“You're very brave,” he said softly.
“Not me. I was terrified. I was actually relieved when you showed up. Being here alone isn't really making me feel any better. I've been jumping at my own shadow.”
“You'll never know how sorry I am that this had to happen to someone as sweet as you.”
“Thanks,” she said. Sweet. I hate it when people call me that. It's like “nice.” What do they mean? Sweet … nice. You might as well be describing a piece of chocolate or a sunny afternoon.
Oliver was speaking again, and she tuned back in. “Can I ask you just a couple more questions?”
“Sure.”
“Do they know yet who the man was?”
Cindy shook her head. The dead man with the eyes. That's all he was. “You'll probably have to ask the police. I'd never seen him before and neither had Pastor Roy.”
“Okay. Did the police say if they had any suspects?”
“I don't know. I'm sorry.” Again, I'm the clueless loser. Nancy Drew would already have the entire case solved if she'd tripped on a dead body at church. But then Nancy also took so many risks, just like Lisa used to.
“That's fine. One more question. Did you see anything else out of the ordinary? Maybe the police found something strange?”
“Not that I know of,” she said. “I was pretty out of it, though. Hopefully, they can be more helpful. Hopefully, they've already found the guy who did this.” And how many more times can I say “hopefully"? No wonder Kyle's the one with a television travel show, and I'm the one answering phones at a church.
“Yes, I hope they have someone behind bars right now so we can all put this behind us,” Oliver said fervently.
“Is there anything else?”
“No, I think that pretty much does it. I'll call you if I need anything more, if that's okay.”
“That's fine.” Fine. Fine. I may as well have said “nice,” she thought, completely disgusted.
He stood to go. “Keep your chin up. I'll be praying for you, especially tonight. Only happy dreams for you, I hope.”
“Thank you.”
“It's just a terrible start to Easter week, you know. First the guy in the park and now this.”
“What guy in the park?”
Oliver turned red and dropped his eyes. “Sorry. I'm not supposed to say anything.”
And that was exactly the wrong thing to say to get Cindy to back off. “Oliver, tell me, what do you know?” She put as much pleading into her voice as she could. If he knew something that would help her make sense of what had happened, then he wasn't leaving without telling her.
“A jogger found a guy on Palm Avenue, next to the park. He was dead and sitting on a donkey.”
“Dead on a donkey on Palm Sunday on Palm Avenue?” she asked.
“Yes. Police asked the editor to keep it quiet for a day while they try and figure it out.”
“A man was killed in mimicry of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, and the police want to keep it quiet?”
“Wouldn't you if you were them? I mean, that's pretty crazy, right? They don't want people to get scared.”
“It's a little late for that,” she said grimly.
“Are you okay?”
“No, but I am a little better. Now I know that the guy in the church wasn't killed at random.” She opened the door for Oliver. “Good luck with the article.”
“Thanks,” he said, a bewildered look on his face as he left.
Cindy leaned against the door for a moment and breathed deeply. As relief flooded her, she had the sudden urge to leave the house but realized that her car was still sitting in the church parking lot.
She grabbed her purse and keys and locked the door behind her. The church was less than two miles away. The air was warm, and birds were singing. Spring had arrived in Pine Springs with all its promise of new life. Birds feathered their nests. New leaves had popped out on all the trees, and tulips bloomed in bright bouquets. With so much around her alive and green, it helped to drive away the images of death that plagued her mind.
By the time she was halfway to the church, she resolved to walk to work more often. The air and the exercise were good for her, and they definitely did a lot to brighten her mood. It was safer than driving too. Lots of people died in cars every day.
When the church came into view she saw the janitor, Ralph, and Drake, one of the church members, standing on the front lawn. Two of the three crosses the church had put up the Friday before to celebrate Easter were standing, but the third lay on the ground.
“What's going on?” Cindy asked as she walked up.
“Hey, Cindy.” Drake gave her a quick hug. “You okay?”
She nodded.
“One of the crosses fell over a couple of hours ago. A gust of wind caught it just right and over she went,” Ralph said. “Drake is helping me put it back up.”
“We need to anchor all three of them deeper in the ground and brace them,” Drake said. “By the time we're finished they should stand through a hurricane.”
“That's better than I can say for the buildings,” Ralph said with a short laugh.
“With you two on the job I'm sure they'll withstand anything,” Cindy said.
“Yeah, now just give me a hammer and some nails and let me reconstruct these buildings,” Drake said.
“Wait, here you go.” Ralph handed Drake a hammer and three nails.
Drake looked at them and then at one of the two standing crosses. “Hey, can you put me up for the night?” he wisecracked, waving the nails at the cross.
“Very funny, Drake. I think we've all heard that one a million times,” Cindy said.
“But never in such dramatic fashion.”
It felt good to joke around with Ralph and Drake. Maybe she should have stayed at work and not gone home earlier.
“You guys are nuts,” she said.
“You know what they say, you don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps,” Ralph said.
“Tell me about it.” Geanie emerged from the office.
“Hey, Geanie, how are you doing?” Cindy looked at her quizzically.
Geanie was known for her particularly outlandish clothes. Today, though, she had dressed in a short, black-velvet skirt, a plain black tank top, and pink flats with no nylons. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup.
“Better now that you're here. You just saved me from calling you with a gazillion more questions.” She grabbed Cindy's arm and pulled her back toward the buildings.
“I'm trying to understand your look today. I hate to admit it, but I don't get it.”
“I had a whole goth thing going on this morning. Got here and somehow it seemed way inappropriate. I ditched the black boots and fishnets. I had these pink shoes in my desk from a couple of months ago. I took off the overshirt I had on and scrubbed off all the makeup. I figured the last thing anyone needed was to see me walking around looking dead.”
“Probably a good choice.” Though Cindy had seen Geanie in a goth outfit before, and she had looked very much alive compared to the man who had been stabbed in the sanctuary.
Geanie was the church's graphic artist and all-around computer whiz. When she first started working for the church, she had revamped all of their publications, from Sunday bulletins to monthly newsletters and everything in between. If it could be printed, odds were it had her finger-prints on it. Perhaps because of her talent and her endearing quirkiness, she was given a lot of free rein.
“So, what did you need to ask me?”
“Roy still can't get me a schedule for the Maundy Thursday service.”
“Have you tried asking Gus?” Gus was the minister of drama and choir for the church. For Thursday night he had planned a big program with a play and a lot of singing to celebrate the Last Supper.
“Yes, and he gave me the order of service for the parts he's doing, but he has no idea what Roy has planned for the rest of the evening. Is there going to be a sermon? Opening gre
eting? An invitation? Offering?”
“I see the problem,” Cindy said with a sigh.
“It would be a lot easier if Roy and Gus would just work this out together and then let the rest of us know what's going on.”
“Yeah, but that's not likely to happen.”
“Tell me about it. I'm surprised they can stand on the podium together Sunday mornings.”
It was no secret that the two men didn't get along, or at least it wasn't a secret to the staff. There did seem to be many in the congregation who were blissfully unaware of the tension between the two.
“When do you have to print the programs?”
“I wanted to print them this afternoon, but even if you could pry what I need to know out of Roy, I can't get it ready to print until sometime tomorrow now.”
“I know you like to get these things done early, but between you and me, when is your drop-dead day?”
“Wednesday afternoon. The team is coming in Thursday to print the newsletter.”
“I forgot it was newsletter week,” Cindy said.
“I wish I could.”
“If I have it all to you tomorrow at three o'clock can you make it work?”
Geanie nodded. “It's going to be tight, though.”
“But we'll make it.”
“As long as the copiers don't die on us like last Easter,” Geanie said glumly.
“We resurrected them, though.”
“Yeah, but you had to drive two hours to L.A. for that one part when they couldn't send a repairman. And then we all had to stay until nearly midnight printing and collating.”
“Don't remind me,” Cindy said. “Let's just pray extra hard for all the office equipment this week.”
“Printer, don't fail me now,” Geanie said, smiling for the first time.
“Amen.”
“So, what else can I do for you?”
“Harold is trying to schedule a meeting the Sunday after Easter for the Shepherds but none of the available rooms are big enough, and I'm not sure if any of the other groups can be moved.”
“Where did the Shepherds hold their last meeting?” Cindy tried to remember.
“He said they've had scheduling problems for the last couple of months so they've been meeting at his house. They met Saturday, but he wants to resolve the scheduling issues so they can just meet here after services.”
“I'll take a look and see who I can move to another room,” Cindy said. “Then I'll go talk to Roy about getting you a schedule for Thursday night.”
“That would be awesome.”
As it turned out, Pastor Roy's afternoon was booked solid with meetings. Cindy only managed to pop in for a minute and ask him to write out the order of service for her. He told her he would have it on her desk by the morning. Before she could ask him anything else or bring up the morning's events with him, his four o'clock appointment arrived.
For the next little while she worked on finding a room for the Shepherds to meet in, without much success. She was starting to feel edgy and realized the police detective had probably been right about taking some time off. The work would all be waiting for her in the morning. She wasn't sure, though, that she was ready to face her empty house alone.
“Geanie, what are your plans this evening?” she asked as she walked by her desk.
Geanie looked up from her computer. “My new boyfriend is taking me out to dinner to celebrate our one-week anniversary,” She giggled.
“A week. Wow, what a milestone,” Cindy teased.
Geanie blushed. “He's really romantic.”
“Obviously. Have fun.”
“Thanks.”
Cindy looked at the clock. There was still about fifteen minutes left in the workday, but technically she shouldn't even be there. “I think I'll get out of here early.”
“See you tomorrow,” Geanie said.
Cindy left the office and walked toward the parking lot. A chill raced up her spine as she passed the closed doors to the sanctuary. The yellow police tape looked menacing against the glass and brick of the building. She forced herself to look away. After she passed through the main gate she looked at her car and knew she wasn't ready to go home. She still needed to be with people, but everyone she could think of already had plans for the evening.
She hesitated a moment and then walked through the hedge and headed for the main building of the synagogue. Fortunately, the office was well marked with an overhead sign, and the door was open. Cindy walked in and looked around.
Behind a large desk sat a woman in her late forties. She stared at Cindy with open curiosity. The nameplate on her desk said Marie Henson.
“Hi, are you Marie?” Cindy asked.
“Yes, may I help you?”
“I'm Cindy. I work at the church next door. I was just wandering if Rabbi Silverman was in?”
Marie cocked her head to the side and stared at her as though she were sizing up Cindy. “He is, but I'm not sure he's taking visitors at the moment.”
“I can wait while you ask him,” Cindy offered, determined not be intimidated by the whole secretary-restricting-access-to-her-boss thing.
“I'll be back in a minute.” Marie stood up and walked to the back of the office. She knocked on a door and then poked her head in. After a couple of moments she stepped back and opened the door wide. “He'll see you,” she said as she took her seat.
“Thank you.”
Cindy walked around Marie's desk and into Jeremiah's office. She closed the door behind her. He stood up to shake her hand across the desk. “Come in and take a seat.”
She settled into the chair across from him as he sat back down. His formality threw her slightly off.
“I'm surprised to see you again so soon.”
“I decided to drop by and thank you again for all you did for me this morning,” she said, suddenly feeling very foolish. She fidgeted with her hands, wishing she had a deck of cards she could manipulate.
“That's very considerate. Shouldn't you be home resting, though?”
She shrugged. “I came to get my car and got caught up in the Easter crunch.”
He nodded. “It's like that over here for Passover. If I have to answer one more question about Wednesday night's Seder, I'm going to quit.”
She smiled. “That would be a great loss to your congregation.”
“It might be worth it if it taught them to listen the first time. Do you think there's any hope of that?”
“Not a chance.”
“Then I should probably get out of here so I won't have to quit in vain.”
Her eyes fell on the newspaper open on his desk to the crossword puzzle. “You do the crosswords too?” she asked.
“Yes, it helps my vocabulary. Today's is pretty hard, though. I always know I'm in for a rough time when I can't fill in the first one.”
“One across is easy. It's 'knife,' “ she said.
He glanced down. “No, I don't think that's possible.”
“Sure it is. I was working on it at home before I came over. It's 'knife,' I'm certain of it.”
“Not unless I've been misspelling 'knife.' One across is only four letters.”
“What?” she asked.
He handed it to her, and she looked at the puzzle. “This isn't the same puzzle as mine. Is this today's paper?”
“Yes.”
“Then how can that be?”
“They might be different papers. This is the Gazette, which one do you get?”
“The Gazette. Online version, not print. But they use the same crossword for each. They always run the same one.”
“Apparently not today,” he said.
She looked at the small print below the puzzle. “Daily crossword provided by Ink and Paper Games.” She handed the paper back to him. “That's weird. All I can say is welcome to Monday.”
He laughed out loud. “Kind of makes you anxious about Tuesday, doesn't it?”
“I should say so. Although I've never met the Tuesday yet that was as
bad as a Monday.”
“You might have a point there, especially this week. Tonight I have to clean my kitchen and throw away anything that has yeast in it before Passover begins,” he said. “I must admit, I never look forward to that. What do you have planned?”
She shrugged. “I'm not sure. I'm not really ready to go back home. It's too quiet there.”
“I understand. You look a lot better than you did earlier, though.”
“I feel better,” she confessed. She leaned closer. “Because now I know, it wasn't random.”
He started. “How do you know?” he asked.
“The police are keeping it out of the papers for now, but they found a dead guy last night, sitting on a donkey on Palm Avenue.”
“Palm Sunday, the 'triumphal entry' of Jesus into Jerusalem a week before his death, riding on a donkey?”
“Exactly,” she said.
“Coincidence?”
“I don't believe that.” She studied his face for a moment. “And neither do you.”
“Well played,” he said, a sly smile slipping across his face. “No, I'm not much of a believer in coincidence.”
“So, what do we do?”
He laughed. “We let the police handle it.”
She flushed. Of course that was what they should do. What had she been thinking to even ask something like that? But something else tugged at her. Something that made her wildly uncomfortable.
“I think you're feeling so involved because you found the body. If it had been one of your coworkers who found it, you'd probably be able to let it go more easily,” he suggested.
“But I am the one who found the body. What if that means something, like maybe God wants me to find the killer?” She couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth. Every fiber of her being screamed that it was too dangerous and that it was best to look away.
“Or maybe since you are the first one to the church everyday, it was not God, but the killer who wanted you to find the body,” he countered.
A shiver ran up her spine, and she felt a sick, twisting sensation in her gut. “But why would somebody want that?”
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