“Before the first date?” He was honestly amazed. “We’ve already had our first date. We’ve had lots of dates. Our first date was when you brought me a pulled chicken sandwich for dinner in my office. Yes, and you even kissed me afterwards. Our second date was when I took you to Roots and Shoots for lunch, remember? Our third date was dinner at Angel’s Place. We were supposed to have sex after that, but we didn’t. And then after the third date you’re supposed to talk about where the relationship is going. You’re both supposed to lay your expectations out clearly, so that nobody gets hurt.”
“Those weren’t dates. We were working on the same case and talking things over. It was more like a… a meeting between colleagues. It was a working lunch and a couple of working dinners.”
“You kissed me,” he reminded her.
“Yes. Okay. I will concede that I kissed you, which may have blurred the line between working dinner and date somewhat. But I’ve been thinking all this time that we haven’t had our first proper date yet.”
“What would a proper date consist of?”
“Either you or I would ask the other one out. It would be a purely social occasion, with no need to talk about work. We would get dressed up and go out to dinner or a movie, or perhaps both.”
“That sounds like a lot of pressure.”
“You’re right.” Eulalie laughed. “It is a lot of pressure. There’s a reason why dating is regarded as an extreme sport. We totally shouldn’t do that. I much prefer our working dinners.”
“I like work. I wouldn’t like it if I weren’t allowed to talk about work.”
“Me too.”
“And what about sex?”
Eulalie was tempted to laugh, but she didn’t. To laugh would be to mock him for being the way he was – goal-oriented, detail-oriented, and always in need of a blueprint to follow.
“Sex is another one of those things that becomes more pressured the more you try to schedule it. I think it’s something that should happen organically, with both parties enthusiastic. I like touching you. You like touching me. We can see where that goes.”
Chief Macgregor’s right knee started to bounce up and down, a sign that he was becoming anxious.
“I know this is a bit vague for your comfort,” she said. “But my comfort is also important. I want this to be something unscheduled and free from obligation.”
“I think I understand. I would like to be able to follow a timetable. We date for so many months, then get engaged for so many months, then get married and buy a house. Then we have children. You don’t like to plan ahead like that, so we have to compromise. A little bit of planning, a little bit of spontaneity.”
Eulalie just looked at him. “Is it really that simple for you? Are you really that sure about me that you would like to schedule our future together?”
“Of course. My skin recognized you from the beginning.”
Eulalie sank back in her seat. That was either the strangest or the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.
It was early afternoon by the time Eulalie got back to the office. She stopped off at La Petite Patisserie for a couple of coffees to go.
“Thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Belfast as she looked up from her filing. “There are messages on your desk. The most important one is from Mark Egger. His sister-in-law’s church is holding a special service for the family to support them through their time of sorrow, and he wants you to attend.”
Eulalie pulled a face. “I wonder why. Where is it?”
“At the Scout Hall. You have to wear a full-length skirt, with a high-necked blouse, and you have to cover your head with a scarf.”
She suppressed a groan. “What time is the service?”
“Two-thirty.”
“That doesn’t give me much time, does it?”
“He said he knew it was short notice, but that he hoped you’d be able to make it. He said you would know why when you got there.”
“I’d better go and change. It looks like you’ll be holding the fort all afternoon too.”
Mrs. Belfast smiled. “That’s what I’m here for. When I’ve finished digitizing your files, I’m going to upgrade the billing system. Your software is out of date.”
Eulalie ran up the stairs to her apartment. She was mentally reviewing the contents of her closet and wondering if she had anything suitable. There was a long velvet skirt in plum that almost swept the floor when she walked. Angel would have an aneurysm if she saw her granddaughter wearing velvet during the day, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
Eulalie usually wore the skirt with a tight black tank top, but that wouldn’t be remotely suitable for today. It would have to be the blue and white checked peasant blouse. But instead of leaving the buttons open and knotting it high in her waist, we would button it up to the chin and leave it hanging over the top of the skirt.
She physically winced when she saw herself in the mirror. The plum and the blue and white check clashed, as did the slinky velvet and the rough cotton.
Her one act of rebellion was the pair of Doc Marten boots she wore under the skirt, trusting that they would be invisible beneath its folds.
She was almost out the door when she remembered the head scarf. Fortunately, scarves were something she had no shortage of. She chose a pale plum to match the skirt and tied it over her head in such a way that most of her hair was hidden.
She looked in the mirror again and heaved a sigh. There was enough of her grandmother in her for her finer feelings to be lacerated by this sartorial disaster. With her coloring she looked like a young Sicilian widow. A color-blind young Sicilian widow.
“The things I do for my job.” She picked up her messenger bag and headed out the apartment.
The Scout Hall was in midtown. It was an easy fifteen-minute walk from her office, but fifteen minutes was what she didn’t have. She wanted to get to the service early to watch the arrivals. Whatever it was that Mark Egger wanted her to observe would probably happen just before or just after the service. If the service was anything like the Catholic Mass Eulalie was accustomed to, it would contain no intrigue whatsoever.
She walked to the top of Bonaparte Avenue and hailed a cab.
The Scout Hall had been thoroughly taken over by Lily Egger’s church. There were banners draped over the doors declaring, Special Family BRS Service Today and Hall Closed for BRS Service, Zumba Cancelled!
A surprising number of people were filing into the hall. Most of the men were in suits and the women in long skirts and head scarves. A few women didn’t seem to have got the memo, and had arrived in their ordinary clothes.
Eulalie caught a glimpse of Lily Egger and another woman handing out long wrap-around skirts, shawls, and scarves to improperly dressed women.
It was like visiting the Vatican.
Lily was wearing her purple toga with the black drawstring belt. Eulalie recognized some of the women from her Bible study group.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Lily said warmly to Eulalie. “And don’t you look nice? Much better than that outfit you were wearing the other day. We really appreciate your interest. I saw you watching us at Bible study that day, and I knew the Savior was moving within you to bring you closer to our movement. The Savior moves in mysterious ways. Perhaps Emma was meant to die so that more disciples could find their way into His grace. Everything happens for a reason. Everything.” She gave Eulalie a blinding smile.
“Hi, Lily. I’m here because Mark invited me. If you’ll excuse me, I need to find a seat.”
She edged towards the door that led into the hall and peeked inside.
Most of the family were already seated. Old Josef Egger was right at the front on the aisle. Next to him sat his eldest son Joe followed by a space, presumably intended for Lily, and then their three little daughters. The girls were dressed in mini versions of their mother’s toga, but Joe was in a suit, as though he had just come from work.
Behind them sat the middle brother Richard and his
wife Jane, with their son and two daughters. The three children could not have looked more unlike their toga-clad cousins who were sitting in front of them. They looked like regular kids in their jeans and Disney Channel T-shirts. Girls under a certain age must have been exempted from the dress code because they were wearing nothing on their heads.
At the end of the row sat Priscilla Bosworth. Eulalie saw Priscilla and Jane exchange a warm smile over the heads of the children. She wasn’t surprised that they had bonded. She couldn’t help thinking of them as the only two normal members of this extremely odd family.
Behind Richard and Jane sat Mark Egger’s teenage daughters. They too looked nothing like their cousins. Their hair was blow dried and their makeup professionally applied. Eulalie recognized the labels of the designer miniskirts and tops they were wearing. They had been draped in shawls and scarves when they arrived but were slowly discarding these. All three had their phones out and were texting.
Eulalie looked at the rows of Eggers and tried to make sense of the fact that they all belonged to the same family. The front row looked as if they could possibly be homeless. The middle row were unremarkably middleclass. The third row looked like the cast of a Real Housewives show. The only way you could tell they were related was by looking at the brothers.
“Glad you could make it. Thanks for coming.” A voice spoke in Eulalie’s ear. She turned to see Mark standing behind her.
“Sure. I just wish I knew why I’m here.”
“Watch the bit at the end when they ask for donations. That’s all I’m saying. We’d better go and sit down now. They’re getting ready to start.”
Eulalie walked towards an empty seat near the middle of the hall. An altar with a cross had been set up in the front. Her knees dipped automatically, and she crossed herself. She couldn’t help herself. It was bred in the bone.
“Careful,” said Mark. “They are not keen on Catholics around here.”
Eulalie managed not to glare by reminding herself that he was paying her bills.
The service started with a rattle of tambourines and several rousing songs. It was difficult to tell who was leading the service. Lily and her band of Bible study ladies took turns in doing the readings, leading the worship, and banging the tambourines.
Eulalie wasn’t sure what book they were reading out of, but it didn’t seem to be the Bible.
As the service went on, one woman began to stand out. Her toga was a deeper purple than the rest - with an elaborate tasseled drawstring. The others referred to her as Pastor Ellie.
She was a woman in her mid-forties, with the same solid body, square face, and DIY haircut as the rest of them. She stood out only because of her piercing green eyes. They were almost luminous in their intensity. Eulalie thought they were probably contact lenses.
When the time came for the sermon, she stood up and took the podium.
“When the people of the Savior die,” she said, sweeping the congregation with her compelling eyes. “Their souls fly up to heaven to be with our Blessed Redeeming Savior. But what happens to their bodies, ladies and gentlemen? I say again – what happens to their bodies? They return to the earth, of course. They return to the earth from whence they came. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, from earth we came and to earth we shall return.”
She paused, her acolytes hanging on every word.
“And why, ladies and gentlemen? Why do our bodies remain behind here on this earthly plane? Why do our souls fly up to heaven while our bodies remain here? Because we don’t need them anymore, of course! We have no more need of our earthly incarnation while our souls are flying joyously free with our Blessed Redeeming Savior. Our bodies are like a tattered old coat that we shrug off when we feel the sun warming our limbs. We leave it behind without a second’s thought because we have no further need of it.”
Even Mark’s daughters had put their phones down and were listening.
“Imagine if you will, ladies and gentlemen, leaving behind all the aches and pains of your mortal body and flying free on the heavenly winds with your Blessed Redeeming Savior. Imagine that freedom! Imagine that sensation of soaring above all your earthly troubles. What a glorious and wonderful sensation that would be. Do you think you would have a moment’s regret for that sad, mortal package you have left behind? I think not. I think your spirit would say Hallelujah. It would say Hallelujah! What would your spirit say?”
“Hallelujah!” said the congregation.
“What would it say?”
“Hallelujah!”
“What would your spirit say when it left its mortal body behind?”
“Hallelujah!” The hall rang with their shouts.
“That’s right!” The green beam of her gaze landed on Eulalie and seemed to pierce her to her soul. “That is what your spirit would say because it does not regret the earthly form it has left behind. But what about your earthly possessions, ladies and gentlemen? Do you think your spirit needs those earthly possessions while it is soaring free in heaven with our Blessed Redeeming Savior? Do you think your eternal spirit worries about the dollars and cents you have left behind? Do you think your pure white spirit worries about whether it brought a wallet along to meet the Blessed Redeeming Savior?”
There were shouts of “No!” and “No way!” and “Uh uh!” from the audience.
“Do you think all the money you have scraped together while you were living in this sink of sin will benefit you one iota when your soul is flying free from its earthly bonds?”
The shouts were stronger now.
“No!”
“I say no!”
“Hallelujah!”
“Praise the Savior!”
Eulalie thought she was getting an inkling of where this was going.
“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow sinners…” Pastor Ellie lowered her voice as the shouts died down and all the attention in the room focused on her again. “I say to you here in the presence of our Blessed Redeeming Savior that there is only one thing to do with your money after your soul has flown free to join the Heavenly Host. Do you want to hear what that is? Do you want to know what the Savior wants you to do with your money after you have passed?”
Shouts of “yes!” and “tell us!” rang out in the hall.
“He wants you to give it right back to the Savior, so he can continue his blessed work in this life. Do you want to know how you can do that? Do you want to know how you can give the money you no longer need back to your Savior to do his blessed work? Do you want to know how you can accomplish this miracle?”
“Yes!”
“Tell us, Pastor Ellie!”
“We want to know!”
“You donate the money to BRS, that’s what you do. If the church is the bride of our Savior as the Blessed Book tells us, then giving the money to BRS is the same as giving it to the Savior. Did you hear me, fellow sinners? It is the same thing! A donation to BRS is a donation to our Savior. It enables him to do his blessed work in this vale of sorrow that we call the world. It enables him to feed the poor! To clothe the naked! To house the homeless! Great is he in the sight of the Savior who gives his money to BRS. Precious is his gift in the eyes of the Savior. The Blessed Book tells us that it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to enter the eye of the needle. Do you want to be excluded from heaven, fellow sinners?”
“No!”
“We don’t want that!”
“No!”
“Tell us how, Pastor Ellie.”
“If you give all your money to BRS when you pass on, then your soul will be as pure and clean as a newborn babe. We come into this earth with nothing and we leave with nothing. Let us go over into the next life unburdened by the sorrows of this life. A donation to the Savior is like banking time in heaven. It’s like making your advance booking in a five-star suite with a sea-view in the very best part of heaven. Instead of burdening the next generation with money that they are going to have to give back when they pass, just will your money to BRS so you can
enter the Kingdom of Heaven with a clean heart. You want that, don’t you? You want that five-star suite in heaven, don’t you? You don’t want to go to the other place, do you? If you want that five-star suite in heaven, say hallelujah!”
The hallelujahs almost lifted the roof off the old Scout Hall. Pastor Ellie took a sip of water as the shouts rang out. Then she led the congregation in prayer.
After the prayer, some of the Bible study ladies came around with velvet bags for the collection. Eulalie saw that a fierce argument was underway between Joe and Lily Egger. As the velvet bag got closer, he seemed to concede, and reached into his briefcase to take out a check book. Eulalie had no idea what sum of money he wrote on the check, but he seemed to be writing for quite a long time. When he popped the check into the collection bag, Lily gave him a smile and a nod.
As the bag made its way around to Mark, Lily turned and fixed him with a beady eye. Pastor Ellie was also watching him. This, after all, was the husband of the recently deceased. Did he or did he not want her soul to fly free to that five-star suite in heaven? Apparently, he wasn’t bothered either way because his checkbook stayed in his briefcase, and all he put in the bag were a few bills. Then he passed the bag on, impervious to the eyes boring into him from all sides.
When the service was over, the congregation were invited to tea and refreshments on the lawn outside the hall. Eulalie took a cup of tea and stood with her back to the hall, so she could watch the people. Mark made his way over to her.
“Do you see what I mean?” he said. “Do you see? This place is all about money. Their richest pickings come from deceased estates. The absolute cornerstone of their theology is that you can’t get into heaven unless you’ve given all your money away when you die. And who better to give it to than Pastor Ellie?”
Eulalie watched the Pastor going from group to group with a smile and a handshake for everyone. Those she spoke with seemed pleased and flattered to be noticed by her.
“I’m sure you’re right, but there’s no law against it. All churches try to separate people from their money by playing the heaven card. The Catholics certainly do, and I should know. I gave them half my pocket money for years. I still make regular donations to the widow and orphan fund. I don’t see what this has to do with my investigation.”
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 35