The Last Suppers

“Please don’t.” I felt dizzy. “I thought you came to the later service.”

“ordinarily I do, not because I’m a charismatic and believe in the gifts of the spirit and all that. Actually, what I believe in is the gift of sleep. But I woke up early and called your house to see if there were any developments. Arch said you were here at church, and I was worried about you so I came. And I should have been worried about you. I came I when Canon From Hell was shooting his mouth off in your face. I was dying for that cop back there to pull his gun, or something, but I just heard his beeper go off, and now he’s left – “

Before she could finish, I was squeezing past her out of the pew and running down the nave. I sprinted past the Sunday School rooms to the choir room. The door was just closing; I lunged to hold it open.

Boyd was already talking into the receiver. He held up on finger when I opened my mouth to ask him what was going on. Then he shook his head.

“Okay,” he said. “Bob Preston, go it. How quick can you get a car to me at this church? Great.”

Boyd replaced the receiver. My heart was pounding.

“Now don’t get your hopes up,” he told me, seeing my face. My heart sank to new depths. “We think Schulz is still alive. We found the car he was transported in, abandoned in a ditch near Deer Creek Canyon.”

“Oh, God – “

Boyd sighed heavily and scratched the to of his dark crewcut. “It’s a Nissan four-wheel drive, not a van. The van in the note must have been for vanity plates. The said EPSCMP, for Episcopal camps. The vehicle belongs to the Episcopal diocese of Colorado.”

9

I grabbed the bar holding the hangers for the choir robes. “The don’t know where he is?”

“Not yet. No discernible footprints away from the car. The kidnapper must have had another vehicle already parked there.”

Pain stabbed my head and a rock-size lump formed in my throat. I couldn’t accept the facts Boyd was relating with the flat tonality I should have become used to already. I said, ”The vehicle belonged to the diocese of Colorado? Do they know who was driving it? Was the vehicle stolen? How do you know Tom was – “

Boyd slid a matchstick into his mouth and leaned against the wall. He ticked points off on his fingers. “First we think Schulz was in the vehicle because, again, we found some of his stuff.”

“More? Like what this time?”

Boyd shifted his weight and looked doubtful.

“Please,” I begged, “tell me.”

“Well, we think we found his socks shoved under the front seat.”

“What?” Boyd did not, after all, joke.

“Look, Goldy, it’s just the way it was by the creek bank. Schulz, fell, was pushed, got hurt, covered with mud. But at the same time, he was trying to drop stuff, give us clued, build a trail, that’s what we’re supposed to do in that kind of situation. So you figure, now he’s in the Nissan. He’s in the back seat, he’s restrained.” AT the thought of Tom bound and perhaps gagged, I felt a grown rising but suppressed it. “He can move his feet so he takes off his shoes, eases off his socks and wedges the under the front seat, then slips his shoes back on so’s the person who took him won’t notice.”

“How do you know they were his socks?”

Boyd chewed on the matchstick and crossed his arms. “Because he also wedged his college ring down between the seats in the back. University of Colorado, with his initials and the date. Look, I gotta go.”

“But … he hardly ever wears that ring. And I thought you said he was hurt, limping, or something, how could he… ?”

“Looks like there was blood on one of the socks.. And I guess he was gonna wear the ring to the wedding.” He shrugged.

Too much. I stared out the choir-room window at the cold morning sky. The early-morning scattered clouds had ballooned and moved in. The sun had disappeared.

He said, “I need to get outside and watch for the department car. They left me at your place and now they’re saying they need to come get me.”

“Let’s go, then,” I said, and directed him out the same door Marla had taken me through the day before, when we were trying to escape the chaos of my nonwedding.

When we were outside, he said, “Remember when I wanted to ask you about Agatha Preston?’

“Yes, sorry, she called me yesterday, all hysterical. Wanted to know if I had seen him.”

Boyd ferreted his faithful notebook out of his pants pocket. ”Keep talking,” he ordered as we walked toward the snow-covered parking lot. “Seen him-who?”

“Watch out,” I said as we approached the columbarium construction. “We’re going to have to go around these ditches.”

WE ducked under the low eave of the church roof, then squeezed single file through the narrow passage between the sawhorses and the corner of the St. Luke’s building. The ditches that would eventually hold ash receptacles had filled with ice-edged puddles; it looked as if the unauthorized construction had unexpectedly encountered the water table.

Boyd asked tersely, “Agatha wanted to know if you’d seen … “

“But that’s what I don’t know,” I protested. “I didn’t have a clue if she was referring to Tom or Father Olson, and then her husband took the phone away from her and hung up on me.”

“Her husband hung up on you? Bob Preston?” When I nodded, Boyd said, “He’s the head of the diocesan Camps and Conferences Committee. He’s the one who’s supposed to be in charge of the keys to that Nissan. It was stored across the street – “

“Wait.” Of course I knew the car; I’d seen it many times parked in the garage next to Hymnal House, when I’d catered for the musicians’ conference during the summer. “Yesterday morning. The keys to the conference center were missing when we tried to set up for the wedding reception. It’s a huge bunch. Maybe the car keys were on it.”

Boyd’s voice became exasperated. “I thought the Altar Guild had those keys, and Preston the car keys.”

“Well, you’ll have your chance to ask Bob Preston. Here he comes.” I gestured at a shiny gold Audi now pulling up next to the creek. At that moment the doors to the church banged open. Lucille Boatwright came out, intent on her prey. Unfortunately, her prey this time was Officer Boyd. The heavy wooden door flapped shut as Lucille sailed over to him and used her hand like a caliper to grasp the sleeve of his leather jacket.

“Why did you leave the service early?” she demanded shrilly. Behind her, Mitchell Hartley pushed through the church door and walked swiftly over to Boyd and Lucille. Boyd released himself from Lucille’s hold and stowed his notebook in his pocket. Lucille’s voice rose, “What have you found out?”

Boyd began, “the police are in charge – “

“Oh, don’t mind Lucille,” Mitchell interjected, half-joking, half-snide. “She doesn’t care who’s supposed to be in charge of something, because eventually she’s going to be running the show. Isn’t that right?”

Slowly, Lucille Boatwright turned toward Mitchell Hartley. I cold feel the lava rising. Since the service was over, other parishioners were coming outside. Some held lopsided paper plates, each one heavy with a cinnamon roll I had brought. The crowd eyed Boyd, Lucille, Mitchell, and me while pretending to pick at the rolls with tiny plastic forks. Canon Montgomery, last out the church doors, strode importantly toward us.

“You may wonder, Mitchell Hartley,” Lucille began in a tone so icy I felt sweat prickle my arms, “why you have failed to become a priest, but your failure is precisely because of the way you are acting at this moment. Who would want you for their priest? Certainly not me.”

Mitchell Hartley leaned over Lucille. His face was bone-white and his vivid eyes shone ominously. Loudly, he said, “You wouldn’t want Jesus for your priest.”

Lucille Boatwright’s mouth fell open. In a commanding tone, Canon Montgomery inquired: “Mitchell, don’t you have some studying to do?”

It was then that I noticed Officer Boyd ripping cellophane off a new pack of cigarettes. While Lucille Boatwright, Canon Montgomery, and Mitchell Hartley glared fiercely at one another, Boyd lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Beside him, a newly arrived Bob Preston coughed lightly. In typical Aspen Meadow fashion, tall, roosterlike Bob wore a fringed leather jacket, plaid flannel shirt with Navajo bolo tie, jeans, and hand-stitched custom-made cowboy boots. Wearing a long black coat, Agatha stood mutely beside him.

Mitchell Hartley spat his words at Lucille. “Jesus is in charge of this parish, Lucille, not a new pack of cigarettes. While Lucille Boatwright, Canon Montgomery, and Mitchell Hartley glared fiercely at one another, Boyd lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Beside him, a newly arrived Bob Preston coughed lightly. In typical Aspen Meadow fashion, tall, roosterlike Bob wore a fringed leather jacket, plaid flannel shirt with Navajo bolo tie, jeans, and hand-stitched custom-made cowboy boots. Wearing a long black coat, Agatha stood mutely beside him.

Mitchell Hartley spat his words at Lucille. “Jesus is in charge of this parish, Lucille, not you.” To Canon Montgomery, Mitchell snarled, “The Lord is going to get one through these exams, George.”

“Father Montgomery to you, young man, if you don’t mind.” Montgomery’s skin had an unhealthy flush.

“Oops,” said Marla from my side, where she had suddenly appeared. “Are we having a bit of a confrontation in the Episcopal church parking lot? The Frozen Chosen at war, for all the world to see?”

“Why don’t you go break it up?” I said desperately to her. The hostility level among Lucille, Montgomery, and Hartley had risen to nuclear fission level. “I need to talk to Boyd.”

“Are you kidding?” she cried in mock horror. “Lucille’s already asked me to make five hundred cookies for Olson’s funeral tomorrow. I said no, so now I’m on her shit list.”

“Marla!”

“I forgot. We’re at church.”

A Furman County Sheriff’s Department car pulled up to the entrance of the parking lot behind the rows of other cars and sat idling. Boyd took a last drag of his cigarette and dropped it at his feet.

“I’m going to need to talk to you,” he said to Bob Preston, “as soon as I finish some other work. Don’t leave the church.”

Bob Preston, uncomprehending, opened his eyes wide as Boyd walked quickly toward the car. I scrambled after him.

”Please,” I begged when I caught up to him, “tell me more about where they found Tom. Did it look as he’d been hurt badly? What are they thinking could have happened?”

Boyd kept his eyes on the squad car as he hurried along. “They told me there was a small amount of blood in the car, some dents and tearing of the vinyl seats, maybe signs of a struggle. I’m going to look at it now. From the looks of things, we figure Schulz is still alive. We just don’t know why.”

“Tell me what you mean,” I pleaded.

Boyd threaded through the first row of cars; I followed. He said, “Here’s someone who’s killed a priest. Before the priest died, he gave a dying declaration to a police officer. If the victim identifies his killer in a such a declaration, it’ll hold up in court. Then Schulz is kidnapped by the killer. Why? Why wouldn’t the killer just kill Schulz, too? He’s the only living person who can identify him.”

“I don’t have any idea,” I said helplessly.

“My guess is Schulz knows something,” Boyd said as he held in his stomach to squeeze past a parked Volvo. “Or has access to something. Something the killer wants. It could be just that notebook of his. It could be the whereabouts of those missing pearls. The ditch where we found the car is near a hidden turnout in Deer Creek Canyon. It looks as if whoever shot Olson planned it well. Except for Schulz showing up, of course. Maybe the killer used the church car because he was afraid hi sown car would be recognized. Because the car belongs to the diocese, we have to assume the person we’re looking for is someone associated with the church. Okay. Given Schulz’s unexpected appearance at Olson’s yesterday, and given that the perp didn’t want to kill him at the priest’s place, why not kill Schulz and just dump him in the canyon? Why keep him alive?”

“Why?” I echoed as I brushed past a Mercedes and smeared mud on my suit.

“Well, whatever it is, you better pray Schulz knows how to keep the killer at bay. As soon as he gets what he wants, you, me, the department, Schulz – we’re all gonna run out of time.”

We arrived at the police car. The engine was racing.

“I gotta go,” Boyd said as he opened the door. He stopped and saluted me. “Be in touch.”

This half-promise, half-command hung in the chilly air after the squad car pulled away. Boyd was my one link to Tom Schulz, and I hated to see him go. I wanted the intense, pear-shaped investigator to be completely absorbed searching for Tom rather than being driven to smoke by neurotic parishioners and their idiotic squabbles.

I faced the rows of cars. The last thing I wanted was to go back to the church entrance and face all those people with their probing eyes and nosy questions. I whirled and headed around the back of the church, toward the St. Luke’s office. Within moments I was staring at the yellow ribbon the police had strung in front of the vandalized space. I ached to go into Olson’s office and look around, but I knew Boyd would have a fit. Plus, it was illegal.

Oh, well, let him have a fit. I sprinted up the steps, ducked under the yellow ribbon, and pushed hard on the rotting door to get in. I passed quickly into Olson’s office. On the desk blotter was a skewed pile of correspondence and notes. I suppressed qualms of guilt and leafed through the bits of paper. Some bills and advertisements, some printed church circulars, a list of phone numbers, a couple of letters to Olson from friends. Would there be an appointment book here, something to tell who the priest was supposed to meet with on Saturday before the wedding? The I remembered what Tom Schulz had told me when he was working a homicide investigation, that the investigators would come to a victim’s office to look around and gather evidence, primarily for the victim’s appointment book. So if the book had been here, it wasn’t here anymore. The police surely would have removed it.

Wait. Had I heard something/ I stood still and held my breath. The raccoons? No. Was someone coming? The moments clicked by as my anxiety went into overdrive. I peered out one of the windows. I saw no one.

With clammy hands, I began to riffle through the pile of files that had been dumped on the floor by the vandal. There was no tab marked P.R.A.Y. I lifted out the folder marked Diocese.

The priest who saved everything hadn’t felt the need to toss anything from his bulky, overstuffed files, this one included. It was chockfull of newsletters from the bishop dating back three years. There were notices of upcoming conferences and meetings, announcements of priests who had renounced their orders, and other ecclesiastical communications that were meaningless to me at a cursory glance. I couldn’t tell if something had been removed, such as anything pertaining to the Halt the Hootenanny petition. And the cursory overview was all I could manage at the moment, since it wouldn’t be too cool to be caught sifting through the vandalized files of our murdered rector. Again I listened – for doors opening, someone approaching – but this time was greeted only with oppressive silence.

I put the notes from the top of the desk into the file and laid the copious diocesan folder aside. I flipped through pile after pile and finally found Board of Theological Examiners, which I lifted out. Father Packrat Olson had been head of the committee, and the folder was predictably heavy. There were old exams, announcements of meetings with agendas, lists of examinees from previous years. Olson’s letter to the bishop telling about my appointment to the committee, and the last item, a brief notice from the diocese about the glitch in photocopying the exams last week. Olson would hear from the diocesan office, the note promised, as soon as the exams were ready.

I slapped the file closed. Out the dusty window, I could see parishioners dispersing, reverently clutching pale green sheafs of palm. They’d finished with their coffee-hour treats and were heading toward their cars. The 8:00 service was over and I hadn’t discovered a thing.

Someone associated with the church.

I slipped the Diocese and Board of Theological Examiners files into two of Olson’s books: a thick Bible and an oversized tome on the church’s feast days. Hoisting the heavy volumes, I noiselessly closed the door to the little building and went back the way I’d come, around the rear of the church, toward the parking lot. With any luck I’d be able to stow the books in my van, unnoticed. My fingers ran over the worn leather covers. I wondered if I looked suspicious. After all, you didn’t usually see caterers walking around hefting overstuffed volumes on religion.

Outside, the cool breeze and liquid rush of snow-swollen Cottonwood Creek blended with the hum of departing cars. Before I could reach my van, someone yelled from behind me, “Hoohoo! Goldy-y? The woman in the pew?” At that moment, a huge roar erupted from the road. I flailed wildly and dropped the book on holy feasts. Papers scattered. In a fast, clumsy pirouette, I managed to hold on to the Bible, superstitious that it was like the flag and shouldn’t touch the ground. Mitchell Hartley leaped from where he’d been waiting and almost blocked my view of the approaching cavalcade of roaring motorcycles. I looked furiously at Hartley, whose pale face seemed to contrast and files lying everywhere in the mud at my feet. Damn Hartley. Furious, I knelt and awkwardly tried to pick them up.

“Don’t help me,” I said angrily, although he’d made no effort to do so. “This is all confidential stuff.”

I glanced up to make sure he wasn’t memorizing the papers I’d stolen from Father Olson’s office. But Mitchell Hartley was gazing at the loud parade on the road by the creek. The bikers were on their way to the Grizzly Saloon on Main Street. It was part of a spring ritual that shouldn’t have taken me offguard. It’s the migration of the Harley-Davidsons, Tom Schulz had noted enthusiastically. The weather grows warm, and Aspen Meadow becomes the gathering place for flocks of hefty folk in black leather, mirrored sunglasses, bandanas, ponytails, and single earrings. Makes so much noise you could shoot off firecrackers and nobody’d notice. The sole requirement for the motorcycles, unfortunately, seemed to be that all their mufflers were removed prior to setting out for Aspen Meadow.

“Wow! I’m always amazed when we get that kind of racket in a mountain town! It’s like a jet runway!” shouted Mitchell Hartley from above me. I opened the feasts book and swiftly packed the last of the damp, dirty papers between loose dry ones, stuffed them in the book, and rose unsteadily. The sun emerged from behind the clouds. Mitchell Hartley’s startling orange hair shone in the sudden bright light; his dark blue eyes scanned first the books in my hands and then my face. “Any news?” he asked, too cheerily for my taste.

I raised my voice over the roar of the motorcycles. “Excuse me. Mitchell, why did you call to me to stop?”

When he smiled, his crooked, wide-gapped teeth reminded me of something Tom had told me while explaining how he sized up suspects. People who grow up poor have bad teeth, teeth that are either crooked fro lack of orthodonture or worse, missing altogether from lack of proper care.

“I came over to the conference center early to study,” Hartley replied, with more false cheer. “I live next to a kennel, and it is noisy like you would not believe. I’m staying in Hymnal House.” He waved vaguely upward in the direction of the Aspen Meadow Conference Center. “It’s quiet now, before everyone gets there.”

His awkwardness in my presence translated alternately into arrogance or too-familiarity. The effort to be polite made him nervous. It was as if he were waiting for me to say that I liked him, that this time he was going to pass his exams because God was in charge, that everything was going to be okay. But his resentment of my purported power over his career seeped through every pore. I almost blurted out that I’d been appointed to theological, expertise. But there was something else.

The bikers continued to roar past us. “Mitchell, how could you possibly have gotten into Hymnal House? The place was locked yesterday morning when we were trying to get in for the reception and – “ The motorcycles drowned me out. I fell silent.

“The place was open,” he cried back defensively. “What reception was that?’

The last of the motorcycles growled past. I had invited Hartley to our wedding, as I had all the parishioners. But since he had responded that he wouldn’t be able to come, I gave a brief overview of the previous day’s postponement of the ceremony after Olson’s murder. And about Tom missing. Ah, but he knew all about that. Hartley informed me that someone had put the news about Schulz on both the parish and the diocesan prayer chain.

He furrowed his brow; the red pompadour shook ominously. In a quickly assumed pastoral tone, he said, “Goldy have you turned the search for your fiancé over to the Lord?”

I replied evenly, “I’ve turned the search over to the Furman County Sheriff’s Department.” His flinch almost made me laugh. “Mitchell. Who made the arrangements for you to get into Hymnal House? Was it before or after you heard about Father Olson? It just seems so weird,” I added pensively, with an equally pastoral brow.

Mitchell Hartley backtracked to give his story of how he’d come to know about Olson’s murder. Last night, his calls to Olson to ask when the exams would start had gone unanswered. Frustrated, Hartley had then phone Montgomery, the next most senior person on the Board of Theological Examiners. Montgomery had tearfully told him the news he’ heard from the bishop, that Olson had been shot by an intruder. Of course, Hartley informed me, he was dreadfully concerned about Father Olson’s tragic demise, although he was joyful that Olson was now with the Lord. But, Mitchell went on in a worried tone, as a candidate for Holy Orders, he was also frantic about whether the exams would still be held. So, as he’d planned – I could check with the diocesan office, if I wanted – Hartley had come to Hymnal House last night. Like my own experience with catering up there, he’d never given a thought to the building not being open, which it had been because someone had broken a window.

“I put a piece of cardboard over the broken pane and locked the place up when I went to bed,” he said in hi sown defense. “But I left it unlocked toady, since I didn’t have any keys.” He shrugged.

“The police are on the way up,” I said. I didn’t mention the abandoned diocesan vehicle they had found. “Be sure to tell them about your arrangements.” I had every intention of filling Boyd in myself about Mitchell Hartley’s unorthodox residency across the street from the church. I’d also ask that the police check with the diocesan office on his reservation. When Hartley made no move to leave, I added, “Mitchell, I’m feeling really stressed out from all that’s happened, and I need to go home and check on my son and finish some cooking – “

“I’ve been in this diocese for ten years.” He leaned toward me. His voice was suddenly raw with anger.

“Well, I guess the ordination process takes a long time … “

“A long time? A long time?” The blue eyes blazed. “Some people get through in three years. That’s what it is in other dioceses. But not Colorado. They seem to take a kind of … pleasure in making people wait. Making some people wait, anyway.”

I wanted desperately to put the books with the stolen files in my van, wanted even more desperately to be one of this conversation. I tried to look dour, the grieving bride.

I said, “Guess I need to shove off.” He didn’t get the hint. I added, “I don’t believe in making people wait.”

He lifted his chin and shot me a suspicious look. “You don’t?”

I edged backward toward my van. Mitchell Hartley, unrelenting, followed. I wanted to ask, Have you turned your waiting over to the Lord? But I didn’t want to hear the answer. Instead I sped up my retreat. Ever eager to impress, Hartley kept remorseless pace right beside me. “I know waiting is supposed to make you grow stronger,” I said noncommittally, “but that depends on who or what you’re waiting for, doesn’t it? How does that psalm go? ‘I waited patiently upon the Lord, he stooped to me and heard my cry.’ Like that.”

Effortlessly keeping up with me, Hartley glanced down at the books in my hands. He shook his head almost imperceptibly: This woman doesn’t interpret the psalms correctly, and she hasn’t turned the search for her fiancé over to the Lord. In a sadly condescending tone, he said, “Of course, I know the psalm.” We’d reached my van. He leaned against the door so that I couldn’t open it.

I took a deep breath. “I heard last year didn’t go so well for you. At the exams, I mean.”

“Some of the questions were really off base,” he replied impassively. “In fact, I was wondering what kind of questions I could expect from you. If you’re coming, that is.”

Hmm. “How about,” I said thoughtfully, “eschatology?” Maybe Hartley had a unique take on ‘til death do us part.

“What about it?”

“Anything about it.”

“Well, that’s not very helpful.” His eyes had turned icy.

“Mitchell, please. I really must go – “

“Look, Goldy, I’m really sorry about your policeman. I just – I want to tell you something. But don’t say you heard it from me, okay?”

Of course, I was immediately interested. “Don’t say what?”

“Ted Olson had, like, a double life. He … well, I saw him in a restaurant on Colfax, down in Denver near the Diocesan Center. He was with a woman. I knew it was him because of that fancy Mercedes he always drove around. Then I heard he was having an affair, that the bishop was about to discipline him. They’d found some letters or something.”

This was Mitchell Hartley who had avidly told Boyd about a heated argument between Father Olson and Canon Montgomery? What was he trying to do here? I asked, “Who was Olson having an affair with? Did your source know that? What did the woman look like? Not that it’s against the law to have lunch with someone. Even if she is a woman.”

He ignored my flippancy. “She had on a scarf and sunglasses. That’s all I remember. I tried to talk to Ted about it once.”

“And what did he say?”

“He acted like I’d hit him.”

“You weren’t trying to talk about what he was going to ask on the exams, were you? I mean, since he’d flunked you once already.”

Mitchell Hartley’s blue eyes darkened; he scraped one large, scuffed shoe across the gravel and pivoted to walk away. Over his shoulder he said harshly: “I thought Ted Olson was someone I could rely on. But it was revealed to me that he was not.”

10

I heaved the stolen books and files into my van. Boyd thought Schulz knew the whereabouts of something, something perhaps belonging to Father Olson, a something the killer needed. And now that model candidate for the priesthood, Mitchell Hartley, was making more accusations, this time about illicit affairs, some letters, and what God had spoken in his ear. I sat for a moment in my van and tried to think. What would Tom be asking? What would happen if you had a letter or some letters, say, or needed to know where something was? What good would having that something do? I had a sudden image of Tom being interrogated, and Boyd’ suspicions about something else going on. That’s why the killer is keeping him alive.

When I went back into the church, Zelda Preston and Lucille Boatwright were engaged in a spirited conversation that ended abruptly with my appearance. Before I could figure out a reason to ask them about the Hymnal House keys, Marla sashayed up to my side. In the parking lot, I hadn’t noticed that her hair had returned to its normal willful tumult, despite the fact that it was held here and there by barrettes covered with tiny flowers fashioned of green and pink silk. Outside of the pew, I now also had a chance to admire her fashionable floral-print chiffon dress, which clung in thin folds around her ample body. Tiny rows of appliquéd pink flowers adorned the neckline and hem. Marla always dressed according to the season. This was obviously the couture statement for spring.

“Well?” she demanded sotto voce. She pressed her fingers into my forearm. Her rings sparkled with pink diamonds and pale emeralds. “What did Boyd say? Have they found him? Did they figure out what that note meant?”

“No news. They did find the car that he was transported in.” I didn’t tell her the car belonged to the diocese. “Listen, Marla,” I said earnestly, “you didn’t tell anybody about that note Schulz left, did you? I don’t think Boyd would approve of anyone else knowing about it.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could speak, Bob Preston strutted over and assessed us. With difficulty, he wriggled his hands into his double-stitched denim pockets and rocked back on his cowboy-boot heels. It was clear that the church was one of Bob’s domains.

“I feel so bad about hanging up on you yesterday, Goldy! So to make it up to you, Agatha and I would like to take the town’s prettiest caterer out to brunch. After the ten o’clock service.”

“Gosh, Bob,” said Marla, “don’t mind me.”

He didn’t. I consulted my watch. Nine fifteen. I was becoming oddly popular. Bob Preston either didn’t know or wasn’t worried about the police coming back to Aspen Meadow to question him. Before I could respond, and just as Marla was saying a warning “Uh-oh,” under her breath, Zelda Preston and Lucille Boatwright approached us.

“How are you, Goldy?” asked Zelda. Her voice was filled with concern. “Poor dear. Did you get the casserole?” Unlike Lucille, Zelda did not dress in understated, expensive outfits. Her faded turquoise knit dress, with its sloping shoulders and hemline from a decade past, screamed thrift shop. A single strand of not-exactly-antique glass beads decorated her throat. Her face was a wrinkled mass of worry. “You haven’t mentioned it since you came to church.”

“I’m … hanging in,” I told her, “thanks. And thanks for that lovely orange afghan, too. So thoughtful of you, when the weather’s still so cold – “

Her concern turned to puzzlement. “Afghan? I use electric blankets. Goodness! But at least my lasagna arrived safely.” Her gaze drilled into the guitarists arriving for the second service. “I suppose I should be leaving.”

“Oh,” I begged hastily, “please stay. I really want to talk to you about … “ How to say, about whether you had the car and Hymnal House keys? About the guitar music petition you were battling over with our murdered priest? “About … lasagna. And the Halt the Hootenanny petition.”

Marla groaned.

Lucille Boatwright narrowed one flinty blue eye at me. Because I was divorced, because I was commonly engaged in food service, and probably just because I existed, Lucille did not like me. She would be suspicious of me if Mother Teresa were giving me a kiss. Now she bristled inside her dark gray double-breasted wool suit with its armory of tiny, ornate gold buttons. I thought she was probably still assessing where Schulz had run off to, abandoning me at the altar. Tahiti. Borneo. But instead she announced, “We had fifty signatures, but Father Olson wasn’t interested. So we took it to the bishop.”

Marla giggled. Incredulous, I choked. “You did what?” These two dutiful women in their sixties had bypassed their rector and taken their petition directly to the bishop? That kind of authority-flaunting behavior would have been unthinkable during old Father Pinckney’s time. “What happened?” I demanded.

“That’s what we don’t know,” Lucille replied defiantly, as if I were painfully dumb. “The bishop’s office says they formally replied to our request to halt guitar music. But of course we never heard from Olson on the matter. You know that man would have misplaced his tax return. He probably never even filed, and not that he’s dead, the IRS will come looking and the church will have to pay – “

“Ah, Lucille,” interjected Zelda sweetly, “you mustn’t get yourself upset talking about the music again. – “

Behind us, Bob Preston snorted.

“Well,” I said desperately, “why don’t you stay and we can talk more about it after the next service?” Then I remembered that I had agreed to join Bob and Agatha for brunch, because I wanted to milk them for information. “Zelda, I’d really love to hear you play the organ again – “

“Ha!” cried Zelda. Her nostrils flared. She looked like a poodle refusing to eat what had been set before her. She gestured significantly at the musicians testing their tambourines. “There’s no way I’m playing that blather they call music at the next service. I am a professional.”

Trying with a remarkable lack of success to suppress more laughter, Marla overdiligently smoothed down the pleats of the green-and-pink dress and announced, “I’ll talk to you about lasagna, Goldy. When it comes to pasta, I am a professional. I just don’t do cookies.”

I shot her an exasperated look and lightly touched Zelda’s arm. “Please … wait. Was it someone from the Altar Guild who left the afghan for me?”

Zelda stared at me, her miserly mouth drawn into pinched folds. “Oh, poor Goldy, how should I know?” She patted my hand and turned to Lucille. “People think I know everything about this parish, and I’m always the last to know anything. Come along now, Lucille, we must get you back home to rest.”

Lucille pointed her dimpled chin in my direction. “Do they know what happened to your fiancé?” she demanded brusquely. Recalling her suspicious interrogation of first Arch and then Boyd, I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

I said, “We’re all hoping for good news.”

“I see.” Lucille raised one pencil-thin white eyebrow. “Did they figure out that message he left? We’ve put it on the prayer chain, you know, that the police will be able to decipher it. We’re going to discuss it a prayer group tomorrow.”

I turned venomously toward Marla, who shrank back in mock horror. Her plump, bejeweled fingers sheltered her face. Bob Preston guffawed. “You might as well have put it in the Post.”

Trying to keep anger out of my voice, I asked Lucille what time the prayer group meeting was scheduled. This was one meeting I needed to attend, if for no other reason than to shut everyone up. But I hoped that I wouldn’t need to, that they would find Tom before then.

“Now, Goldy,” warned Lucille, “you know we take our praying seriously.”

“So do I. And, I was wondering, are we praying for anyone with the initials V.M.? Or does that stand for Virgin Mary or something? I mean, since you know what was in Tom’s note, have you studied it?”

“Virgin Mary? What in the world – “

“Initials, then. Praying for anyone named V.M.?”

Lucille huffed, “Except for Victor Mancuso, I don’t know. Perhaps it would be good if you did come, dear, you could remind us to ask.” She touched a row of silver curls, then seemed to have an inspiration. “Would you like to bring some lunch? Just for about eight people. You’re so good at that! And it’ll help you get your mind off your other troubles. Fish for Lent, of course. Do you have any?”

“Fish?”

“No? Well,” Lucille confided, “how about shrimp?”

I said, “Oh, sure,” in a sarcastic tone that was clearly lost on her before she breezed off with Zelda. Well, I’d certainly been busy. After the service I was going out for brunch with the Prestons; tomorrow, I was making lunch for the entire prayer group. Nothing like food to quell anxiety.

“Now don’t be mad at me,” Marla began defensively. She kept her voice low. Bob Preston had moved off but was nearby, button-holing a fellow Kiwanian. “You never said that note was a secret.”

“All right, all right,” I conceded. “Listen, I know how you can make it up to me.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“You’ll like this, I promise. It’s your kind of thing. I need to know more about whether Father Olson was having an affair. Please, it’s important.”

When Marla had finished registering astonishment and was muttering that she’d be delighted, I spotted Father Doug Ramsey out of the corner of my eye. Leaving Marla, I moved unobtrusively in the direction of our late rector’s assistant, the purported ecclesiastical intelligence agent.

“Need to chat, Father D.”

Unfortunately, I startled him; his first tentative sip o hot coffee splashed down the front of his white alb and stole.

“Oh, dear, I’m sorry,” I said.

His delicate, triangular face was more rueful than his voice. “Don’t worry about it,” he said uncertainly. “I can sponge it out.”

I said I was mixing together some muffins between the services, and could we sponge out the stains in the kitchen and chat? There were some things I was wondering about, things the police had said to me about him and the bishop.

Doug Ramsey did not immediately reply. His doleful brown eyes fearfully roamed the room. I followed his glance and saw Mitchell Hartley chatting reconcilably with Canon Montgomery while Bob Preston regaled some new-comers. Agatha gave her motherin-law Zelda a tentative hug as she departed, then stood uncomfortably next to her husband. She had taken off the dour black coat and wore a light orange outfit the color of a Creamsicle. I knew the Prestons’ orientation was of the charismatic sort, and that coming early for the second service meant Bob would have more of a chance to draft folks into Bob-projects. The narthex was nearly empty, and the service was not due to begin for thirty minutes. Still, Father Insensitive Ramsey seemed oddly nervous. Interesting.

Where do you want to talk?” he said under his breath.

“In the kitchen,” I whispered back. “No one will suspect. If we go outside, people will wonder what it is we’re being secretive about.”

“Oh, Lord, that’s not what I want,” he said with a gulp. He ran his fingers through his black ringlets.

I smiled at him. “If we go in the kitchen, people will think we’re doing dishes. They’ll avoid us like one of the plagues that struck Egypt.”

Without further ado, I strode purposefully into the church kitchen, which was empty. Doug Ramsey reluctantly followed. I silently offered a clean, wet sponge to him, and he dabbed at his alb.

Then I got out the eggs, evaporated milk, oil, and premeasured flour I’d brought and said, “First of all, I’m wondering who has access to the set of keys to Hymnal House and the Episcopal camps vehicle.”

He scowled. “That’s what the police want to know about the bishop? For heaven’s sake! They keep that set of keys down at the diocesan office in the winter. For special events, someone from the parish goes to get them. Why on earth do you need – ?“ He cast another anxious glance around. “Don’t you think I should be doing something out here? So it won’t look suspicious.”

“How are you at lining muffin tins?” I thrust a box of paper cupcake liners at him and gestured at the muffin pans.

“Uh – “

“Okay,” I continued briskly, “why do the police think you’re the bishop’s spy?”

“Ack!” His face turned bright pink. For once he wasn’t able to think of some long set of words to justify and amplify his response. “Well, I – “ he began finally as he opened the box and shook out a tower of pastel liners. He stopped and looked at them as if they were cockroaches. “You know I was hired by Father Olson – “

“Cut the crap, Doug. Why did the bishop recommend you for this post?”

He held a pale blue liner between the very ends of his index finger and thumb. After a moment’s hesitation, he dropped it in a cup, inspected it, did the same with a green one, then a pink. At this rate, the tins would be ready by sundown. He said, “How did you know the bishop recommended me?”

Did this pompous dork think people in this parish didn’t talk/ Rather than explain, I merely revved the electric mixer through the eggs, oil, milk, and sugar, and waited for an answer.

“You know, Goldy” – drop, drop – “er, some strange things have, or had, been going on in the congregation, and Father Olson,” – drop, drop – “Ted, was never one to be terribly communicative with the bishop’s office. I mean, he didn’t even go to deanery meetings, and then when diocesan convention rolled around – “

He stopped abruptly when Bob Preston vaulted into the kitchen. Preston, seeing we were engaged in domestic activities, beat a hasty retreat.

“Doug, why don’t you go a little faster?” I suggested lightly. “Why did the bishop need you to spy?” I said brusquely when Preston was safely out of earshot. “The service is going to start in twenty minutes! Do you want to tell me, or do you want tot tell the police and four newspapers? ‘Priest held for questioning over secret role in parish’ ought to look real good in the The Denver Post, not to mention The Rocky Mountain Episcopalian.” I angrily dumped the flour, baking powder and salt into the batter and began to beat furiously. “Time is a problem here for the man I’m supposed to marry. But, since I don’t’ have too much to do now that he’s been kidnapped, I’ll certainly have time to phone each of the newspapers personally.”

Doug Ramsey gave me a helpless expression, then began to drop paper cups in the pan again. “Goldy, don’t threaten me. You know I’m under the bishop’s discipline – “

I swirled in the vanilla and almond extracts, which turned the thick batter golden and fragrant, and then the poppy seeds, which gave it an inviting, speckled appearance. “Why does the bishop need a cleric to report back to him from St. Luke’s in Aspen Meadow? What was he afraid of?”

“That people were worshiping Olson, that’s what!”

“What?” I stopped the beater and gaped at him.

“You heard me.” He shook with frustration. The muffin tins dropped out of his hands onto the counter just as the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone through the windows. Doug’s alb turned brilliant white. His anger shimmered out in all directions.

“Worshiping him how?” I demanded.

Almond Poppy Seed Muffins

4 large eggs

2 cups sugar

1 ž cups (13-ounce) evaporated milk

ź cup milk

2 cups vegetable oil

4 cups flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

˝ cup poppy seeds

Preheat the oven to 325 . Line 30 muffin cups with paper liners. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, evaporated milk, milk, and vegetable oil. Sift together the baking powder, salt, and flour. Gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture, beating until well combined. Add the extracts and poppy seeds, stirring only until well combined. Using a 1/3-cup measure, pour the batter into the muffin cups. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Makes 30 muffins.

Doug glared at me. He said tersely, “Father Theodore Olson belonged to the Society of Chad, as do I, as do Wickham and Montgomery and twenty other clergy in this diocese.” He inhaled mightily. “You probably think the Society of Chad has something to do with African famine relief.”

Lucky for me I’d taken that course from Canon Montgomery. I picked up the bowl and began to ladle batter into the few muffin cups Ramsey had set out. “Seventh-century English bishop, traveled around his diocese on foot. Died of the plague. What about him? And would you preheat that oven to three-twenty-five for me?”

“We are dedicated to preserving the apostolic tradition, just as Chad was, “Father Doug replied huffily, twirling the oven dial. “And this year as our chosen study we have been looking at miraculous healings. AS they validate the sacraments, of course.”

“You’re losing me, Doug.” I took up his abandoned task and started to put the paper liners into the rest of the muffin cups.

“Well, it’s one thing to talk about Lourdes and Medugorge,” he said fiercely. “On the other hand, quite a bit closer to home, a Sunday School teacher suddenly says she doesn’t have any more back pain! Well, that could be because we replaced most of those antiquated chairs in the Sunday School rooms. That infant a month ago that was supposedly born blink? There are conflicting reports on whether his reflexes had even been tested when this healing allegation came up!”

“Lourdes and Medugorge,” I prompted him.

“Yes! Well. It’s quite another thing to get some wild report that Olson lays hands on a terminally ill St. Luke’s parishioner at Lutheran Hospital, and one hundred percent deadly mylocytic leukemia just disappears! I mean, please.”

“But nobody really knows what happened to Roger Bampton, isn’t that true? This doesn’t really sound like the Episcopal church, Doug.” I scraped the last of the batter into a paper liner and set the pans into the oven. I looked at my watch: 9:45. I’d have to sneak back during the service to take the muffins out when they were done.

Oh, tell me it doesn’t sound like the Episcopal church. As you may or may not know, Goldy, there is no ecclesiastical … mechanism within our communion to verify miracles. And no one actually saw the parishioner’s blood tests. Oh, those much-touted blood tests! As if I hadn’t heard enough about them … But soon after the Bampton incident, another Sunday School teacher claimed she was cured of lupus after Father Olson laid hands on her. Someone else said somebody’s shingles disappeared. The stories spread and out prayer list is suddenly the length of the phone book. The money isn’t just pouring in, it’s flooding in.” Not to mention, I added mentally, the number of terminally ill folks who will want to be Sunday School teachers. “And who’s containing this?” Doug fumed. “Who’s testing it against church doctrine and experience? It’s as if the Martians have landed! Come to Aspen Meadow and throw away your crutches for the entire Anglican communion to see! Talk about headlines! We’ve been expecting the National Enquirer here any minute! Now if Olson just would have come to one deanery meeting – “

“Who’s we? Who would have been threatened by this, b3esides the bishop? Someone like Mitchell Hartley?”

Doug Ramsey made a raisin face of disgust. “Mitchell Hartley is one of the ringleaders of this sort of thinking! There’s no foundation to it, I’m telling you! It’s all Jesus-is-my-buddy and the Holy-Spirit-is-my-voodoo. These people are ruining the church. Of course, we all thought Olson was grounded in the orthodox faith – “

“You keep saying ‘we.’ “

“Why, everyone in the hierarchy, of course. We’re talking about the apostolic tradition here, Goldy – “

“Doug! What about sexual misconduct?”

He shrank away from me and colored deeply “Excuse me?”

Several early arrivals for the second service, enticed by the delicious vanilla-mixed-with-almond aroma wafting out of the oven, poked their heads in to see what was cooking. Father Doug Ramsey and I bustled to start washing bowl and beaters. Disappointed, the curious churchgoers withdrew.

Over, the sound of hot water filling the sink, I murmured, “I heard a rumor that Olson was romantically involved with someone. Having an affair. How’s the Episcopal church’s mechanism for dealing with that?”

Doug squirted about five times as much liquid detergent into the sink as we would need. “Goldy, he could have been involved with ten women, I mean, the man could have had a harem the way they fell all over him. They used to wait outside the door of our Society of Chad meeting! We began calling Olson the magician. Women and miracles, what more could you ask for? Montgomery asked for his resignation from the society, but of course he didn’t get it. Then the bishop called me in and said, ‘Find out what Olson’s doing. He’s pulling in so much money, there must be something to it.’ Lord!” He flourished the dish detergent. “So here I am having to act the sycophant in Aspen Meadow, and praying that some of this chicanery will be exposed!”

“Doug, that’s enough soap.” He pulled back the container and looked dejected. I turned off the water. “I’m sorry, I know you’re terribly upset. Just tell me, what women were waiting outside the door of the committee meeting?’

He slapped the detergent down and pulled his alb around him as if it were a blanket. His eyes blazed. “I don’t remember. And you needn’t waste your pity on me. I will continue to carry on, as I always have. I will go in as an examiner day after tomorrow, with a level head, good organization, and the belief – no the knowledge that the orthodox faith prevails – “

“Doug, I meant it. I can tell how upset you are. Please, help me. I’m just trying to find Investigator Tom Schulz. What I don’t know is who resented Olson. Do you know who his worst enemies were?” Doug Ramsey released his alb and leaned in toward me. He hissed: “Olson’s worst enemy was himself.”

11

At the ten o’clock eucharist, the one favored by the charismatics and people who brought children (heartily loathed by the Old Guard, regardless of what Jesus had to say on the subject), Montgomery’s sermon was the same. This time, however, he ignored me as carefully as I did him. First he’d been friendly, then he’d yelled at me, and now he was indifferent. Grief could make people strange.

The second service was completely different from the first. If the 8:00 service was the liturgical equivalent of a golf game, the 10:00 was a soccer match. Perhaps it was the three women and one man enthusiastically strumming guitars, playing the drums, and banging tambourines near the altar. Or maybe it was the people themselves crowded into the pews, their hands raised in the air as they energetically sang the hymns. In addition to advocating a personal relationship with the Lord, the charismatics put great emphasis on praise through song. Hearty song. And of course, the wildness could have been at least partly attributed to the great multitude of children, all either chattering, sobbing, dropping books, or scrambling over the wooden pews. By the time we got to the intercessory prayers, I was ready for someone to blow a whistle. Instead, Bob Preston got up with a prayer book and a pad of yellow paper. His few strands of hair glimmered in the light from the electric candelabra. The deep hollows of his cheeks made him look uncannily like Zelda. It was the first time I had noticed a resemblance between mother and son.

I’m sure everyone knows by now that Father Olson was tragically killed yesterday.” Bob Preston paused to be certain everyone had heard him. His eyes swept the room. In the sudden hush, the only noise was the clicking silver ends of his bolo tie. “We put the news out on all the phone trees …” He tilted his head to one side and raise his voice. “The funeral will be Tuesday morning at ten.” At the first service, this announcement had been accompanied by tiny, discreet sniffs. Now sniffles developed into a wave of lamentation that quickly rose to a crescendo. People clutched each other as they wept; they patted each others’ backs and offered tissues. Father Olson had been, after all, one of them.

“We believe he did not die in vain.” Bob Preston’s voice soared over the sobs. “WE believe that he did not die in vain!”

“Amen! Yes, Lord!” accompanied this announcement.

Father Doug Ramsey opened his eyes wide and tilted his head to catch Canon Montgomery’s attention for an (-told-you-so glance. I wondered if Canon Montgomery thought all this was better or worse than people snickering at his poetry. I perused the congregation for Mitchell Hartley. He sat in the pew across the nave from me, his red pompadour bobbing as he appeared to agree with Bob Preston.

“Now you know,” Preston bellowed, “Father Olson would have wanted us to continue with the prayer list. We need to pray for Victor Mancuso. Father Olson laid hands on him in the hospital, and we’re waiting for the tests to come back. We need to keep praying for Roger Bampton, who continues to show no sign of illness!”

In the midst of the tears, the congregation burst out clapping. Montgomery closed his mouth and twitched. Doug Ramsey put his face in his hands. I didn’t dare look at Mitchell Hartley again. Bob Preston went through the rest of the names on the list, pausing to make comments on the progress, or lack of progress, of each person. I began to squirm when we got to the part of the list entitled “for those in troubled relationships.” My fears were confirmed when we heard of Hal and Marie, that Marie was still drinking and we needed to pray for strength for Hal. But the worst was yet to come.

Bob Preston held up his right index finger. It boasted a silver ring with a hunk of turquoise the size of a small boulder. At first I thought he was going to make an announcement about the jewelry raffle, but when he stabbed the air in my direction, my heart sank. “We need to pray for somebody who doesn’t usually come to this service. WE need to pray for Goldy back there,” he bellowed ruefully.

All eyes turned to me. I thought I was going to throw up.

“ … As you’ve probably heard, Father Olson died before Goldy’s wedding. Goldy’s fiancé,” Bob consulted the yellow pad importantly, “Homicide Investigator Tom Schulz, found poor Ted Olson in his final moments on earth. But then something happened to Investigator Schulz; no one knows what. The police think maybe he was abducted. But he left a note before he was taken.” He stopped to take a deep breath. “So Jesus,” he intoned, clamping his eyes tight, as if he were about to blow out candles on a birthday cake, “we just want to ask for strength for poor Goldy and that the Sheriff’s Department will be able to find the notorious criminal who did this!”

“AMEN!”

My throat closed. My skin had turned clammy. I have to get out of here. When Montgomery finally began the opening lines of the General Confession, I nipped into the kitchen, removed the muffins from the oven, and placed them on the counter to cool, then trotted out to my car. I remembered from Montgomery’s course that the confession was generally omitted at the Palm Sunday liturgy, at the discretion of the celebrant – in this case, Montgomery himself. But the canon clearly felt that the folks at the later service needed a dose of communal penitence. I, on the other hand, didn’t want to confess anything. I didn’t look back.

Ten minutes later I sat facing an enormous insulated pot of bad coffee at Carl’s Stagecoach Stop, a restaurant on Aspen Meadow’s Main Street. The Stagecoach Stop had been pure cowboy until Carl, a restaurateur from Zurich, had bought the place a year ago and attempted to make it Swiss.

“Business is gonna fall off,” Tom had announced when we’d celebrated our engagement by coming here for breakfast. “Carl needs to put back what everybody likes. Müsli with Fruit won’t hack it without Stagecoach Steak and Eggs.”

Of course, he had been right. When Tom and I had visited again two months ago, the menu had been revamped, and the waitresses’ uniforms had been transformed into something along the lines of Dale Evans-meets-Heidi. “Listen to that,” Tom said, point to one of the speakers. It was not the usual piped-in German folk music. But Carl hadn’t reverted to pure country music, either. Tom had raised his bushy eyebrows and commented, “Waylon Jennings plays the polka.”

“Be all right,” I urged the image of Tom Schulz in my mind. It would be at least half an hour before either of the Prestons showed up for our brunch. To protect myself from people who might want to disrupt my solitude, I piled Father Olson’s Bible as well as the tome on feasts in front of me. With a not-quite-steady hand I poured myself some of the coffee – better than Carl’s cappuccino, which tasted like milky motor oil – opened the Bible to look for Judas.

I perused through similar stories of the betrayal in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The common thread was that Judas offered to betray Jesus to the high priests for a sum, that at the Last Supper Jesus knew what was coming and confronted Judas, who left. Later, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas arrived with an armed crowd. By kissing Jesus, Judas betrayed him to the soldiers. Things didn’t turn out too well for Judas when he was paid his thirty pieces of silver. According to the story, after the Crucifixion he hanged himself.

I reread the stories. What could Olson possibly have meant when he gasped B. – Read – Judas as he was dying? Had Tom been able to figure out what Olson meant by that command? Who was B.? Read what about Judas?

I put the Bible aside and picked up the book on feasts to look up Chad. Not the country in Africa, not half of the singing group Chad and Jeremy. There was a muddied photograph of Litchfield, England, where Chad had been buried in A.D. 672. Trained in the Celtic Christian tradition, Bishop Chad had been humble and devout. I noted the trademark of the Society of Chad, two entwined snakes that certainly looked Celtic, like something you might find in the Lindisfarne Gospels. I did not see how a society named after Chad could have as its nemesis these people who are ruining the church. But the thought of conversing with Doug Ramsey again about these people did not fill me with enthusiasm.

“Excuse me? Goldy?”

I looked up to see a gaunt-faced Agatha Preston hovering above me. Her apricot-colored sweater, skirt, and headband made her skin look jaundiced. Over a wide lace collar that was absurdly girlish, her only adornment was a long, expensive-looking double strand of jade beads. Her streaked hair was woven into two tight braids.

“Yes, Agatha. Hello.”

“Hello. Well. First of all, I want to apologize for that phone call yesterday.” She looked around at the assortment of bikers, churchgoers, and yuppies-in-corduroys and added, “I was quite upset, and I just sort of fell apart.” Her delicate fingers fumbled with her jade beads. “Bob couldn’t come, or rather, he might arrive in a little bit, he had to stay at church to talk to the police … Hymnal House.” She glanced down at the book in my hands. “I’m sorry. Were you studying?” Without waiting for my reply she looked around for a waitress. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

She was making me nervous. “Sit down, Agatha.”

“Oh, sure.” She pulled out her Swiss-style wooden chair with its heart-shaped back. A waitress wearing a ruffled blouse, skirt edged in fake leather fringe, and cowgirl boots thumped up.

“I’m ready,” I said crisply. Ever partial to European fare, I ordered Müsli with yogurt and blueberries while Agatha stammered, changed her mind twice, and finally settled uneasily for a cheese omelet. The waitress slapped her order book closed and hightailed away.

“Start with the phone call yesterday,” I commanded with a smile and swig of coffee.

Her blue eyes turned huge. “Well, it all really starts before that.” She hesitated. “You see, you work, or I guess I should say, you work outside the home, so your relationship with the church is different.” Color flooded her sallow face.

“My relationship with whom in the church is different? Different from whose relationship?”

“Your relationship with the other women. From the other women. They just … don’t expect the same things of you. You get respect. I mean, I always wanted to do volunteer work, especially since I thought it would help Zelda… you know …have support. She’s gone through so much.”

“And did it?”

Her laugh was dry and brittle, a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding laugh. “I’m like their little pet. Hers and Lucille’s.” She raised her voice. “C’mere, Agatha! Answer the phone sixteen times a day! Go fetch! Stuff these envelopes! Mail out these raffle invitations! And whatever you do, don’t have any fun! You’re doing this for the church!” She regarded me intensely. “People talk about heaven all the time, but you know what’s weird? I think a lot about hell. And who I’d like to have there.” She smiled conspiratorially. “Do you ever think about that?”

“Let’s see.” I sipped coffee and tried to think. “I saw the IMAX film on Antarctica. I thought that would be a great place for my ex-husband to spend eternity.”

“Oh.” She giggled and twirled a streaked braid with her index finger.

“How about your husband? Does Bob have fun in the church? Or is he one of the hell-folks?”

Agatha thrust her head back and giggled even louder, as if now I was being really naughty. “Oh, bob, well, you know. He loves to run things, and he has the time to do it now. In the spring and summer he does construction projects like Habitat for Humanity, in the fall he goes out with Sportsmen Against Hunger, and they just have a blast shooting off their Remingtons at all those poor, innocent elk – “

“Did Father Olson get respect?”

Color again climbed her neck above the ch9ildish lace collar. I felt as if I’d said “Underpants!” to a conservative seventh grader. “Ah,” she said, “I wouldn’t know. I guess I’d have to say no.”

“So … how did you know about this lack of respect for him.? Through your volunteer work?”

“Well, yes. Zelda and Lucille informed me it was my turn to be head of the Episcopal Church Women.” She was frowning at something over my shoulder. “Father Olson was also… .counseling me. You know,” she added, suddenly earnest, “he could have gone to any parish/ Everyone loved him. Well, almost everyone … “

“Did you love him?” I asked impulsively.

She blushed again and twirled the braid so tightly I thought she was going to pull it out. “I didn’t think that I did, I mean, I just admired him, but then I heard this thing on Stories of the Weird about how people can be soul mates, you know? That’s why I wondered if you’d seen him, you know, his body? Was there much … blood? Did he suffer?” Her eyes probed my face.

Oh, Lord. I said, “When you called, I didn’t know if you meant Olson.” I immediately felt somewhat light-headed, probably a side effect of dealing with an underappreciated woman who claimed to be worried about me, yet who put great stock in Stories of the Weird. “I don’t think he suffered too much,” I improvised. “Who didn’t love Father Olson?”

Agatha wrinkled her nose and absentmindedly fingered the milky green beads. “Oh, you now, some people thought he was just showing off with a fancy car, trying to act rich, but he wasn’t, he just needed to get around! Ted didn’t believe in having a lot of money. Ted just believed in love, you know, don’t you?”

Instead of answering, I poured us both more coffee. She frowned at it.

“Gosh, I guess I should have ordered tea. I always drink tea, but it just hasn’t seemed cold enough lately, but it’s not quite warm enough for iced tea – “

“Agatha!”

The vacant eyes were suddenly startled “What?” She pulled her row of tiny bottom teeth in front of her top teeth and wrinkled her forehead.

“Where was your husband yesterday?”

“Yesterday? You mean Saturday?”

“yes. Where was Bob all day?”

“Gosh. Um. You mean, like in the transcendental sense?’

“I mean, like was he at the hardware store, was he at the barber, what?”

Agatha’s youthful face remained puzzled. But as the overhead speakers began another set of cheerful Alpine square dancing music, her features brightened. “With Aspen Meadow Kiwanis. Yes, you know. They’re building a house, for Habitat for Humanity, off Main Street on that empty lot where the house burned down last year, remember? And the guy who owned it was in Saudi Arabia or something, so he sold it to the Kiwanis for next to nothing. The lot, I mean, anyway – “

“And Bob was there all day.”

“Well, most of the day, I guess. He came home terribly exhausted and I was just so upset about Father Olson, and on the phone with you … .Why?”

“Agatha, was Bob,” I leaned toward her, “jealous of your relationship with Father Olson?”

“Only when I didn’t clean the house on the days we did our counseling work – “ She stopped abruptly, looking stricken.

“Did you ever work with P.R.A.Y.?”

“Pray? About what?”

The waitress arrived with our food. The Müsli with yogurt and blueberries spilled out over a wide porcelain bowl. I took a mouthful. Creamy yogurt coated the sweet, juicy blueberries and luscious crunch of Zurich-style granola. I was suddenly ravenous. It felt as if years had gone by since I had eaten anything. Melted cheese cascaded down the side of Agatha’s steaming omelet. She made mm-mm noises as she dug in.

“Agatha,” I ventured after a moment, “do you have any idea who might have wanted to hurt Father Olson? Someone who could have killed him? Anybody who might have been a traitor?”

“Who, me/ Have an idea? No.” She chewed an enormous mouthful of omelet thoughtfully. “No, really. But listen, I’ve been so worried about you with what happened to your fiancé and all – “

“What do you know about Victor Mancuso?”

“Vic – ? Oh. Nothing.” Her face brightened again. “Didn’t they make an announcement about him? I do know about Roger Bampton. He had leukemia, and then he got better after Ted … Father Olson laid hands on him. Do you really think miracles happen? Or do you believe that it’s just all in our minds? On Stories of the Weird – “

“I’d guess I’ have to talk to Roger. Talk to his doctor or something.”

“Well, I saw Roger. When he was sick.” She put down her fork and made a face. ‘He looked awful. His skin was the color of deer feces, you know, when it’s been there for a while – “

“Agatha, I’m trying to eat Müsli here.”

“Oh, sorry. Well anyway, I’m not one of those people demanding to see the blood tests, before and after.”

“Who’s demanding that?’

“Oh, Goldy, I don’t know.”

I wondered in anyone had ever tried to give this woman a lie-detector test. Would she pass or fail? Or would she just not understand the questions/ I said, “Was Ted Olson his own worst enemy?”

She put down her fork and sighed. “People wanted stuff from Ted all the time, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, nobody respected him. I mean as a person. Everyone wanted a little bit of him, as if he were some kind of stuffed animal or something. No one would notice a little bit of stuffing missing, do you know what I mean?”

“I guess I don’t.”

She doused her coffee with creamer and wigged her mouth disapprovingly. “They wanted him to take care of them. They wanted him to pray for them. They wanted to talk to him about issues in the parish, and mostly what they wanted was for him to get so-and-so to stop doing something. Or get someone to start doing something.”

“Was there anybody who wanted him to do something, and he didn’t do it?”

“Come on.” She took a small sip of coffee, approved of it, and sipped more. “He couldn’t do everything. He was supposed to have Mondays off, you know.”

“And did he?”

“Oh, no. People would call, call, call all day. One day he just didn’t answer the phone. You know, when there was that big problem over the music. Zelda wanted to find out if he’d heard from the bishop, and when he didn’t answer the phone, she drove all the way out there and stalked right up to the door and banged on it.”

“And did he answer?”

“Of course he didn’t! But then she came around back!” Agatha was indignant. “Peering through his windows and trying to see what was going on1 So she opened the back door and she shrieked, ‘I knew you were home! Your car is right there in the driveway!’ like she’d just won a game or something. That woman is impossible. I don’t care if she is my motherin-law.”

I spooned up some more Müsli and tired to think of how to phrase the next question.

“Did Ted tell you all this, Agatha?”

“Well,” she said with another sip of coffee, “I was in counseling with him at the time.”

“He was your counselor that day at his house?”

She looked up. A shadow crossed her face. “Oh, Bob honey, we didn’t see you come in.”

12

Bob Preston peered down at our plates, then glanced around the restaurant. He sat tentatively, frowning at the Western-style light fixture hanging down over our table.

This is awfully bright,” he announced. “Makes it hard to see.” He proceeded to start unscrewing the bulb. Unfortunately, it was too hot. Bob yelped, dipped his fingers into his wife’s ice water, carefully wiped them on the clean napkin of the place setting in front of him, and unscrewed the bulb a few more revolutions before dipping, drying, and unscrewing again. Finally he had the bulb out. He reached across and with extreme delicacy placed it on the empty seat at our table for four.

Agatha tilted her head to focus on this little drama. “Poor bob,” she murmured sympathetically once the lightbulb was dispensed with. “Can’t stand bright light.”

“Ahhh,” said Bob Preston when Heidi/Dale rushed up. But before she started to take his order, she sent a confused look at our light fixture. “Don’t worry about it,” Bob assured her with a wave of pinkened fingers. “All we need you to do now turn off that damn noise.”

“What?”

“Turn off the polka!” he bellowed. Several bikers turned unshaven faces in Bob’s direction, but he glared back. “Look, I need hash browns on one plate, two poached eggs on another, and sliced fruit – no honeydew melon on that, okay? – on a third. Got it, honey?” The waitress finished scribbling, nodded once, and took off.

“Bob,” I began conversationally, “we were just beginning to miss you. Everything okay at church?”

He grunted. “I guess. If you don’t mind listening to Montgomery. I swear, that man is boring. And after what our congregation has been through, you’d think the diocese could send us someone who could preach. What do we get? A froggy-looking guy who shouts bad poems at parishioners. And then that obnoxious seminarian, what is his name, Hartley? Kid drives me nuts. He sees me getting into my car, an Audi that I earned the bucks to buy, thank you very much, and he starts preaching at me about the evils of money.”

Agatha had undergone an astonishing personality change since her husband’s arrival. Instead of being spaced-out, she was now demure. She smiled vapidly.

I asked, “What do you think’s going to happen to the parish?”

Bob Preston puffed up. “If the Lord wants us to – “

I said, “Stop right there, Bob.” Agatha regarded me in horrified silence; her husband merely shrugged. I went on gently, “For the sake of argument, let’s assume the presence of the Lord, okay? What do you think the people are going to do?”

He shook his head and pulled in his chin, assuming the dismayed expression of an oilman who’d drilled a dry hole. “I don’t know if you can assume God’s presence, Goldy. That’s what they did during Pinckney’s time, and the place was as dead as smashed and bloodied roadkill, I’m telling you.”

I pushed the plate of unfinished Müsli away. “And you thought the place came to life under Father Theodore Olson?”

The waitress arrived with Bob’s order. She looked at me quizzically, then hesitated, I thought, because of the lack of light and the unwillingness to risk Bob’s rude tongue again. Then she said, “You’re the caterer. Goldy. I heard what happened. Sorry.”

I murmured a thanks. Bob Preston took a bite from one plate and brayed: “These potatoes are cold.” The waitress rolled her eyes at me – demanding clients! – and whisked away the offending hash browns.

“Yes,” said Bob, picking up where we left off, “the place came to life under Olson. Didn’t you find him more centered on the Lord than Pinckney and that old-church crowd?”

“I thought Father Olson was very nice.” I kept my gaze on Agatha. “He was very … attractive to parishioners.” She looked away. I went on, “I didn’t have the same approach to the faith as Olson, but he was a great counselor for Schulz and me. Arch had him for confirmation class and thought he was marvelous. I just wish the police could figure out why – “

“Well, that’s their job, isn’t it?” Bob interjected brusquely. He craned his neck around, probably seeking the unfortunate waitress. “What did Schulz say in that note?”

My skin prickled. I exhaled and shrugged noncommittally. “Haven’t the foggiest. It was policeman shorthand. Olson was alive, Olson was dead. What did the police have to say to you?”

With his right hand, Bob made a lasso-type movement in the air. He grimaced. “They said they found a diocesan vehicle. They wanted to know who had access to the keys, who had access to the car, who had access to Hymnal House – “

Our waitress returned with Bob Preston’s new hash browns. I pressed my lips together. Who had access to Hymnal House and Brio barn? I thought of the old conference center, where I had taken my Sunday School teachers’ course and where I had catered many times. The conference center boasted many rooms, now closed off. It also contained numerous sequestered storage areas. Hmm.

“Bob and Agatha,” I announced as I got to my feet, “thank you for a lovely brunch. I need to be getting home to stay by the phones and take care of Arch. Let’s get together again soon,” I added insincerely.

Bob Preston reared back slightly. His brow furrowed. Then, not one to let piping hot hash browns go to waste, he dismissed me with a small wave.

“I’ll take Goldy to the door,” Agatha said hastily. With his mouth full, Bob shrugged. Agatha rose suddenly and sent her Swiss-style chair reeling. This brought more interested looks from the bikers. They loved brawls, even at brunch. To discourage such an eruption, Agatha and I walked decorously to the entrance of the restaurant.

“Please tell me,” she began in a low, imploring tone. “I have been so worried about you, and about Schulz, but did Ted – Father Olson – say anything to Schulz about … anything from me?”

“Anything from you? Like letters? Talk fast, he’s looking at you.”

She glanced nervously in her husband’s direction and waved her fingers halfheartedly. “I was in counseling with Ted because I thought Bob was getting ready to leave me,” she blurted out in the same confessional whisper. “Money disappeared out of our checking account and I didn’t know where it went. I thought Bob was hiding it somewhere, getting ready to file for divorce. After the first few months, I just couldn’t bear to see Ted only once a week. I had so much on my mind. So I wrote to him … about all that I was going through and feeling …every day. And I cashed in a whole-life policy that my father had given me, and stashed the money. Father … Ted was the only one who knew about my financial arrangements. I was so happy to have somebody to write to about how I was going to use my money. Now I’m just so afraid that Ted could have left those letters somewhere that Bob could get hold of them… and use them against me.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Were you in love with Ted?”

“What difference does it make?” she hissed. She dashed at her eyes shook her braids, and sniffed. “Did he say something about the letters or not?” We both looked at Bob, who was pointing to his poached-egg plate and once again giving the waitress elaborate instructions.

“Agatha just tell me,” I urged, “about Ted. And if your husband knew.”

She stepped to one side of a cuckoo clock and Swiss flag display. Her face was ashen. “Why? Why do you want to know? Ted is gone.”

“Because it’ll help me,” I said desperately, “in case the man I’m supposed to marry is still alive. Can’t you just tell me what was going on, and if your husband was jealous?”

“Ted loved me,” she protested. “I’m sure of it. I know he would have waited for me.”

“Waited for you for what?”

“Waited until I could get some more money together and dump Bob.”

“Agatha, did you tell the police this?”

Her face crumpled. “Of course not! I’m the married head of the Episcopal Church Women. Our rector was single. What am I supposed to say: ‘I was in love with our priest, and I’ve been squirreling away cash for the last five years? Please don’t tell my husband?’ “

“Where is the money?”

“I’m not going to tell you. It’s no one’s business but mine.” Fury bubbled through her voice.

“You were at Olson’s house when your motherin-law, Zelda, came out that day about the music, weren’t you?”

She choked and smoothed the skirt of her apricot suit. “Help me,” she pleaded. “Help me find my letters, and I’ll tell you.”

Her plight touched me. “I’ll do what I can.”

She whispered, “When Zelda came out, I was hiding in the bathroom.” Abruptly, she turned and scampered back to the table where her husband sat abusing the waitress.

I zipped the van two blocks down Main Street, turned left at my street, and gunned the engine up the hill. I whizzed past the lot where the skeleton of the Habitat for Humanity house stood abandoned for the weekend. I was sorely tempted to drive the extra five minutes it would take to go directly to the Aspen Meadow Conference Center, but I decided I needed some tools, just in case. As soon as I was in the house I called for Arch, who came bounding down the staircase.

“Gosh, Mom, what took you so long?” He was still wearing the sweatsuit he’d put on yesterday after my wedding-that-wasn’t. He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked behind me in the direction of the front door. No Tom Schulz. “What’s going on? Was that Investigator Boyd at the door this morning? I saw the police car out my window, but figured you would have told me if they’d found him.” His young face was tight with anxiety. “I thought for sure they’d have figured out some clues by now.”

I gave him a hug. “They did find something, Arch. What they found was the car they think took Tom away from Father Olson’s house.”

“But they didn’t’ – “

“No. Not yet. Where’s Julian? Did you eat breakfast?”

“He’s at the grocery store. He says someone actually did send over tuna noodle casserole, so he’s out buying ingredients for a Mexican pizza he’s going to make tonight. And yes, I had one of the cinnamon rolls you left.”

“Great. Listen hon, I’m going over to the conference center – “

“But … what if Investigator Boyd calls?” His sherry-colored eyes were large with worry behind his glasses. “Why are you going over there? Are you just going to leave me here to take messages? Why are you going to the conference center?”

Kids. From as early as I could remember, Arch had been inquisitive. Not just on philosophical questions such as, What happens after you die? Arch wanted answers to everything. What do they do with your tonsils after they take them out? Why do you have to sell the cookies you make? At Todd’s house they get to keep the oatmeal cookies his mother makes. And, most troublesome of all, Why does God let people suffer? Of course I had figured being a good mom meant you had to explain everything, or try to. They throw the tonsils away. We have to sell cookies to live. God is with us in our pain.

“I’m going to check on the broken window,” I lied.

“You hate broken glass. You won’t let me touch it.”

“I’m just going because I’m going, that’s why!”

He squinched up his face into an accusatory expression and pointed a finger at me. “It has something to do with the church, doesn’t it? And Father Olson. You’re going to that old conference place because …” He stopped talking to appraise me. “Because you think somebody’s hiding Schulz over there. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re going to try to find him all by yourself. I’m going with you.”

“The heck you are, buster.”

“If you don’t take me with you, I’ll ride over there on my bike. Then maybe the killer can get you and me together.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, then, let me call the police.”

I put in a call to Boyd and identified myself to the person who answered. I asked that the Sheriff’s Department send a car over to the Aspen Meadow Conference Center, that I had a good idea Tom Schulz might be there.

“They were already there,” the policeman said. “But if you have another idea about Schulz, they’ll go back. Twenty-five minutes, tops,” he said and then hung up.

“Okay, Arch, the police are on their way.”

He gave me a baleful look. “I miss Tom, too, you know.”

“All right, all right, we’ll go over and meet the police there. But I have to go find some tools and my Mace, just in case … “ I didn’t finish the thought. “Get your coat, hon. It’s cold.”

He raced up the stairs and announced sonorously over his shoulder, “Mom – we’re going to need at least two flashlights.”

13

Within minutes my van was whining up Meadow Drive toward Hymnal House. The air was unusually chilly for an early Colorado afternoon in April, and a bleak sky threatened snow. No law-enforcement types had arrived by the time the van crunched over the gravel of the long conference driveway. Silently I castigated myself for agreeing to bring Arch into a potentially dangerous situation. I wavered about going back. I saw a jogger in my rearview mirror, backed up, and rolled down my window. Yes, the police had been here, he informed me, panting. It was a while ago, maybe half an hour. I would not go into any of the building until they got back, I vowed. I would not put Arch in danger.

I pulled the van up to the split-rail fence by Brio Barn. We jumped out onto ice-slickened grass at the edge of the cliff overlooking Main Street, Cottonwood Creek, and St. Luke’s. Across the creek, the church lot held two cars. But it was empty of people. No signs of activity animated the conference center, either. The two ninety-year-old conference buildings were distinguished by dark cedar shake shingle siding. Stone entryways, red roofs, and an air of benign neglect. Red paint curled off the window frames and dead pine needles lay in a haphazard pattern across the window-sills. The place looked like a Victorian summer camp shuttered for the off-season.

Up the hill from us, next to Hymnal House, stood the old garage. It was a one-story edifice originally built to accommodate three horse-drawn carriages. Now its doors yawned widely. Arch and I walked up slowly. The notion of To being hidden somewhere in the center was an idea I found alternately brilliant and inane. I glanced around the empty conference garage with its ancient hedge clippers and rusted engines, its workbench cluttered with tools and leaning towers of snow tires. Had Tom been in here? The dusty surfaces revealed no signs of human presence.

“When do you think the Sheriff’s Department will get here?” Arch asked impatiently when we returned to the van and I slid open its side door.

“Any minute,” I assured him with more confidence than I felt.

“Forgot to tell you,” Arch said as he snapped the buttons on the flashlights to test the batteries. “A guy named Canon Montgomery called. Wanted to apologize for his little outburst, he said. Wants to get together with you before the exams. What outburst? What exams?”

So Canon Montgomery had called. If he truly was feeling contrite, maybe I could play off his guilt to get him to discuss the women waiting for Ted Olson outside the Society of Chad meeting. “You know,” I replied, “the exams for the candidates for the priesthood. They start Tuesday night … “

But Arch wasn’t listening. “What’s all this?” he asked. He shone his flashlights in the corner of the van that held the two thick files and books I had pilfered from Olson’s office.

“Oh, that’s just – “ Startled by the approaching whine of a car engine, I stopped talking. For a moment, we were transfixed by the sight of the small foreign automobile barreling down the conference drive.

“Mom,” said Arch, “that looks an awful lot like – “

“Don’t tell me. Quickly, hustle up to Hymnal House. We need to hide.”

I slammed the van’s sliding door. And then we ran. But the steps were snowy, and Arch was unsure of which way to go. We were not fast enough to elude Frances Markasian. The Mountain Journal’s investigative reporter lunged out of her Fiat, hoisted up her voluminous bag, and bounded up the stone steps to Hymnal House in hot pursuit. Gasping for breath, she caught up with us on the old stone patio by the double-door entrance. We stood panting just feet from the window that hung, snaggle-toothed and cardboard-covered on the inside, after Julian’s breakage and Mitchell’s repair.

Holding my side, I noted that the shoes enabling Frances to sprint up the steps were sneakers held together with duct tape. Above these hung her oversized black trench coat that was either a journalistic affectation or the only piece of outerwear available at the same garage sale where she’d unearthed the sneakers. The recession had obviously left its mark on Aspen Meadow. She dropped the big handbag on the flagstones and sent her dark stringy hair shaking wildly as she pounded her chest and coughed hard.

“Gee, Goldy, where’re you going so fast? You’re going to give me a heart attack.” As if to remedy this situation, Frances leaned against a pile of metal deck chairs and on the stone patio, leaned down to retrieve the bag, and groped inside. After a moment’s search, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and book of matches. She shook out a smoke and looked us over. “Whatcha doin’ with the flashlights? Looking for something?”

“We’re going in to find some pans of mine,” I said laconically. “I know by order of the Aspen Meadow Fire Department that there’s no smoking within ten feet of any of the conference buildings.”

“That’s too bad,” said Frances. She lit the cigarette and inhaled greedily. With the other hand holding the cigarette, she pulled a curtain of her hair off her face so she cold see what she was doing. With the other hand, she brushed snow off one of the deck chairs, a rusted green contraption that looked as if it had been salvaged from the Titanic. Blowing the smoke out in a thin stream, she dragged the chair over to the short stone wall that edged the deck. Fifty feet below, cars passed along Main Street. Without giving the view even a cursory glance, she plopped on the wet chair and put her feet up on the wall. “If I don’t sit close to the building for a smoke, then I won’t be able to tell you what I’ve learned about your parish.”

Arch raised one thin straw-brown eyebrow above the frame of his glasses. I cursed inwardly. But the flesh is weak. I brushed snow and ice off two more chairs.

“Is this something Arch can hear?” I demanded as I scraped our chairs across the flagstones to the wall.

“You don’t need to protect me, Mom,” my son said grittily. “I am a week away from being thirteen, in case you forgot.”

Frances waved this off and carefully balanced her cigarette on the edge of the stone wall before again reaching down into her bag. She brought out a Jolt cola, shook it lightly, then popped the top and sucked fizz.

Arch watched in open-mouthed awe. He said, “That is so Cool!”

Frances retrieved the smoke and smiled beatifically. “What, the drink or the cigarette?”

“The pop! I’m not allowed to have that stuff. Triple the caffeine of regular cola? Are you kidding? Man! You must be cruisin’!”

“Uh, excuse me?” I interjected mildly. “What happened to your Diet Pepsi and Vivarin?”

“That’s only for morning.” She set the can on the stone wall and sucked on the cigarette as if it were an oxygen machine. “This is for afternoon. Listen. Bob Preston is b-r-o-k-e.”

“No kidding?” I looked off the deck at the tops of pine trees that grew along the steep slope. An evenly spaced line of antique cars passed sedately on the road below. The Model-T Club of Denver often brought their point-to-point rallies through our little burg. It was better than the motorcycles. Beyond the chugging cars, the A-shaped roof of St. Luke’s resembled an enormous tent top.

“Flat broke,” added Frances. “Busted. And in hock up to his sanctimonious ears.”

“I thought he had oil well royalties or something.”

She chugged more Jolt and made a satisfied lip-smacking noise. “That’s why I’m the reporter and you’re the caterer.”

“Cut the chorizo, Frances. What are you saying? And who’d you get this financial information from?”

I tried to stare her down. Unfortunately, her eyes were mostly concealed by that dark stringy hair that looked as if it’d just been released from dreadlocks. “Bob’s well,” Frances intoned with a swipe at the hair, “is dry. Literally and figuratively. But then there are forty thousand dollars worth of pearls floating around somewhere.” She rubbed the cigarette between her fingers and smirked. “Forty thousand clams – or is it oysters? – might not be enough to kill for, but it would give somebody a nice little stake. Now about Agatha and your priest, Olson – “ Frances studied my face avidly. Since I didn’t have any dreadlocks to hide behind, I kept my expression resolutely blank. She went on “ – I heard she wanted him a whole lot more than he wanted her.”

“Really? Who told you that? Please, Frances, I need to get into the conference center to look for my stuff. The police were here, and they’ll be back soon.”

“What’s the hurry?” She glanced over her shoulder at the broken window. “What’d you leave over here, pans? They’re probably stolen by now, if anybody would think to look up here.”

If anybody would think to look up here. This woman was driving me crazy. I shrugged. If I let her know I was waiting for the police so we could look for Tom Schulz, I’d never get rid of her.

Frances chugged more Jolt. “How are you feeling about the kidnapping of your fiancé?”

“One more personal question and I’m driving home.”

“Okay, try this. Think your bishop would have put up with a priest having an affair?”

My parish, my priest, my bishop. Pretty soon she’d have me owning the Anglican church worldwide. “No, Frances, of course I don’t.” All across the country, female parishioners had been suing dioceses, claiming psychological damage when their priests were their lovers. All it took was a few million dollars lost when the women won their suits for the church to take notice.

I said, “You think we’re looking at a lawsuit? Or that we were?”

She blew smoke rings to Arch’s rapt admiration. “I think we might have been looking at blackmail.” Arch raised his eyebrows dramatically.

“Blackmail from whom?” I demanded “From Agatha Preston? And where would Olson figure in that?”

“Say the priest is having a little illicit tickle between the sheets, or he’s scared people will think he is.” Arch’s brow wrinkled, and I could imagine his mind working: Who is getting tickled? Frances continued, “Don’t you think that Bob Preston could use this knowledge to blackmail Olson? Maybe to find out where those pearls were?”

“And then shoot him? Why not just sue and recover a couple mil?”

Frances inhaled noisily and warmed to her subject. “Say the priest refuses to give him information he wants, about his wife or the pearls or something. Or,” she added pensively, “maybe the canon theologian, Montgomery, has a little heart-to-heart with his beloved former student, Olson. The heart-to-heart turns loud, and a bunch of folks at the diocesan center overhear them yelling.” She paused. “Maybe the diocese is saying to Olson, give up fair Agatha or else.”

“Or else they’ll kill him?”

She held out her arms and shrugged dramatically. The big trench coat collapsed like a nosediving black kite. “Look, Goldy, I’m just trying to put this unconvincing naďveté. “There’s one more thing. You know the Habitat house they’re building over by you?” I nodded. “There’s a flap among the neighbors, in case you weren’t aware. They’ve just gotten the project red-flagged. They say it violates the neighborhood covenants ‘cuz it’s too small. The neighbors enlisted Olson to be their go-between with their Habitat board, where Bob Preston is a big old striped bass in a teensy-weensy pond. Know anything about that? There’s going to be an article in the paper this week.”

I said no and wondered if Arch was following all this. To my dismay, he was staring open-mouthed at Frances Markasian. I wasn’t sue, but I thought I saw awe in his eyes.

She gave me a skeptical look before lighting another cigarette with the glowing end of the one she’d been working on. “So what do you think was going on between the head of the Episcopal Church Women and your priest?” The first cigarette landed at her feet.

“Gee, Frances, guess you’ll have to ask the head of the Episcopal Church Women that one.” I crushed the cigarette stub under my heel and stood up as an act of dismissal.

Frances took a deep drag, looked across the street at the roof of St. Luke’s, and blew smoke. “What do you know about Roger Bampton?” she asked.

“Nothing that isn’t common knowledge in town. How much of it is true in another question.”

“Do you believe his healing was a miracle?”

“Do you?”

She shoved herself to her sneakered feet, sighed, and heaved the bag over her shoulder. “The only thing I believe in is the power of the press. That’s where the truth is. For me, anyway.” She gave me a good-natured handshake and half-smile around the drooping cigarette. “Well, Deep Throat, if you hear anything else, be sure to give the Mountain Journal a jingle.”

“My pleasure,” I lied.

“Stop by the office some time, Arch. I keep a fridge full of Jolt back by the press.”

Arch’s face turned momentarily jubilant until he caught my don’t-even-think-about-it glare. When Frances had hopped back down Hymnal House’s stone steps and roared away in the smoke-spewing Fiat, Arch and I picked up our flashlights to go back to the driveway and wait. When we got near the entrance to Brio Barn, we heard something. Something like a drawer or a door being closed hard. Or a metal chair sliding across a floor. Arch shot me a look.

“What was that?”

“Honey, I don’t know.”

“We have to go in, Mom.”

“Forget it.” Despite my words, I eyed the barn door.

“It could be him! He could be trying to get out! Mom! Are you listening to me? He might be trying to signal somebody! But maybe he’s about to pass out or … And anyway, check it out!” He gestured widely to the houses near the conference center, the row of old cars puffing through Aspen Meadow. “This is like, a neighborhood. Nobody’s going to bother us in the middle of the day in a neighborhood. But if you say we can’t, then he’ll probably be unconscious by the time the police get here, and we won’t find him until – “

He stopped talking again as the scraping sound again reached our ears.

“Okay, look.” My voice quavered. Arch already was walking down the old stone steps to the barn. “Don’t call out to see if anybody’s there until we get inside and have a look, say, on the stage, underneath the stage, in the storage areas, and so on. Do you want the Mace?”

Arch’s voice said firmly, “Okay. I don’t know where anything is in this place.”

“I’ve catered here enough to know the ins and outs. Just follow me.” I spoke with more confidence than I felt.

The padlock chaining the barn doors was unhinged. I didn’t stop to wonder why as I threaded the rusty metal loops over and up to free the door handles. WE swung the creaking doors open to the cavelike, shadowy space and were immediately greeted by a current of icy, dank air. What the hell am I doing here? my inner voice demanded. I groped for the switch to the overhead light that I knew existed. When I snapped it, nothing happened. Of course. Although winter was technically over, the electricity would be off until the summer conferences began. That meant that anywhere except Hymnal House, there would be no power, and anyone kept here would be cold. I thought of Tom shivering from exposure.

“Turn on your flashlight.” My voice sounded like gravel. We swept fragile beams of light into the interior. The theater-shaped space was primarily used for rehearsals, choral concerts, and conference liturgies. In front of us across the wooden floor, the old pipe organ stood like a tall museum ghost. Sensitive to cold, it wasn’t used here, merely stored. The stage was on our right; chairs were stacked haphazardly against the walls. The smell of old, musty wood was strong. I didn’t want to shine my flashlight upward. The thought of creatures that could be skittering through the rafters was a distinctly unpleasant one. Gooseflesh prickled my arms. I was going into cold, abandoned, semidark space on a cloudy Sunday afternoon to look for Tom Schulz. I didn’t know which was worse, the earringing fear or that recurring thought that I must be losing my mind. Actually, what was worse was the fear that Tom might indeed be … worse than unconscious.

“You do remember my birthday is this coming Sunday,” Arch said in a low voice.

Leave it to a kid to bring up a birthday. Discussing something completely unrelated might relieve anxiety, after all. And where were the police?

“Yes,” I said as I moved tentatively into the room. My voice came out too loud and echoed along with my footsteps. “It doesn’t usually fall on Easter, but it does this year.”

“I think when I grow up,” said Arch courageously as he parted from me and walked in the direction of the stage, “I’m going to be the kind of guy who does people’s taxes. Four days after tax day every year is my birthday. Then I’ll always be able to have a big celebration, even though I’m grown up.” He hesitated, then hissed, “Shouldn’t we be calling his name, anyway? Since it doesn’t look as if anybody’s here? If he’s in a storage area, maybe he could make noise …”

Good idea. “Tom!” I called weakly. My voice echoed from the cold, wooden walls. “Tom!”

Nothing.

I continued forward into the semidarkness, focusing my flashlight on the dusty wooden floor a yard in front of my shoes. Every few steps, I lifted the beam to the old organ. Its dull metal pipes rose toward the ceiling like prison bars. Once I shone my flashlight all the way up to the pitched ceiling. Hanging from the barn beams were not bats, but dusty embroidered banners from parishes whose organists had attended the music conference for many years. From the teas I’d catered in this space, I knew there was a closet behind the organ that served as storage for music and educational materials. This closet was opened for the July and August conferences of choir directors and Sunday School teachers. After I checked it we would go underneath the stage to check the dank stone basement that was used to store old church files. Neither sounded like much fun.

“Mom?” The beam of Arch’s flashlight shone weakly in my direction.

“Over here. You were talking about what kind of party you were going to have when you grow up.”

“Okay. I’m moving up onto the stage.” The beam of his flashlight disappeared.

“Are you worried you won’t have a party this year?” I asked, slightly louder.

“Sometimes I think I’m too old for that kind of stuff.” His voice was muffled. From his shaded, moving light, I knew that he was checking behind one of the stage’s heavy velvet curtains. “I would like a cake, thought,” he announced when he emerged. His small voice echoed. “Maybe a little family party. Are there dressing rooms or anything back here, any place where Tom could be? Maybe he’s gagged.”

I stopped walking. “Flash your light along the wall.” He did, and revealed nothing but dusty paneling. With false cheer, I said, “What do you want for birthday presents?”

His voice was both earnest and fierce. “Tom Schulz back, Mom, what do you think? Did you look behind the organ?”

“I’m about to.” I swallowed, ignored the pounding in my ears, and walked briskly to the organ. Going behind a large instrument, into a dark space where who-knew-what could be lurking, was intimidating. The keys and pipes were covered with cobwebs. I’d been bitten once by a poisonous spider. It wasn’t fun. I shuddered and came around behind the pipes. A pile of chairs stood in front of the closet door. I put my shoulder to the middle of the stack and strained hard to push it out of the way. The chairs didn’t budge. I took a deep breath and tried again. They made an unearthly scraping noise. They also moved an inch.

“Gosh, Mom,” came Arch’s horrified cry. “What are you doing?”

I put my shoulder against the chair-pile and shoved. If Tom Schulz was in this closet, whoever had put him in there was extremely strong. I pushed again, then stopped to rest. I pulled the bench around to use as a lever. I groaned and heaved my weight into it. After a moment, the bench and the pile of chairs scraped in an arc away from the door. The thought of Tom trapped in the closet gave me the strength to pick up the organ bench and smash the doorknob. Both disintegrated in the process. By the time Arch and I finished with this place, they’d need a federal grant for renovation.

I grabbed the flashlight with one hand, stuck the fingers of my other hand through the hole made by the missing doorknob, and yanked the door outward. I took a deep breath of dusty air and flashed the light into the windowless closet space.

Lining the walls were floor-to-ceiling shelves spilling over with yellowed papers and booklets. The smell of mold was dreadful. Except for dust devils and intricate spiderwebs lining the corners, the room was empty. Disappointment congealed heavily in my chest.

“I want to tell you what kind of cake I want,” said Arch’s distant voice. I came out of the closet in time to see his flashlight shining huge and scarlet in back of the stage right curtain.

“What?” I directed my beam up on the stage just as Arch’s shape emerged from behind the curtain. His footsteps echoed across the wood.

“Pepper – mint!” His light wobbled against the ceiling. “Agh!” A loud cracking noise, like wood breaking, made me momentarily lose the grip on my beam. I refocused it shakily on the area where Arch was. Or had been. The stage floor was collapsing beneath him.

“Help!” my son shouted.

“Oh! Lord help us!” came the cry of a woman from the floor below.

14

My body felt impossibly cumbersome as it clattered over to the stage. I jumped up three steps, tripped, then crab-crawled to the place where the boards had given way. Arch had fallen through. I knew he was alive because I could hear his surprised voice half-talking, half-crying. I directed my light downward and peered through the hole of jagged boards to a whitewashed stone room lined with gray file cabinets. Arch was struggling, a knot of dark sweatsuit and long legs, on top of Lucille Boatwright, a wide and clumsy apparition in expensive-looking dark slacks and matching sweater. She was moaning, and her outfit was being ruined by the rolling action she was making on the dusty floor. I speculated wildly. Was Arch’s back broken? Would the hone up at Hymnal House be connected? Would Mountain Rescue be willing to send an ambulance for Lucille Boatwright two days in a row? “Arch! Are you okay? I’m up here! Are you hurt? Don’t move if you feel anything’s broken!”

“I hate this place, Mom!” he shrieked. Sweat prickled coldly over my body at the relief of hearing him respond. “This whole place is just so old!”

Poor kid. He was embarrassed and trying to cover it up with anger. Making a huge effort, he untangled himself from Lucille. Recriminating questions crowded my brain. Hadn’t Lucille heard us in the barn? Why didn’t she let us know she was down in the file room? Would the neighbors come running when they heard the commotion?

As I stared helplessly from above, my eyes gradually adjusted to the fact that there was more light in the basement than there was in the barn. A fuzzed stripe of dim grayness from the cloudy afternoon sky filtered in through the small basement room door that Lucille had left open. On the table was a tin-colored, battery-operated camping lamp that looked too new and expensive to belong to the conference center. It cast a metallic glow over the once-white masonry walls and the crowded row of file cabinets. With his knees drawn up, Arch leaned against one of the cabinets and vigorously rubbed his shins. One of the drawers in the adjoining cabinet was open. Next to it, a small stack of drab-colored files lay in a neat pile of a massive oak table. Groaning, Lucille rolled over on her side. She grasped the leg of the table and struggled to get to a sitting position. I knew the woman well enough to know that as soon as she was standing, she would set about scolding Arch. I needed to help him get out of there; I needed to protect him. I scrambled off the stage and out the barn doors. Slipping on wet pine needles, I skidded down the small slope to the basement and through the door of the storage room. The two were still seated on the filthy floor; both looked dazed.

I came in close to Arch’s face, which was liberally smeared with dust. His glasses were askew. “Can you move? Are you okay? Oh, honey, talk to me.”

“I’m fine, Mom. Just leave me alone, okay?”

“My goodness gracious, land sake’s,” Lucille huffed. Disconcerted, she tried to get control by brushing ineffectually on her filthy green outfit. Her silver hair was disheveled; dust covered her everywhere. The physical surprise of the fall made her seem more elderly, and there was a wild look in her eyes. The Mace. Oh, Lord. I offered her my hand. She took it without compunction and jerkily cranked herself to a standing position, breathing heavily.

Arch groped to straighten his glasses. His fingers slid back over the floor. He picked up the Mace canister and then small and round, which he examined close to his lenses. “Are you all right, Mrs. Boatwright? Did I get you with the Mae?” He made a gargling noise, and I was afraid he was going to be sick. “Looks like you broke your necklace.”

“Arch, please, hon, stand up.” Clutching his finds in two tight fists, he again refused my hand and struggled to stand up next to me. His cheek was scraped, and his sweatsuit was covered with thick stripes of dust. But mercifully there was no blood.

“Did the Mace hurt you?” I asked Lucille. I didn’t quite have the courage to ask, What the hell are you doing here?

“No, but that is dangerous stuff, heaven knows. Now, your son. How is he?”

We both looked at Arch, who avoided our gaze. He was mortified, but not in pain. He’d had a fright, and probably should take some aspirin and go to bed for the rest of the day. Or course, neither of these was likely. I looked up at the broken ceiling. It appeared that the wood had rotted through. This place needed renovation more than the church office, no question about it.

“Lucille? Are you hurt? I am so sorry this happened. I can’t believe the conference center doesn’t have somebody check these floors before they rot!”

“Well, my dear … Honestly! There I was, one minute,” she gestured helplessly toward the file cabinet with a shaky finger, “and then he, why, I thought the whole place was caving in – “ She swallowed. “I suppose we should notify someone of this. And then be leaving, of course. This is a dangerous place, no situation for a child – “

“Let me see if the police have arrived,” I interjected. “If you’re sure you’re all – “

But she was not all right. She took one step and cried out in pain. Her aristocratic face crumpled. “The spray bottle didn’t get me, but my ankle is twisted,” she announced stoically.

“Stay with Mrs. Boatwright a few minutes,” I quietly ordered Arch.

He nodded sullenly. I vaulted up to the barn. No Sheriff’s Department, inside or out. When I arrived back at the storage room, Arch was handing a seated Lucille Boatwright the last of the beads from her broken necklace, which she held in a piece of crumpled paper in her palm. She awkwardly folded the paper and put it into her purse, next to the neat pile of folders in her lap. In my absence, she had managed to smooth her hair and he clothing. Because of her injured ankle, I felt obligated to suggest that I drive her home in the van before finishing what I’d come for. She insisted that we all go back to her house to get cleaned up. I told her I had to stay at the conference center to do some looking around.

“For what?” Lucille demanded in her customary regal manner. “There’s nothing here.” She gave me a look that said, I am always right and am seldom disobeyed. I glanced at the files in her lap. A faint pink wash of color climbed her cheeks.

“I’ll tell you all about the church’s filing problems when we get back to my house,” she said in crisp defense. “But my ankle is turned. I can drive my car, I simply cannot walk on it. I need to be brought to it.” She pressed her lips together and with rusty effort added, “Please.”

At that moment, Investigator Boyd stuck his head through the door of the storage room. His eyes took in the broken ceiling, the mess on the floor, and our forlorn trio. He swore under his breath.

“What is going on here? You three all right?”

He seemed satisfied by the simultaneous cacophony of assurances he got from us.

“We’re going through the conference center,” said Boyd. He wagged a finger at me. “We got permission. That’s we, not you, got it?”

“Aye, aye,” I said agreeably. “Lucille, please give Arch and me a few moments to make space for you in the van.”

Disheartened, Arch packed flashlights into the back of the van while I tried to start the engine.

“Arch, you realize the noises we heard probably came from Mrs. Boatwright opening the file cabinets, don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He paused. “You never did tell me what all this stuff was back here,” he said with a sulk in his voice. There was the sound of rustling papers. “Gosh, Mom, don’t these files belong to Father Olson or the church or something? Y’ever heard of ‘Thou shalt not steal?’ “

“Chill out, buster.” The engine refused to turn over. I turned the key again and pumped the gas. “Officer Boyd told me to look through anything that would help figure out that note, and this is all I have. You want to find Tom, don’t you?”

He tsked over the reluctant whine of the engine. After a moment, he said, “Father Olson always said, ‘Y’have to wrap your faith around you, like a blanket.’ I think he said somebody famous said that.”

The engine almost caught and then died. I sat back, infinitely frustrated, and ran Arch’s remark through my brain. I said, “Sounds like Linus. And I don’t need a blanket, I need my van to start.”

“Yeah, I didn’t need a blanket either. So I asked him, if I had faith that the mean kids at school would stop picking on me, would that be like having a blanket? And he said the only behavior you could control is your own.”

I twisted the key and the engine turned over. Maybe the only power you could control was your own; those built by the auto industry belonged to fate. Anyway, Olson certainly had been capable of giving the right answers about behavior. At least for others. “Sounds as If Father Olson made you think about faith, anyway.”

Arch snorted. “Hate to tell you, Mom, but I think about Jolt cola, and that doesn’t mean I have any.”

“Arch!”

“Just kidding.”

I gave up. The van skidded loudly over the wet gravel by the outside bench where Lucille Boatwright was sitting primly with her files and her purse. I put my head on the steering wheel and murmured to Arch, “Just cover up the stuff back there and help Mrs. Boatwright into the van, will you?”

Arch muttered, “Did you ever hear of Watergate?” But before I could reply he had rustled around and then gingerly jumped out. We drove Lucille to her silver car, which was the pristine, sleek Park Avenue in the church parking lot. She insisted she could drive, even with a sprained left ankle. Because I was anxious to know why she felt she had to ferret through church files on a Sunday afternoon, and why she had parked at the church lot instead of Brio Barn, I acquiesced to her insistence that we come over for a bit. My van chugged and popped behind the Buick to Lucille’s Tudor-style home in the Aspen Meadow country club area. Refusing help, she limped ahead of us into the marble entryway, past polished cherry buffets, tables, and a magnificent étagčre featuring animal figurines made of ivory. Arch made appropriate cooing noises until Lucille took him by the elbow and led him to the bathroom to get cleaned up. She disappeared herself for a few moments, then reappeared with the green outfit sponged clean of its dust.

“I settled Arch in front of the television with a soft drink,” Lucille said with that characteristic lift of her dictatorial chin. “I didn’t want him to hear how disorganized that church is.” She led me into her kitchen, a vaulted-ceiling, ultraclean space with tall cabinets of glowing light-blue laminate and a brick-colored tile floor. I had a sudden, blinding realization: that Lucille wanted, as I had with Frances Markasian, to protect Arch from hearing what the church was really like.

I waited while Lucille ladled Droste cocoa and sugar into her gilt-edged Royal Crown Derby china teapot, then mixed the two together with cream. Whisking with her free hand, she expertly poured steaming milk into the pot and set it aside. I wondered what she’d done with the files. In her usual highly ordered fashion, she slowly brought to her cherry kitchen table two cups, saucers, and spoons, sugar cubes in a Waterford bowl, cream in a matching pitcher, and finally a small plate with butter shortbread. As she poured the hot chocolate, another, more painful thought assailed me: I realized how much Schulz would have enjoyed chatting with Lucille about English bone china, ivory figurines, Queen Anne cherrywood, and the merits of Scottish shortbread.

If Arch doesn’t like what’s on TV, he’ll come to see what we’re doing,” I warned. “I’m sorry you were hurt, Lucille, but isn’t it dangerous for you to be down in that file room in Brio Barn? I mean, it’s so decrepit!”

She shook her rows of silver curls and gestured for me to drink my hot chocolate. While it’s hot, she seemed to be saying. “I was looking in the file storage area because that man Olson was such a pig. I mean, Father Pinckney would never – “ I made a tiny, impatient throat-clearing noise. Lucille plunged ahead. “You just don’t understand, Goldy. Olson was ruining our church. He was taking it in a direction, I mean, with those charismatics – “

“Whoa, Lucille!” I set down my cup. “We were talking about files, and then you made the leap to ruining the church. Please explain how you got from one to the other.”

Lucille reached up to smooth the base of her neck, and with a sudden jerking motion of her wide, age-spotted hand, realized her necklace was not there. She sipped her hot chocolate and seemed to be struggling with where to begin her story.

“We used to be a family. Our congregation, you know. Maybe there were things that didn’t work, like the annual giving, but we all got along. It was tragic that Father Pinckney had to retire. He loved everybody, you know that’s true.”

Actually, I knew it had not been true. Pinckney had pastured his little clique; the genuine pastor-to-all had been Ted Olson. But disagreeing on points of view wasn’t going to get Lucille’s motive for shuffling through the file storage on a Sunday afternoon.

Her voice rose. “Now it’s like we’re two separate churches,” she shrilled. “The charismatics pushing against the old traditions, destroying everything with their guitar music and their huggy-kissy, trying to take over everything, even the Altar Guild. You know what we called Olson?” When I shook my head, she said triumphantly, “Father Touchy-Feely. And of course he only cared about them, you know that.”

Again, I did not. But lucky for me I’d majored in psychology and could pull out the Carl Rogers routine on command. I said, “You felt the didn’t care about you.”

She sipped the cocoa, shook her head, and looked at my cup. “Now, drink that while it’s hot, Goldy. You know it’s not going to stay warm forever.”

Lucille was incapable of getting more than two sentences out without giving a command. But I obliged anyway. The chocolate was marvelously hot and creamy. And it smelled wonderful. I set my cup down delicately and commented, “You didn’t feel appreciated.”

“Why, of course not! With all I did for that church, do you think he appreciated even one thing? Oh! I could tell you about the weddings I’ve raised … and all that man Olson ever did was disagree with me. Disagree with me and make it difficult to deal with these frantic families who were trying to get their children married. Not to speak ill of the dead, but you know. We had terrific argument about the office procedures, then more conflicts about the fund-raising – “

“So you got the files, Why?”

“Well no, just wait. Let me tell you. Where should I start?” She pressed her lips together. “All right, listen. Zelda Preston has been the organist at St. Luke’s for many years. You know she trained at Northwestern, just had years and years of training. Not that Olson ever appreciated her. And she has been extremely loyal to St. Luke’s. I know personally that she’s given thousands of dollars over the years, thousands, much more than that riffraff that Father Olson has brought into our parish could ever appreciate.”

I could see where the locus of disagreement over office procedures would have occurred between Olson and Lucille. All the pledges and treasury information were supposed to be completely confidential. But if the police had been able to find out about the money flowing in, then it was not too much of a stretch to think that Lucille Boatwright had known about it long before. I was willing to bet that thrift-shop Zelda didn’t share that much of her money.

“So when Olson fired Zelda,” Lucille fumed, “after all her loyal years of service, picking hymns and practicing with the choir and Lord only knows what all, why, I thought back to that petition. The bishop was supposed to write to us about the guitar music. They promised us from the diocesan office, I don’t know how many times, that we would get a reply, that a reply was on the way. We wanted it banned, don’t you see? And since Olson – so disorganized! – hadn’t told us about the response, whatever he’d received, I thought I’d go look for it – “ She stopped and took a sip of chocolate, gesturing with her free hand for me to draw the obvious conclusion. Which was not so obvious. I knew she was lying.

I said, “You were looking for the bishop’s letter answering the petition because you thought it would help now? What difference would it make with Ted Olson dead? I should think that you’d be planning his funeral or something.

She fluttered her hand again as if to say, Immaterial, immaterial. “So we won’t have to listen to that music anymore, what do you think? How can I plan a funeral if the charismatics are going to come waving their guitars at me? And if we have a letter from the bishop, we’ll be able to get off on the right foot with whoever our new man is.”

“I just think its… . awful early for that.”

“Listen,” she said suddenly. Her eyes brightened. “I want to talk to you about the luncheon tomorrow. I do want to pay you for all your supplies. I know how expensive food is, believe me, in this day and age! So send me a bill, won’t you? Don’t tell Zelda or the other women, we don’t want them to worry about it.”

A kind of muddle descended on my brain, which was probably her intent. I can talk about business or I can talk about nonbusiness. I am incompetent at mingling the two in one conversation. Arch had not rejoined us. I figured he’d found a cable channel. I didn’t know what to say about the luncheon. As it stretched on, the silence between Lucille and me became increasingly uncomfortable.

“Tell me,” I said with feigned puzzlement, “about the pearl choker raffle.”

“Oh! Well, you know, none of the women want to work in the church anymore. They all have jobs.” Except poor Agatha, I thought. “We couldn’t have our annual Home Tour because we simply could not get enough women to be guides in the homes! Would you loan your luxury home to the church for the day if there weren’t enough guides? I mean!”

“But you thought if you got necklaces … “

She handed me the platter of shortbread. I declined. “For the past two years, it’s been a painless way to make money. This year, of course, we wanted to finish the columbarium. Bob Preston – you know, Zelda’s son-in-law – had a friend in the Far East from his oil-dealing days. He found a supplier in Hong Kong. Even with the duty fees, we would make five hundred dollars per necklace, and we would raffle several for those who couldn’t buy. We figured, women in the church and in town, here in the club, would want to buy them, or at least buy a single raffle ticket. So we wouldn’t have to try to get women to work who simply weren’t willing to. You must have received your flyer about this in the mail, Goldy. What’s the matter with you?”

“I was trying to plan a wedding,” I said flatly.

Lucille Boatwright shivered slightly, as if to say that she would not have ignored a mailing from the church, even if she were planning a dozen nuptials. “This was supposed to take place the week after Easter. Didn’t want to do it during Lent, of course, although some women said if they won the pearls, they would want tow wear them to church on Easter. Frankly, I could see their point, but Lent is Lent.”

“Ah. And why did Father Olson keep the pearls?”

Her facial expression evolved into a sad I-told-you-so. “He thought his house was safe. But where in his house? That’s what no one seems to know, and of course the police won’t allow us to look. Thank God I took out a rider on the church’s insurance policy to cover them, or the church would have lost a bundle. We had to pay Bob Preston when those pearls were delivered. Why Olson insisted on keeping them, I don’t know,” She concluded, exasperated.

We looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. I said softly, “You felt he deserved to die.”

“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” But the aristocratic chin quivered.

I sipped my cooled cocoa and reflected. “Lucille, you’ve never told me a thing about how the church is run – “

“You never asked,” she interjected.

“ – but now you’ve asked me into your home and offered to pay for lunch tomorrow, for which I was already going to send a bill to the churchwomen, thank you very much. You’ve been extremely nice, really, and told me all kinds of things. What I’m trying to figure out is, why are you telling me all this?”

She looked down at he hand, which she was running slowly over the cherry tabletop.

“I think,” I persisted, “That you’re afraid of something.” I thought back: the pearls, the petition, the file room. The files. “You weren’t just straightening up at the conference center.”

She looked away from me and out into her living room. At her Queen Anne wing chairs with their hieratic floral pattern on polished cotton. At her striped sofa in the same muted colors. AT the well-polished Stieffel lamp next to the arrangement of dried eucalyptus in a ginger jar. At her money, her familiar order, her security.

With dawning clarity, I remembered Saturday morning, right before my wedding was supposed to begin, the new organist playing the triumphant opening bars of Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary. And then Zelda’s words: I am a professional. What would a professional most fear? Being maligned as a professional. Not being able to be a professional anymore.

I said gently, “You were looking for some letter from the bishop, because you think Zelda wants it. Isn’t that right? You think she needs it, for some reason.” Lucille rubbed her fingers delicately against the side of her china cup and remained stubbornly mute. “You think Zelda wanted the bishop’s letter from Olson, so that she could save face. Find a job someplace else, maybe.” A tear was rolling slowly down one of Lucille’ elegant, powdered cheeks. “Lucille. You think Zelda killed him. Don’t you?”

15

She sniffed and stood up. “Absolutely not. How can you say such a thing? I think it’s time for you to go.”

“You have to call the police. Right now, from here. If Zelda has Tom Schulz – “ I couldn’t finish. “Where was she yesterday morning?”

Lucille forced a smile. “I don’t know! Why do you keep insisting?” She moved toward the kitchen door. “I am so glad your son is feeling better. I’ll just go call him down from upstairs. The churchwomen have a funeral to plan, and I’m due at a meeting at five o’clock.”

She minced neatly out of the room, all of her control reasserted by the threat of my urgent desire to extract information. I watched her wide retreating body, her neat silver curls shining like a metallic shield. Dammit to hell.

In the corner of her kitchen I spotted a light-blue wall telephone, almost invisible because of its exact color match to the cabinets. I grabbed it and dialed 911. Identifying myself, I said I needed to leave an emergency message for Boyd, that I found out some things about the Olson murder and he should question Zelda Preston. I swallowed and added that Zelda was strong, a swimmer, that she might have Tom Schulz. When I hung up and turned around, Lucille Boatwright was standing at the door of the kitchen with her arm around Arch’s shoulders.

“We’re just getting to be the best of friends,” she said to me, presumably of her relationship with my son.

Arch said, Huh?”

I said, “I’m sorry. We need to go.”

“Arch,” said Lucille, “I just need to talk to your mother fro another moment.”

Arch gave me a questioning look. “You want me to go to the van, or back up to the TV room? Is this about the church again? I guess you want me to just go.”

I said evenly, “Stay where you are.”

Lucille’s cheeks colored. She said fiercely, “The problem is that she won’t tell me where she was yesterday morning. If she would just tell me. That’s all I ask.”

Does Zelda live near here?”

Lucille opened her mouth to talk, but nothing came out – first time I’d ever seen that happen. Arch sighed deeply, the same sigh he always gave when faced with an interminable number of boring errands. “Mom,” he begged, “Can’t we go home? Nobody knows where we are, and somebody might have called, and Julian will get worried – “

I said, “Yes, soon. Where does Zelda live?”

“I’m sorry.” Lucille faltered. “I should have told you yesterday, or the police, or something.” She caught hold of herself and wagged a finger. “You mustn’t frighten her.” When I made an impatient noise, she went on, “A one-story white brick on Gold Course Lane. Less than two blocks away, on the left side of the street. You know she might be swimming. Her back is acting up severely, and she though it might help to do some extra laps.”

I didn’t answer. We were walking hurriedly through the marble entryway on the way to the van. Arch was trotting ahead of me. Since he was dedicatedly unathletic, this was a sure sign of his desperation to leave. I felt the need to keep a semblance of relationship with Lucille, in case Zelda knew nothing of Olson’s death and Tom’s disappearance. There wasn’t a soul in church who knew more about its inner workings and dark secrets than the elegant woman escorting me out of her house. And after all, she had apologized.

“Is it possible she might have been at the doctor yesterday? Seeing about the back pains?” I asked.

“We don’t talk about it,” Lucille said without looking at me. She put her hand to her throat again. No necklace. “When you get to be our age, it’s too depressing to discuss your aches and pains and those of your peers. It would be all that we talked about. Not that you would be interested in something like that, of course. People don’t want to hear about getting old.”

We came out her gleaming front door and stood on the stone steps. The April afternoon air had gone from chilly to intensely cold. I said, “But I care – “

She waved this away. “And when you don’t have someone to look out for you, you just have to do it yourself. Or do as Zelda and I do, take care of each other. Ted Olson,” she added fiercely, “did not give a tinker’s damn about us. In fact, I think he would have been glad to see us gone.”

“Oh, Lucille, you can’t be serious.”

“My dear, I am entirely serious.”

This outburst of personal bitterness meant either Lucille was letting her guard down or pretending to do so in a very convincing manner. In spite of my anger over her refusal to help and my desire to be out of there, I felt an intense pang of sympathy for her. I knew well what it meant to be unnoticed by a man whose appreciation and affection you craved. I had wasted seven years trying to get from The Jerk what he was incapable of giving to any human being. I reached out for the papery skin of Lucille’s forearm. Maybe I could act convincing, too.

I said, “I know about taking care of myself; I’ve done it for almost a decade.” Lucille shrugged my hand away; we kept walking. “If Zelda’s in a lot of pain,” I ventured, “why didn’t she … talk to Olson, even if she didn’t like him? I mean, after all I’ve been hearing lately, things like that Sunday School teacher, and then Roger Bampton – “

Lucille’s sudden laughter was crude and shockingly hoarse. “What hogwash! What utter and complete nonsense! You don’t honestly believe that, do you, Goldy? If you do, you’re even less intelligent than I thought.”

We had reached the door of my van. I let Lucille’ opinion of my IQ pass. “So you don’t believe Roger recovered from leukemia?” I asked with a brow I hoped was innocently furrowed Arch, who was already sitting in the front seat, gestured impatiently for me to come on.

“The whole thing was a lie!” Lucille faced me, her ice-blue eyes blazing with indignation. Her wrinkled hands made a dismissive gesture. “A complete fabrication! Roger Bampton is a drunk. Going in to see a doctor because he felt bad? I ask you. He probably thought chemotherapy was like sticking a needle full of Jack Daniels into one of his arteries. Of course, Father Pinckney tried to Roger into alcohol rehabilitation, but no one remembers that.”

“You remember.”

Her laugh this time was much lower, kind of self-mocking. “One of the few who does, my dear. Not that it matters.” She hesitated, then returned the affection of my gesture, pressing her fingers into my arm. Soft green cashmere brushed my skin. “Zelda is my dear friend,” she said earnestly. “You mustn’t upset her. You mustn’t let the police frighten her. She is easily hurt – you know what she went through when her son died. Surely you know that she hasn’t dealt well with the way Olson treated her.”

I wanted to hug her, but remembered in time her objection to displays of affection. Besides, what I wanted most was to be away from this perfect Tudor house with its perfect rooms and perfect landscaped garden. “Look, Lucille. Probably his will turn out to be nothing. When the bishop gets back, maybe his office will find a copy of the letter in his files, or maybe they’ll find out he never wrote to Olson after all. “Although I hoped not. Oh, God, I wanted Tom Schulz to be over at Zelda’s house. I wanted Zelda to have killed Olson in a fit of passion, I wanted this all to be over.

“Will you call me?” Lucille pleaded earnestly when I had climbed into the van and rolled down the window.

“I thought you had a meeting.” When she gave me a blank look, I added, “Do you have an answering machine?”

“Of course not. I hate those infernal things.” Her authoritarian chin wobbled ominously. “Don’t disrupt Zelda,” she warned with the same commanding tone and finger she had used during the prewedding instructions. She took a quick step in front of my van. “And call me as soon as you know anything. Promise.”

“Yes, Lucille!” I revved the engine and cursed her silently for making me feel like a dutiful twelve-year-old daughter. “Thanks for the cocoa.” When she did not move, I threw the gearshift into reverse and backed out of her driveway, miraculously avoiding the laddered plantings of shrubbery and aspens.

“Doesn’t have an answering machine!” Arch cried when I passed to read a street sign. “Man! She doesn’t have cable! She doesn’t have remote control! Not to mention that she doesn’t have any video games! Where has that woman been for the last fifty years? Brother!”

I finally figured out how to get to Zelda Preston’s one-story white brick house on Gold Course Lane. On the way, I reflected that ecclesiastically as well as technologically, Lucille and Zelda both would have preferred to turn back the clock.

“Man, Mom.” Arch was still disgusted. “I don’t know why you stay at the church. If I went to a church like that and everybody was mean, I’d leave.”

I groaned. “It’s my family, hon. And not everybody is mean.”

Two police cars already had arrived in front of Zelda Preston’s home. Not more than fifteen minutes had passed since I’d called from Lucille’s. When they were looking for a fellow officer, they sure could move quickly. No red and blue lights flashed; I had heard no siren. I remembered Tom’s words: When you’re trying to catch somebody, you don’t announce your arrival. I was stopped by a deputy who recognized me.

“They’re securing the perimeter.

“Please let me go with them,” I begged. “I have to see if Tom is in there.”

His face turned from impassive to stony. “There isn’t a chance in hell you’re getting any closer to that house than you already are.”

Cops.

At that moment a very confused-looking Zelda Preston, wearing what looked like a bathrobe, appeared at the door. She squinted at the officers on her steps, at the police cars, and at my van stopped on the grass by her driveway. Her front door immediately opened as she let the officers in. My heart sank. If she’d had Tom inside, she surely would have at least put up some kind of resistance.

Ten minutes later, Boyd and Armstrong came out together. Boyd hoisted his rotund self up the driveway while Armstrong, long and lanky, strode alongside. I glanced at the sky, now turned darkly ominous with a promise of evening snow. Whether my teeth were chattering from the cold or nervousness at the message I was about to receive, I did not know. As if to prepare me, Boyd shook his head. I crossed my arms and sagged against the van.

“This Preston woman is beside herself,” he began. “She wants us to search through her house so that she’ll be above suspicion. Her words. We did a quick look-see. No Schulz. Whatever made you think – “

“Now don’t start,” I warned, my voice shaking. “You told me to call you and I did. Where was she yesterday?”

Towering above us, Armstrong cleared his throat and answered for Boyd. “Interviewing for the organist’s position at the Catholic church.. Although she doesn’t want the people at your place to know.”

My eyelids felt like sandpaper. My brain had turned to the consistency of dryer lint.

“Look, Goldy,” said Boyd. His tone was compassionate but undeniably impatient. “I told you we’d keep you informed. I’ve asked you questions about that church of yours, sure. But there’s a difference between your answering questions and trying to do our job for us, okay? This is the second time today I’ve responded to a frantic call from you about where you think Schulz is.”

“Haven’t you found anything?” I despised the pleading in my voice, but wanted to hear any shred of news or hope.

Boyd bit on each word. “I can’t find anything when I’m running around on your wild-goose chases!” He shook his head. “I’ll call you.”

As I gunned the van and rolled it past Zelda’s house, Arch muttered, “Man! Was that guy grouchy or what?”

“They’re just trying to find Tom, hon, you know that.”

But lack of progress brought depression. Or perhaps it was the end of the day, the hardest time to be reminded of separation from someone you love. To the west, there was no fiery sunset, only a further darkening of they sky caused by the sun slipping past the clouds and behind the mountains. The temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees. As we rounded Aspen Meadow Lake on our way home, large, wet snowflakes powdered my windshield. In front of the van, the wind whirled the flakes into thick tornadoes of white. Spring snow: good for the crops, or so they were always telling us on the radio. But bad for someone kidnapped, who might be in an unfamiliar and unheated place. When I finally pulled the van in front of the house, it felt as if all the energy had drained out of my body.

“Come on, Mom,” said Arch. “Cheer up.” He pointed at the Jaguar parked at a precarious angle by the sidewalk. “Look, Marla’s here.”

And indeed she was, fretting around in the kitchen, setting the table and standing back to admire the enormous basket arrangement of flowers she brought with her. Oblivious of her, Julian pinched and pressed pizza dough into springform pans. When we came through the door, the two of them stared at our disconsolate faces.

“Goldy?” Julian’s eyes were wide. “Any news/”

I shook my head grimly. I didn’t trust my voice.

“Dinner is Mexican Pizza,” he announced, turning away so I couldn’t see the despair on his face. “Fifteen minutes.”

I sat heavily in one of my kitchen chairs. “Tell me how you’re doing,” I said to Julian. “I’m getting tired of always focusing on my own crises.”

Mexican Pizza

2 ź ounce envelopes (5 teaspoons0 active dry yeast

2 cups warm water

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons olive oil

5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour

olive oil and cornmeal for the pans

1 1/3 cups picante sauce

6 cups grated cheddar cheese

In a large mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Add the sugar, stir, and set aside for 10 minutes, until the mixture is bubbly. Stir in the salt and olive oil. Beat in 5 cups of flour, then add as much extra flour as needed to make a dough that is not too sticky to knead. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and satiny, 5 to 10 minutes. (Or place the dough in the bowl of an electric mixer and knead with a dough hook until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl, approximately 5 minutes.) Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turn to oil the top, cover with kitchen towel, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in a bulk, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 425 . Brush a little olive oil over the bottom and sides of four 9-or 10-inch springform pans. Sprinkle cornmeal over the oiled bottoms and sides. Punch the dough down and divide it into quarters. Press each piece of dough out to fit the bottom of a pan, making a small collar around the edges. Spread 1/3 cup picante sauce on top of the dough circles; top each pizza with 1 ˝ cups cheese. Bake for 10 to 20 minutes or until the dough is cooked through and the cheese is completely melted.

Makes four 9-or 10-inch pizzas

He looked up from his work. “Me?” He had not shaved; the circles under his eyes made him look haggard. The college admissions. He was supposed to hear this week, and he hadn’t ventilated any of his worry. He shrugged and wiped his hands on the white apron he was wearing over a much-washed black sweatshirt that had frayed at the sleeves. His baggy black cotton pants had lost their knee patch. It was one of Julian’s scrounged outfits from the Aspen Meadow secondhand store. He carefully sloshed picante sauce over the dough in the pans. In his typical offhand manner, he said, “Don’t worry about me. “

“But I do,” I said, and my voice choked. I felt a sob welling up, the first one in twenty-four hours. “I am worried about you,” I cried. Involuntary tears came in earnest.

“Come on, Goldy,” commanded Marla. “Out of the kitchen. Into the living room. Arch, do you know what sherry is?”

“It’s from Spain, right? Comes in a bottle in a burlap bag? Mom uses it for cooking.”

“Yeah well, right now Mom’s going to use if for her psyche. Could you find it and bring it out to the living room with two small glasses? Please? And Julian,” Marla added, “keep going with that pizza. I’ll bet she hasn’t had food in a while, either.”

Julian nodded grimly as he sprinkled handfuls of cheddar cheese on his creation. Out in the living room, Marla sat me on the couch, eased down on the adjoining cushion, and pulled out a tissue from one of her pockets.

“Do you need a hug?” she asked when the outburst of crying was over and I was reduced to sniffles. She waved a hand at the bottle of Dry Sack that Arch had brought out. “Or do you just need sherry?”

“Both.”

She obliged. The sherry warmed my throat. Arch, who had been watching me nervously from the hearth, set about constructing a complex fire of aspen, pine, and Russian olive logs.

I said to Marla, “Tell me why all this is happening.”

She gazed at the first flames licking the fireplace wood. “How about, because the church is a strange place/”

“Our church in particular, or the church in general?”

She turned her mouth down at the corners. “Aw, go for the broad view. Big hospital for sinners. Only some people stay sick.” She tipped up her glass to finish her sherry.

“But you knew Father Olson,” I insisted. My voice had a watery, hiccupping tone from crying. “I mean, you went out with him a couple of times, didn’t you ? Was he really so bad? Why would someone hate him that much? I mean, so he had charismatic churchmanship. So what? Just because someone doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean you have to kill him.”

Marla’s expression was full of sadness and affection. “depends on how much they disagree with you, I guess.” She smiled and looked at her Rolex. “Fifteen minutes! Come on, Goldy it’ll make you feel better to eat.” As if on cue, Julian swept into the living room carrying a tray with plates and steaming pizzas.

After she’d had a few mouthfuls and made the appropriate noises of praise, Marla said reflectively, ‘You know, I didn’t really date Ted Olson, I was single, he was single, we went out for dinner a couple of times. I always thought he was more interested in my net worth than my body or soul.” She giggled and finished a last bit of pizza. “Not necessarily in that order. Besides, I told you, the guy was squirrelly.”

Arch tore a piece of crust from his mouth with sudden interest. “You don’t mean, like a rodent, do you?”

“Of course not,” said Marla as she smilingly accepted a second large piece of pizza from Julian. “This is my last piece, I promise.” She took a dainty bit. “I mean, he’d say, ‘Don’t leave a message on the church voice mail or the women will say we’re having an affair.’ What was the matter with that, I wanted to know? Give the religious man an air of mystery. Which he got anyway, once Roger Bampton opened his big mouth.”

“Squirrelly in what other ways?” I asked. I bit into the pizza and felt a shiver of delight: Hot melted cheese oozed around spicy picante sauce and a light, chewy homemade crust. Julian was an artist.

“Well,” Marla went on, “when I ran the jewelry raffle last year, we had the worst ruckus over who was going to keep the gold chains. You know Lucille always insists on getting a separate insurance rider, and I have a safe in my house. Either of those would have been better than letting Ted Olson keep them out at his unsecured place in the boonies. But no. He insisted on being the caretaker for the chains, said he could outwit any thief, and he had to take responsibility for something of that value.”

I stopped eating and leaned toward her. “Do you know where he kept them?”

“What are you looking at me like that for? I don’t know. When I drove out there to get them, he just gave me that chipmunky look – sorry – and handed me a package. It was a gift-wrapped box, mind you, but the box was one that said, Church Frankincense. When I opened it, he said, ‘Sorry, no myrrh today.’ Then he laughed like he was some kind of biblical jokester and should go on Jeopardy. I mean, the guy had an attitude.” With that, she smiled broadly at Julian and took another slice of pizza.

“He was a good confirmation teacher,” said Arch.

“He was weird,” said Julian.

After Marla left and Arch reluctantly had finished his homework, while Julian was still banging around cleaning up the kitchen – at his insistence – I took my second shower of the day and resolved to get some sleep. I had been so tired when we finished dinner that twice I had felt myself sway forward with my eyes closed. The Sheriff’s Department would call if anything developed. As my head touched the pillow, I belatedly remembered my promise to call Lucille Boatwright. Undoubtedly Zelda had already done so, and with much embellishment told of the policemen’s untimely arrival at her door. I wondered if she also mentioned the interview at the Catholic church.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I visualized the ocean on a calm day. I saw Arch as a baby, laughing. I imagined seeing Tom Schulz again, what I would say, how I would hold him and not let go. I sent him a silent message to hang one.

All for nothing. Wakefulness pierced every thought. The dishwasher finished its cycle. The distant whine from Julian’s radio subsided. Snow whisked against the house. When I felt panic rise in my chest, I opened a window, inhaled the chilly, moist air, and exhaled steam. Since traffic through town was sparse, the rush of swollen Cottonwood Creek was unusually loud. I closed the window and sat down on the bed. Sleep would be impossible.

I stared at the wall. The one utterly predictable aspect of being a caterer is that you always have cooking to do. The work never ends unless you go out of town. With a noisy sigh, I trundled down to the kitchen to get a start on preparing for the women’s luncheon.

I fixed myself an espresso and pulled out the pile of Tom’s recipes. Immediately, I felt better, as if his presence emanated from the three-by-five cards. At church, Lucille had requested a seafood dish. Since it was Lent, she’d said. I had nodded to her arched eyebrow and question, I don’t suppose you have any shrimp? I had told her, Oh sure. So much for fasting.

Tom’s collection yielded a shrimp and pasta concoction that would ideally suit the churchwomen. With a cheese-based sauce, it would hold well in a chafing dish; the deep green of peas beside the pink of shrimp would make it look beautiful; and if I used wagon wheel-shaped pasta instead of spaghetti, nothing would dribble embarrassingly down anyone’s chin. Since cooked shrimp demand last-minute preparation, I set the recipe on the counter and turned with zest to the dessert section.

I flipped through Tom’s cards for apple cheese tart and Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake. Ladies’ luncheons do better with cookies for dessert, I’d discovered long ago, for a couple of reasons. The dieters can take only a few and not feel cheated. Unlike cake, where the public taking of more than one piece is viewed as piggish, the nondieters can have numerous cookies in unobtrusive fashion. I would offer two types, I figured, one with chocolate and one without. For the chocolatey ones, I decided on Canterbury Jumbles, a chocolate-chip-and-nut affair that had such a wonderful Anglican name the women would feel duty-bound to eat them. I mixed up that batter, put it in the cooler, and then flipped through Tom’s recipes until I came to Lemon Butter Wafers. On the side of the card, Tom had written, B. – Dinner – Captain.

Canterbury Jumbles

˝ cup solid vegetable shortening

˝ cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter

2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

˝ cup buttermilk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 ˝ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

1 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts

1 ˝ cup raisins

3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 400 . In a large mixing bowl, beat the shortening, butter, and brown sugar together until smooth. Beat in the eggs, then stir in the buttermilk and vanilla. Blend the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a small bowl; stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until incorporated. Stir in the coconut, nuts, raisins, and chocolate chips. Drop by level half-tablespoons onto greased cookie sheets. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes, until the cookies are puffed and slightly brown. Cool on a rack. The cookies keep well in an airtight tin.

Makes 11 dozen

There was that B. again. B. for what? B. – Read– Judas. In the dinner context, it looked less like someone’s name. Before? British? Bring? Big? I had no idea.

In any event, the Lemon Butter Wafers called for ingredients I had on hand, so I softened unsalted butter and wielded my zester over plump lemons. A fine mist of fragrant oil from the golden citrus fruit sprayed my face. I closed the door to the kitchen so as not to wake Arch and Julian, then pulverized almonds in a small food processor and carefully mixed the ingredients together. I did a trial batch: The first hot cookie was buttery, crunchy, and as lemony as a meringue pie. It melted in my mouth. I set the rest of the batter in to chill and mentally thanked Tom for his culinary expertise. The churchwomen would think their dessert was sent from heaven.

Lemon Butter Wafers

ž cups (1 ˝ sticks) unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 ź cups sifted flour

2 tablespoons very finely minced lemon zest (see note)

1/3 cup ground almonds (see note)

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until smooth and add the sugar, beating until creamy. Beat in the eggs, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add the flour, beating just until combined. Add the lemon zest and almonds, stirring until well incorporated. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until well chilled, at least 3 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 . Butter a nonstick cookie sheet. Using a ˝ tablespoon measure, spoon out level ˝ tablespoons of chilled cookie dough onto the cookie sheet, placing them 3 inches apart. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cookies have just flattened and are lightly browned around the edges. Cool the cookies on racks. Store in a covered tin.

Makes 64.

Note: It is best to grind the almonds and mince the lemon zest in a small electric grinder such as a coffee grinder. The result is superior to that obtained with an ordinary food processor.

Variation: Spread 1 tablespoon best-quality seedless raspberry jam on the bottom of one cookie, then place the bottom of another cookie on top. This makes a delicious lemon-raspberry cookie sandwich.

Makes 32

It was two o’clock. I told myself I wasn’t going to sleep; I was just going to rest on the living room couch. Within a moment of stretching out on the uncomfortable cushions, I fell into slumber like tumbling on ice: hard. When I awoke before dawn, my mind was clogged with an undispersed nightmare, this one of an onrushing pig. Or was it a boar?

Do not cast your pearls before swine …

Good Lord. I vaulted up painfully: five o’clock. At this time of year, that meant over an hour until daylight. I rubbed the crick in my neck and stared out the picture window. Beyond the porch, the snow had stopped and the moon shone brightly over a predawn landscape of fluorescent gray. I slipped to the hall closet and donned a ski jacket and snow boots.

I had to go back out to Olson’s.

16

I fed Scout, who mewed happily when he saw he was having an early breakfast, and left a note for the boys: Gone to father Olson’s house; back by eight. No doubt when I got there the police ribbon would still be up. Whether this would be good or bad was an unknown. After all, I’d already crossed the one at the church office. I decided it would be goof if no policeman was stationed at Olson’s to make sure the line wasn’t crossed; bad if someone was and I was rebuffed. I’d say to Boyd, I was just looking for pearls. He’d say, Oh, yeah? Try a jewelry store. I shooed away this thought and quickly filled my espresso machine with water and coffee. While it was heating I rummaged through the hall closet and found one of the flashlights Arch and I had taken to the conference center. When the dark liquid twined into my insulated mug, the clock said 5:15.

If I could just find the pearls, perhaps in some biblically related hiding place, then maybe with them, I’d find whatever it was the killer was looking for. I remembered what I’d said to Boyd: Olson was such a packrat, you’d have to know exactly where to look to find something. Now I had an idea of where to look. The church office had been trashed, perhaps when someone was searching for the pearls, or something unknown. Figure the motive and you’ve got the perp, Tom was fond of saying. I sipped the rich espresso and decided my best bet would be to drive around the way that the intruder had, via the dirt road that led to Upper Cottonwood Creek and the back entrance to Olson’s house. Four-wheel-drive was a must, especially since I’d had such trouble starting my own van yesterday. I took the keys to Julian’s vehicle, a Range Rover inherited from out wealthy former employers. Sorry to take your car, I hastily penned, I promise I’ll be back! And with that I picked up my coffee and quietly slipped out.

Aspen Meadow in the so-called spring is about as inviting as a snow cave, especially when daily television images of azaleas and cherry blossoms remind us of April in the rest of the world. The Rover’s steering wheel was frigid under my grasp; the engine barked its reluctance. I had always harbored a vague notion that T.S. Eliot lived in the high country when he wrote that April was the cruelest month. This dark morning certainly did not promise kind weather.

The Rover growled down my street in first gear, past the Habitat for Humanity construction site. Above the foundation, ice-covered two-by-fours loomed ominously in the bright moonlight. No red flag was visible; I wondered if construction had indeed been blocked. My attention was immediately drawn back by the Rover tires skidding through a stop sign; treacherous black ice glazed the pavement. Once I had edged out on Main Street, the Rover’s headlights picked out stalactite icicles along the storefronts. The bank thermometer said 18 . Instead of allowing the morning’s unbearable chill to penetrate my bones, I imagined the cocoon of warmth Tom’s body had made nestling around mine. I wondered what the churchwomen would have said about the fact that Tom Schulz and I had been sleeping together in the five months since we’d become engaged. Lucky for me, I didn’t give a hoot about ecclesiastical opinion.

A fox scurried under a split rail fence just before the turnoff for Olson’s place. Half a mile later, I turned left on the dirt road that led across a bridge, then bumped over ruts in a wide arc to the other side of Cottonwood Creek. I parked between ponderosa pines as tall and ominous as frozen giants. When I jumped from the Rover, my breath made clouds of vapor in the moonlight. I fumbled with the flashlight and cursed the cold. When I finally could see where I was gong, I headed for the creek bank. My boots crunched over the new snow. Every now and then, they cracked through mud puddles thinly covered with ice.

I was going into Olson’s house when no one was there, I told myself firmly, because Boyd had ordered me to let the police do their job. In other words, I wasn’t supposed to call them in every time I had a hunch. Besides, they had already gone through Olson’s house. What I was looking for, and it really was a wild hunch, were the missing chokers, with something, in an unusual hiding place, a place where a squirrelly person who laughingly gave the head of the raffle committee gold chains gift-wrapped in a frankincense box would stow them. There were references to pearls in the Bible: Don’t throw them before swine, a merchant who finds a pearl of great value and sells all he has to obtain it. There were probably others, I just couldn’t think of what they were. I had already looked up Judas: He’d only dealt in silver coins.

I tried to focus on what Tom would think about this crazy excursion. Overhead, the wind swished through the snow-covered trees and showered my head with fine, cold flakes. I always look for what’s out of place, what’s there that shouldn’t be there, what’s not there as well as what’s there. I could hear Tom say. I stepped over a snow-covered log and tried to visualize Olson’s home as I’d seen it during the vestry dinner: the Stickley couch, wood floors, worn Kirman rugs, shelves of books, religious artifacts and knickknacks, the plants, the teapots, and trays. That was the problem with a packrat. In all the jumble, it was hard to remember exactly what stuff Olson had possessed.

Well, you’re going to have to. Schulz’s voice invaded my thoughts with his patented chuckle. I felt a great wave of affection for him then, and did not know if the sigh I heard was my own or the wind moving through the cottonwood trees at the edge of the creek. I stopped by the precipitous bank and saw a fragmented reflection of the moon in the rushing water seven feet below. This was where Tom had dragged himself, or been forced, across. I firmly placed my right boot at an angle and made a series of careful steps down the muddy, snow-covered bank.

My feet squished through the mud as I focused my concentration on seeing Olson’s rooms: shelves of Bibles in several translations, biblical commentaries, leather-bound biographies of the saints, oversized art books featuring Chartres, Canterbury, and other cathedrals. In the realm of religious artifacts, I pictured the rubbings on Olson’s living and dining room walls. Medieval, I thought, from my college course in art history. And then on a shelf were his own beaten silver paten and chalice, for serving the sacrament, and his portable ambry, a hammered bronze box rimmed in brass for storing the consecrated host. A portable wooden case in his home office held his sterling flatware service. When I’d stored the overflow of covered pans in Olson’s office before the vestry arrived, I’d noticed a mind-boggling number of disheveled piles of papers on the desk and on the floor: the true mark of the Highly Disorganized. Without a secretary at home to keep his act together, Ted Olson had undoubtedly had a vague desire to sort through his correspondence one of these days. But when I’d asked him where to put the pan of pork dumplings, he’d swept the dish out of my hands and left it teetering on what looked like a stable pile. I’d realized Olson had no intention of ever sorting through the paper disaster, much less throwing anything away. After the dinner, he’d repacked the silver flatware himself and left it on an unused bed in the bedroom-turned- office.

I turned my attention back to the creek. The stones protruding from above the roiling surface of the freezing water looked wet and slippery. This was where Schulz had dropped the box containing my wedding ring. Don’t think about it. I hopped lightly across the rocks. Breathing hard, I clutched the flashlight and scrambled up the other side of the creek. When I arrived at the snow-whitened meadow below Olson’s house, it looked as if the sky was beginning to brighten. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part after the deep shadows of the creek bed.

My eyes involuntarily traveled to the place where the police had found Father Olson’s body. Instead of being smooth like the rest of the meadow, that area was indented. Odd. I breathed deeply and walked over to the spot.

My flashlight played over the shallow rectangle. Someone had carefully spaded up and removed the dirt from the area where Father Olson had lain. The artificially made ditch was covered with snow, and at one edge of the dug-up area, someone had put a crudely made cross of lashed-together twigs. This couldn’t be part of police procedure, I reasoned. They might analyze the soil where someone fell, but they wouldn’t leave a cross. You’re going to have to call Boyd and tell him about this. I could Tom Schulz’s voice in my brain as clearly as if he were standing next to me. Boyd wasn’t going to be happy. The fresh snow on to of the rectangular hole left by the Mad Digger indicated that this activity had not taken place in the last few hours. That was good, anyway. The last thing I needed was to be hit over the head by a lunatic wielding a shovel.

I swept the flashlight beam in a circle around the spaded area and saw a clear path of small ruts: the outline of footprints leading up to and away from where I stood. Successive sweeps of the light revealed shallower footprint ruts surrounding the spaded area. I guessed them to be from all the police activity here on Saturday afternoon. And shallower still, of course, there would be the footprints of Tom Schulz and the suspect. Didn’t want to think about that, though.

Time to go up to the house and look for pearls. Maybe Olson had a hollowed-out Bible. Maybe he has a phone that you can use to call Boyd. I ignored the sour taste in my mouth and, careful to avoid the footprint path, walked to the wooden steps leading up to Olson’s house.

There was no yellow police ribbon around the back, at least that I could see. I climbed the stairs and tried the back-door handle. To my surprise the door was already partway open, and I ended up crashing into one of the kitchen counters. My chest shuddered painfully. I rubbed my hip, which had taken the brunt of the blow. My free hand moved along the wall and flipped on the kitchen light.

This was not just disorganization, I thought as I looked at open cupboards, pots pulled out on the floor, cornmeal and flour indiscriminately dumped. Fresh snow had blown into the kitchen through a smashed window. It lay on top of the dumped-out food like confectioners’ sugar. The place had been vandalized, and not in the last few hours.

“Damn it to hell,” I said aloud, and looked for the phone. A black wall model, it had been wrenched from the wall. So much for fingerprints, I thought as I picked it up and examined the cord. I plugged the cord back in, was astonished to get a dial tone, and dialed 911. Boyd was going to yell at me and I deserved it. I told the dispatcher where I was and that the house had been vandalized. No, I said, I did not think I was in any danger. She wanted me to stay on the phone, but I could not. There would be plenty of time for accusations and recriminations as soon as the Sheriff’s Department showed up.

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 forward, 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 the 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.

My back felt broken, although I knew it was only badly bruised. It’s impossible to get comfortable on a stretcher. When the two uniformed fellows worked to maneuver it up the ambulance ramp, Helen disappeared momentarily. She came back with another victim-assistance quilt draped over her arm. This was a pink and green strip quilt, like something you’d see in a preppy nursery. But I meekly allowed her to tuck it around home soon. A negative look passed between the two medical technicians. I ignored it.

Since there was no hospital in Aspen Meadow, the daytime emergency procedure when there was no blood, no fever, and full consciousness was to take the victim to a doctor in the mountain area who then made a medial assessment of the situation. The paramedics took me to the office of Dr. Hodges, or Stodgy Hodge, as we called him in town. In his late seventies, quick-moving, stoop-shouldered Hodges was the best diagnostician I had ever known. Unlike most of his generation, Hodges had made the transition to computers, on-line hookups, and other modern equipment with ease. But he also knew how to make his patients laugh, frequently the best medicine. When I had first visited him fourteen years ago, I had told him I was trying to get pregnant. Without missing a beat, he replied, “My dear, I am too old for you.”

Now an unsmiling Stodgy Hodge was waiting at his office in response to Mountain Rescue’s call; he dutifully opened the doors wide so the stretcher could be wheeled in. After gently poking around and trying to assess whether my kidneys had be been damaged – they had not – Dr. Hodges concluded from the welt on my back that I’d been hit hard by a long weapon. Or, as he put it as he gave me the full benefit of his rheumy gaze above his smudged half-glasses, “Somebody tried to hit a home run using your body as the ball, but it was a bunt.”

Could I walk, he wanted to know. I could, I said, with more confidence than my achy body warranted. He squinted dubiously, then ordered rest at home until I felt better. No exertion. I smiled without assent as he nipped away to call in a prescription for pain pills. Helen Keene used the other line to call my house, where she got Marla, who had just arrived and would be more than willing to come get me. I checked my watch: 7:30. Monday morning. Tom Schulz had been gone less than forty-eight hours. It seemed like decades since I’d left my house to snoop at Olson’s. If I moved very slowly, and had Marla’s help, I could do the prayer group luncheon. Correction: I would do the prayer group luncheon.

What I could not tell Stodgy Hodge or Boyd or even Helen Keene was that I also had no intention of taking it easy until the Sheriff’s Department found Tom Schulz.

When I had somehow dressed myself and shuffled back out in the waiting room to sit by Helen Keene, it occurred to me that Roger Bampton might also be one of Hodges’s patients. When the doctor returned bearing a sample of pain medication for me take when I got home, I decided to find out.

“A neighbor of mine has mylocytic leukemia,” I said. Talking was till a challenge. I tried to dispel shakiness from my voice. Helen Keene patted my arm. “What exactly does that mean?”

Stodgy Hodge paused and removed the half-glasses. He looked disapprovingly at the fingerprints on the lenses. “It means your neighbor is a goner.”

“Yes, but … “ I shifted in the hard chair, trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable, “If you had a case like that, how would it present? I mean, what would make you know that was the problem?”

The doctor scratched his impeccably shaven chin and replaced the glasses without polishing them. “Fellow came in here once, he was like death warmed over. Looked haggard, and his teeth hurt. He’d had a temperature for three days. I ordered a complete blood workup. It came back with a white cell count of eighty-seven thousand, and lost of abnormal mylocytes. Blood cells,” he added helpfully.

“So you concluded he had this kind of leukemia.”

“Yes, but wait.” He held up a gnarled hand. “I put him in the hospital that day. Turned out he had a rectal abscess. That’s what was causing the temperature. It’s also a major complication of mylocytic leukemia.”

I held my breath and let it out. “So what happened?”

The stooped shoulders shrugged. “He began chemotherapy in the hospital. But the disease is ninety-nine percent fatal.” He sighed. “I hope your neighbor has a will.”

“Did your other patient die?”

Dr. Hodges’s grim expression altered. “Actually, that was the strangest case I’ve seen in four decades of practicing medicine. Ten days later, the fellow was feeling better. They ran more blood tests. His white count was normal. Under twelve thousand.”

“Oh, wait,” I said, aware that Helen’s eyes were on me. Surely, she was wondering, at a time like this, with my fiancé missing and my body bruised from a callous attack, I shouldn’t be worrying about my neighbor’s health? “I did hear about this. Roger Bampton, from the church, right?”

“You heard about it? I shouldn’t be surprised, the way news travels in this town.”

“Yes. I guess I just didn’t believe it.” The office phone rang, and my next words came out in a rush. “Do you think it was a miracle?”

Stodgy Hodge’s voice rustled in a dry laugh. He let the answering machine pick up the call. “I’ve seen good people die, and I’ve seen bad people live,” he said when I looked at him expectantly. “Let’s say it was … unexplained. We’ll see how long he lives without a recurrence.”

“But then, how would you know when something is a miracle?” I persisted. “Some of the folks down at the church say Roger got better because Father Olson laid hands on him.”

He shrugged. “Maybe that’s true.”

“Doctor Hodges!” I cried. “Either it is or it isn’t!”

Outside, a vehicle roared up to the curb and then stopped. A car door slammed.

“Please,” I begged, knowing my time was short, “you saw Roger Bampton. What do you think?”

He chuckled. “I know he was having copies of his blood tests framed for Father Olson.” When I glowered at him, he went on, “I also know our church isn’t the most harmonious place in the universe. So why would God choose us to do something like this? The folks at St. Luke’s can’t even agree on the size of pipes to use in plumbing renovation. How would they explain a miraculous healing?’

My eyes still questioned him.

Stodgy Hodge, the best diagnostician I had ever know, shrugged. He said, “All right, I guess I believe the healing of Roger Bampton was a miracle.”

“Goldy!” shrieked Marla as she banged through the office door. She was wearing an enormous white raincoat over a brilliant yellow sweatsuit. She looked like a large, angry egg. Her unbrushed brown hair flew out in unkempt tendrils. She stopped and glanced around at Dr. Hodges, Helen Keene, and then gave me and my wet clothes the once-over. “Went for an early morning swim, did we?”

“Don’t start.”

“No wait,” she said, winking at Helen Keene and throwing her frizzy mass of hair back for effect, “the churchwomen wanted fish, so you thought you’d throw a line into Aspen Meadow Lake. The things caterers will do for food! But then you fell in – “

“Marla – “

“Don’t’ bawl out the person who’s come to nurse you.” She put her chunky arm around me, helped me up, and started to guide me out the door,” I even have a covered cup of fresh cappuccino in the Jag for you.”

Helen Keene bid me good-bye, and Stodgy Hodge placed the sample bottle of pain meds in my palm. Both knew I was in good hands.

“The police tell me you’ve been terribly, terribly naughty,” Marla chided once she had me settled into the front seat of the Jaguar. I uncapped the hot, creamy coffee she had brought and tried to sip the froth as she rocketed the sedan over the icy streets. “What were you looking for at Olson’s that was so important? Copies of S and M Fantasies?”

“I was looking for those doggone pearls that were going to be used for the women’s jewelry bazaar. You said he hid things in strange places, so I just thought – “

“Oh, excuse me, I said he hid things in strange places? So this is my fault? You think the motive was robbery. That’s the theory you risked getting killed for? If stealing was the motive and it failed, don’t you think the police would have found the pearls when they first went out there, when Olson died?”

I didn’t answer. We pulled up by the curb in front of my house.

“What’s that supposed to be?” demanded Marla.

I followed her pointing finger. Yet another crocheted afghan swung gently from a rafter on my front porch. This one was green and had a white cross at the center.

“Oh, Lord, why – “

But my exclamation was interrupted. Julian and Arch vaulted out the front door. Their faces, full of curiosity and worry, pinched my heart. These last few days had been so hard on them.

“I still don’t see why you went out to Olson’s before the sun was even up,” Marla said with an exasperated laugh. “I have plenty of pearls if you need to borrow some.”

“I keep telling you not to start, but you just keep doing it.”

Julian and Arch insisted on knowing everything that had happened. I gave a few brief details and concluded with the fact that I had not found Tom Schulz. Also, I’d been slightly hurt in the process. Marla settled me in a chair – I refused to go to bed – with an electric heating pad wedged against my back and a fresh mug of cappuccino. She took down the newly donated afghan while I dutifully took a pain pill with a glass of water. It was a mild muscle relaxant that I knew would still allow me to function, especially after the double dose of caffeine Marla had just given me.