The Organist Wore Pumps (The Liturgical Mysteries)

by Schweizer, Mark

  “You have meals all figured out?” asked Gaylen.

  Kimberly nodded vigorously.

  “Chaperones?”

  “Oh, yes. One adult for every five children. That’s what the curriculum calls for.”

  “And how many children are signed up?” asked Elaine.

  “Twelve,” said Kimberly Walnut.

  “So, three adults,” said Elaine.

  “Yes,” said Kimberly Walnut. “Well, no. Two for sure. But maybe three.

  “And who are the two for sures?” asked Gaylen.

  “Well,” said Kimberly Walnut, “me and Emily Douglas. Then Diana Terry said she’d try to make it after supper. You remember Diana? She helped out at Bible School last summer. I don’t know for sure if Diana’s coming, but we can do it with two if we have to.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be just fine,” said Gaylen. “Now, then...our Epiphany service.” She looked over at me. “What’s the status on the bones?”

  “The bones of one of the Three Kings will be at St. Barnabas at the beginning of next week. They’re coming here straight from the National Cathedral. Arthur Farrant and another priest are driving the relics down here on Monday morning.”

  “How exciting!” said Elaine. “Is the bishop still planning on attending?”

  “Yes,” said Gaylen. “Although, when I asked him if he was the one who gave our name to the church in Nantwich, he denied it. It doesn’t matter, of course. I’m glad they found us.”

  “Are we getting any publicity on this?” Bev asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Gaylen. “An article in The Watauga Democrat, The Tattler, of course, and I’m pretty sure Our State magazine is sending their reporter back up. Word has it that Mayor Cynthia made the cover this month.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled,” I said.

  Chapter 35

  “What do we have?” I asked. “Or rather, whom do we have?”

  Nancy looked at her list.

  “Kylie Moffit. New to town. Married to Biff Moffit. She drives a dark-gray 2008 Nissan Murano. Dark hair tied back, fit, looks strong.”

  I conjured up a mental image of Kylie and her husband.

  “Flori Cabbage. She’s been in St. Germaine less than a year. She may be Ian Burch’s girlfriend, although it’s hard to tell. They’re together all the time, but there are no PDAs—public displays of affection. She drives an ’89 Jeep Grand Wagoneer, dark blue with wood trim. It’s tough to tell her body type. She wears those bulky sweaters and full skirts.”

  “Nah,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Any particular reason why?”

  “I’ve heard her play a rauschpfeife,” I said. “Also a bladderpipe, a crumhorn, and a pretty good cornemuse. I find it inconceivable that anyone who has spent time mastering the intricacies of a cornemuse would bother to kill people for a living. She could torture them much more easily simply by playing it.”

  Nancy laughed. “That’s your reasoning?”

  “That, and she couldn’t have shot Mushrat. She was playing the flute when he was killed.”

  “And when did you remember that?” Nancy asked.

  “When I listened to the recording of the service, which I happened to find yesterday. The new sound system that the church has records everything to a hard drive. It creates a new file each time you turn it on. Then the sound file stays on the drive until you burn it onto a CD. After that, it’s automatically deleted. We never bothered to check and see if Mushrat was recording his Bible study. I went in to make a copy of the Christmas Eve service, checked the hard drive, and there it was.”

  “Anything else on that recording?” asked Dave.

  “Nothing we didn’t hear before.”

  “Did you hear the gunshot?” asked Nancy.

  “Nope,” I said. “Nothing. Who else?”

  “Edna Terra-Pocks,” said Nancy, running her finger down the page. “Fifty, rich as Croesus, drives a black 2010 Range Rover.”

  “I don’t think she did it,” I said. “She wasn’t even in the picture when Sal LaGrassa was killed. St. Barnabas hadn’t hired her yet.”

  “I don’t think she did it, either,” said Dave. “Doesn’t feel right.”

  Nancy rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t feel right? Oh, puhleease.” She looked back down at her notes. “Kimberly Walnut. She drives a black 2003 Chevy Tahoe. She had something going on with Donald Mushrat. Maybe it was a simple game of liturgical slap and tickle in the vestibule. Maybe they’d just decided to ally-up against you.”

  “Me?” I said.

  Nancy smiled. “You do tend to give Kimberly Walnut a hard time. Or so I’ve heard. Then again, it could be something else entirely.”

  “If Kimberly Walnut’s the one, and she killed Mushrat because he read her emails at the library, she certainly wouldn’t have pretended to like him,” I said. “She would have ignored him.”

  “Unless she was trying to find out exactly what he knew,” said Nancy. “And once he started spouting off in the Bible study, she had to shut him up. She didn’t know if he was going to name her as the killer or not.”

  “True,” I agreed.

  “What I don’t get,” said Dave, “is why the killer used the computer at the library. Surely she can afford her own internet connection.”

  “Of course she can,” said Nancy. “But the library’s far safer. IP addresses are easy to track. At the library, she could simply log in on a web account, answer her emails, log out when she was finished, and no one would be the wiser.”

  Dave thought about this for a moment, then said, “Well, how did Deacon Mushrat get into her email?”

  “Obviously,” said Nancy, “he got her password. That, or she didn’t log out for some reason.”

  “Or couldn’t,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” asked Nancy.

  “The Christmas parade.”

  “What about the Christmas parade?” said Dave.

  “Holy smokes,” I said, realization sinking in. “Give me that list of everyone you interviewed after Mushrat’s murder.”

  Nancy handed it across the desk.

  I looked at it and felt a big smile spread across my face.

  “I know who did it. I know who the killer is.”

  Chapter 36

  “You were right, boss,” said Nancy. “She’s Hiram Frost’s niece. That’s the reason she stashed the wine in his basement. It was a nice, cool place, lots of room, and Ol’ Man Frost was too feeble to go down the stairs anymore. She had no idea the bank was going to foreclose on the farm.”

  “Why didn’t she stash it at her own place?” asked Dave.

  “Probably because she doesn’t have room,” I said. “I’ve been in her apartment. It’s not very spacious.”

  “Listen,” said Nancy, “can we prove any of this?”

  “Nope,” I said. “She’s done a very good job. There’s no hard drive in the library computer, there are no eyewitnesses, the bullets that killed both victims were a match to the old barrel of my Glock, and there is no way to link her with LaGrassa.”

  “What if we find her Glock that has your old barrel on it?”

  “It’s long gone,” said Nancy. “Probably at the bottom of Lake Tannenbaum.”

  “So, what do we do?” asked Dave.

  “You know what I think?” I said. “I think that St. Barnabas being asked to host the relics of one of the Three Kings on Epiphany just as our killer’s facade is crumbling is one heck of a coincidence.”

  “Huh?” said Nancy.

  “After the tour was announced in England, the vicar of St. Hywyn’s in Nantwich received a phone call identifying St. Barnabas as one of the wealthiest churches on the east coast of the United States. We all thought the bishop ratted us out. But it wasn’t the bishop at all. He had nothing to do with it.”

  “She or LaGrassa made the call,” said Nancy with a nod. “And they knew you’d take the bait. I mean, how could you resist? It’s perfect. An easy target with no security to speak
of.”

  Sal LaGrassa was into antiquities,” I added. “If he set it up, she certainly could carry out the theft after she killed him. Then she could disappear into the mist to set up her business somewhere else.”

  “But why would she want the bones of one of the Three Kings?” asked Dave.

  “Oh, she doesn’t,” I said.

  “Then what does she want?”

  “She wants the medieval reliquary. It’s worth a fortune.”

  Chapter 37

  Father Arthur Farrant was a smiling, affable vicar, apparently very happy to be out raising money for his beloved parish in Nantwich. When he and the accompanying priest climbed out of their rented car, they were both dressed in their ecclesiastical blacks—black pants, long sleeved black shirts, and accompanying dog collars. Arthur was in his early forties and had the look of hard work about him, his piercing blue eyes taking in the scope of St. Barnabas in a well-practiced glance. He took off a worn, blue cardigan, tossed it onto the top of the car, stretched, then ran his hands through a thick mop of reddish-brown hair before taking a moment to adjust his dark-rimmed, European-style, rectangular glasses.

  Gaylen and I were on the front steps of the church waiting for them, having received a phone call from Arthur’s cell a few minutes earlier asking for specific directions.

  “Hayden Konig?” said Arthur, holding out his hand in greeting. “A pleasure. And this must be the illustrious bishop, Gaylen Weatherall.”

  I shook the priest’s hand, but Gaylen rated a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “The pleasure is ours,” she said. “Welcome to St. Germaine.”

  “Great weather!” said Arthur, looking around the square. “And what a lovely little town.”

  I smiled. It was thirty-four degrees out. “Thanks,” I said. “We like it a lot.”

  “J.D. Overnight,” said the other priest, an American, judging by his accent. We both shook hands with him. J.D. had an altogether different demeanor. His body language said “I don’t want to be here, I’m much too important.” I had him pegged as a would-be academic, someone who thought he should be teaching at a seminary, a bevy of adoring students hanging onto his every eloquent thought, but somehow (and through no fault of his own) he had spent his whole career working at a diocesan office. He was obviously pretty disgusted that he’d been the one to catch the assignment of ferrying around a box of bones. J.D. Overnight was a large, moist fellow, sweating even in the dead of winter, and had come to the mountains equipped with a houndstooth driving cap and a dark green, waxed-cotton jacket that he probably thought made him look like an English gentleman. I didn’t envy Arthur Farrant having to be saddled with this guy for two weeks.

  “You’ll have to forgive my speech,” said Gaylen, self-consciously. “I broke my jaw in a car wreck before Christmas. It’s still wired shut.”

  “Nothing to forgive,” said Arthur, giving her a big smile. “I didn’t even notice.”

  “Could we go inside, please?” said Father Overnight. “There’s no reason we have to exchange pleasantries on the front steps, is there?”

  “No, of course not,” replied Gaylen politely. A little too politely. She gestured toward the front doors. “Please come in.”

  •••

  “This is beautiful,” said Gaylen, looking at the Nantwich Reliquary sitting on the big wooden table in the conference room. Bev nodded in agreement.

  The wooden box was ancient, eighteen inches long by fourteen inches deep and a foot tall. Each side, as well as the top and presumably the bottom (although we couldn’t see it), was made of a single piece of very dark English oak. There were two-inch-wide silver straps that wrapped the sides, bottom to top, at the corners and every eight inches or so. Four straps in the front. Four in the back. Three on each side. Each one delicately engraved with climbing roses.

  The top was carved with a medieval depiction of the Adoration of the Magi, each figure covered in gold. The sides were carved with scenes as well. Mary enthroned with the infant Jesus covered one side, the Baptism of Christ, the other. On the front of the reliquary were images of the apostles. On the back, a scene of the Last Judgment. These carvings had originally been covered in gold, like the lid, but now the gold was almost all gone, flaked away over the centuries. The ornate hinges and hasp on the top of the box had been fashioned of silver and were well worn. The lock and keyhole in the front of the box were oversized, and solid gold.

  “The first time this reliquary is mentioned in the written record,” said Arthur Farrant proudly, “is in 1470. Twenty-two years before Columbus set off for the New World. In England, the War of the Roses was in full swing.”

  “And are the bones of one of the Three Kings really in there?” asked Bev, astonished to be viewing such a thing in the conference room of St. Barnabas.

  “Of course not,” said J.D. Overnight with a smirk. “It’s all superstition. Superstition and nonsense.”

  “Well,” said Father Farrant, “it’s a legend, of course, but there’s no denying that Christians and saints have been coming to view this shrine since 1164, the year that the relics of the Three Kings made their way from Milan to the cathedral in Cologne. Can you imagine the prayers that have been offered up in the presence of these holy relics? Prayers for protection against the black plague, prayers for kings and monarchs and nations, prayers for family, for wealth and power, prayers for strength and courage in battle, prayers against tyranny...” Arthur took a deep breath. “It’s a humbling thing to contemplate.”

  J.D. Overnight blew a puff of air from his oversized lips in disgust.

  “And,” added Arthur with a twinkle in his eye, “there is certainly the possibility that those bones are actually one of the Three Kings.”

  “Oh, I believe it,” said Bev. “Have you ever looked inside?”

  “Oh, no! The last time it was opened was in 1892, when it was rediscovered. But the priests did leave us with a written account of the contents along with a drawing of what they found inside. It’s in the archives of the church.”

  Arthur traced his finger across the lid.

  “There’s a special compartment along the back of the reliquary,” he said, indicating a space about half the width of the box. “It contains the remains of old rotten and molded bandages, most likely made of byssus. There are some pieces of aromatic resins and similar substances. There’s also a lot of dust and other particles.”

  “What’s byssus?” asked Gaylen.

  “It’s an exceedingly fine and very valuable textile known to the ancients. This was most probably made from the finest Egyptian white flax. Of course, there’s not much left now.”

  “What about bones?” asked Bev.

  “There are numerous bones,” said Arthur with a smile, “and pieces of bones. But they’re quite small and brown. You know the story of Ewen, our Welsh priest, and the caravan sent to Cologne by Emperor Barbarossa?”

  “We do,” I said. “I filled them all in.”

  “Well, we think that Ewen didn’t want to get caught purloining any of the major bones. Of course, a rib here or there or a lot of little finger bones would hardly be missed. There are also two medieval coins in the box, both made of silver and only stricken on one side. They would be very valuable.”

  “Amazing,” I said.

  “I’d give anything to take a peek inside,” Bev said.

  “Sorry,” said Arthur, shaking his head. “There isn’t even a key that I know of. No worries. You’re in good company. None of the thousands of pilgrims to St. Hywyn’s ever saw the actual bones.”

  Chapter 38

  “So where are the bones of the King being stashed?” asked Meg.

  “They’re locked up in Gaylen’s office,” I said. “When the service begins, one of the acolytes will carry the box in during the processional hymn and place it on the altar.”

  “Neat!”

  “Then, after the service, Arthur Farrant will give a talk in the fellowship hall for whoever wants to stay—the history of the bones, r
elics in general, that sort of thing.”

  “We’re staying, right?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “What are we singing for the Epiphany service?” asked Meg.

  “Lo! Star-Led Chiefs,” I said.

  “What?” said Meg. “We all thought you were making us sing through it as a joke.”

  “Nope,” I said. “I’d never make fun of a composer named William Crotch.”

  •••

  The twelve children who showed up for Kimberly Walnut’s Cocoon lock-in were the same children that generally showed up for everything. Moosey, Bernadette, Ashley, and Christopher had been in Sunday School together since they were five. Dewey was the newest member of the gang, taking the place of Robert who jumped the puddle and became a Baptist.

  Garth and Garrett Douglas (the twins) joined the church a couple of years ago. They were a pair of terrors, and I suspected that they were only allowed to attend Cocoon because their mother Emily had agreed to be a chaperone. Stuart, Lily, Samantha, and Madison were new to the church as well, having joined in the fall after their triumphant debut in Elisha and the Two Bears. Addie Buss was Benny Dawkins’ thurific protégé, but, despite her growing reputation as a smoke-slinger, she was still just one of the kids.

  I could see that Kimberly Walnut and Emily Douglas were going to have their hands full when I walked into the church at six o’clock. They were both in the kitchen putting together a fried chicken supper they’d bought from Piggly Wiggly. Kimberly Walnut had given the children the assignment of sitting quietly and drawing a picture of their favorite Biblical Christmas scene. The children had taken this to mean that they were to invent a game called “Hymnal Attack,” a game reminiscent of “Space Invaders,” in which the bombardiers (girls) dropped hymnals from the choir loft onto the targets (boys) who walked to and fro on the main floor, stiff-legged and as fast as they could.