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 blind? 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 our 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, besides 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 legal 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 raised 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 I-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, pointing 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—and 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 … about 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 childish 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 …”
The Last Suppers Page 14