I told him about the missing keys Marla and I had found at the Habitat house.
“They were just lying there on the floor,” said Boyd suspiciously. “Not hidden in any way? You just found them. The way you found those letters. Which, by the way, don’t tell us squat, except that Agatha Preston has a couple thousand stashed away in a checking account in Denver. So. The keys were on the floor?”
“Yes, they were on the floor. No, they weren’t hidden. And yes, we found them. What do you think?”
My doorbell rang: Alicia had arrived with the bass and vegetables. In the front hall, Marla welcomed her and asked if she wanted some Amaretto. They laughed boisterously and then immediately suppressed it. This incongruous humor, plus Boyd’s suspicions, plus the fact that it was now almost 4:00 on Monday, with still no sign of Tom, sent a wave of frustration surging in my voice. “Aren’t you going to come and get these keys?” I demanded. “Aren’t you going to arrest Bob Preston?”
“For what?” Boyd demanded.
I took the phone from my ear and stared at it.
Five inches away, Boyd’s voice droned: “Should I arrest him for working on some volunteer project where you found some missing keys? A volunteer project that everyone who knows him knows he’s working on? So if a suspect left the keys sitting out in full view, it sure would look like neurotically neat Bob Preston had just dropped them there?” The static distorting his words did not hide his sarcasm.
“I guess not,” I mumbled.
Boyd said he’d be by tonight to pick up the keys. I told him I’d probably be finished at Hymnal House around ten.
“Then have Marla or your other cooking helper, Julian, pick you up. I don’t want you to go around snooping after dark.”
“Who, me?”
Boyd hung up.
Alicia left. Marla, with sighs that would have embarrassed a martyr, rinsed and divided the bass. We were in the middle of washing the new potatoes, baby carrots, and thin, delicate asparagus stalks when Julian and Arch arrived home. Their faces searched mine: Any news? When I shook my head, Julian placed a foil-covered glass casserole dish on the counter.
“A cow died so that you could have hamburger-noodle casserole tonight, courtesy of the Altar Guild. How’s your back?”
“Don’t start with the vegetarian agenda, I have enough problems. My back’s doing a lot better. The examining board is starting their work early, and we’re doing Chilean Sea Bass with Garlic, Basil, and Vegetables. Feel like chopping basil?” I did not ask him about the college acceptance situation; as with Schulz’s disappearance, being asked for the latest news when there was none only served to remind you of what was missing. He would have told me if he’d heard anything.
“I’ll butter the gratin dishes,” Arch piped up as he scrubbed his hands. “I already scooped out cookies this morning. Did you bring them to the lunch?”
I told him that I had, and his work had been a hit. He beamed and measured out chilled unsalted butter. Julian washed his hands and expertly rolled layered leaves of basil, then sliced through them. Marla parboiled the new potatoes and baby carrots. I pressed pungent cloves of garlic, mixed them with the chopped basil leaves, and beat them into the butter. We formed an assembly line and artfully laid out the fish, vegetables, butter, and herbs on the buttered platters, then covered each tightly with aluminum foil. Our only interruption was a phone call from Lucille Boatwright. She wanted to know if I had donated the food from the wedding reception to Aspen Meadow Outreach yet.
“Yet?” I repeated.
“If you have not,” she continued airily, “I wish you would consider sending it in for the funeral tomorrow, Goldy. We’re going to have quite a few people in from out of town, I’m told. I can’t get enough volunteers to make food, and I certainly can’t let people go home hungry.”
It was the least I could do for Father Olson, no matter what I thought of Lucille. I cupped my hand over the phone and asked Julian if he would mind schlepping the reception platters down to the church for the funeral. He nodded without looking at me. Julian seemed to be thinking that not keeping all that food was another way of tacitly admitting that our hopes for Tom Schulz were dimming. I put this thought out of my mind and assured Lucille my assistant would meet her at the church in an hour.
After hanging up, I asked Marla to pour a red wine vinaigrette over thick layered slices of navel orange and purple onion. Arch washed and packed heads of butter lettuce. Julian had taken a bag of Parkerhouse rolls from the freezer. We were ready.
With a herculean attempt to appear happy and hopeful, I said, “What would I do without my team?”
“Go out for pizza,” muttered Julian darkly.
Julian insisted on driving the van with all the boxes for the night’s meal over to the conference center. Marla chauffered me and my pile of exams in her Jaguar, with Arch in the back. She had told the boys she would take them out for pizza if they would explain the younger generation’s fascination with video games to her. I tucked a spiral notebook into my apron pocket and realized I did not have a single question prepared to ask the candidates.
“I’ll be by to pick you up at Hymnal House at ten o’clock,” Marla pronounced ominously once we’d arrived at the conference driveway. Julian was unloading and Arch was setting three tables for five in the old conference dining room. “Don’t you dare go anywhere without me, Goldy, do you hear?”
I leaned against the Jaguar. “Since when do you tell me what to do?” I asked mildly.
“Since I helped you make lunch for the prayer group, and dinner for this pompous board, that’s when.”
“Ah-ha.” Then I added, “I promise.”
On the deck of Hymnal House, the three candidates for ordination, including Mitchell Hartley, and a dozen priests including Canon Montgomery, Doug Ramsey, and other men I knew from previous meetings, were sipping white wine and trying to look as if they all weren’t terribly nervous. They hadn’t asked for hors d’oeuvre, and they weren’t getting any. But since the last thing I needed was for them to have a layer of alcohol on empty stomachs, I quickly preheated the ancient Hymnal House oven and popped the fish platters and rolls inside, then arranged the orange and onion on top of individual beds of butter lettuce.
CHILEAN SEA BASS WITH GARLIC, BASIL, AND VEGETABLES
4 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
4 teaspoons finely chopped fresh basil
2 garlic cloves, pressed
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
4 red-skinned new potatoes
8 baby carrots
1 ½ pounds fresh (not frozen) boneless Chilean sea bass fillets
8 slender asparagus spears
Preheat the oven to 425°. In a small bowl, beat the butter, basil, garlic, and lemon juice until well combined. Set aside. Parboil the potatoes and baby carrots for 5 minutes; drain. Divide the fillets into 4 equal portions.
Place the fillets in a buttered 9- by 13-inch pan (or an attractive gratin dish with the same volume). Arrange the vegetables over the fish in an appealing pattern. Top each fish portion with one-fourth of the butter-garlic mixture. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until the fish flakes easily with a fork. Serve immediately.
Makes 4 servings
Thirty minutes later, the platters emerged. The delicious aroma of basil and garlic that filled the air and the visual delight provided by the squares of fish, brilliant green asparagus, orange carrots, and pink new potatoes swimming in melted butter, gave the whole dinner a Christmasy sort of air, which is one of the things a caterer has to think of. When people don’t know each other before a catered function, or have some particularly onerous interpersonal task to perform after the meal, it’s usually a good idea to give them something to do at dinner, like opening a present of food. It helps to break the ice.
The conversation at dinner—how the new bishop in another diocese was faring, how some recent mass conversions to Anglicanism in Africa were going to affect the
church worldwide—was light but somewhat forced. Canon Montgomery had said some volunteers from the Altar Guild were doing the dishes, and I was relieved when we could adjourn to the Hymnal House living room for Evening Prayer. This was followed by a brief, nonpoetic explanation of the meetings’ mechanics from Montgomery: The end of our meeting tonight would be signaled by the old bell on the deck. We would go to the funeral tomorrow, then meet all the rest of Tuesday. The board would make its decisions Wednesday morning. The nervous candidates gulped and strained to look confident.
Doug Ramsey and I were assigned to an old upstairs parlor. The room had been the subject of unfortunate redecorations, and now boasted a bright green shag rug and two donated yellow-painted wood-frame couches with screaming pink cushions. It wasn’t the best ambience to effect a reconciliation with Father Doug, to whom I hadn’t spoken since our disastrous tête-à-tête at church on Sunday. He marched into the room in front of me, snapped open the latches on his briefcase, and took out a sheaf of papers with typewritten questions. To make things worse, he was acting inexplicably miffed.
“Hey, Doug,” I said, “don’t give me the ticked-off routine, okay? I did the dinner, didn’t I? Now let’s talk about how we’re going to examine this guy.”
“You didn’t contact those newspapers, did you? Tell them I was the bishop’s spy?”
“Of course not.”
“Some woman reporter interrogated Montgomery. She wanted to know if he was jealous of Olson because Olson was an alleged miracle worker.”
Good old Frances. “And did Montgomery agree with the allegations?”
At that moment, Mitchell Hartley entered the room. He coughed.
Doug Ramsey ignored him. He continued to me in a confidential tone, “There are many reasons why anyone would be jealous of the person in question, and not just for the monetary and … other reasons I mentioned to you on Sunday. He was attractive, he was smart. Why, I think he came through the ordination process in the quickest time on record, although I’d have to check that statistic—”
“Theodore Olson?” Mitchell Hartley’s face contorted into an ugly smirk. Four inches of waved red hair hovered over his forehead. “Yes, your statistic is correct. He came through in three years.” His eyes glittered feverishly.
“Please sit down, Mitchell,” I said.
He obeyed, keeping his mad gaze disconcertingly on me.
Father Doug began by asking questions about the Archbishops of Canterbury, then moved on to what Tillich had said about this, what Augustine had said about that, and what were the liturgical requirements for the laying on of hands. Mitchell stumbled and bumbled and most of the time said he didn’t know. Doug was just getting revved up to do the Anglican Reformation when there was a rap on the door. It was Lucille Boatwright.
“Zelda and I finished the dishes,” she said, glaring at me. How dare you come up here to examine with the men when there is women’s work to be done in the kitchen? I said nothing; I was weary of Lucille Boatwright. She turned to Doug Ramsey. “We simply must talk to you about the liturgy for the memorial service tomorrow.” It was not a request.
Doug lifted his chin: Duty called. He stood, tucked his sheaf of papers into his briefcase, snapped it shut, and marched out without another word. Guess it was up to me to finish with the candidate.
“Mitchell,” I said as I reached to a dusty table and found a stub of pencil and piece of paper. “I found a photocopied page from one of your exams.” I wrote 92-492 on the paper.
He glanced at it and raised one red eyebrow. “Where’d you find it?”
For better or worse, I decided to tell him the truth. “At Olson’s house. Were you out there?”
At that moment, the outside bell gonged. Mitchell Hartley didn’t seem to hear it, however. He had a dreamy look on his face.
“You were, weren’t you?” I said to Mitchell. My voice was very quiet.
“I was not.”
“Cut the crap, Mitchell. You know something.”
“I do indeed,” he said secretively. “Now.” The bell gonged again. “You didn’t turn the search over to the Lord, and now the Lord has revealed something to me.”
“What? Please. It could be a matter of life or death.”
He stood and sauntered to the door. “Everything,” he said ponderously, “is a matter of life or death. Tonight’s exams are over, and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
The door closed behind him.
I looked at my watch. 9:30. Despite the darkness of the night, there was a clear view of the conference grounds and driveway from the parlor windows. From where I sat, I could barely hear the voices and traffic from the front side of the conference building. And it was just as well. Mitchell Hartley wasn’t being forthcoming, and I was in no mood to socialize with anyone else. I decided to wait right where I was and watch for Marla’s car to come down the driveway. I would be grateful to get home, to get away from the swirling antagonisms and petty jealousies of this group.
I thought about Tom Schulz. Was he cold? Was he in pain? Had he given his kidnapper the desired information?
Then I remembered Father Olson’s gentle compliment in our penultimate counseling session: “It’s rare that I work with a couple so much in love.” And yet tomorrow we were going to bury Father Olson, and no one knew if Tom Schulz was alive or dead. I let my head rest on the vibrant pink cushion. I was so tired.
I was not aware I’d fallen asleep until something jolted me awake. I felt as if I had climbed out of an avalanche, that I had heard a howl for help either in my sleep, or within the avalanche, or somewhere out on the road. I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window: Marla’s Jag was there, its tailpipe sending clouds of steam up into the night sky. I lifted my cramped body off the couch and painfully made my way down the outside steps, which had dim lights every five feet. Shouts had awakened me. They came from the other side of Hymnal House, maybe from the deck, it was hard to tell. On the other hand, perhaps it was bikers partying down on Cottonwood Creek again.
Marla had the windows closed and the engine running; the Jag purred like a small airplane.
“Did you hear something?” I demanded when I opened the passenger side door and stuck my head inside.
“Nothing juicy, at least not in the last two hours.”
I slid into the passenger seat, closed the door, and sighed. “Never mind.”
She put the car into reverse and sent gravel spewing on her way out the driveway. Marla could never learn to drive cautiously.
“Did the police call?” I could hear the plea in my voice.
“Boyd did. I asked him, ‘Boyd, do you have a first name?’ He said, ‘You can just call me Boyd.’ Where’d they get that guy, Dragnet?”
“Marla.”
“Okay, Bob Preston hasn’t been at the Habitat house since Saturday, and he doesn’t have a clue about those keys. How about you? How’d the exams go?”
We shot down the road that would lead us to Main Street and the front of the cliff by Hymnal House and Brio Barn.
“I agree with Ted Olson,” I said, “in thinking Mitchell Hartley should fail. Montgomery said he’d probably pass this time, though—”
Without warning, when we were just below the conference center deck, the car screeched to a stop. Despite my seat belt, I went catapulting forward. When I had struggled upright, Marla cried, “Oh, God. Oh, Lord.”
“What?” I said, but she didn’t reply. I followed her gaze out the front of the car, along the line of blazing light cast by the headlight beams.
Mitchell Hartley wasn’t going to fail his candidate’s exam, and Mitchell Hartley wasn’t going to pass. Mitchell Hartley was lying in the middle of Main Street.
He was dead.
20
Marla ran to a pay phone. Someone from a nearby gas station set out flares on the road. Within minutes, Boyd and his team had arrived. I sat in the Jaguar in a state of shock. I couldn’t look out at the activity, although I occasionally glanced up at the c
onference center, perched as it was on that cliff overlooking both the road and the church. Then I gazed briefly at St. Luke’s, on the other side of Main Street. I couldn’t look at the sprawled corpse of Mitchell Hartley. Marla came back to the car. We sat silently in the front seat.
After more police and the EMT had arrived, Boyd approached us.
I slid down the window. “Is he—?” I choked.
Boyd didn’t need to reply. His expression said it all.
“You don’t think he’s the one who killed Olson, do you? Do you think he knew where Tom Schulz is?” I demanded. My voice sounded shrill, and I was shivering uncontrollably. “Tell me. Do you think Hartley fell, committed suicide, what? Was he hit by a car?”
Boyd regarded me. Dark disks of shadow underneath his eyes showed his exhaustion. The past two days had been hard on him, too. “It doesn’t look as if Hartley was hit by a car. I don’t know about the rest. Need you to come and see something, though.” I got out of the car and followed him to where a cluster of people surrounded the body. I recognized Officer Calloway and other Furman County investigators. “Weren’t you looking for this?” said Boyd. He pointed to a broken pearl choker lying near the center line of the road. In the circus-hued flashes from the police lights, it looked a child’s bauble. But when I leaned close I could see the handwritten price tag: $2000.
“What in the …?”
“It must have been in his pocket, or maybe he was holding it. Where do you suppose he got it?”
The Last Suppers Page 24