The Organist Wore Pumps (The Liturgical Mysteries)

by Schweizer, Mark

“It is imperative, therefore, that you attend the offering and barter the purchase if your property is to be preserved,” she read. She looked up at me. “Someone’s talking about the auction.”

  “I believe so,” I said. “That’s why LaGrassa was at the auction in the first place. There was no reason for him to be there otherwise. And, if he had stumbled across the auction, as we originally surmised, there certainly was no reason for him to show up with thousands of dollars in cash.”

  “So something happened at the auction that caused LaGrassa to get killed?” asked Dave.

  “Yep. I bought the wine. The wine that he wanted.”

  “You think there’s something in the wine?” asked Nancy. “He was a killer, you know. Maybe the wine is poisoned?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Meg and I drank four of the bottles. Random bottles. If it had all been poisoned, we’d be dead. If a few bottles contain poison, what’s the point in that? LaGrassa was a professional killer. He’s not going to use poisoned wine. He’ll shoot you in the head. No, I’m thinking that LaGrassa’s interest was strictly monetary.”

  “Ten thousand dollars isn’t that much money,” said Dave. “Not in the big scheme of things.”

  “That’s what I bought the wine for. That’s not what it’s worth. Bud told me that I could sell it for maybe a quarter million.”

  “What?!” exclaimed Nancy, then lowered her voice. “A quarter million dollars?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “In a couple of years when it reaches maturity. Bud and I will sell it then. But here’s the thing. The sentence says ‘It is imperative that you barter the purchase if your property is to be preserved.’ Your property. That implies that the wine was LaGrassa’s property in the first place. Or at least that he thought it was.”

  “Huh,” said Nancy. She refilled her beer glass from the pitcher on the table. “Old Man Frost’s place was foreclosed on, wasn’t it?”

  Yeah,” I said. “The bank came in and slapped padlocks on everything in sight. What if LaGrassa was storing the wine at the Frost farm and it got locked up before he could get it?”

  “But why wouldn’t he have it stored at his own house?” asked Dave.

  “Hang on,” said Nancy, pulling out her iPhone. “I read something about this. He lived in Montana, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  The Black Bear Attack pizza arrived at our table, delivered by our waiter, a skinny, college-aged kid who identified himself as Jared.

  “Y’all want another pitcher?” he asked, as he set plates down in front of each of us.

  “Yes, please,” said Nancy, still tapping information into her iPhone.

  Dave and I took a moment to savor the first couple of bites, then Nancy held up her phone and announced her internet discovery.

  “In Montana, residents have to apply for a ‘connoisseur’s license’ before he or she can have wine shipped over the state line. You have to be registered and have a valid and up-to-date license. And apparently the state of Montana and the postal service take this very seriously. I’m pretty sure Sal LaGrassa wasn’t about to register with the government for a connoisseur’s license.”

  “And he wouldn’t have wanted to chance shipping a quarter million dollars’ worth of wine,” said Dave. “What if it had been discovered? Even by mistake? It would have been confiscated.”

  Nancy nodded and put a slice of pizza on her plate.

  “Well,” I said, “we know that this LaGrassa guy was a big-time thief as well as a killer. So, let’s just say that he stole this wine...”

  “Him or his partner,” added Dave. “Or maybe both of them.”

  Nancy pointed her finger in agreement. “And she was storing it for him until he could get over to this side of the country to get it.”

  “He’d have to drive it back to Montana,” said Dave.

  “Probably,” I said. “So LaGrassa shows up at the auction with four thousand dollars after getting a message that his property is going to be auctioned off. He might have even had more than that. What we do know is that he didn’t have ten thousand because that’s when he stopped bidding. Whatever the figure was, he thought that he had plenty. More than enough, in fact.”

  “But then Bud spotted the wine,” said Nancy, smiling. “And he knew it for what it was.”

  “And I just happened to be there,” I said. “And, by golly, Sal was outbid.”

  “He must have been furious,” said Dave, finishing off his second slice and taking a third.

  “What about the second sentence in Mushrat’s reading?” asked Nancy. “The mark is set. Twenty thousand is the price.”

  “Sounds like a hit to me,” I said.

  “Yeah,” agreed Nancy. “Me, too.”

  “So Deacon Mushrat stumbled onto a hit and inadvertently announced it in his Bible reading?” asked Dave.

  “It appears so,” I said.

  “How would he have gotten that information?” said Nancy.

  “I’m betting it was an email,” I said. “Gaylen told me he was going through her files. He didn’t have much compunction about sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Right click, left click. What if he pasted part of an email he didn’t even know he’d copied into his sermon notes? Notes that included the scripture lesson?”

  “What about his computer at the church?” asked Nancy. “Why don’t we get a warrant and go through it?”

  “He didn’t have one yet. He did have a friend on the staff, though. She might have let him use her computer to type his notes.”

  Nancy and Dave both looked at me.

  “And Kimberly Walnut drives a black Chevy Tahoe.”

  Chapter 27

  “I’d really like to get on her computer without her knowing about it,” I said.

  “Well, Judge Adams gave us the warrant. You want me to call Panty Patterson?”

  “Yeah. Let’s give him a call. We need to do this after hours. See if he can come over tonight. Maybe around eleven o’clock.”

  “They’re up all hours anyway,” said Nancy.

  Panty Patterson was one of the Patterson brothers. He and his brother Dale ran the crematorium outside of town. Meg’s mother, Ruby, had owned the enterprise for a brief period, after inheriting it from Thelma Wingler and before selling the whole shebang to Panty.

  Panty was an albino. He had a high forehead and very small, piggy features. He always dressed in clean overalls, white, collared shirts buttoned all the way up, and Wolverine steel-toed work boots. He’d also just completed his doctorate in computer science at Georgia Tech. Dale, his brother, was not as fortunate, having barely completed the second grade. Panty took care of Dale. Dale took care of the bodies in the crematorium.

  “You know,” said Nancy, “we still have a few questions that need answering.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Questions like, how did your gun kill Donald Mushrat and Sal LaGrassa when it was locked in your truck? And, what did Mushrat say on Wednesday night that caused whoever shot him to risk plugging him during the service right in front of you, God, and everybody?”

  “Two good questions,” I agreed. “Here’s another. ‘The mark is set. Twenty thousand is the price.’ It sounds like a contract to me. Who’s it on?”

  “Oh, crap!” exclaimed Nancy. “I forgot about that.”

  “I expect that, if LaGrassa’s partner is still in the game, that hit is still scheduled.”

  “Maybe it’s somebody in California. Or Australia. Nothing to do with us.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  •••

  Panty Patterson drove up to the back door of St. Barnabas Church at eleven o’clock sharp. Most of the electric Christmas decorations downtown had been shut off and, except for a small crowd at the Bear and Brew, the square was all but deserted. Nancy and I were waiting for him under a security light, and I unlocked the church as he exited his old Cadillac and rumbled up the steps to meet us.

  “Hi, Chief,” he said. “Merry Christmas!�
��

  “Merry Christmas to you,” I said. “Thanks for helping us with this.”

  “We have the warrant right here,” said Nancy, fishing around in her coat pocket.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Panty. “You’re the one that needs it. Not me.”

  We entered the church and made our way down the hall to the suite of offices. I reached behind the copy machine, found the magnetic box, retrieved the master key, and unlocked Kimberly Walnut’s door. Her computer was a Dell PC, about a year old.

  “Vista,” Panty sneered as he sat down in the chair and pushed the on button. “This won’t take long.”

  The computer hummed to life and a couple of welcome screens came and went.

  “I think the computer’s password protected,” I said. “At least mine is.”

  Panty’s fat fingers flew over the keys for about seven seconds.

  “Okay. We’re in,” he said. “What are we looking for?”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s it?”

  “Vista,” said Panty, as if the one word explained everything.

  “We need all her email,” said Nancy. “Everything on the St. Barnabas server, plus her Gmail and any Yahoo accounts. Let’s copy her hard drive, too. Also, we need a list of every web-site this computer has accessed in the past month and all the passwords, if any. And don’t leave any tracks. Can you do that?”

  “Yep.” Panty’s fingers danced across the keys. “This’ll take me about a half-hour,” he said. “How do y’all want the information?”

  Nancy produced a small black and red box and a couple of wires from her pocket and laid them on the desk. Panty nodded absently and turned his concentration back to his task.

  “That little box will hold all that?” I said.

  “It’s a plug and play, USB 37 terabyte encrypted hard drive,” said Nancy.

  “I see,” I said, not seeing at all. “So the answer would be ‘yes?’”

  Panty snorted but didn’t look up.

  “This box will hold all the information stored on every personal computer in Watauga county,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Pretty close,” agreed Panty.

  “Too bad you can’t play the organ,” said Nancy, looking wistfully at my broken arm. “I wouldn’t mind listening to some Christmas music while we wait.”

  •••

  “It’s going to take me a few hours to go through all this,” said Nancy, dropping the hard drive back into her pocket. “Even using a data search. But if Donald Mushrat was playing on her computer, I’ll find out.”

  Chapter 28

  “Kimberly Walnut owns a black 2003 Chevy Tahoe. Four-wheel drive,” said Dave.

  “That’d be about right,” I said. “She parks it in back of the church.”

  “Flori Cabbage drives a Jeep Grand Wagoneer, but it’s an ‘89. Dark blue with wood trim on the doors. Kylie Moffit has a dark gray Nissan Murano. It’s all-wheel drive, rather than a 4x4, but I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  “Neither would I.”

  “Muffy drives a Beemer.”

  “It’s not Muffy,” I said.

  “Can I still keep an eye on her?” asked Dave.

  “Sure,” I said with a smile. “Knock yourself out.”

  “Hey! What if Sal LaGrassa was gay. Maybe his partner is a man.”

  I thought for a moment, trying to come up with a reason this theory wouldn’t work. I couldn’t.

  “Can’t discount it,” I said, “but the FBI is pretty sure it’s a woman. I think we have to go with their assessment for the time being.”

  Nancy came into the station, took a donut out of the box on the counter and plopped down in her chair.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Mushrat was not using that computer.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  “I’m sure. I will tell you that Kimberly Walnut has been spending quite a lot of time on eHarmony.com.”

  “The dating site?” I asked.

  “Yep. She’s hot and heavy with an insurance salesman from Knoxville. You should see some of their emails!”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Any evidence that she and Mushrat were dancing the horizontal tango?”

  “Nope,” said Nancy. “They never exchanged any emails, as far as I could tell. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they weren’t involved. Just that Mushrat didn’t send her any emails.”

  “Okay, then,” I said, “if Mushrat wasn’t using Kimberly Walnut’s computer, whose was he using?”

  Nancy and I looked at each other, as the realization hit us both at the same time.

  “The library,” we said, in unison.

  •••

  Rebecca Watts and Diana Terry were behind the circulation desk filing books when Nancy and I entered through the double glass doors.

  “We need to see the library computer,” I said.

  “Sure,” said Rebecca. “Which one?”

  “The public one that’s hooked up to the printer and the internet,” I answered.

  “It’s right there,” said Diana, pointing to an old Hewlett Packard sitting on a small table against the wall. “But I’m afraid it won’t do you any good. I haven’t gotten it up and running yet.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Nancy.

  “Someone tried to use it yesterday afternoon, and the system wouldn’t come up. There’s something wrong with it.”

  “Maybe it’s just old,” I suggested.

  “Could be,” said Diana. “It was working yesterday morning. Then, nothing. I was going to reload all the software, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  “Can we take it with us?” asked Nancy. “Maybe Panty can get something off of it.”

  Diana looked at Rebecca, who returned a shrug.

  “Sure,” Rebecca said.

  “Bring it back when you’re finished, though,” said Diana. “That’s the only internet service some of our older patrons have. They like to check their email.”

  “Who was the last person on the computer?” I asked. “Before it stopped working?”

  Diana looked at Rebecca, squinched her eyes and thought for a moment. “Well, it was Allison O’Steen who complained about it. Before her...”

  Rebecca snapped her fingers at Diana. “I remember. Oh, you know...that woman...I can’t think of her name...”

  Diana looked at her blankly.

  Rebecca turned to me. “You know...ol’ what’s-her-name. She’s your friend. The one who’s been playing the organ. Edna something.”

  “Edna Terra-Pocks,” I said.

  “That’s her,” said Rebecca. “I remember ’cause she had her black Range Rover parked illegally out front.”

  •••

  “What are the chances of finding anything on that computer?” I asked Nancy.

  “I don’t know,” said Nancy. “But even if she wiped the hard drive, there will be something left. I’ll take it out to Panty. He’s good. Really good.” She thought for a moment. “Was Edna in the building when Mushrat was shot?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I saw her coming down the stairs as I went up. She’d driven in from Lenoir to practice, but Mushrat had just run her out so he could conduct his Bible study.”

  “And was your gun still under the organ bench when she started playing at St. Barnabas?” asked Nancy. “You know, after the accident?”

  “Yep.”

  “I have an idea,” said Nancy, smiling.

  “Me, too,” I said.

  Chapter 29

  It was snowing again. According to the Weather Channel we were in for a white Christmas. Meg was in the bedroom wrapping presents, Baxter was lying on the rug in front of the fire, Archimedes the owl was perched on the head of my stuffed buffalo preening his feathers, and I was hunkered down in front of my typewriter, flexing my brain muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger at a cabinet meeting.

  I was being set up like duck pins. I could feel it. Annie Key was no more a singer than I was Hillary Clinton’s rent
-boy. Sophie Slugh was a squishy piece of work, but what were the chances that she’d oozed her way past the killer gas-slugs, evaded the under-dwarves, and escaped the salt mines of Kooloobati? Slim, I decided. Virginia Slim.

  Then there was Pedro. Pedro LaFleur was a hard case, a countertenor with high Cs to burn, and my righthand man. I knew Pedro. He ate his veal cutlet so rare he had to taunt it like a rodeo clown to get it to come from behind the baked potato. He wouldn’t be caught dead at the Lettuce Patch, a vegan eatery with more sprouts than Rosie O’Donnell’s upper lip.

  Things were coming together like...like...

  “Dagnabbit!” I grumbled. “I’ve run out of similes.”

  “That’s nice, dear,” said Meg. She peeked out of the bedroom door. “Would you like an early Christmas present?” she asked coyly. “I’m all out of wrapping paper and I don’t want to go back to the store to get some.”

  “You bet I would,” I answered, happy to take a break. “I only hope it’s what I think it is.” I took off my hat and dropped it on top of the typewriter.

  “It’s not,” said Meg, coming out of the bedroom. “Nice try, though.” She had a large box in her hands. “Here, let me open it for you.”

  She tore the tape on the bottom of the box, tipped it, and a large book slid out onto the desk.

  “Nice!” I said. It was an art book, one I hadn’t seen before. I immediately recognized the painting on the dust jacket, a depiction of an Old Testament story titled “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” although until I read the cover, I didn’t remember who painted it. The Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art—the work of Artemisia Gentileschi.

  “It’s a first edition,” said Meg. “Signed by the author.”

  “Beautiful!” I said. “Thank you!”

  “Well, I thought the gruesomeness of the subject matter would be right up your alley,” said Meg. “All that Biblical gore.”

  “Excellent!” I said, as I flipped one page after another, quickly scanning and admiring the plates that I’d spend some serious time studying after supper. “I love early Christmas presents! I thought I’d have to spend all evening at the typewriter with Soph...” I stopped talking and stared at the book.