“Noylene’s taking Mondays off,” said Pete. “Not much happening on a Monday. Cynthia’s back in the kitchen, but you can get your own coffee.” He nodded at the coffee machine just behind the counter. Two pots of regular and half a pot of decaf were just waiting to be consumed.
“C’mon,” I whined, flopping my cast piteously. “Look here. I’ve got a broken arm.”
“Oh, fine,” said Pete, getting up in exasperation. “I’ll get your coffee.”
“Might as well bring the pot,” said Nancy, as the cowbell banged against the glass of the front door, announcing her entrance. She pulled off her heavy jacket and hung it on the rack of hooks by the door, then walked over to the table and sat down heavily across from me. “How was your substitute?” she asked.
“Not at all good,” I said. “I can’t do it, no matter what Meg says. The tempos were too slow on the hymns. The service music was too fast. Then, to top it all off, she played some eight minute, gawd-awful Advent prelude by Marcel Dupré. Le monde dans l’attente du Sauveur. It was too long, mind-numbingly boring, and all together unlistenable. It made my teeth hurt.”
“I know I asked,” said Nancy with a smirk, as Pete set a full coffee cup in front of her, “but I don’t really care. I was just making conversation.”
I snarled. “You’d better care. I’m your boss.”
She took a sip and settled back. “Yeah? Well, I’ve got real news. We got a match on the prints that Kent sent to the FBI.”
My mood brightened. “Hey, that’s something. Care to enlighten me?”
Pete sat down and looked at Nancy. “Well?” he said.
Nancy lifted her hands in exasperation. “Police business, Pete. You ever hear of police business?”
“I’ll shoot him if he tells anyone,” I said. “Promise.”
Nancy huffed. “Fine.” She put her forearms on the table and leaned forward, excitement now evident in her voice. “Here’s the thing. The feebs just called and said we’ve solved one of their big-deal cases.”
“Really? The FBI?”
Pete’s eyebrows went up. “Wow! Ten most wanted?”
Nancy shook her head. “Nah. Not that big. Just something they’ve been working on for a long time. The dead guy’s name is Sal LaGrassa. Sal, short for Salvator. Apparently...” she paused for effect, “he’s a professional killer.”
Pete whistled. “A hit-man?”
“Big as life,” said Nancy. “Well...not anymore. Anyway, the agent in charge, Ryan Jackson, wanted to know if we’d had any murders in town.”
Pete snorted into his coffee. I chuckled as well. Murders? In St. Germaine? What were they thinking?
“I told him not lately,” said Nancy, grinning back at us. “At least not any unsolved ones by a mysterious, unknown killer for hire.”
“So who shot him?” asked Pete.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” said Nancy. “Here’s the interesting part. This guy was apparently part of a team—a man and a woman. At least, that’s what the FBI thinks. They might have posed as husband and wife and lived together, but it’s more probable that they lived totally apart and just got together for jobs.”
“They think the woman killed him?” Pete said.
“Makes sense,” I replied. “I think he knew whoever killed him. If he was a pro, he’d be hard to surprise.”
Pete lowered his voice. “You think they were in town for a hit?”
I shook my head. “Nobody’s dead that I know of. Nobody except for Old Man Frost, and he was eighty-something years old and died over a month ago.”
“Maybe they lived around here,” said Pete. “Or hid out. You know, in one of the little, nearby towns, or even up in the hollers.”
“Yeah, maybe in one of the towns,” agreed Nancy. “Not in the hollers. They’d need access to internet, phone service...a hundred things. That’s what the agent told me. They’re running a search for driver’s licenses within a fifty mile radius—women, possibly single, aged twenty-five to fifty, who’ve lived in the area for less than five years. I doubt it will do any good.”
“It’s a place to start,” I said. “Is the FBI taking this case over?”
“Nope. They’re just happy he’s accounted for. Agent Jackson would probably give a medal to whoever shot him. They’re going to continue to look for the woman. He said if we find anything pertinent, he’d appreciate us giving him a call. I’ve got his number back at the office. Jackson’s also e-mailing me Sal LaGrassa’s dossier.”
“That it?” I asked. Nancy was nothing if not thorough.
“I sent the slug over to ballistics in Raleigh. Just in case the feebs need it for a match.”
“Nice work, Lieutenant Parsky,” I said.
“But we still have a murder to solve,” said Pete.
“We do, indeed,” I replied.
“If she’s still hanging around St. Germaine,” said Nancy. She took another sip of coffee and added, “Which I doubt.”
“Morning!” chirped Cynthia as she came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “How are you guys this morning?”
“Just great,” I said sullenly. “I have a dead hit-man in the lake. I have a deacon who no one likes for the next six weeks. I have a broken arm and a substitute organist whose musical taste can be summed up in the 20th-century French literature and whose talent in determining what might be appropriate selections for the season consists chiefly of having an enormous bosom.”
“Or maybe that’s just sour grapes,” said Nancy, hiding a smile behind her coffee cup.
“Nah,” said Pete. “Hayden’s right. I’ve seen her. She does have an enormous bosom.”
“Be that as it may,” said Cynthia, “I’m on Cloud Nine! This is going to be the best Christmas parade ever! We’re even going to get a write-up in Our State magazine.”
One thing that Cynthia Johnsson had wrangled in her two years as mayor of St. Germaine was one of the finest Christmas parades in the region. How? Simple. Money. Other people’s money. Lots of it.
Mayor Johnsson had managed to hustle all kinds of funds, from local and county sponsorships, to a North Carolina State grant, to some federal government money set aside specifically to encourage the formation and furtherance of small town parades. Part one of Cynthia’s idea was to encourage local and regional groups to be part of the parade by offering prizes. Prizes for the best high school marching band, the best musical ensemble that couldn’t be classified as a marching band, the best overall float, the best float with an agricultural theme (prize sponsored by the Farm Bureau), the best children’s entry, and so on. The second part of her plan was to actually offer an honorarium to those groups that might boost the parade’s attendance and hence the visibility of St. Germaine. These invitations went to a nearby college band, the Grandfather Mountain bagpipe and drum corps, some of the Horn in the West (Watauga County’s outdoor summer drama) cast in full regalia, Mr. Terwilliger’s Marching Pigs (twelve full-grown pigs that could stay in reasonable formation while trotting to The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies wearing Santa hats and white tutus), a guy named Jay from Tryon who happened to have an old Bullwinkle Moose balloon left over from the 1982 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and various other high-profile acts. Those cynics who thought that you couldn’t buy a marching band for an afternoon, and get ’em cheap, never met Cynthia.
The culmination of the parade, as far as the locals were concerned, was the judging. This happened in front of the reviewing stand, set up on the courthouse steps. Just like parades in bigger cities, each hopeful aspirant had the option of lingering for three minutes and performing for the three judges. It was an option that was embraced enthusiastically by the contestants, although the groups that were getting a guaranteed fee, and therefore were not eligible, usually marched on through. After three minutes, if the group hadn’t finished, they were disqualified from any prizes. Hence, most performing groups had a two and a half minute routine. As far as the floats were concerned, they might slow a
bit, so the judges could get a good, appreciative look, but they weren’t allowed to actually stop unless there was some sort of performance involved.
Altogether, this made for a Christmas parade worthy of Our State magazine. In the old days, we were lucky to get three fire engines from Boone, two overweight Shriners on mopeds, and the Sand Creek Methodist Youth Group dressed up in Hebrew garb and hauled in on a trailer with a couple of hay bales and a forty-watt light bulb glowing in a manger. Now, the parade was nearing extravaganza proportions. How long Cynthia could keep it up no one knew, but for now, it was quite a show. Yes, quite a show indeed.
Since the Rotary Club and the Kiwanis Club switched sponsorship of the parade each year, Cynthia still had her hands full coordinating everything. Hopefully the Rotarians would take the reins this year and Cynthia would only have to concentrate on managing the downtown crowds. The parade would begin in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, come down Maple Street toward town, make the corner in front of the Slab Café and head up the street to the reviewing stand. Then it would make another quarter turn around the square, pass Noylene’s Beautifery, turn north on Main Street and head out of the downtown area for another mile before culminating at the end of the route at the doors of the St. Germaine Volunteer Fire Department.
Most of the crowd would gather downtown, but everyone involved would be performing all along the route. That’s what their contract—yes, contract—stated. Cynthia wasn’t giving an inch on this account. The parade would be first-class from start to finish. Every entrant vying for a prize paid an entrance fee and the prizes were hefty: $3000 for the best overall float, $2500 for the best band, $1000 for the best non-religious depiction of a Christmas tableau (a bone tossed to the Unitarians to prevent a lawsuit), and so on down the line. Some of the prizes were small gift certificates, others came with a six-foot-tall trophy, but make no mistake—this was something that St. Germaine had decided to take seriously.
“Our State magazine, huh?” said Pete. “I never even got those guys to give us a look. You must be doing something right.”
Pete was always magnanimous toward Cynthia’s mayorship, even though she’d beaten him in the hotly contested election. Pete thought he’d miss being mayor of St. Germaine, but, as it turned out, he didn’t miss it at all, so magnanimity wasn’t a problem.
“Well,” said Cynthia, “I did have to promise the reporter that I’d be on a float and that he could get a picture for the magazine.”
“Nothing strange about that,” said Nancy. “Mayors do it all the time.”
“In my belly dancing outfit,” said Cynthia, looking up towards the ceiling at nothing in particular.
“I never had to do that when I was mayor,” said Pete. “What else?”
“I told him I’d be dancing to Jingle Bell Rock.”
•••
“Sunday’s service wasn’t that bad,” said Meg over lunch. “Everyone liked it. And besides, you can always direct the hymns. That way they’ll be the tempo you want.”
“I can’t pick the preludes and the postludes,” I groused. “That Marcel Dupré piece was awful. And she noodles around during communion. That drives me crazy!”
“You noodle around during communion,” said Meg.
“Yeah...well...that’s different.”
“And Deacon Mushrat did just fine.”
“He didn’t do anything,” I said. “The bishop was right there beside him.”
Meg crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. “I think it’ll be a nice Christmas,” she decided.
Chapter 11
“Dagnabbit!” I said, accidently banging the side of the typewriter with my cast. “I can’t do it. I can’t type one-handed.”
“Then don’t,” said Meg calmly from the couch in front of the fire. She looked up from her book. “No one said you had to write another awful detective story. In fact, there are those of us in the choir who would relish the thought of six weeks devoid of bad fiction.”
I grunted. “What am I going to do then? My muse needs a voice.”
“How about concentrating on your children’s books?” said Meg.
“What children’s books? I don’t have any children’s books.”
“The Sophie Slug series.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the perfect solution. You can follow up Sophie Slug Goes to the Beach with all kinds of adventures. Sophie Slug visits Salt Lake City. Sophie Slug Visits the Salt Mines of Wieliczka. You get the idea. And, since she only lasts for one sentence before she meets her demise, they’ll be short and rather painless for us to read.”
“Ah. And these are children’s books,” I said with a nod. “I like the idea.”
“I only hope I haven’t unleashed something very sinister,” Meg said, going back to her reading.
It was worth a try. I typed one-handed.
Sophie almost wept aloud, upon her visit to Mozart’s birthplace, as she pondered the musical genius’ life (so like her own) and untimely death, but couldn’t -- lacking even a rudimentary set of vocal cords -- even when she realized her error in coming to Salzburg (in English: Salt Castle) too late to appreciate the irony when, being a slug, she dissolved, non-metaphorically, into a puddle of tears.
From: “Sophie Slug: Eine Kleine Slug-Musik”
I reached up from my chair and pulled the chain on the banker’s light that shone down on my desk. It answered with a click. Raymond Chandler’s typewriter grinned up at me from the shadows with its alphabet teeth.
•••
I had just put on a CD of Baroque Christmas concertos and fired up the laptop to check my e-mail when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” said Meg, as she uncurled from the leather sofa. “I’ve got to start supper anyway.”
“Sounds great,” I said, as the sound of the Torelli Concerto de Noël filled the house. I’d just opened the file that contained the beginnings of my next great work of literature when I heard a familiar voice.
“Where’s that owl?!” hollered Moosey from the kitchen. He came dashing in a moment later, looking around in anticipation. “Where’s Archimedes?”
“He’s not here,” I said, closing the laptop and setting it on the shelf. “He takes off when it gets dark and usually doesn’t come back in until morning.”
“Aw, man...” Moosey flopped onto the sofa in a disappointed heap. He was wearing the winter jacket Meg had given him for Christmas last year, but, even though Meg had gotten him a size larger than he needed, he’d grown so much over the past year, it looked as though he’d need another one in a few weeks. His mop of straw-colored hair was sticking out from beneath a lumberjack’s cap, red-plaid with sheepskin earflaps. The wire-rimmed glasses sat slightly askew on his freckled nose and his red high-top tennis shoes now rested comfortably on the coffee table.
“Shoes off the table,” I said. “If I can’t do it, you can’t either.”
Moosey grinned and shifted his position, dropping his feet to the floor just as Meg and Ardine walked into the room.
“Ardine brought us a bottle of wine,” Meg said, holding up a bottle of Shiraz.
“It was Bud’s idea,” mumbled Ardine. “He said to tell you not to drink any of the other bottles. Whatever that means.”
Ardine was bone thin and hard. She’d had a tough life, no doubt, but now did a good business making and selling quilts. Her graying hair was tied back in a loose ponytail and she had on a wool overcoat that had seen many winters.
“He said you’d like this one just as well. Maybe better.”
“Excellent!” I said.
“Hey, what’s this?” Moosey, never one to sit still for more than a minute, had bounced over to my typewriter and was looking over my latest literary effort.
“That’s my new children’s book. The Adventures of Sophie Slug.”
“Hmm,” said Moosey, reading over the page, his lips moving silently. He finished and looked up, a confused smile on his face. “I don’t get it.”
&n
bsp; “You’re not alone there,” Meg said.
“This is very complicated and sophisticated humor, Moosey. It works on many levels.”
Moosey looked at me, waiting for an explanation.
I sighed with exasperation. “Okay, Sophie is obviously on a trip to Mozart’s birthplace, which, as we all know, is Salzburg, Austria. The first funny thing is that a slug is on a vacation in the first place. Then, the fact that she ‘almost’ wept aloud, but couldn’t because she didn’t possess any vocal cords, is the setup for the last bit of her dissolving in a puddle of tears.”
Moosey looked at me blankly. I looked over at Ardine. Same expression.
“Because dissolving in a puddle of tears is a metaphor for crying,” I continued. “And tears are salty. So when it’s revealed that Sophie is a slug and dissolves non-metaphorically, it means that she really did dissolve—literally—because of her tears. Also, the fact that she empathizes with Mozart’s genius is hilarious!”
Meg giggled. Moosey just stared.
“Salzburg,” I explained, “literally means ‘salt castle.’ It’s named for the salt mine on Mount Dürrnberg overlooking Hallein, just south of the city. Of course Sophie wouldn’t know this, being a tourist slug and not speaking German.”
Moosey blinked.
“And if you put salt on a slug, the slug dissolves. It’s ironic, then, that Sophie Slug meets her demise in a city named after salt even though her own tears were the instrument of her death—tears that might just as well have killed her in Peoria, Illinois. Then, to top it off, there’s the clever little tag: Eine Kleine Slug-Musik. It’s a reference to a famous work by Mozart. So you see, Moosey, this story contains multiple layers of pathos and irony. It’s a fable for our time.”
“How could she get a ticket?” asked Moosey.
“Huh?” I said, confused.
“How could a slug get a plane ticket?” said Ardine. “I was wondering the same thing. It’s a legitimate question.”
Meg laughed out loud.
“You know,” I said, “great writers and humorists aren’t really appreciated until they’re dead.”
The Organist Wore Pumps (The Liturgical Mysteries) Page 7