The Last Suppers gbcm-4

by Diane Mott Davidson

  I stepped over an upturned kitchen chair and shined my flashlight on more chaos in the living room. I flipped on the overhead brass light fixture. The answering machine had been axed in two. The Stickley’s dark plaid cushion had been slashed and emptied; down and feathers lay sprinkled over the detritus on the floor. I couldn’t even see the Kirmans. Mountains of books lay be overturned brass lamps, dumped potted plants, and the remains of the framed rubbings. They had been torn from the wall and smashed. Shards of glass glittered in the wreckage.

  I was so angry I thought I would shriek. First the church office and now here. Couldn’t I ever get somewhere before it was destroyed? Had the intruder found the pearls? Or something, anything else? Boyd had said whoever was keeping Tom Schulz might want a particular thing whose location the expiring Olson might have told the trusted police officer who had found him. Too bad Tom’s note hadn’t mentioned it in any way the rest of us might have been able to figure out.

  “I hope you didn’t find it,” I said loudly to the devastated room. My boots crunched across the broken glass and piles of feathers. But at that moment my eye caught the shelves where Olson had kept his church-related supplies. No chalice, no paten, no ambry. Perhaps the motive for his murder had been robbery, after all. The criminal just hadn’t gotten everything the first time around.

  I moved hesitantly down the hall toward the bedroom-turned-office. I stepped over coats, hats, gloves, and hangers dumped from the hall closet. Whoever did this is gone, I reminded myself as I entered the new space; snow was everywhere in the kitchen.

  I switched on the overhead light in the office, one of those square, frosted-glass types that must have been an original fixture with the house. It cast a sallow light over the piles of papers. The contents of file drawers lay strewn on top of what had already been there. It looked as if all the papers had been gone through, but instead of being left in a mess as they had been in the living room, these had been neatly restacked in piles and pushed against the walls. Why would you trash the house, but organize the papers? The silver, Schulz’s voice said sharply in my mind, where is it? Stacks of papers covered the office’s incongruous bed. I stepped carefully around the side of the bed and saw the cherrywood case for the silver. It had been emptied. Glinting in the weak light, Grande Renaissance knives, forks, spoons, and serving utensils lay haphazardly everywhere, like a child’s game of Pick-Up Sticks. Either robbery had not been the motive for this rampage, or this was one incredibly stupid thief.

  I picked up the cherrywood case and pulled out the small drawer at the bottom. A slim packet of letters was wedged into the back. The sloped, feminine handwriting of the return address said they were from A. Preston.

  Judas had received silver. Agatha had betrayed her husband. Olson had put the traitor’s letters in the silver box. Whoever had trashed this place either hadn’t found her letters or hadn’t cared. I put the letters in my parka pocket. Maybe Tom’s mystifying notation of B. – Read – Judas had something to do with Bob Preston and his wife. Damn. More ideas for Boyd.

  Two more places to check: Olson’s bedroom and the one bathroom. I knew there was single bathroom and that the office had been the only other bedroom besides Olson’s. Olson had bought the old place at a bargain because it had only one bath and two bedrooms, not much space for today’s families. I wondered if the vestry would have been willing to move him into a mansion if he’d brought the church’s receipts for this year up to half a mil.

  Concentrate, Tom Schulz’s voice in my mind reprimanded. I wondered if I was hallucinating. Is that what happened when you really missed somebody? Or was hearing voices a phenomenon of sleep deprivation?

  I felt a pang of sadness, or perhaps it was the guilt of intrusiveness when I turned on the light in Olson’s bedroom. The covers of the bed had been pulled off and lay in a heap on the floor. The mattress leaned against the box spring at a steep angle. Both had been slashed open. Olson’s bureau drawers yawned, their contents of socks, underwear, and dark clothing in piles. On Olson’s bureau, a painted Florentine tray lay heaped with an assortment of keys, receipts, and clerical collars.

  Something hanging on his wall made me stop dead. Dark maroon, with a purple heart at the center. It was an afghan. Except for the colors, it was the exact design of the one that had been left on my porch.

  Nausea swept over me. I tripped on my way out of his room and fell hard on the bed frame. I forced myself to get up and careened back down the hall to the living room, where thee was at least a chair to sit.

  Come on, Miss G., get a grip. I allowed Tom Schulz’s affectionate imperative to flow from my brain down into my body, which was cold, very cold, from the lack of heat in the house. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if the afghan left at my house was meant to be some kind of sign. Something along the order of, You’re next.

  I had the ridiculous notion that if Boyd was going to bawl me out anyway, I might as well turn on the heat. I scanned the living room walls for an adjustable thermostat and saw that it was on the other side of the room, beside the empty shelves. Exhaustion paralyzed me. I wasn’t going to turn on the heat, even though it was unbelievable how much the temperature had dropped in the last twenty-four hours. The splintered answering machine lay on the table. It was the kind with a receiver, too, and I wondered if it had been from here that Tom had made his call to me at the church.

  I hugged myself and rocked back and forth to get warm. Where was the Sheriff’s Department, anyway? It felt like forever since my call. There was no working clock remaining in Olson’s destroyed house, of course Outside his living room window overlooking a deck and the creek, the gradual brightening between the trees indicated the sun was finally making an appearance. Even though I hadn’t found any pearls, it was time for me to go; Julian and Arch would need a hot breakfast on such a frigid morning.

  I sat cemented to the chair. The last time we spoke, Tom had been here. He had called me at the church when I was so full of hopeful anticipation. I closed my eyes and for a moment felt sleep hover just behind consciousness. It had been warmer on Saturday morning when Tom had called from here. Why, I’d even heard windchimes through an open window in the background.

  Windchimes?

  Wakefulness came with a jolt. My flashlight hadn’t picked out any windchimes. This doesn’t matter, my tired brain insisted. Just go home. What had tom said when he called the church office/ he’d told me about Olson and that there would be no wedding. Then there was a distant tinkle, and he’d told me to wait. He hadn’t found anything or he would have told me, wouldn’t he? It was so insignificant that I’d even forgotten to tell Boyd and Armstrong about it.

  I hauled myself out of the chair and headed toward the back door. There had been a jingling, glasslike noise in the background. Windchimes, I’d thought. But Coloradans usually stored their windchimes until June. The danger of harsh winds and unexpected ice could reduce the chimes to fractured bits. But this guy kept his croquet set in the garage. Tom’s voice said to the far reaches of my brain. Maybe he didn’t know you were supposed to store your windchimes.

  I’m losing it, I reflected ruefully as I scrambled onto the deck off Olson’s kitchen. Light crept up from the eastern horizon. My flashlight beam played over the deck. No chimes. I inched down the short outside wooden staircase, careful to avoid the center of each step, where a dark glaze of ice crystals no doubt lay under each fresh layer of snow. At the bottom of the stairs was a crawl space under the house that Father Packrat Olson had used for storage. My light scanned a paint-chipped lawn mower that would never cut another blade, at least a dozen straw boxes stamped with the name of the moving company that had brought Olson to this abode. One of the boxes was upturned, its contents spilled. They were tall iced-tea glasses made of a light green, translucent shell-type material.

  The kind used to make windchimes.

  The Sheriff’s Department would not have noticed this. How could they? I had forgotten tot ell them of the background noise when I was on the phone with Schulz. I knelt down, scooted forw
ard, and flashed my light inside the box. Some glasses were broken, some unbroken. I took a deep breath and dumped the entire contents on the ground, and heard the same noise I’d heard in the background on the pone, only louder. It had not been windchimes that had caused the noise – it had been this box being upended, or a box like it. This was why Schulz had told me to wait. He’d heard it and gone to see what was going on. The killer had been hiding under the house.

  I flashed my light over the mess on the ground. It was hard to see in the darkness But there were no chokers or jewelry of any kind in the pile of broken glass. When I set the box upright, a wet piece of paper clung to its side. I pulled my right glove off with my teeth and cautiously peeled the damp paper off the side of the box.

  It was a standard piece of 8 1/2 by 11 paper, typewritten and photocopied. There was no name on it, but at the upper left were four brief lines.

  92-492

  Set I

  Part A

  Page 25

  It was the last page of one of the candidates’ exam essays, already read by the General Board of Examining Chaplains, and soon to be read by our own diocesan Board of Theological Examiners. 92-492 was the encoded identification number of the writer. The type words began, “such actins can only be attributed to false prophets, whose actins undermine the one mission of the church.” And it went on, but I was not going to read it now, I wanted to get home.

  I listened for the sound of a Sheriff’s Department vehicle and heard none. If a burglary isn’t hot and no one’s in danger, it’s not one of the first things we respond to, Schulz had told me. No telling when the police would arrive. I needed to rouse Julian and Arch. Besides, the frigid weather was permeating my skin. I carefully snatched up the paper, scooted out from the crawl space, and started walking fast through the trees to the creek. Once home, I could look up the identification number of the examinee on the master sheet I wasn’t supposed to open until I’d finished reading the exams. This candidate shouldn’t have left the last page of one of his exams underneath Olson’s house.

  In the broad meadow space, the brilliant moonlight melted into the faint sunbeams touching the frosted tops of trees on the surrounding hills. Pink light suffused the air and made the snow glow. On a neighboring slope, a dog began to bark. I couldn’t wait to get home. Behind me, a morning breeze swept through the trees.

  When I arrived at the creek bank, a faint cracking noise caused me to whirl around.

  “Boyd?” When there was no reply, I lifted my voice. “Furman County Sheriff?”

  The sudden stillness made me think I’d been deceived. Tom? I called internally. As if he were guiding my face with the tips of his fleshy fingers, I slowly turned toward the creek. This was the exact spot where he had been dragged or prodded across. Snow lay around not only my own footprints down the bank, but a second set. Transfixed, I stared at the prints. Leave quickly. I could hear Schulz’s voice say.

  At that moment, I heard a whooshing of air behind me. In a moment that went too fast, a hard blow hit the middle of my back. I heard myself expel breath, felt the pain explode across my vertebrae. I fell to my knees. Blackness engulfed me. I had an unexpected vision of Arch as a baby, then as a toddler. I’m dying, I thought. My life is flashing before me. My face fell into the snow, and I felt the rushing air of someone pulling the sheet of paper from my hand and then moving past me. I’m trying to help you, my mind cried out to Tom, who seemed suddenly far, far away. Very faintly, before I passed out, I could hear his response.

  You are.

  17

  “Goldy! Gol-dy!”

  Somewhere above me and far away, voice called. Louder and more insistent was the bone-splitting pain in the middle of my back. I gasped chilly, wet air. Was I drowning? Or had I undergone surgery from an unknown ailment and was I now struggling miserably to dispel the anesthetic? The voices grew close.

  “Don’t touch her,” warned one, a woman. “See if she wants to move on her own.”

  I opened my eyes. With infinite slowness and a searing pang across my spine, I tried to maneuver onto my side. “Help.” My voice was so faint I hardly hear it.

  The floating faces of two people came into sight. I knew this man and woman. Their names were just out of reach.

  “It’s Helen,” prompted the female face. “Remember me? I’ve called Mountain Rescue.”

  “No.” I tried to raise my head and sagged backward helplessly. “Don’t need it,” I added unconvincingly. Imagining the scene at my house if I arrived in an ambulance brought a wave of dizziness. Julian and Arch would go nuts. “No stretcher. No EMTs. Please,” I begged. Talking required an impossible effort. Every time I breathed, my body shrieked at the exertion.

  “The heck you say,” said a male voice.

  I squinted. The sky had become bright without my witnessing it, and my clothes were chilled and soaked. “What day is it? What’s the time?” I croaked.

  The man and woman looked at each other, and I had a sudden memory of my parents above my crib. But these were no relatives of mine; these were Sheriff’s Department Investigator Horace Boyd and Victim Advocate Helen Keene. And I had something to tell them, but the agonizing vice cramping my spine made it impossible to think. I struggled to move my legs, to see if my body worked. Summoning an enormous effort, I pulled my knees into my chest, then pushed up into a crouch. My spine shuddered in anguish.

  “Don’t move if it hurts,” Boyd voice ordered.

  “I am getting up,” I announced, and shakily came to my knees.

  “Please wait,” Helen said softly, too late.

  In the distance I could hear the whine of a siren. The ambulance. A stretcher. Arch and Julian having a fit. I cried out as I stood up on the icy ground. My knees wobbled and the ground seemed to be coming back up to my nose.

  “Oh, Jesus,” muttered Boyd as he grabbed me on the shoulder and under the arm, then hauled me back to an upright, balanced position.

  “I was attacked,” I said weakly. “Someone hit me. The paper.” I looked around on the ground. Snow and mud wavered in and out of focus. “Where is it?”

  But it was gone. Boyd and Helen thought I was hallucinating and wanted The Denver Post. I asked them to help me walk. They said I should wait, see if anything was broken. I told them nothing was broken. I needed to move; lying motionless could worsen frostbite. With Boyd and Helen reluctantly walking beside me as I moved unsteadily across the field, we unraveled the story. My call had come in and been triaged. When someone in Dispatch had realized that the robbery location was the same as murder victim Olson’s, Boyd had been informed. When Boyd wanted to know who had placed the call and Dispatch gave them my name, he had cursed and phoned Helen. I pointed to the dug-up area with the cross and told them about the missing sacramental vessels: chalice, paten, and ambry.

  “Hombre?” said Boyd. “Like a Spanish buddy?’

  “Like a small tabernacle to hold the consecrated bread. It’s often kept in a built-in area behind a church altar.”

  “Glad we got that cleared up.”

  I told Boyd the local rumor that had Olson involved with Agatha Preston, then handed him Agatha’s letters that I’d taken from Olson’s silver box. Boyd shook his head, but took the packet. I also mentioned the afghan that resembled the one left for me. I ruefully added that whoever had struck me had stolen a sheet from one of the exam essays, an exam that was currently being read by the Board of Theological Examiners.

  “Of course, I don’t have the page,” I said as we stopped to rest next to a leafless cottonwood. I took a shallow breath and shivered. When I tried to breathe deeply, a thick line of horizontal discomfort streaked across my back. “But I remember the number 1492. Like Columbus. Only this was 92-492.”

  Emerging from the trees at the edge of the field were emergency medical folk with blankets and a stretcher. I willed them to go back, as if I were rewinding a movie. But they kept coming, spurred on by Boyd’s impatient gestures. Helen was hovering solicitously. I felt utterly defeated. I had come so close, and now –

  I turned back toward t
he creek. With acute disappointment I saw Julian’s Range Rover parked past some trees on the other side of the creek. It might as well have been in Africa. Although the pain was excruciating, I wanted nothing more than to drive home. Besides, I remembered, I had a luncheon to cater today for the prayer group. Better not mention that to Boyd and Helen. I could hear Boyd now: Forget the damn luncheon! Sure, and never have the churchwomen ask them to do another affair for them. Or worse, have them spread it all around town what an unreliable caterer I was. Besides, I wanted to find out what or whom they were praying for.

  “Have you found out anything about the missing pearls?” I asked. “In my mind’s eye, I sort of saw them, imagined them being hidden – “

  Boyd had started on a new match. At least he hadn’t gone back to the cigarettes. His wide face turned grim. “Godly, you’re stressed. You’re seeing things.”

  “I’ll bet those pearls have something to do with Olson’s murder.” My voice quivered. “Something else. I could hear Tom’s voice in my head.”

  “Hearing things, too,” concluded Boyd. He motioned two EMTs over. I felt my control falter.

  “Look,” said Boyd. He leaned in close to me. To give him credit, he tried to make his voice sympathetic. “I don’t want to take somebody off the search for Schulz. We can’t spare an officer to keep an eye on you. Okay? So after these guys take you to get checked out, I want you to stay home with that friend of yours. That big, good-looking gal. Marla. In fact, I’m telling her to come stay over at your place, and I’m going to make the call from here.”

  I choked out Marla’s number. Tears spilled uncontrollably from my eyes as the EMTs gently helped me onto the stretcher. Helen Keene held my hand the whole time, through the woods thickly aromatic with the smell of melting snow on fallen aspen leaves, around Olson’s house, dark Chrysler was still sitting, glazed with ice.