The Last Suppers

by Diane Mott Davidson

  I asked sharply, “Is there an ecumenical or parish organization with the initials P.R.A.Y.? Maybe something like, Protestant-Roman Catholic Association of Youth?”

  Zelda drew in her breath, confused. “Goldy? What in the world are you talking about? Are they the ones you want to donate the flowers to? Because I can’t be calling all around—”

  “Zelda, is there such an organization? P.R.A.Y.? I’m sure I’ve heard of it somewhere.”

  “Well, I’m sure I haven’t, and I’ve been in this parish for twenty years, ever since Father Pinckney—”

  “Okay, thanks, Zelda. Please. Use the flowers in any way you wish. I’m sorry, I have to go.” We both stuttered good-byes and gently hung up.

  Arch glanced at me, frowned, and left the room to look for some colored pencils. I stared at my catering calendar. The days were blank. Of course, I had cleared it in anticipation of our three-day honeymoon. Now there was not even work I could do to take my mind off this spiral of events.

  Worry for Tom exploded in my chest. Should I have asked Helen Keene to stay with me? When would Julian be back from the airport? What could Tom’s cryptic notes mean? I lay down on my kitchen floor, pulled my knees to my chest, and felt tears slide down my cheeks unchecked. I’m losing it

  The doorbell rang; again, my heart jumped. Leaping to my feet, I raced down the hall, then stared disbelievingly through the peekhole. Marla. She made a face at me and held up plastic bags of food. Just what we needed: more to eat. Arch, who had trotted down the hall behind me at the sound of the bell, moaned in disappointment and muttered that he was going to watch television.

  “What are you doing here alone?” Marla demanded as soon as she had heaved herself and her bags into the kitchen. “I swear.” Still wearing her dark matron of honor suit, she took in my sweatsuit and my face, then shook her head. “Somehow I knew you wouldn’t want me to take you out to dinner tonight.”

  “I’m not alone; Arch is here.” To my horror, it all spilled out. “Marla—Father Olson’s killer took Tom. I had to go out to Olson’s place, and it was awful …”

  She pulled me in for a long hug. “I know,” she murmured in my ear. “I was down at the church looking for you. Father Doug told me. Do you need to cry?”

  I thought about the weeping I’d already done, solitary and helpless on the floor. “Thanks, but no. Not at the moment, anyway.”

  “Need to talk?”

  I pulled away from her, picked up a bag, and set it on the counter. “How did Doug Ramsey know Tom was missing?”

  “From the cops.” Marla heaved the other bag onto one of the kitchen counters. “Some of them are still at the church. They wanted to see if Schulz’s phone call to the church office might have been taped.”

  “Oh, Lord.” I stumbled morosely into a kitchen chair.

  Marla eased down beside me. She put a hand over mine. I stared unhappily at the black front of Tom’s range, unable to rid myself of the vision of him flipping pieces of chicken on the grill. He’d had friends from the Sheriff’s Department haul the Jenn-Air grill-with-convection-oven over from his cabin and install the ventilation pipe a week ago. He had said he couldn’t live without his oven. With a wink, he’d added, “Sort of like you, Goldy.”

  After a few moments, Marla rose and began to unload her stash. Individually wrapped Beef Wellington. Frozen Scampi. We’d often joked that our ex-husband had found two women who loved food more than they loved him. My passion was working in the kitchen, and Marla was the queen of packaged gourmet.

  She looked at me. “Where’s your choker?”

  “Upstairs. Why? It’s a miracle I didn’t lose it out at Olson’s place, tramping around in the mud.”

  “Goldy, don’t say it’s a miracle to me.” She flopped back down next to me. “We’ve got a problem. Actually, more than one.”

  “What? With the pearls?”

  “Before your wedding was supposed to begin, I was out in the narthex with the jewelry raffle committee. I told them both of us were wearing the chokers that were going to be sold, and they ooh’ed and aah’ed.”

  Oh boy, I thought, here we go. Some left-wing group had threatened a pearl boycott.

  “I’ll get to the pearl problem in a minute.” She sighed. “Apparently,” Marla continued glumly, “some of the goings-on in our parish have started rumors floating around in the diocese.”

  I sniffed. “Goings-on in our parish? Rumors? Wait until they hear our priest has been murdered.” I shook my head, seeing the flash of Father Theodore Olson’s warm smile behind his dark beard when he appointed me to the Board of Theological Examiners.

  Marla nodded. “Right. ‘Show me a parish in the diocese without some wild stories,’ I say. And so they say, ‘Hoho, word’s out Roger Bampton claims his healing was miraculous.’ As in feeding-of-the-five-thousand miraculous.”

  “Oh, please,” I said, in no mood to discuss disease. “Roger’s sick. I heard he was a little better. Miraculous? That’s what our ex-husband is going to say when he hears Tom Schulz didn’t show up for the wedding.” I felt a sudden chill, thought about making tea, then dismissed it. Too much effort. “Anyway,” I added, “Roger has leukemia.”

  “He’s out of the hospital.” Marla grimaced. “Get this. He’s not just a little better, he had a normal blood test. To me, it was a miracle old Scotch-swilling Rog didn’t die of liver disease before they diagnosed him with leukemia. And they’re saying there’ve been other miracles, too.”

  “Come on, Marla. I’ve heard some of those stories, the bad knee healed and all that. Who listens? They’re like the stock market. You have a wave of good luck and then a wave of bad. How is this a problem?”

  “Goldy, we’ve been busy with other stuff, we haven’t been tuned into all the latest. I mean, you’ve been getting ready for the wedding, and I’ve been planning a jewelry raffle and sale with dozens of orders for tickets and chokers. But Agatha Preston enlightened me: Three weeks ago, sick-to-death Roger was suddenly pronounced well. Last week, a Sunday School teacher swore she’d been cured of chronic back pain. An infant born blind got his sight somehow. So I told these folks that I need to lose twenty pounds, where do I sign up?”

  I said, “I need Tom Schulz back.”

  “Just thought you’d like to know.”

  “Father Olson wouldn’t have approved.”

  “Listen,” she protested, “Agatha and these women swear Olson was the one whose actions got the rumors started in the first place. It’s Father Pinckney who wouldn’t have approved.” Getting up abruptly, Marla hauled out three bags of Chinese-style vegetables and two frozen Sara Lee cakes. I wondered briefly what had happened to the wedding cake. Marla emerged from my walk-in refrigerator and put her hands on her ample hips. “But remember I said I had more than one problem? Here’s the other: Father Olson kept the rest of the pearls. Out at his place. Twenty chokers, two thousand dollars each. The cops didn’t find them at his house.”

  “They’ve already searched the whole place?” I could not remember ever being so confused. Another wave of weariness swept over me. I ran a hand over the black enamel of Tom’s stove. “That’s hard to believe. Why did you … why did Olson have the pearls in the first place?”

  “He always kept the stuff for the jewelry raffle and sale.” Marla sounded disgusted. “He kept the gold chains last year and the jade the year before that. He said a jewelry thief would never scope out Upper Cottonwood Creek. I told the police to keep looking for them, but they said his house wasn’t burgled, so it’s not as if they searched every nook and cranny. It’s just that the motive doesn’t look like robbery at this point. Of course Olson didn’t have a safe. And they won’t let me or anyone else go into his house to poke around. That Olson. He was such a squirrelly packrat, he probably hid them somewhere we’ll never find.” She groaned.

  “Squirrelly packrat?”

  “Sorry, I’m mixing my rodent metaphors. You going to eat these truffles?”

  “Go ahead. Marla—Is
there a church organization with the acronym P.R.A.Y.?”

  She took a bite of chocolate and munched thoughtfully. “Pray? Not that I know of, and you know if anyone would know about church organizations, it’s me.”

  “Well, when was the last time you read the story about Judas?”

  Marla finished her first truffle, looked over the tray, and chose a second, this one a plump dark mound dusted with cocoa. She popped it into her mouth, put a hand on her large chest, and frowned. “I certainly don’t know. Why?”

  “Tom wrote something down before Olson died,” I murmured. “He mentioned this P.R.A.Y. and Judas, but nobody knows what he was talking about.”

  “Judas? He wrote something about Judas? Why?” I shrugged. Marla licked her fingertips. “Let’s see, what’s today? Still Lent. I always wait for somebody to read the story to me. You know, in church. The Last Supper, Maundy Thursday, then the betrayal by Judas. No, no, it’s the other way around. Wait a minute. You’re the Sunday School teacher, you tell me. Is that all he wrote? What was it, some kind of ransom note?”

  “No.” I’d probably already said too much. I gritted my teeth in preparation for further interrogation, but Marla pushed away the truffle tray and gazed in my direction, concerned. Clearly, she was more worried about me as a friend than she was about the details of the homicide/kidnapping investigation.

  “Goldy, want to come and stay at my place? I can take care of you. Honestly, it’s the least I can do. Matron of honor and all that.”

  “No, thanks. I have to stay by the phone. Until they find him,” I said uncertainly.

  “They’ll find him,” Marla said firmly. She inched her chair over and put her hand on my arm. “Goldy, you cannot stay here alone.”

  “You’re great, but honest. I’m not alone—Arch and Julian are with me. Talk to me about the church. Tell me how this could happen.”

  “I swear, I don’t know. Olson was just—” She gestured extravagantly, like an Italian looking for a word. “—a cute charismatic who had a good grounding in theology? I don’t know. Does that sound prejudiced? I mean, when I told him we cleared twenty thousand on the gold chains last year, he didn’t say ‘Praise the Lord.’”

  “That doesn’t help.” Twenty thousand dollars on gold chains? I felt hysteria rising in my throat and pushed it down. “With these jewelry raffles—you sell some and raffle some, right?” She nodded. “Who ordered the pearls for the fund-raiser? Do you know how many people knew they were out at Olson’s house? And what do the churchwomen use all that money for, anyway?”

  “Hey whoa, Goldy, slow down.” She pressed her lips together. “Bob Preston ordered the pearls this year. You remember, the oil guy, husband of Agatha, son of Zelda. I guess I should say, former oil guy. He got some kind of deal from a friend of his in the Far East. As to what the church-women use the money for, there’s usually a big argument. Lucille and the Art and Architecture Committee want to build the columbarium before they redo the kitchen. I’m running the raffle, and I want to give the money to Aspen Meadow Outreach. So Lucille Boatwright and I are at odds, which, believe me, is nothing new. Speaking of the crotchety angel, are you up to hearing about what happened after she collapsed at the church? Or do you want me to fix you some tea first?”

  I really couldn’t focus on Lucille Boatwright and her autocratic ways. But decision making was beyond me. When I said nothing, Marla rummaged through cupboards, extracted a teapot and cups, opened a box of Scottish shortbread she had brought, and put a pan of water on to boil. The gestures reminded me of Tom. He loved tea. Loves. Stop it.

  “Anyway, Lucille Boatwright,” Marla persisted. “The Old Guard is still guarding. Old Lucy’s fine; she informed the doctors not to let Mitchell Hartley and the rest of the charismatics touch her precious columbarium construction in her absence. She had some arrhythmia, and Zelda Preston is down at the hospital with her.”

  “Well, Zelda’s back, because she just called me from the church. Trying to plan Holy Week and Ted Olson’s funeral and wondering what to do with Tom’s and my wedding flowers.” Marla sipped her tea and rolled her eyes. “I told her to give the altar arrangements to the Roman Catholics.”

  Marla choked. “Treading a bit close to the edge, aren’t we? I’m surprised Zelda’s involved. You know, she was just so irate about the music, spent all last month screaming about going to see the bishop. Oh, wait. Speaking of the bishop. Guess who he’s appointed to pastor the church through this crisis?”

  “Marla. I really don’t care. All I can think about is Tom. A priest appointed to get us through this crisis? Could the bishop really move that fast?”

  “He has to. I mean, a murdered priest, a halted wedding, not to mention a funeral? Our flock needs emergency pastoring.”

  “Doug Ramsey, I guess.”

  “Wrong. He’s too junior.” She dunked a shortbread cookie into her tea and carefully bit into it. “The bishop is sending in the poet.”

  “The … oh, no. Not George Montgomery. He’s the canon theologian. He’s on the Board of Theological Examiners with me and always asks about the history of the eucharist.”

  “Montgomery may examine about the sacrament of holy communion,” Marla said, “but he’s going to versify about everything else.” She finished her shortbread cookie and reached for another. “Be prepared for sermons that ask, ‘Where were you, God/when I laid sod/and found it crass/to ask for grass?’” She chuckled sourly.

  I stared at Tom’s oven. The phone rang. I jumped for it.

  “Yes!”

  “Hello, is this Goldy?” A female voice, hesitant, raw from crying.

  “Who is this?”

  “Agatha,” gulped the voice, “Agatha …”

  I put my hand over the receiver and mouthed to Marla, “Agatha Preston.”

  Marla stage-whispered, “I saw her in the church kitchen. She looked like a WASP auditioning for Song of Hiawatha.”

  “Agatha,” I said into the receiver, “what is it? Do you have some news? What’s wrong?”

  Marla’s eyes bulged. I shook my head firmly when she mouthed, “What? What?”

  “I can’t, I can’t take it …” Agatha gagged, coughed, and let out a single sob. With great effort, she said, “Did you … I need to know if you … saw him.” She burst into a fit of crying.

  “Saw him?” I was bewildered.

  “What happened?” she sobbed. “Oh, God, I’m not going to make it. Oh, where is he?” She cried harder, and then her voice became distant when the phone thudded against a hard surface.

  “Hello, who’s this?” A male voice. “This is Goldy the caterer. I was trying to talk to somebody.”

  “This is Bob Preston. My wife coordinates the prayer list. As you can see, she is extremely upset. She’ll have to call you later.”

  “But, Agatha asked me if I saw somebody. Who was she talking about?”

  Bob Preston said: “I certainly don’t know. My wife’s beside herself. It would be in the best interest of the church if you could just let her call you back.”

  My frayed nerves snapped. I yelled, “Look, dammit—”

  But unlike most Episcopalians, Bob Preston had hung up.

  5

  “What a creep!” I screeched. “Get out the phone book,” I raged at Marla. “I need to call back the Prestons. Agatha said she wasn’t going to make it, and had I seen him, and then Bob just more or less told me to forget it, she’d have to call me back! Where is my stupid phone book?”

  Marla’s eyebrows climbed toward the stratosphere. Telling Marla to forget something was her idea of denial of civil liberties. I scrounged wildly for, and then through, the thin Aspen Meadow phone book. No Preston. What about the church directory? I looked for it, but then remembered I had cleared that shelf to make way for Tom’s cookbooks, which now lay in a disorganized pile above the counter. I had no clue to the directory’s whereabouts.

  Marla clattered our teacups into the sink and turned on the faucet. I gave up looking for the Preston
s’ number and announced I was out of physical and emotional fuel. I had Tom Schulz to worry about. Had he ever mentioned Agatha Preston to me?

  “What is Bob doing now?” I demanded of Marla. I summoned up a mental image of Bob Preston, oilman extraordinaire: With his puffed-out chest and thinning red hair, Preston always reminded me of an aging rooster, although he probably wasn’t much past thirty. Over six feet, maybe six-feet-four, he had prominent cheekbones, a receding chin, and narrow lips. I said, “What happened to his oil business?”

  She began rinsing Tom’s cups with their tiny stylized roses. “Bob was riding high until the price of oil crashed in the mid-eighties. The price of natural gas hasn’t gone anywhere either, so it was too expensive to explore. His company went belly-up year before last. They haven’t called for you to cater lately, have they?”

  I put my hand on Tom’s stove. “Caterers are always vulnerable to the vagaries of wider economic movements.” My voice sounded so morose it was clear that financial vulnerability was not the problem.

  “Come on, I’m going to cheer you up,” said Marla decisively. “You have to get your mind off these things. I’ll tell you all the gossip about Bob and the Bob-projects. Not only do they include Habitat for Humanity right here in your neighborhood, he’s also heading this Sportsmen Against Hunger group. They go out into the woods with six-packs and rifles with scopes and shoot elk, then donate the—shall I call them ‘proceeds’?—to Aspen Meadow Outreach. Now if you were a poor, hungry person, how would you feel about eating an elkburger? Do you have a recipe for such a thing? How about venison chili?”

  I shuddered. “I know about that group and the Habitat project. Just tell me who Agatha wanted to see.”

  She gave me a look of determination. “Agatha is involved in everything down at the church. I don’t know who she was referring to.” She turned the last teacup over to drain on a towel and ran her fingers through her frizzled hair. “But you can bet I’m going to find out.”