“What?” said Meg in astonishment. “What?”
Pete laughed. Nancy looked up from her meal, a startled look on her face, and Dave choked on half a piece of cornbread.
“Pretty good, eh?” I said with a grin. “I saw it on Criminal Minds. Those FBI profilers are so clever.”
“Yeah?” said Nancy. “Explain, please.”
“Kent said that Sal LaGrassa was shot at close range and that the bullet had a slightly upward trajectory. Sal was six feet even, so Kent and I did the math and came up with five foot eight for the shooter. Sal was forty-five years old, and it’s reasonable to assume that, if he’s romantically and professionally linked with this woman and she’s in the same business as he is, she would be in her thirties or early forties. He might have had a girlfriend that was a teenager or in her twenties, but it wouldn’t be prudent to have her for a partner. Plus, she’s good. She’s experienced. She got the drop on him and put a slug right between his eyes before he could say ‘Blow me down a rat-hole.’ Still, he’d go for a slightly younger partner. Vanity and all that. He’d see himself as the senior member of the team. She wouldn’t.”
“Blow me down a rat-hole?” said Cynthia.
“She’s attractive, because Sal was attractive: well-built, athletic, trim. He’s a player—cars, art, wine, property—so he’s not going to be romantically involved with someone who’s frumpy. Also, being fit kind of goes with the job. Sal wasn’t a lightweight. He weighed one hundred ninety pounds and she managed to carry or drag him quite some distance.”
“Huh,” said Nancy, turning this information over in her head.
“Also, seventy-three percent of white females have some shade of brown hair. Pretty good odds, wouldn’t you say? There were no aberrant hairs on the clothes or on the body even though she lugged it down the hill and tossed it in the lake. Odds are she’s very careful about leaving any DNA and pretty pragmatic as far as her appearance is concerned. Hence, short hair, or hair pulled back most of the time. If she only pulled her hair back when she was getting ready to kill someone, it would certainly be a giveaway to her partner.”
“A dead giveaway,” said Ruby.
“What if she actually shot him down by the lake?” asked Cynthia. “She wouldn’t have had to carry him. Just roll him in.”
“Didn’t happen,” I said. “Meeting him down at the shore of a deserted lake would have thrown up so many red flags to the victim that he would certainly have known something was up. Plus the fact that she couldn’t have known who might be visiting one of the graves. He wouldn’t have allowed himself to be marched down at gunpoint. Remember, he was a buttonman, too, and he would have made a move to escape long before ending up in the lake.” I rubbed a hand over my chin. “Nope. He never saw this one coming.”
“Buttonman?” said Cynthia. “What’s a buttonman?”
“A dropper,” said Meg pointing her finger at Cynthia and bringing her thumb down ominously. “Hatchetman, trigger, gun, torpedo.”
“Wow,” said Nancy with more than a little sarcasm. “You really know the lingo.”
“I’ve been reading up,” said Meg. “Sophie Slug Versus the Maltese Falcon.”
“The falcon would win,” observed Pete. “You see, a bird always beats a slug unless the slug is some sort of mutant, nuclear slug.”
Cynthia looked at Pete as though he had lost his mind. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying...”
“Hang on a minute,” said Dave, who had stopped eating. “Why is she white? The shooter, I mean. Not the slug.”
“If she’s a person of color, and she’s trying not to be noticed, she certainly wouldn’t be living here. She’d be down on the coast of South Carolina.” I shrugged. “Somewhere in Georgia. Maybe Chicago. Miami. She’ll have a job, and live comfortably but not extravagantly. Her checking account will have enough in it to make a rent payment or two, but she probably doesn’t write checks unless she has to. Cash is easier and untraceable.”
“Yep,” agreed Pete.
“She drives a late model SUV because she needs four-wheel drive up here in the mountains and she’s not going to be driving a pickup. She’ll be in a soccer-mom vehicle: a Jeep Cherokee or a Ford Expedition or something like that. Mid-sized. She has to carry bodies, remember. It’ll be newish, but not new. She doesn’t want to attract attention, but at the same time, she doesn’t want it breaking down. Also, she has plenty of money, so price isn’t an object. She probably gets a late-model car every few years. She buys them out of state and pays cash.”
“Okay,” said Nancy. “Why is the car black?”
I smiled. “Let’s say you’re a female professional killer living in a small town. You look good and have a lot of money and expensive tastes, but you need to go unnoticed, so you wear dowdy clothes, not much makeup. You have to keep a low profile, but you still have your self-respect. You’re driving a generic soccer-mom SUV. So what color is it?”
“It’s black,” said Nancy without hesitation.
“Black,” said Meg.
“Black,” said Ruby.
“Black,”said Dave.
“Black,” agreed Cynthia.
“I don’t know,” Pete said thoughtfully. “Maybe teal.”
Chapter 17
On Saturday, as soon as she’d gotten off the phone with Bishop O’Connell, Bev had called Father Tim and explained our dilemma. He’d agreed to come over at eight a.m. and bless the communion elements for the eleven o’clock service. Deacon Mushrat would then hand them out as a “reserved sacrament,” and all would be well. At least, until next week.
I arrived at St. Barnabas at ten o’clock to meet with Edna Terra-Pocks and Mushrat and go through the service, making sure there would be no surprises.
Fifteen minutes (and two cups of coffee) later, Edna and I went up to the choir loft to go through the anthems with the choir. The early arrivers were poring over my latest masterpiece.
“At last!” said Marjorie. “No more Sally Slug. This is more like it.”
“Sophie Slug,” said Meg sadly. “Her name was Sophie. And this isn’t more like it. This is less like it than ever.”
“I’ll miss Sophie,” said Rebecca. “She had some real potential.”
“Maybe I’ll bring her back as an ancillary character,” I said. “You can’t keep a good slug down. How did your Skyping with Jan Karon go, by the way?”
“It was fine. I had to run Deacon Mushrat out of the library, though. He was using the computer to type his sermon. He said the church hadn’t ordered his computer yet, and all the other computers at the church were either locked up or required a password.”
“Oh, brother,” said Meg, rolling her eyes.
“We have wireless, so anyone can bring their laptop in if they want,” Rebecca explained, “but we only have one computer that’s connected up to the internet as well as a printer. And when the power came back on, there were a couple of people waiting to use it. Mushrat got to it first and was on it for an hour and wouldn’t get off. He got very belligerent when I told him we were closing so we could have an author Skype.”
“How many were there for the Skype?” asked Bev.
“Maybe thirty or so,” said Rebecca. “It was a good turnout and Jan Karon was just great!”
The rest of the choir had found their seats and their voices and so, under brilliant direction, we attacked the offertory anthem—“attack” being the operative word.
“Really, choir,” I said. “We don’t need to sing this as though we’re going to war. Rejoice in the Lord Alway. It’s the Epistle text. Let your moderation be known unto all men.”
“Could Edna accompany us?” asked Phil. “I can’t ever find my notes in measure...um...well, dang, now I can’t even find the measure.”
“Sure I will!” said Edna.
“No, she won’t,” I said, giving the choir my sweetest, or as Meg later described it, “scariest” smile. “She’ll be playing on the Mendelssohn anthem t
hough, so you can all find your notes then.”
•••
The service began at eleven o’clock and the church was almost full. Edna Terra-Pocks began the Third Sunday of Advent with a toccata and fugue on Tempus Adest Floridum. We all recognized the tune immediately as Good King Wenceslas. It was a good piece, maybe a little too Christmassy in my opinion, but certainly within the compass of the season. I’d still grump about it. It was my duty. Edna had been right. She did need to wear her sports bra to play it. Toward the end of the fugue, I thought for a moment she might knock herself unconscious.
We sang the first hymn, Comfort, Comfort Ye My People, too slowly of course, and launched into the service with a will. We heard all the readings for the day and then Deacon Mushrat got up to give his sermon.
“I know we’ve heard the readings from this lectionary,” he started, almost spitting the word onto the floor in disgust, “but the Holy Spirit has convicted me to preach on another subject.”
Meg and Bev both looked at me nervously.
“Hear now the awesome Word of the Lord,” said Mushrat. “From the Book of Malachi.”
“What’s he doing?” whispered Edna.
“I’m sure we’re going to get a sermon on tithing,” Elaine whispered back. “He’s been chomping at the bit all week.”
“‘I the LORD do not change,’” began the deacon. “‘So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty. “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
“‘Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’”
Bev had her head in her hands. Meg’s eyes were starting to glaze over.
“‘In tithes and offerings,’” read Mushrat. He looked up and pointed a finger out at the congregation. “‘You are under a curse,’” he hissed. “‘The whole nation of you because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. It is imperative, therefore, that you attend the offering and barter the purchase if your property is to be preserved.’”
“What on earth?” said Marjorie, loud enough for everyone in the congregation to hear. “This ain’t right.” Some titters came from below the balcony. It did not deter Mushrat.
“‘Test me in this,’” says the LORD Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. The mark is set. Twenty thousand is the price. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,’ says the LORD Almighty.”
“The Word of the Lord,” he said with a flourish, picking up his notes and shaking them at us.
“Thanks be to God,” muttered the congregation.
•••
Elaine was right. We did get a sermon on tithing. A forty-minute sermon on tithing. Now, a forty-minute sermon is fine if you’re in a church that thrives on forty-minute sermons. The Episcopal denomination is not one of those. Let’s face it. We have a lot to do: prayers, scripture readings, hymns, processions, psalms, service music, creeds, standing up and sitting down, taking communion. Even with a twelve-minute sermon, we were accustomed to getting out of church at 12:15.
At 11:35, about fifteen minutes into Deacon Mushrat’s sermon, his pontificating seemed to be generating a lot of yawns. At 11:45, people were starting to fidget and look at their watches. At five after twelve, three families got up and left. This did not bother Deacon Mushrat in the least. By the time his sermon was finished, it had become clear, to the choir at least, that the deacon must go.
When the service ended at 12:45, no one stayed for coffee, no one congregated in the fellowship hall to chat. Those Episcopalians emptied out of the church like they were Lutheran and there was an all-you-can-eat tuna casserole buffet at the Holiday Inn.
•••
“My,” said Meg as she drove us home. “That was special.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“I especially like how he invited everyone to come to his Wednesday night Bible study. Who does he think is going to attend?”
I sighed. “Muffy said she was going. Not that it’s a big loss to the soprano section, but it sort of irks me that he’s now poaching choir members.”
“Maybe you should tell her she can’t sing O Holy Night on Christmas Eve if she misses rehearsal,” Meg suggested.
“That would suggest to her that she can sing it if she doesn’t miss rehearsal.”
“Oh. Right. It doesn’t matter anyway, because you cancelled choir this Wednesday. Living Nativity. Remember?”
“I remember. Still,” I said whimsically, “Muffy does fill out the soprano section. I mean, she really fills it out. It’s those angora sweaters—now in holiday colors.”
Meg punched me in the cast and immediately regretted it. “Ouch,” she said, shaking her fingers.
“Both hands on the wheel, please.” I smiled at her. “It serves you right. You shouldn’t punch a cripple this close to Christmas.”
Chapter 18
“Hiya, Chief,” said Dave, when I came through the police station door on Monday morning. “How’s the good bishop doing?”
“She’s back home and doing okay,” I said. “She’ll be back by Christmas Eve. Where’s Nancy?”
“Out doing police stuff,” said Dave.
“Ah. Police stuff.”
“Yep. I asked her to stop by the Piggly Wiggly on her way in and get us a dozen donuts.”
“That’s police stuff, all right,” I agreed. “Anything happening we need to check up on?”
“Nope. I’ve got about three reports to finish up. Then I’m going home.”
“You’re on for Wednesday, right? Living Nativity duty. Nancy’s on duty Thursday and Saturday. I’ve got Friday and Sunday.”
Dave nodded. “Nancy said she’d help me out on Wednesday, so we’ll both be there. I might have to shoot that camel and I’m not really comfortable with that. Nancy says she wouldn’t mind.”
Chapter 19
Annie. Annie Key -- singer, looker, and potential cash cow.
“Why’d you come to me?” I asked. “Who gave you my name?”
“Pedro did,” she whispered, moving across the desk like a piece of Guernsey flotsam. “Pedro LaFleur.”
Her breasts pressed against me like spent sausage casings while the moonlight played on her thighs like two tennis players engaged in mortal combat to the death.
“My credit card has been declined,” she sobbed. “My LCA maxed it out, and now she won’t answer my calls!”
Suddenly Annie had lost her bovine luster.
I struck a match and lit a stogy. “So what do you want from me, sister?”
“Won’t you help me? Won’t YOU be my new Life Coach Accompanist?”
“Listen, Bossie. I’m a shamus, a gumshoe, get it? Sure, I can tickle the ivories and give advice, but it ain’t my bread and butter. Besides, your credit card has been declined.”
“Won’t you do it out of love?” Her eyelashes flapped like clothes-lined underwear in a stiff breeze, not banging noisily against the pole like those stiff cotton briefs that are usually on sale at Walmart, three for five dollars, but fluttering gently like the $69.95
J Peterman imported knee-boxers made of grasshopper silk and hand-stitched by the seamstresses of Kooloobati.
“I might,” I said, adjusting my knee-boxers.
“Pedro said you were the best.”
“Yeah. What was the name of your last LCA?”
“Sophie. Sophie Slugh.”
The kiss that was halfway out of my mouth crawled back inside like a startled mushrat.
“What’s wrong?” asked Annie, a pucker still dangling from her lips like a blister on an overcooked bratwurst. “You’ve gone all verschlunken.”
I didn’t answer. Sophie Slugh, alias Sophie Slug, alias Sophia Li
macé. My archenemy. Ten years ago I’d thrown her off Reichenbach Falls into the salt mines of Kooloobati. Now she was back.
•••
I didn’t plan to go to church. A Wednesday night off during December was something to be savored, but I was backed against the counter by Bev Greene as soon as I walked into the Slab for a cup of coffee early in the afternoon.
“You’ve got to go to Deacon Mushrat’s Bible study tonight,” she said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Gaylen wants you to,” said Bev.
“You’re fibbing,” I said.
Her shoulders slumped. “Yes, I am,” she admitted. “I can’t go. I told Gaylen I’d keep an eye on him, but I’ve got to pick up the donkey at Connie Ray’s farm and take him back after the show. It’s my Kiwanis Club assignment. It was either that or be the innkeeper’s wife, and I don’t look good in burlap.”
“You’d look great in burlap,” I said. “It could be the fashion move of the season.”
“C’mon,” she wheedled. “You owe me. What about that time I didn’t tell Meg that I saw you...”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I said. I thought for a moment, then decided. “Okay, I’ll go, but I’m not staying for the whole thing. I’ll go and listen for just a bit. Then I’m heading home.”
•••
At six o’clock I was up in the choir loft, sitting in the dark on the back row, waiting for Mushrat to begin. There were about twenty people in the pews. The deacon had decided that, since there wasn’t any choir practice, he’d go ahead and use the church instead of his usual Sunday School classroom, and had gallantly run Edna Terra-Pocks off the console and out of the loft, even though it had taken her an hour to drive into town just so she could practice. Edna was storming out just as I walked up. She was not happy.
The Organist Wore Pumps (The Liturgical Mysteries) Page 12