Chapter 24
It was late in the afternoon when Nancy found me in Sterling Park, waiting for Meg and pondering the case. The next day was the winter solstice, and this time of year the sun dropped behind the mountains at about five o’clock. The Christmas lights around the square had come on an hour earlier and, as the sunlight faded, downtown St. Germaine began to glow with electric holiday cheer. I’d found a comfortable bench, purchased a large cup of joe from the Holy Grounds Coffee Shop and was absently watching the crew of Kiwanians clean up the Christmas crèche for the evening show.
The harder I thought about it, the more convinced I was that I was missing a piece of the puzzle: something I’d heard that wasn’t quite right. I hoped it would come to me in a flash of insight, but that hadn’t happened yet.
“I have some interesting news,” said Nancy, sitting down beside me.
“Do tell.”
“Well, the ballistics report came back on the bullet that killed Sal LaGrassa.”
“I thought it was the wreath that actually killed him.”
“Potato, potahto,” said Kent. “Dead is dead. The rifling on the two bullets matched. They were both fired from the same gun.”
“Huh. What else?”
“Ryan Jackson just called.”
“The FBI guy? What did he want?”
“He wanted to know...” Nancy paused.
I took a sip of coffee. I saw Meg coming across the park and waved at her.
“Wanted to know what?” I said.
“He wanted to know why Sal LaGrassa was killed by a bullet from your gun.”
“What?!”
“Your 9mm Glock 17,” said Nancy. “You remember...we all sent in a spent round for identification. Procedure and all that.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, the slug was in the system. It came from your gun.”
I stood and drained the Styrofoam cup, digesting this information along with the dregs of the coffee. Meg walked up a moment later and gave me a kiss.
“What’s up?” she said. “You look positively flamboozled.”
“It seems as though my gun was the one that shot Mushrat and Sal LaGrassa.”
“Surely not,” said Meg. “Who says so?”
“The FBI.”
Meg’s eyes widened. “Oh,” was all she could manage.
“Let’s go check it out,” said Nancy. “It’s under the organ bench, right?”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “I took it out from under there a week and a half ago, the day I got the new truck. I wanted to shoot some rounds out at the house. It’s still locked under the back seat of the Tundra.”
•••
“So is it yours?” asked Nancy.
Meg looked on as I inspected the handgun.
“It’s mine.” I handed it to Nancy and tapped on the butt of the gun. “I had my name etched right here on the back of the grip.”
“You were up in the loft when Mushrat was shot,” said Meg. “And your gun was locked in the truck.”
“Yep.”
“But your gun was the gun that killed him.”
“It sure looks like it,” I said.
“Well, how did that happen?” asked Meg.
“I wish I knew,” I said. “But it looks as though someone is setting me up.”
“I have an idea,” said Nancy. “Let’s keep this quiet. No need to make this public knowledge.”
“For now,” I agreed.
Chapter 25
“Let’s go, Toots,” I said, grabbing Annie’s hand. “We need to go find Pedro.”
Sophie Slugh and I had a history. I met her when she was just a wee snaif, peddling pump organs for Peter Pooter’s Portable Penny Pumpers. But Pooter’s Penny Pumpers went plooie and Peter Pooter became a pensive pauper.
Sophie Slugh, on the other hand, turned to crime. She was as slimy as pearl onions in clam sauce and left a trail of despair and mucus wherever she went. Although she never had the spine for it, she had a rap sheet that included a-salt, i-stalking, and mollusktation. Sure, I had some fun with her -- me and all the other boys in Miss Galloway’s Garden Glee Club -- but once the bottle stopped spinning and we got into her genes, we discovered a hermaphrodite gastropod whose idea of afterglow consisted of chomping off whatever got stuck in the mix. I got away easy. Stumpy Johnson never sang baritone again.
Our paths had crossed since then, but I’d kept my nose and my shoes clean, and the last time I saw Sophie, she was dribbling down the side of Reichenbach Falls, the tiny teeth of her radula gnashing in anger. I didn’t give her a second thought. A few months in the salt mines would do her good. As my Aunt Terraria used to say “Easy come, escargot.”
“Pedro’s at The Lettuce Patch,” said Annie. “He told me to tell you.”
“I’ll bet he did,” I said.
Her kiss grabbed my lips like an aroused sea barnacle.
“Baby,” I said. “You’re my kinda gal.”
•••
“It seems to me,” said Edna Terra-Pocks, “that I should get some sort of life-insurance policy or something. People don’t last very long in this church.”
“Oh, most of them do,” said Elaine. “I’ve been here for years.”
“It’s true,” agreed Fred. “I don’t think you have to worry. If you weren’t killed after that first prelude, you’ll probably make it through Christmas.”
“Who’s celebrating communion this morning?” Rebecca asked.
“Gaylen’s here,” I said. “She said the sermon’s going to be short, though, so we’re doing two anthems. One after the Epistle reading and one at the offertory.”
Marjorie walked into the choir loft and shook her photocopied hymn at me. On the back of the page was my latest effort. “I would like this slug story better if it had some Christmas stuff in it,” she complained.
“Like what?” asked Georgia, coming in behind her. “Shepherds? Angels? Reindeer?”
“Reindeer,” decided Marjorie, plopping down in her chair.
“You know,” said Mark Wells, “I think there should be something in science called the ‘reindeer effect.’ Just once I’d like to turn on CNN and hear a newscaster say ‘Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect.’”
“I’m not sure how a reindeer would fit into the plot,” said Elaine, reading over my glorious prose.
“I’m not sure how anything fits into the plot,” sighed Meg.
“Sing Lullaby,” I announced. “By Richard Shephard. Get it out. Then we’ll go over Parker Ramsay’s Magnificat. You already know it, so don’t pretend that you’ve never seen it before. And don’t forget choir rehearsal this Wednesday.”
“Are we singing the Mouldy Cheese Madrigal on Christmas Eve?” asked Muffy.
“I suppose so,” I said.
“Before or after I sing O Holy Night?”
“Umm...”
“We practiced it before you came up,” said Edna. “I think it sounds just great.”
•••
“Have you seen Benny?” I asked Bev as the choir was getting ready to go downstairs for the processional hymn. “I need to ask him something.”
“He’s gone again,” Bev said. “He had a gig at All Souls’ in Asheville. They’re giving him the entire prelude. That place is going to be smokin’!”
“I’ll be glad to get him back,” I said. “Not that Addie isn’t doing a great job.”
Benny Dawkins, our thurifer, hadn’t been to a Sunday service at St. B’s for months. Oh, we had incense, but the pot was being wielded by Benny’s protégé, a little eight-year-old girl named Addie Buss. Addie, although she showed flashes of brilliance for one so young, didn’t have the polished showmanship of a true master. Not yet. But Addie was good. She’d already mastered some of Benny’s easier signature moves with the incense pot: Walk the Dog, Around the World, and the Double Reverse Swan. Now she was beginning to step out and improvise with routines reminiscent of the Chicago legend, Wilson “th
e Firefly” Gillette. We all knew that it wouldn’t be long before she was giving Benny a run for his money.
Benny Dawkins had won the International Thurifer Competition in Spain last year and, having demolished his archrival Basil Pringle-Tarrington and receiving the highest score ever recorded in the event, decided to retire and travel the circuit. He’d been touring Europe most of the fall, playing all the major cathedrals. Benny was apologetic, of course, for missing the Advent and Christmas season, but vowed to be back for the Feast of the Epiphany.
The lay reader on this, the Sunday before Christmas, was Joe Perry, an English professor with a glorious speaking voice. The Old Testament lesson was from the Book of Micah.
“But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the least of the tribes of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.”
It may have been Joe’s voice that triggered the memory, or perhaps it was the fact that I enjoyed listening to Joe read and hence was actually paying attention. All of a sudden, I realized what had been lurking just behind the frontal lobe of my brain, occasionally peeking out to taunt my medulla oblongata. Or maybe my hippocampus? I’d have to ask Karen about that.
•••
“Shall we go out to lunch?” asked Meg. I met her in the fellowship hall where the St. Barnabas coffee hour was in full swing, but not before I’d made a quick stop in the church office.
“I’m hungry,” I admitted, “but I can’t yet. I’ve got to go and check something. I could use your help.”
“Sure. What are we checking?”
“Deacon Mushrat’s last sermon.”
“He never got to the sermon. He was killed during the hymn,” said Meg.
“Not Wednesday.” I held up a CD. “Last Sunday. I have a recording of the whole service. I think I know what we’re listening for.”
“How about if we get some sandwiches?” suggested Meg. “Then we can work in your office.”
•••
Meg and I sat in the police station and unwrapped the two Reuben sandwiches we’d purloined from the Slab. Corned beef and sauerkraut on rye bread, Russian dressing and Swiss cheese—the perfect combination of ingredients, in my humble opinion.
I put the CD in the stereo and hit the play button. Our service recordings didn’t have any tracks—they were one continuous sound file, so I held down the fast-forward button and zipped ahead to the sermon.
“The Holy Spirit has convicted me to preach on another subject,” said the voice of Deacon Mushrat. “Hear now the awesome Word of the Lord from the Book of Malachi.”
“Is this it?” asked Meg.
“This is it,” I said. “Listen now.” I took a big bite of my Reuben.
“I the LORD do not change, so you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”
“What am I listening to?” asked Meg. Her bites were more delicate, but she was catching up.
“The lesson,” I answered, swallowing quickly to avoid the don’t-talk-with-your-mouth-full glare. “I’ll tell you when.”
Mushrat went on with his lesson. “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,” he intoned, “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.”
“There!” I said. “Right there!” I pushed the pause button on the CD player.
Meg shrugged. “I don’t get it.”
“I didn’t either, but Marjorie caught it right away. We thought she was just irked at Mushrat for ignoring the lectionary but she heard what we all missed.”
Meg looked hopelessly confused. “What’d we miss?”
“You know, most of us just tune out the scripture lessons. I must have heard that scripture in church a hundred times growing up. Every time a stewardship campaign would kick off, we’d get a sermon on tithing.”
“Okay,” said Meg. “But I still don’t understand.”
I went over to the bookshelf, found a Bible and handed it to her.
“Malachi 3:10 and 11.”
Meg looked it up, read it to herself and looked up at me blankly.
“Follow along,” I said, backing the track up about thirty seconds.
“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.”
I paused the CD again.
Meg’s eyes grew wide. “That’s not verse ten!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Play the rest!”
I pushed the play button again. Donald Mushrat’s voice came out over the speakers.
“‘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.”
Meg was now busy taking notes on one of Nancy’s legal pads. “Play it one more time,” she said. “I want to make sure I have it word for word.”
I played it again. Meg compared Mushrat’s words to the text in Malachi, furiously scribbling when the two didn’t correspond.
“One more time, please,” Meg said.
I obliged.
“Got it?” I asked.
“Got it! Mushrat said, ‘It is imperative therefore that you attend the offering and barter the purchase if your property is to be preserved.’ Then he said, ‘The mark is set. Twenty thousand is the price.’ None of that is in Malachi. But if he was reading from the Bible, why would he put that into the lesson?”
“He wasn’t reading from the Bible, remember? He was reading from his notes. He kept shaking them at the congregation.”
“Oh, ho,” said Meg. “A clue!”
“A clue indeed. Mushrat wasn’t the sort to add his own spin to the scriptures. He copied those sentences into the Malachi reading by mistake.”
Chapter 26
“When’s the funeral?” asked Georgia.
I was in Eden Books doing some Christmas shopping: a new graphic novel called Crogan’s March for Moosey, a Dan Brown thriller for Dave, and about a hundred other assorted titles that I’d ordered throughout the year, thinking that I’d save a bunch of time at Christmas. Now I was looking at spending a whole day wrapping a hundred-plus books with one good hand.
“No funeral for us,” I said. “It’s Christmas. Donald Mushrat’s body will be shipped back to Winston-Salem from whence he came, where he will be buried with full ecclesiastical honors.”
“Ecclesiastical honors, eh?” said Georgia. “And what might those be?”
“Hmm. Twenty-one acolyte salute and a donkey-drawn hearse. Hey, would you mind wrapping those books for me?”
“I already did,” said Georgia. “I started as soon as I heard you’d broken your arm. They’re all wrapped and numbered. Here’s the list with the corresponding titles so you don’t give the wrong books to the wrong folks. Why don’t you decide who gets what, and I’ll put the tags on for you.”
“Wow! Thanks!”
“See anything else you’d like? You still have a couple of days left.”
“Lemme look.”
“Take your time. Hey, I heard about the Epiphany service. Is the king still coming?”
“That sounds like the title of a bad Christmas cantata. But, yes, the king is coming.”
“Which king is it?”
“We don’t really know. You see, here’s the deal...”
“I hope it’s Balthasar. I love Balthasar. He’s the cool king—hip, tough, black. He’s like the Denzel Washington of dead kings.”
I had to agree.
•••
Pizza was the specialty of the house at the Bear and Brew. They had a number of signature dishes, but Nancy and I preferred the “Black Bear Attack” pizza w
ith the stuffed garlic crust. Dave didn’t care what we ordered. He was just happy to be included.
We divided the pitcher of Barn Burner Red, a local brew, and I filled Nancy and Dave in on what Meg and I had discovered the night before.
“So you think Mushrat was killed because he read some stuff that wasn’t in the Bible?” asked Dave.
“Not exactly,” I said. “I think that Mushrat got into something he wasn’t supposed to. He copied it into his sermon by mistake, and whoever it belonged to found out about it.”
I pulled a piece of paper from my inside jacket pocket and read it aloud.
“‘It is imperative, therefore, that you attend the offering and barter the purchase if your property is to be preserved.’ That’s the first sentence that Mushrat read that isn’t included in the scripture. Later on he said, ‘The mark is set. Twenty thousand is the price.’”
“Okay,” said Nancy. “Let’s start at the beginning.” She took a new legal pad out of her briefcase, then took a pen out of the breast pocket of her uniform and wrote across the top of the page.
“Let’s go back to the auction,” I said.
“The auction?” Dave said.
“We have two dead bodies,” I said. “Salvator LaGrassa and Donald Mushrat. What do they have in common?”
“Nothing,” said Nancy.
“Sure they do. They were both shot by the same gun and therefore by the same person.”
“Your gun,” whispered Dave.
“My gun,” I agreed. “The gun that was locked under the back seat in the pickup.”
“It was locked up for the second shooting,” observed Nancy. “Not the first.”
“Right. And the first time we saw Sal LaGrassa, he was bidding on wine at the auction at Old Man Frost’s.”
Nancy reached across the table, took hold of my scribbled notes and read them again.
The Organist Wore Pumps (The Liturgical Mysteries) Page 15