” I looked out my front window. But instead of seeing the cold night, I pictured Zelda’s gray braid wobbling on top of her head as her body shook with sobs. “On Ash Wednesday of that year, Mark, who was in his mid-twenties and had had
the leukemia for about six months, went into a coma in a hospital in Denver. What kept him alive while he was comatose were the daily blood transfusions Sarah had to okay. After a couple of weeks of this, I guess Sarah just decided she’d had enough. So she refused the daily transfusion.”

  I fell silent. Boyd and Helen were staring at me.

  “Mark Preston died within hours.” I brushed unseen lint off my sweatsuit, feeling my eyes fill with tears. “Zelda wasn’t at the hospital. No one consulted her about stopping the transfusions. She didn’t get to say good-bye to Mark.”

  “My Lord,” murmured Helen.

  “That wasn’t the end of it,” I said softly “At our book discussion group, Zelda blurted out that Sarah had killed her son. She would never forgive her for that. She said she wanted Sarah out of her life forever.”

  Boyd and Helen Keene were silent. “And the grandson?” Helen finally asked. “Ian?”

  “Zelda wrote off the grandson, too. She was just so angry .l . . “ I sighed. “Anyway, Sarah eventually remarried. I heard her new husband is a Catholic, and the three of them go to the catholic church. From all the accounts around town, Zelda hasn’t seen or spoke to Sarah or Ian in, well, five years.”

  Boyd tapped his notebook. “So how does this relate to Olson?”

  “I’m getting to that. At the discussion group,” I sand reluctantly, “no one knew how to react o Zelda’s outburst. Father Pinckney just shriveled up. I mean, the old fellow looked as if he could have crawled under a rock. And of course, the rest of the women were aghast. You have to understand, members of the Old Episcopal Guard never, ever, ever spill their guts in front of a group.”

  “But you were there,” Helen prompted.

  “Yes. I was there.” Indeed. “I almost didn’t go to the meeting that day. My head was throbbing from the whack John Richard – my ex-husband – had given me after he broke my thumb in three places the previous week. My hand was in a cast. When Zelda told her story and began to weep, I felt so bad, I cried with her. Despite the stupid cast, I put my arms around her and held her.” I took a deep breath and thought back. “I guess everyone else was embarrassed. They left. No one even said a word. Hours later, it was just Zelda and me, sitting next to each other in our folding chairs, sniffling. When it was almost time for Arch to come home on the schoolbus, I insisted she drink a cup of instant coffee that I fixed in the church kitchen. After Zelda took a few sips, Lucille Boatwright suddenly appeared to drive her back home.”

  Boyd asked, “So did you and Zelda become friends?”

  “Zelda spent the next two weeks sending me casseroles and discount swim coupons for Arch. But she and I never talked about what had happened again.”

  “Not meaning to be rude, Goldy,” Boyd continued patiently, “but I’m still wondering what this has to do with Olson, since this happened during the time of the other priest.”

  “Zelda was the organist. After Mark died, playing the music, and doting on her other son, Bob, and his wife, Agatha, became Zelda’s whole life, even though Bob and Agatha are charismatics and supported having Olson as the new rector after Pinckney retired. Anyway, in Father Pinckney’s time, Zelda picked the hymns. She also ran the choir and every aspect of the church’s music. Then Olson came. He appealed to a whole different group in the church. He wanted the music changed, and technically, according to the church law, he was the one in charge of the services. So he and Zelda fought. And fought and fought and fought.” I shook my head, remembering some of the acrimonious exchanges.

  “Did they talk about this … . problem with the son who died?” Boyd asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I replied. “Remember, Olson hated conflict. He said he wanted everybody to have a personal relationship with Jesus and be reconciled to each other. According to Marla, who hears everything, Zelda and Olson weren’t having any reconciliation in their weekly shouting matches. Supposedly it was over the hymns. Bu the rumor was that their conflict went much deeper, that he wanted to force her to make up with her widowed daughter-in-law. Zelda told him to mind his own beeswax. She had the Old Guard on her side though,” I added, ”when it came to the music.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Look. The Old Guard just doesn’t want anything changed from the way the Episcopal church was when they were little. As long a there are fund-raising luncheons, gold courses, and the 1928 prayer book, they’re happy.”

  Boyd chewed on his match and wrote some notes. The inviting smell of popcorn wafted out of the kitchen. “Besides Zelda Preston, did these Old Guard people dislike Olson?”

  “They did. Lucille is building a columbarium she intends to dedicate to Father Pinckney. I think she believes when it’s done, he’ll come out of retirement and be our rector again.”

  Boyd muttered sarcastically, “I don’t know if I’d want to return to a church with an ash cemetery dedicated to me. What a place. I thought this was where everybody loved each other. You know, sing songs and give money to the poor?”

  I said quietly, “You haven’t been to church for a while.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll go, and you can take me. All right, just a couple more questions. Did Olson get along with his assistant, this Doug Ramsey?’

  Julian appeared with huge bowls heaped with hot buttered popcorn. The fragrance filled the living room, and I gestured to Helen and Boyd to help themselves.

  “I guess they got along,” I said after I thanked Julian and he disappeared. “Doug’s on the Board of Theological Examiners.” I cast around to remember in what other contexts I had seen Doug Ramsey work. He was involved in diocesan work and was Olson’s liaison with the Aspen Meadow Habitat for Humanity. I told this to Boyd.

  “Yeah, we know that. We also heard Ramsey was the bishop’s spy.”

  ‘What?” I was nonplussed. Father Insensitive, with his overtalkative, exaggerating way and his lists of things to do, a spy? Spying on what? Or whom?

  Somehow, Boyd had rid himself of the match. He took a handful of popcorn, ate quickly, and said, “We heard that the bishop thought Olson was out in left field and moving toward the wall. As in going, going, gone, bye-bye Episcopal Church, hello new denomination.” He scooped up more popcorn, ate it, and reflected. “So tell me. Is moving out of your sedate church’s ballpark the kind of thing people would kill for? I know, you say, you have to look at the different groups.” There was still and edge of sarcasm in his voice.

  “Look,” I said with more ferocity than I intended, “let me give you an example of the kind of thing that can happen in our oh-so-sedate church. On the national level, we had a prolonged and very public fight over the ordination of women to the priesthood. After that was approved, there was an incident at an Episcopal church. A man came up to the altar and tried to strangle a female priest administering communion. He didn’t protest, he didn’t go to another church, he tried to strangle a woman he did not know. He screamed, ‘You bitch, I hate you, what do you think you’re trying to do?’ “

  Unmoved, Boyd said, “But Olson wasn’t a woman. This is different. Or is it? Which group did the strangler belong to?”

  My face was hot after my outburst. I grasped the ring box and tried to summon up Tom Schulz’s calm. “I don’t know whether it’s different, that’s the whole problem. I’d say the would-be strangler was part of the Old Guard. Did Doug Ramsey tell you he was a spy?”

  Boyd grinned. “Of course not. You know anything about the financial status of your parish?’

  I said that as far as I knew, the parish had typical financial problems. Typical in what way, Boyd wanted to know. Different church groups wanted money for their projects; there was never enough to go around. There was some squabbling over funds. But Marla had said giving was up.

  Boyd’s eyes narrowed. ‘Year before last, your parish had a gross income of a hundred thousand. Last year it was a hundred-twenty thou, pretty good growth rate in a recession, but a couple of invalids left money to the parish when they died. Year to date – we’re talking a little over four months – the church’s income was three hundred thousand dollars. This isn’t Olson’s dough, mind you, it belongs to the paris
h. Could that be something the bishop would be interested in?”

  A dry laugh crackled in my throat. “If the parish was doing that well, and the diocesan office knew about it, I’m surprised they didn’t send up a dozen priests to spy.”

  Boyd said, “one of the women told me that all the money was coming in because there was some magical healing stuff going on here. That Olson was the founder or perpetrator, and people were paying to get a piece of that magic.”

  “Miraculous claims aren’t typical of our church.” Unlike Chimayó, I wanted to add, but didn’t. “Then again, neither are today’s events.”

  “So you don’t know anything about the money coming from some miracle agenda?’ When I shrugged, Boyd continued. “Okay, two more questions. I need to know what you know about this” – he flipped a page in his notebook and scanned it – “candidate for holy order.” He said the unfamiliar words slowly. “Named Mitchell Hartley. Guy wants to be a priest,” he summarized. “Flunked the oral exam for the priesthood last year. We hear Olson was behind the flunking.”

  I told them what I knew of Harley, whose chief distinction as one of the charismatic parishioners was his vehement opposition to Lucille’s columbarium project. Idolatry, Hartley had fumed at the parish meeting, his face flushed, his mass of red hair quivering. Do you think the Lord would have wanted a columbarium? I knew Father Olson had urged the Board of Theological Examiners to flunk Hartley last year. I did not know why. “Mitchell Hartley goes to the second service at our church,” I said. “I don’t really know him very well.”

  Boyd pulled in his stomach with a noisy breath. “Well, we’re looking into that. Lots of money, miraculous healings, a candidate who was flunked. Now about this Agatha Preston – “

  But before he could elaborate, his beeper went off, and he asked to use the kitchen phone. When he trundled back into the living room two minutes later, he had put his notebook and pen away. “We’ll have to talk more about this tomorrow, Goldy. The team is done over at the church, and they want to go out to Schulz’s place tonight, to see if he left any notes by his phone, or anything else that could help us out. We still have his keys from the creek.”