by Donna Doyle
Murder Plans the Menu
A Kelly Armello Cozy Mystery Book 3
Donna Doyle
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
© 2020 PureRead Ltd
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Contents
1. Mayhem at the Meeting
2. Loss of Appetite
3. Mia’s Mailbox
4. Mrs. Stark Stationed at the Library
5. Is it a Date?
6. Mrs. Stark’s Donation
7. Maundy Thursday Trouble
8. A Bad Good Friday
9. Blaming Lucas
10. Death at the Lake
11. Back Home
12. Murder Suspect in the Church
13. Mason’s Bike
14. Confrontation
15. Sharing Theories
16. Meeting with the Meachems
17. Picnic
18. A Suspect on Truman Avenue
19. The Hungry Man’s Breakfast
20. Back to the Lake
21. Unanswered Questions
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1
Mayhem at the Meeting
The Rev. Dalton Meachem was the newest minister in town, but he’d been at First Church long enough to know which members of the governing board would go along with new ideas and which ones would object. When Kelly Armello entered the room, her umbrella and coat dripping from the rain that seemed to have been falling for the entire month, she immediately noticed the silence. Usually the meetings began with chatter before Rev. Meachem opened with prayer and proceeded with the agenda. Kelly, who came to the meetings straight from work, apologized for being late.
“Sorry,” she said cheerfully as she hung up her coat. “I couldn’t get away, I had to enter some memorial donations first.”
Rev. Meachem’s smiled appeared to be forced. “That’s fine, Kelly, we’re glad you’re here. It’s still raining, I see.”
“I don’t think it knows how to stop.”
“It’s time for God to turn off the spigot,” said Julie Leonard, who could be counted on to try for levity when there was tension.
Her comment earned a couple of laughs. Kelly sat down across from Julie and their eyes met. From that brief, shared glance, Kelly realized that there was trouble ahead. She glanced at the printed agenda in front of her.
“Let’s bow for prayer,” Rev. Meachem said. “Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of your Son who lightens the darkness of our days. As the church community has mourned the loss of Lyola Knesbit, we feel the pain of your Son’s last days on this earth as a man. As we meet tonight, let us remember that we serve your will and not our own aims. Let us be open to the Spirit—”
Kelly could hear the mumblings of John Parmenter, the newest member of the church board, a transfer over a year ago from LifeLight Church, the congregation that had been home to the late Mrs. Knesbit. It was well known that John and Lyola had not been friends. It was also known that John didn’t get along with Rev. Meachem. Kelly wondered if John got along with anyone; he was a crusty man in his seventies, hale and hearty, the patriarch of a family that ran a machine repair shop on the outskirts of town. John was seventy-five and still went in to work every day, although his son and daughter actually ran the business. His children and grandchildren loved him and tolerated him. It was not always that easy for the members of the church.
Rev. Meachem continued with his prayer despite the undertones of dissent coming from John. “We thank you for your guidance tonight as we celebrate the death and resurrection of Our Savior, Your Son, Jesus Christ.”
Rev. Meachem looked as if he had absorbed fortification from his prayer. The council chair read the correspondence and the treasurer presented the financial report for the month. Giving was down, but Easter was always a profitable Sunday for the church income, as family members from a distance came home to share the holiday with their parents and grandparents.
The next item on the agenda was programming, a topic which unfailingly brought a complaint from John. Hayley Carpenter, a young mother serving in her first church office, sounded nervous as she presented the schedule of Holy Week services. “And we thought we’d try something different this year for Maundy Thursday. Instead of our usual communion service,” her gaze quickly passed from the minister to John Parmenter at the other end of the table, who was listening to her with a stony expression on his weathered face. “We decided to have something more authentic. We—”
“What could be more authentic than communion?” John demanded. “That’s what happened on Maundy Thursday. The last supper. Communion.”
“Not exactly,” Rev. Meachem said. “It was a meal, a particular kind of meal. What we call the Last Supper was Jesus and his disciples celebrating the Jewish Passover.
“I was learning about Passover before you were even born. Probably before your parents were born.”
Rev. Meachem didn’t rise to John’s remark. “The Programming Committee is going to help the Worship Committee host a seder.”
“A what?”
“A seder. It’s the Passover feast. We’ll eat what Jesus ate on His last night with his disciples. The Programming Committee will prepare the meal.”
“What kind of meal? Why are we having a meal when we’ve never done that before? Communion isn’t supposed to be a meal. It’s communion. Bread and—”
Hayley interrupted, more so that she could finish her report than out of any desire to become tangled in the beginning of an argument. “We’ll ask the questions that would have been asked at the Passover feast and we’ll—”
“What questions?” John demanded. “I’ve been taking communion since I was confirmed, and I don’t remember anyone asking me questions. I’ve been taking communion longer than anyone in this room and I think I know how it’s supposed to be.”
Rev. Meachem’s expression tightened. “There’s more than one way to take communion,” he said.
“Not in this church, there isn’t. I left LifeLight because I didn’t like what was going on there, and if I don’t like what’s going on here, I’ll leave.”
“You’re going to run out of churches to leave,” retorted Joe Markowski, a younger member of the council whose frequent complaint was that older members didn’t want to try new things and didn’t want to hear what younger people had to say.
There was a silence after he spoke. Hayley put down the report from which she had been reading, a signal that she was finished speaking, whether or not she had finished delivering the committee’s report.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” John asked, his voice raised.
Joe was in deep and he knew it. “Well, you left the Methodists because you didn’t like having a woman preacher,” he said. “Then you left LifeLight—I’m not sure why, but you left them to come here. Now you don’t like what’s being planned. How many churches are you going to try out before you find one you like?”
“I was a Christian before you were even born,” John said. “I know more about Christianity than you’ll ever know.”
“Maybe so,” Joe acceded, “but there’s nothing in the Bible that says we can’t try something new once in a while. I don’t know much about this seder thing, but I’m willing to give it a try.”
“I’m not!” John said, slamming his big hand on the table. “And there are plenty of others in this church who agree with me. There are plenty of others who don’t
like the direction we’re going in and if he—” John pointed his index finger at Rev. Meachem, “won’t stop and listen to some of the older members who’ve been around long enough to know what’s right and what’s wrong, he’s going to find himself preaching to empty pews. Turning a Christian service into a Jewish one isn’t going to pay the bills!”
“John,” Rev. Meachem said, his jaw tight and his words coming out of his mouth as if there were no way to hold them back, “I suggest that you go home tonight and read that Bible that you’re so familiar with. I think you’ll find that Jesus was doing new things and that’s why he ran into trouble with the authorities. He—”
“Don’t you tell me to read my Bible!” John was on his feet now, looking like an Old Testament prophet in modern-day shirt and trousers. “I was reading my Bible long before you were on this earth, sonny, and I could teach you about the Good Book!”
“We could all learn more about the Bible,” Rev. Meachem said. “It’s foolish for any of us to think that merely because we’ve acquired years, we’ve acquired wisdom.”
“You telling me I’m a fool?” John pushed his chair away. “I’ll leave this church and I’ll find one where the Word of God is preached by a minister who knows what he’s talking about.” He turned around and headed for the door of the meeting room.
Rev. Meachem was standing. “Whether you come back here or go to any church, you won’t be welcome until you learn what it means to behave like a Christian in God’s house!”
Kelly had heard the phrase “the silence was deafening” but until that moment, she had no idea how it actually sounded. Now, as the members of the council stared, aghast, while the door slammed shut behind John Parmenter’s angry departure,
Rev Meachem sat down again.
“Hayley,” he said in drained tones, “please continue with your report.”
But Hayley was in tears and unable to continue.
Rev. Meachem surveyed the church leaders. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think we’d better postpone the meeting until next week.”
“Rev. Meachem,” said Anne Colb, a longtime member, less volatile than John, but sympathetic to his views. “Maybe we need to re-consider this idea of yours if it’s going to upset people.”
“It upset John,” Rev. Meachem said. “John Parmenter does not speak for the congregation and if he meant what he said, he’s choosing not to be part of our congregation any longer.
2
Loss of Appetite
Troy thought he’d rather have the snow than the incessant rain that fell every day. It was late winter, but showers seemed to have moved in to replace the last snowfalls of the season. The temperatures remained cold, however, giving the days a dreary, forbidding cast. Road surfaces in the morning and later at night frequently hovered around the freezing mark so that it seemed as though every day had a traffic accident, although road crews continued to salt the roads to ward off the icing. It was a dismal time in Settler Springs and Troy wondered if spring was ever going to arrive.
The gloomy weather wasn’t helped by Kelly’s busy schedule. It seemed that she always had a committee meeting to go to, or a Lenten soup supper or a cantata rehearsal. The rain had curtailed their weekend runs on the Trail, but at least she was available for dinner at one of the local eateries. He was still working the afternoon shift, but that balanced with Kelly’s work schedule on the nights when she didn’t have to work late.
She was already seated in the booth where the waitress at the Café placed them when he entered and spotted her immediately. Her red hair was as good as a billboard. She was perusing the menu, which seemed unnecessary since they ate there often enough for her to know exactly what was being served.
“Hi,” he said, sliding into the booth.
“Hi.”
It was unusual for Kelly to look down in the dumps. When they’d worked together on solving the Halloween murder, she’d been galvanized in the effort to prove Lucas Krymanski’s innocence. When she’d asked him to help unravel the mystery surrounding the murder of Lyola Knesbit during a church outing in Punxsutawney, she’d been relentless. But tonight, she looked tired and downcast.
“The rain getting to you?” he asked as the waitress brought them coffee.
“No—yes, but that’s not—I’ll just have the vegetable soup,” Kelly said.
Troy’s eyes widened in mock disbelief as the waitress wrote down the order.
“Just the soup?” he repeated incredulously. Kelly had a quicksilver metabolism and a linebacker’s appetite.
“I’m not very hungry,” Kelly said apologetically to the waitress.
The waitress smiled. “How about some bread with it, instead of just crackers?”
“No, that’s fine. Just the soup.”
“I am hungry,” Troy said. “I’ll have the ham and potatoes. Are you feeling okay?” he asked after the waitress left with their orders.
“I’m fine. No,” she amended her statement. “I’m not. There was a pretty nasty meeting last night at church.”
Church. Always church. Troy kept the thought to himself, although it sometimes felt as if Kelly’s church activities were the same as if she had another boyfriend. But then, he reminded himself, they weren’t a couple. For some reason, despite going to eat on a regular basis, and running on weekends on the Trail when the weather permitted, and of course the crime solving that appeared to serve in lieu of dates, they were no more than friends. Whenever he made a hint that he wanted something more than crime and the Café, Kelly deflected his comments.
He wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t seeing anyone romantically and neither was he.
They’d known each other since Halloween, and now it was March. Surely, in that amount of time, he ought to have known where things stood with the Settler Springs librarian whose company he enjoyed and wanted to enjoy more. But nothing was said, and he didn’t know how to force the subject to the forefront.
“What happened?” How bad could a church meeting get, he wondered? Maybe someone sang a hymn off-key or the minister’s sermon went on too long? Of course, he reminded himself, the murder of Lyola Knesbit, treasurer of one of the churches in town, ought to have convinced him that there was more to church than singing and sermons. Still, her murder, while it had taken place on a church outing, wasn’t really a church-based episode.
“There’s a council member, John Parmenter, who can get pretty . . . he’s not very flexible,” Kelly said, struggling to be polite. “He used to belong to LifeLight but he joined First Church about a year or so ago. He’s not the easiest person to get along with and last night he and Rev. Dal got into an argument at the council meeting. Rev. Dal wants to do a seder for Maundy Thursday and John made a fuss, and the Program Committee chair ended up in tears, and John said he’s leaving the church and Rev. Dal said—”
“Rev. Dal wants to do a what for what?”
“A seder. It’s the Passover meal.”
“Why would your church be doing a Passover meal? You’re not Jewish.”
“No, but Jesus was.”
“Oh. I guess I never thought about it. What’s this for? What’s Monday Thursday?”
That mistake brought a faint smile to Kelly’s face. “Maundy Thursday,” she said.
“It’s the night of the Last Supper.”
“What’s – Maundy?”
“It comes from the Latin. It means commandment. It’s the night when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. The Pope does it too, now. Royalty used to do it too.”
“I can’t imagine why they gave it up,” he said with gentle sarcasm.
Kelly’s smile widened. “Okay, it sounds a little medieval, I know, but it’s an important part of Holy Week.”
“Is your minister planning to wash feet? Is that why this guy got ticked off?’
“No, that’s not part of the seder. Actually, I don’t know what Rev. Dal has in mind because the meeting has been postponed until next week and now Hayley—she’s the committee chair—is resigning
over all of this.”
“Won’t it all blow over? Easter is a pretty big deal in the church, isn’t it?”
“It’s the most important holiday in the Christian calendar.”
“Bigger than Christmas?”
“Why don’t you come to church with me on Easter Sunday and find out?”
“I plan to be fishing,” he answered. “Trout season starts, and I’ve already got the whole weekend off over Easter.”
Kelly looked disappointed. Troy didn’t understand why; she surely knew that he wasn’t the churchy type. Fishing, that was part of his religion. To be out in nature, waiting for the fish to bite, while spring commenced its annual rebirth all around him, now that was a religion he could understand. Why would he want to be cooped up in church when he could be out on the lake with a fish on the line? Especially if the infighting in the church was as bad as the behind-the-scenes politics in the police force. He had enough trouble dealing with that.
Their meals arrived. Kelly dipped her spoon into her soup.
“Are you sure that’s all you want?”
“It’s good soup.”
That business with the church meeting must have really gotten to her, he thought. She was unusually quiet, as if she were preoccupied with other thoughts.
Tia Krymanski came out from the kitchen while they were eating. “Do you have a cold?” she asked Kelly. “When I saw that all you ordered was soup, I said to Francie, ‘she must be coming down with something.’”
Kelly smiled; it was a forced smile, as Troy could tell, but he knew that Kelly would always conceal any troubled thoughts when she was talking to Tia Krymanski. Kelly and Tia had gotten to know each other when Tia’s teenage son Lucas had to do community service at the library after getting into trouble with a Halloween prank. Now, even though he’d completed his required hours, he still stopped by the library regularly to help out moving tables and chairs or setting up for programs when he was needed.