Christopher then asked about any vacation plans for the year so that Riley could add them to the office calendar. Elizabeth had no plans, and I said I hoped to visit my family in Germany for a couple of weeks in the fall but hadn’t firmed up dates yet.
Father Christopher announced that he would be taking nine days off in mid-July to see friends in Southern California and to visit the Getty, the Broad, and a few other museums. “Now that you’re here for backup, Hope, I’m looking forward to some time off to visit with my friends. We haven’t seen each other in quite a while.” The seventy-five-year-old priest practically bounced in his seat with excitement. “We also got tickets to see Luca Giordano in La Traviata.”
“Ooh, can you squeeze me in your suitcase? I’ve always wanted to hear him sing in person.” I sighed. “One of these days.” I turned to Faith Chapel’s best singer and choir director. “Elizabeth, have you ever seen him perform?”
She nodded, her usually listless hazel eyes sparkling. “I had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing Luca Giordano in La Bohème in San Francisco.” Elizabeth’s face took on an unexpected radiance. “It was incredible. A highlight of my life.”
A memory nagged at the edge of my consciousness. Someone else in Apple Springs had also seen the famed tenor in La Bohéme. Who was it?
Then I remembered.
* * *
Thursday after the lunch crowd at the diner dissipated, Susan and I headed to Nevada City in her old pickup. Our aim was to discover whether the theater in that Gold Country town was the same one featured in the now-tattered charcoal sketch of the unknown woman. I had called ahead and explained to the woman who answered the phone at the theater what we wanted. She said she would meet us at the historic building at four.
As we drove into the picture-postcard nineteenth-century town nestled in the Sierra foothills and dotted with beautiful Victorians, I knew I would have to come back again when I had more time to take in the quaint town’s myriad charms. Today, though, I was on a mission.
Arriving at the red-brick theater with oversized black shutters, we introduced ourselves to Kim, the gray-ponytailed woman who served as a docent for some of the museums in town. She proudly informed us that both Mark Twain and Lillie Langtry—the Jersey Lily—had performed at the venerable theater, and that the 1865 building was a registered historical landmark. Kim led us inside and onto the stage so we could get a view of the entire theater.
Susan crowed, “I thought so! This is definitely the place. Check out the balcony.”
I removed the taped sketch from my bag, unrolling it carefully so as not to tear it even more, and set it on a nearby wooden podium. I looked at the sketch again, then out into the empty audience seating and up to the balcony. “You’re right. She stood on this very stage.” My breath quickened. At last we were getting somewhere.
A curious Kim peered over my shoulder. “Why that’s Ruby Garnette.”
“What?” I yelled.
Startled by my outburst, she took a step back.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a normal tone. “We’ve just been trying to learn her identity ever since we found this drawing, and nobody’s recognized her. Who did you say she was again?”
“Ruby Garnette. At least that was her stage name. Many of the entertainers back then gave themselves fancy stage names. Ruby was a popular singer and dancer from the post–gold rush era. All the men loved her. In fact”—Kim glanced at my clerical collar before continuing—“if you’ll pardon my saying so, Pastor, rumor has it she was also a ‘soiled dove.’”
“Soiled dove?”
“That’s what they called ladies of the evening in the Old West.”
Susan snorted. “No wonder Marjorie got her knickers in such a twist when you asked if it was her great-grandmother.”
No wonder, indeed. Although, how would Marjorie have known the woman in the picture was a soiled dove, so to speak?
“Do you know when Ruby performed here?” I asked.
“During the early days of the theater—1866 and 1867, if I remember correctly,” local history buff Kim said.
“What happened to her after that?”
“She left the area to make it big in San Francisco.”
Susan and I both pulled out our phones at the same time. I tapped in Ruby Garnette and San Francisco in Google but came up empty. Then I added in singer, dancer, mid-1800s, and soiled dove. A bunch of black-and-white pictures of naked, nameless women from more than a century ago filled my screen. I quickly X’d out.
“Susan?”
“Nada. There’s no record of a Ruby Garnette ever performing in San Francisco.”
My sigh spoke volumes.
“I’m sorry I don’t have any more information for you,” Kim said.
“No need to apologize. What you gave us is pure gold,” I said. “Now at last we know who our mystery woman is. Was. That means everything. Thank you so much.”
She flushed with pleasure. “Would you like to see the painting that your sketch became?”
“The painting?” Susan and I exchanged astonished glances.
“Sure. That’s how I recognized Ruby right away. I used to pass by her painting every day. For years there was a gallery of stars from the early days of the theater hanging in the lobby.” She led us backstage. “That is, until a couple decades ago, when they were replaced with more current actors.”
I could hardly contain my excitement. Not only did we at last have a name for our mystery woman, but we were finally going to see her in the flesh, so to speak.
We followed Kim into a cluttered storeroom overflowing with props and theatrical bits and bobs. “Now let me see … I know it’s around here somewhere.” She rummaged through some wooden crates. “Ah, here it is.” She pulled out a small oil painting in a gilt frame, blew the dust off it, and turned it around to face us.
“Wowza.” Susan said.
The charcoal sketch had not done her justice. In color, Ruby Garnette was drop-dead gorgeous. Her emerald-green gown set off her creamy skin and matched her vivid Emma Stone eyes beneath gleaming chestnut-brown ringlets. As I looked closer at the painting, I sucked in my breath. The antique charcoal drawing I had been staring at for days had smudges in places, rendering some of the details indistinguishable. The oil painting, however, was in pristine condition, with each detail standing out in stark relief.
Including the silver locket around Ruby’s neck.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“R is for Ruby,” I whispered.
“What was that?” Kim asked.
“Nothing.”
Could it really be? What were the odds? I snapped a few close-ups of the painting with my phone, then glanced at my watch. “Sorry, we need to get going.”
After thanking Kim for her help and promising to come back again to see a play at the theater, I hustled Susan outside.
“What’s up, Buttercup? Why the rush?”
“I think Ruby Garnette and the skeleton from my backyard may be one and the same.”
“What?”
As we drove back to Apple Springs, I reminded Susan that the archaeologist estimated the skeleton to be around a hundred and fifty years old.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“No, but it is one piece of the puzzle.” I scrolled through my phone contacts until I found Doc Linden’s number. Then I texted her a close-up photo of the locket from the painting and asked her if it matched the tarnished locket she had found in the grave.
“According to our new friend Kim,” I said, “Ruby Garnette left Nevada City around 1867 to make it big in San Francisco, yet after that, there’s no information on her. She just disappeared.”
“Easy enough to do in a big city. People fall through the cracks all the time. It could also be that maybe she wasn’t a good enough performer for the City by the Bay,” Susan said. “Back then, San Francisco was like the New York of the West, and as such, able to attract big-name talent. Ruby Garnette was not a big name. Success on a Nevada City stage does
n’t equate to success in San Francisco.”
“True,” I said reluctantly.
“She also could have gotten married and become Ruby Smith or Jones, or maybe even McGillicuddy.”
“Way to rain on my parade. Are you always such a wet blanket?”
“That’s what Mike says. I prefer to think of myself as pragmatic.”
My phone chirped with a text. Doc Linden sent me side-by-side photos of the locket from the grave and the one in the painting. She had cleaned up the tarnished oval locket, and although it was worn and battered, it was identical to the one around Ruby’s neck, down to the tiny ruby in the center.
Goose bumps erupted on my arms, and I let out a gasp.
“What is it?”
“Fasten your seat belt, Ms. Pragmatic. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” I texted Doc Linden back and asked why she hadn’t said there was a tiny ruby on the locket found in the grave.
Dr. Linden: An archaeologist doesn’t reveal all her secrets at once. Gotta keep ’em guessing. So tell me, who is the woman in the painting?
That I knew. What I did not know yet was why Ruby Garnette’s body had been buried in my backyard. Nor did I know who had murdered the singer and dancer who looked so vibrant and full of life in her painting. Or who the man was who had loved her and given her the locket engraved Always.
Me: A priest doesn’t reveal all her secrets at once either. One last question: when you cleaned the locket, did the initials show up any clearer? Was it a B and an R, or an R and an H?
Dr. Linden: Neither. Two R’s.
And I knew.
* * *
As much as my inner Trixie Belden wanted to immediately follow up on Ruby and the man who loved her, my pastoral duties came first. Friday was all about preparation for my Faith Chapel debut event—the community women’s tea on Saturday. Gulp. Several women in town had stopped me during my daily walks the past week to say how excited they were about Saturday and how much they were looking forward to a genuine English tea with all the trimmings.
“It will be just like Downton Abbey,” one of them trilled.
No pressure.
List girl that I am, I created lists for every aspect of the tea:
Menu
Decorations
Who was making which menu item and when
Order of food prep for Saturday
Table hostess names and requisite hostess items for each table
Seating assignments by table
Male servers
Schedule for Friday and Saturday
Items I needed to set up and decorate my table of eight
In addition to the requisite china, flatware, and water goblets, I would be setting my table with vintage linens I had picked up at estate sales. I had a beautiful white table runner embroidered with pale-pink roses and edged with cutwork that would nicely complement the pink tablecloth from Patricia. Silver-plated teacup napkin rings I’d found on Etsy would encircle my embroidered napkins, and a jam caddy with three cut-glass bowls would hold my jam, lemon curd, and Devonshire cream. I had opted to keep my table decorations simple. (Not kosher for the priest in charge to win the Best Decorated Table contest.) In addition to Bonnie’s floral centerpiece, I was simply adding a trio of antique tea tins and a small porcelain plaque featuring a C. S. Lewis quote: You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
Riley Smith, who had fast become an indispensable member of the Faith Chapel staff, had offered to paint a floral scene for the parish hall. She knocked on my office door Friday, with Megan in tow and carrying something beneath her arm. “Pastor Hope, can we show you something?”
“Sure. Come in.” I glanced at the wall clock, which showed a few minutes after one. “Wait, don’t you have school today?”
“It’s a minimum day, so we got off early.” Riley and Megan then proceeded to unfurl a large fabric painting of an English cottage garden anchored by a thatched-roof cottage and bursting with vibrant hollyhocks, delphiniums, sweet peas, peonies, and roses. Masses and masses of roses.
“Wow. Just wow. That’s incredible, Riley! I feel as if I’m back in England.”
“Really?” She sent me a shy smile.
“Yes. This is the crowning touch. The women will love this.” I hugged her. “The best thing we ever did was hire you.”
Riley beamed. Then she reached down and picked up a white poster board. “I thought maybe this would be nice for everyone to see when they first walk in.” She added quickly, “You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to, though.” Riley turned the board around to reveal the full tea menu written in an Olde English calligraphy script and offset by trailing vines and pink-and-yellow roses.
“Not use it? Are you kidding? It’s perfect. You rock!” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” blasted from my cell. “Sorry. Hang on a sec.” I turned down the volume and answered the phone. “Hey, favorite sister-in-law. You on your way?”
A croak sounded in my ear.
“Virginia?”
“I’m sicker than a dog,” she rasped weakly. “Been puking my guts out for the past hour and I’m achy all over.”
“Oh no.” My heart sank.
“I thought I’d be better soon and could still come, but it’s not happening. I’m so sorry to bail on you like this.”
Not as sorry as I am. Instantly I regretted my lack of compassion for my sick sister-in-law.
“It’s okay, we’ll be fine. You just take care of yourself, okay? And get thee to a doctor stat.” Ending the call, I sent a plaintive glance heavenward. “Where am I going to find a table hostess at the eleventh hour?”
“Pastor Hope?” Megan said. “Can more than one person host a table? How about my mom, Riley, and me together? We’re all coming to the tea anyway.”
Thank you, Jesus.
“Hadn’t you better check with your mom first? She may be too busy doing all the flower arrangements to host a table as well.”
“No prob.” Megan’s black-manicured fingers flew over her phone. “Riley and I can do most of it—we’ll just use Mom’s things. She’s got lots of cool dishes and stuff.”
After getting Bonnie’s buy-in and expressing my profuse thanks, I handed Megan the table hostess sheet listing all the items the trio would need. Then I checked my watch and my Friday schedule. At two, Liliane and Lottie were on task to bake brownies and half the scones over at Lottie’s, while Dorothy, Patricia, and I would make lemon squares and the other half of the scones at my house. Following that, the tea committee would all meet at the parish hall at five to begin setting up the tables, and Bonnie would deliver the flower arrangements.
I had asked Dorothy to come half an hour before Patricia so she could show me how to prep the cucumbers for the sandwiches. We would make all three kinds of sandwiches at church in the morning to keep them fresh, but the fillings would be prepared ahead of time.
As we sat on my kitchen barstools slicing the cucumbers, Dorothy and I chatted. She talked about growing up with her twin sister in Kansas, while I told her about my Wisconsin childhood. During a lull in the conversation, I asked, “Are you okay, Dorothy? Ever since Stanley’s funeral, I’ve sensed something’s been troubling you.” I looked into the beloved face of Faith Chapel’s sweetheart, and my heart fluttered. “Please tell me you’re not sick.”
“Oh no, I’m fine. A little tired, that’s all. I often take a daily nap about this time.” A ghost of a smile flickered across her face. “You’ll understand once you hit seventy.”
“I’m already a big fan of naps. I take a twenty-minute power nap once or twice a week, and it always recharges me.” I smiled at her and said gently, “If there’s something wrong, Dorothy, I’d like to help. That’s what I’m here for, you know.”
Her warm brown eyes met mine, and in them I saw confusion and distress. “I know, Pastor, but after your sermon, I don’t want to rush to judgment or say anything that might hurt someone. I don’t want to gossip.” She pinched the bridg
e of her nose beneath her bifocals. “Something has been weighing heavy on my mind, though.”
“I’m here to listen,” I said, touching her hand. “Anything you say to me is confidential and won’t leave this kitchen.” Trying to put her at ease, I joked, “Although if you tell me you offed Stanley, I’d have to counsel you to show true repentance by turning yourself in to Harold.”
Dorothy dropped her snowy head into her hands and burst into tears. “I didn’t kill Stanley,” she said in a muffled voice, “but I think I know who did.” Her shoulders shook. “I—I saw someone leaving the columbarium area the night we now know Stanley King died.”
Relieved, I hugged her and patted her back. “Are you talking about Don Forrester? It’s okay. The police have already talked to Don and cleared him.” I handed her a tissue.
She blew her nose. “Not Don Forrester.” Anguished tears spilled down her cheeks. “It was that sweet Samantha King.”
My stomach clenched. Samantha? “Tell me what you saw.”
Dorothy swiped at her tears. “That Thursday night I’d gone to the rectory to get a book from Father Christopher. I arrived a few minutes past six, and Father invited me in. We chatted for maybe ten or fifteen minutes, and then I left. As I was driving away, I saw Samantha running from behind the church in the area of the columbarium. She was sobbing her heart out and clutching her cheek.”
Not Samantha. Please. Anyone but Samantha. That poor kid has been through enough already, and she’s finally on the cusp of a new beginning.
“That doesn’t mean she killed her father,” I said, trying to convince myself as well as Dorothy. “There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for what you saw. Maybe she had just had an argument with someone. A boyfriend, perhaps?”
“I didn’t know Samantha had a boyfriend,” Dorothy said, sniffling.
“I don’t know whether she does or not—she hasn’t said anything to me, but then why would she? Maybe she’s in a new relationship and they just don’t want everyone knowing yet, what with her dad dying and all.”
Hope, Faith, and a Corpse Page 21