Murder in the Parish

by C T Mitchell

  “I found this, Father,” she said, as if that were supposed to explain something.

  Father Douglas leaned forward in his seat and reached for the wooden box. “Is this a jewelry box? Looks like a jewelry box to me. I’m no girl, though, so I can’t be sure. Why don’t you tell me about it? Where did you find it?”

  “It IS a jewelry box!” she squealed, smiling that he knew what it was. “And I found it in the old house by the grocer’s shop.”

  “What on earth were you doing in that old house, Sarah?” He was surprised; the old house didn’t look like it wanted visitors in it.

  “My friends and I were exploring in there and we found this, and we all talked about it. We wanted to see if you would keep it safe for us. It looks really pretty,” she kicked her feet under the chair again, like a small girl should when she’s talking about beautiful jewelry, and looked at him with wide eyes. “We knew you would be the most honest person around to look after it for us.”

  Father Douglas reached into the box she had been carrying and pulled the jewelry box all the way out of it to examine it a bit. His eyes widened immensely, as he was sure the girl’s eyes did when she saw it for the first time.

  The box was stunning. The entire thing was ornately carved, dark stained wood. It opened from the top, and had four small but sturdy legs underneath it. The body of the box was quite bulbous, and pulled up around itself like a large wooden pillow that the lid was sitting on. The finish on it was smooth, but there were many divots and carvings around the entire thing, making it an utter pleasure to hold in your hand. He placed his hands on the brass clasp that was holding the lid to the bottom and peered up at little Sarah with his fingers frozen.

  “May I?” he asked politely. The girl nodded her head in excitement.

  The Father’s heart stopped. Nestled immediately in front of him were two large pearl rings, encased in a special holder that look like they were designed just for those two pieces. Those two holders were snugly fit inside a wooden tray that could be lifted out. Above the rings were fastened two long necklaces, one was varying sizes and colors of pearls with a matching bracelet, and the other was a diamond necklace. Everything looked very old, and very expensive.

  The pieces were tarnished in just the way you would expect something that had been sitting dormant in a house for a few decades, and they were just breathtaking. Father Douglas, hands sweating, removed the two trays and set them on his desk. Underneath them were four long rows, neatly divided and holding countless diamond bracelets and pendants, neatly fit into the box as though that was to be their home forever.

  His hands shook as he moved a few of the pieces around. It wasn’t costume jewelry that much he could tell, though he couldn’t be sure of the real value of the pieces. Father Douglas swallowed hard and looked up at Sarah, who was pleased that he liked her newfound treasure.

  “These are lovely, dear. I’m going to put them back just as I found them, and lock them up for you. I’m really glad you can trust me with it. That says a lot about what you think of me,” he said as he placed everything back inside the box. “And for that I am very grateful.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” she said quietly. “You can see why we want it locked up safely.”

  “Oh yes, of course,” he nodded as he stood up to open the safe. “May I ask where you found this in the house, exactly? Was it upstairs in the bedroom?” He really didn’t like that she’d gone in there at all, but reprimanding her for it wasn’t his job if he wanted to gather more information about this mystery. She would get a scolding form her Aunt soon enough. For now, he was wildly curious as to why it hadn’t been discovered before.

  “Oh no, Father. We found it in the basement.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” He tried not to sound too alarmed, and placed his hand on the safe in the office wall. Spinning the combination lock, he opened it up and pushed the golden chalice to the side. The box slid in nicely next to it and the door closed with its familiar loud clunk.

  “Yes yes, in the basement. It was behind a stack of old books and some cartons. Just kind of sitting there waiting for us. It was super dusty and gross.” Sarah turned up her nose thinking about the beautiful box covered in dust. “My friend Lacy ran home and got an old tooth brush and we cleaned it up really nicely. It took forever, but it was worth it don’t you think?”

  “Oh to be sure, so you found it in the basement. Very interesting. Weren’t you scared to be down there?” he asked her honestly. Sarah just shook her head as though it were a ridiculous thing to ask.

  “Nothing to be scared of down there, except maybe rats, but they mostly would stay out of the way I would wager.”

  Father Douglas nodded his head, trying to seem calm and not excited about the buried treasure they’d both laid eyes on, and took his seat at his desk again. From the left hand drawer he pulled a large, leather-bound receipt book, and fetched his favorite pen. Meticulously and in his best penmanship, he wrote the small girl a receipt and handed it to her.

  “You take this, and you don’t show it to anyone else at all, do you understand?” The girl nodded and eyed the receipt carefully. “No matter who is here, you just show that receipt to the person minding the office and they will fetch your box for you if you decide you want it back.”

  “The person minding the office?” she repeated. “Do you go away sometimes?”

  “Oh yes, sometimes I go on mini vacations, but my part-time housekeeper and secretary would be the only other one to be in here. She sometimes minds the office while I’m gone.”

  Sarah thought about it for a while, mulled it over for longer the Father expected, and then finally shook her head in agreement. Apparently the arrangement suited her, and she stood from her seat and walked around the desk. One hand shot out from her side and she looked Father Douglas square in the eye. He took her hand and shook it as if they were in a business deal of some sort.

  “A real pleasure, Father. Thank you for your time.” Sarah said. She looked the receipt over one more time and folded it neatly before sliding it into her jacket pocket. “I’d best be going, my friends are waiting for me by the gate.”

  “Oh, by all means! Don’t let me keep you. Here, I’ll walk you out.” Father Douglas walked Sarah out to the foyer and waved as she skipped down the cobblestone path leading to the entrance. Sure enough, several of her friends were waiting patiently for her to return, and giggled when they saw her coming. A few of them waved at him, which he returned with a smile. After all, those girls had trusted him with their most prized possession.

  CHAPTER 2

  As soon as the girls turned the corner to walk in the direction of the nearby school, Father Douglas returned to the church. He put a pot of water on to boil and returned to the safe where he carefully removed the ornate box once more. He grabbed a couple of fresh towels and laid them across his tidy desk like he was preparing for brain surgery. Making himself comfortable, he pulled a yellow pad out of his top desk drawer and touched his favorite pen to his tongue twice for good measure. Opening the box carefully, and keeping one ear open for the water that was on the gas stovetop, he removed each and every piece from the box.

  As he looked each one over, he wrote down a description as best as he could for it on the legal pad. He photographed each piece from a few different angles, and then carefully put them all back in the box and set it back inside the safe. These pieces of jewelry had to belong to someone, someone other than the old man who owned the house when he died.

  That man, everyone in the town knew, was a miser par excellence. He wouldn’t have spent a dime on such extravagant things, as it would have been an enormous waste of money. Armed with the list of contents and his cell phone that held the photographs, Father Douglas climbed into his ‘67 Alvis and made his way to the Lismore Police Station.

  As he was putting the car into park, he noticed his long-time friend Detective Tom Sullivan exiting the back door of the station. Father Douglas tooted the horn twice to get his att
ention. Tom smiled and walked across the parking lot.

  “Morning, Father! What brings you to a police station on a fine morning like this? Rob a bank or something?”

  “No,” Father Douglas laughed. “Though offerings have been down this month, may not be a bad idea. I actually wanted to show you something. I know you’re busy, I could see it on your face. So if you’d like me to make an app—“

  “Nonsense, lay it on me. What’ve you got?” Tom made sure his face was welcoming, but also that his sentences were short enough to let the Father know that he did not, in fact, have a lot of time while he was on the clock. His friend deserved his attention though, and Tom was happy to give it to him.

  After he explained the situation, the Inspector wanted to know why he hadn’t gone to the girl’s aunt with this information. Father Douglas let him know that the girl had come to him in confidence, and while Melissa was a lovely lady, and he was certain there would be no actual harm in telling her, it didn’t feel right to betray the little girl’s trust so quickly.

  “Alright, Father. I tell you what, I’ll be back in town in an hour, meet me for lunch?” Father Douglas nodded in agreement and the two went their separate ways for the morning.

  Back at the church, thirty minutes later, Felicity was preparing lunch in the little kitchen area. Cookies and crackers were being made to refill the Sunday School jars. When he made mention to her that he would not be dining at the rectory for lunch, she didn’t seem too pleased. Though when he requested a plate be held back for him to eat later, her smile widened and she went back to humming her hymns.

  A short trek to the church office, and Father Douglas’s heart stopped for a second time that morning. His office door had been pushed opened and the room was a mess! The safe was hanging open and the jewelry box was missing.

  CHAPTER 3

  “What?!” Inspector Tom shouted into the phone. “How would the thief know to act so quickly? You literally just put that thing in there!” He sighed loudly enough to be heard over the receiver and went silent for a minute. “I’ll be there in ten.”

  The detective’s eyes perked up when he walked through the foyer. “Felicity’s cooking, aye?”

  “Indeed, Detective. I’ll have her bring you some. Felicity dear! Your biggest fan is here.” Both men heard a clang in the kitchen and her singing grew louder. Moments later, she brought Tom out a plate of food.

  “Lunch at the rectory is always better than lunch out. May I have mine now, please? If you don’t mind? Change of plans.” Felicity nodded and smiled, then spun on her heels to fetch the Father’s food. She was happiest when she was serving others from the kitchen, it truly was her ministry.

  While they ate and chatted, the forensics team filed in behind them, all drooling over their plates of food. Tom just looked up at them and smiled, raising a fork in a fake salute and rubbing in the fact that they weren’t on their lunch breaks, yet.

  ****

  “To the old house, then?” Tom asked as the wiped their mouths clean. The men took the police car down to the old house where the jewelry box was found, and were surprised to find a large group of people gathered around the fence.

  “Wait here,” Inspector Tom instructed.

  Sam Dorset, the grocer, walked over to the car window to chat with Father Douglas while he waited.

  “Heya, Father. I’m surprised to see you here so soon after they found the body.” Sam was a coarse man with a heart of gold. His strong hands could take down a tree, though he would never hurt a fly.

  “A body?!” Father Douglas’s skin crawled and his stomach turned a bit. He never liked to be surprised with things like dead bodies. That was the one part of his job he always had to work his way up to. He wasn’t afraid of death, but the finality of it always struck a chord in his heart, and sometimes it made him very sad.

  “Yeah, my delivery boy found a body this morning in the basement. Never seen the guy before, but he sure is dead as a doornail down there.”

  CHAPTER 4

  When Detective Sullivan came out of the house, he confirmed that the body of a middle-aged man had been found in the basement. After asking Sam to give them a minute, he leaned into the car and rested his elbows on the window to talk to Father Douglas.

  He explained that the man’s face had been bashed in, and he had been tortured, which probably meant that he knew where the jewelry box had gone after Sarah discovered it. Father Douglas wondered if he knew the dead man, and asked to be allowed to say a prayer over the body.

  Detective Sullivan knew that this was very important to his friend, and he allowed it, even though he would get some angry eyes from the forensics team. As soon as he reached the last step of the stairs leading to the basement, Father Douglas gasped and put a hand to his mouth. He knelt down by the body, said a short prayer, and stood up.

  “That’s the village jeweler, Detective.”

  What Tim Mansfield was doing in the basement of that old house was a question that would need answering. How could he have known the jewelry box had been transported to the church, unless he had followed Sarah that morning?

  Perhaps, he had not known the jewelry box’s whereabouts and that’s why he was beaten to death. Either way, the poor man was dead and the case was now a homicide. Detective Sullivan called Dr. Jane Russell, the chief forensic scientist, to the scene. He then asked the forensic team to come down to the village to examine the next crime scene.

  “Would you mind coming with me to Sarah’s house, Father?” Tom asked.

  “Of course,” Father Douglas answered.

  When the two of them arrived at Melissa’s house, she was surprised to see them at her door. Right away, she assumed something had happened to her niece and she started to panic.

  “Don’t worry, we aren’t here to deliver any bad news,” Tom crooned in his calming baritone voice. “We just want to ask you a few questions. Well actually, Father Douglas will be standing in doing the asking today, I have to run.”

  Melissa invited the Father indoors and began to sob. “Sarah isn’t home from school yet, I’m so worried.”

  After Father Douglas explained what brought him to her house that morning, she sobbed even more, worried sick that something had happened to her sweet niece.

  “Now, now,” Father Douglas soothed. “God’s got everything under control, Melissa. Just like he always does. Now, about this jewelry box.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, wiping her tears. “I’m never seen a wooden jewelry box like the one you described.”

  “Well how about you take a look at these for me, please? If you don’t mind, that is.” He handed her his phone, and instructed her to scroll through the pictures starting at the right.

  “These….most of these things belonged to my sister. Er...uh…Sarah’s mother. What in the world? These things were stolen about a year after my sister’s death.”

  The cell phoned buzzed in Melissa’s hands and Father Douglas took it from her. It was a text from Detective Sullivan, which he read aloud to Melissa. Apparently, he had found Sarah in a park playing hide and seek with her friends. Relief washed over Melissa’s face, and she asked the Father to thank Tom profusely for her.

  On the way back to her aunt’s house, Sarah smiled and looked all around the inside of the police car. Tom took the opportunity to tell her what happened to her jewelry box. The girl looked mortified, first at the sheer fact that he knew about it, then at the fact that it had been stolen.

  “Did you know that box belonged to your mother?” he asked her.

  Tears welled up in the young girl’s eyes. “No,” she whimpered. “Mommy never wore fancy jewelry except when she and Daddy went out somewhere fancy.”

  After dropping off Sarah at her aunt’s house, he drove straight to the jewelry store. Tim Mansfield’s daughter had just closed up shop when she’d learned of her father’s death, and without a search warrant, he couldn’t force his way in just yet. He spoke with Leanne Mansfield and showed her the pictures
on his phone that Father Douglas had sent him, asking if she recognized any of them, which she did.

  “My father bought these pieces from Sarah’s mother a year or so before she died. In Tom’s mind, the only thing that made sense at this point was that Sarah’s mother had possibly sold them to Tim Mansfield, and then declared them lost or stolen to gain the insurance money. He didn’t understand how a lady could do that, but he knew things like that happened all the time, unfortunately.

  CHAPTER 5

  The only flaw in that scheme was that Mansfield could not sell these pieces to anyone in Hasting Point village or anyone in Australia for that matter, unless he wanted to be accused of fraud or of buying stolen property. It was likely, Tom decided, that Mansfield kept all of the items until such a time that someone blackmailed him for them. Maybe, the family of the owner of the old house was involved as well.

  Father Douglas, in the meantime, returned to the church and pulled up his Internet browser. Looking on eBay was certainly done on a whim, but it could garner some results. When he ran across a pair of earrings – identical to the ones he photographed – he lifted his gaze to the ceiling and thanked the Lord for the clue. A quick text and a photo of his screen was sent to Detective Sullivan and not ten minutes later, the ads for several pieces identical to the ones inside the missing jewelry box were taken down. They weren’t allowed to contact the seller without harder evidence, but at least the items were temporarily no longer for sale.

  ****

  Sarah kicked her feet under the table while she sipped her juice. Why wouldn’t Aunt Melissa have told her about the jewelry box? She wasn’t so much mad at her mom, she probably had good reasons for wanting to sell the jewelry to someone else….but Aunt Melissa lying to her?