Liturgical Mysteries 02 The Baritone Wore Chiffon

by Mark Schweizer

  The Baritone

  Wore Chiffon

  A Liturgical Mystery

  by Mark Schweizer

  St. James Music Press

  The Baritone Wore Chiffon

  A Liturgical Mystery

  Copyright ©2004 by Mark Schweizer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published by

  St. James Music Press

  Box 249 - Tryon, NC 28782

  ISBN 0-9721211-3-7

  Acknowledgements

  Richard Shephard, John Schrecker, Sandy Cavanah

  Kristen Linduff, Drs. Karen and Ken Dougherty

  All the many anonymous writers of bad similes that

  never failed to inspire and of which I borrowed more than a few.

  Prelude

  I sat down and looked lovingly at the typewriter sitting on the desk, running my fingers across the worn keys and remembering when I first saw it offered in an on-line auction. Raymond Chandler’s 1939 Underwood No. 5. The very typewriter that had been used to write The High Window, Trouble Is My Business, Goldfish, and a host of other hard-boiled detective stories in the 40's and 50's. I put a piece of paper into the carriage and, with a feeling of reverence, clicked the return until the edge of the paper appeared behind the hammers and inched across the roller. Just to see what it felt like, I opened a copy of Trouble Is My Business and copied a passage onto the bright, new piece of bond.

  I called him from a phone booth. The voice that answered was fat. It wheezed softly, like the voice of a man who had just won a pie-eating contest.

  I chuckled with delight, knowing that I had typed the same words on the same machine as Raymond Chandler had some forty years before. I indulged myself a second time, this time from memory.

  From thirty feet away, she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away, she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.

  I had finished my first work, The Alto Wore Tweed, before Christmas and was ready to begin my second opus. As an organist and choir director, I was pretty good; as a detective, I was excellent; but as an author, I was without peer. Or so said many of my friends. Those are the exact words. "Without peer."

  I put a new piece of paper into the typewriter, rolled it forward and, with slightly trembling fingers, typed

  The Baritone Wore Chiffon

  Chapter One

  I walked over to the kitchen and collected my beer and sandwich. Then, with the ghost of Philip Marlowe, Chandler's hard driving private-eye, looking over my shoulder, I started typing.

  It was a dark and stormy night: dark, because the sun had just set like a giant flaming hen squatting upon her unkempt nest that was the gritty urban streets; stormy, because the weather had rolled in like an angry fat man driving his Rascal into a Ryan's Steak House and then finding out that the "all you can eat" dessert bar had an out-of-order frozen yogurt machine. Suddenly, a shot rang out, as shots are wont to do. No, I decided. Not a shot. Just the backfire of a too old car with bad gas, a problem that I could easily identify with.

  I sat in my chair, my feet up on the desk, the rain from my shoes dripping onto the blotter, mixing with the dried ink and swirling into what looked like the "naked trapeze girl with a top hat" on the Rorschach test--a test which, at this point in time, I'm not sure I could have passed with a C minus. I had a drink. Then another. If I had put away the second the way I had the first, I probably wouldn't have heard the rap on the door. "C'mon in," I grumbled. It had been a bad day.

  She came in like a centipede with 98 missing legs. Attractive? Sure. But though I wasn't interested, a sawbuck is a sawbuck, and that's what it'd cost her to bend my ear. I lit up a cigar in anticipation.

  "I'm Kit," she said. She had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a few days. "I'm looking for a job. I'm a Girl-Friday."

  "Come back tomorrow," I said. "I'm as beat as two-day old meringue."

  •••

  "Have you no shame?" Meg asked, shaking her head and dropping my prose onto the desk with disdain. "This is quite possibly the worst thing ever written. And I'm including your past efforts. I'm embarrassed for you."

  "I am secure in my literary prowess. I am a fine writer."

  "You are mistaken. You are bad. Truly bad. And I may have to stop you."

  I read back over the uneven text. For me, style and content were of secondary importance. The old-fashioned look of the type, the clatter of the well-worn keys and the way the paper curled over the platen were reason enough to write. Good or bad. Okay. Bad. Still, I thought that Megan Farthing at least, being my significant other, should stick up for my hackneyed efforts. I could use a little positive reinforcement.

  "You are positively terrible. Please stop now, before I do something which I may regret but for which the literary world will have cause to thank me."

  I admit it. I'm an incurable Chandler fan. I put Trouble Is My Business back on the shelf and thumbed open The Long Good-bye, my current re-read.

  Then her hands dropped and jerked at something and the robe she was wearing came open and underneath it she was as naked as September Morn but a darn sight less coy.

  As they say up here in the hills, "Man, that's real good writin'."

  Chapter 1

  "Hayden, supper's almost ready," Meg called. She had been in the kitchen for an hour or so, making a trip into the den every once in a while to bring me a beer and to check up on how I was coming with my new masterpiece. Seeing as Lent was four days away and I was trying to garner some piety, I was listening to the St. Luke Passion of Penderecki. It's not an easy piece to listen to, but if you can get through all ninety minutes, you'll be more than ready for Lent. In fact, Lent will be a piece of cake. It's the musical equivalent of having your wisdom teeth pulled without Novocain. The fact that I was giving up beer for forty days also had a bearing on my selection. I wanted Meg to suffer as much as I. She was giving up needlepoint. I pointed out that this was hardly a challenge.

  "You're missing the spirit of Lent, Hayden. You give up something so that when you'd be working at that activity, you can meditate or do some reading instead. Something that enriches your life and your spiritual existence."

  "Nope. Lent is about suffering. And the quicker you accept it, the easier it'll be. It's all about suffering and guilt," I said smugly, turning up the volume on the stereo and feeling my fillings give way.

  The den was actually an old log cabin, measuring twenty by twenty, complete with a loft that I had incorporated into the overall design of the house. My house suited me very well and fit snugly into the two hundred acres in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains that I called home. The kitchen, in contrast with the rest of the house, and due to Meg's insistence, was totally modern, the only nod toward rusticity being the stone fireplace and the exposed beams which held up the second floor. The entire building cost a pretty penny, but pretty pennies were what I had. A whole lot of them.

  "Do we have to listen to that god-awful wailing?" Meg asked, her face slightly askew.

  "Yes, dear. Lent is upon us. And the Passion is a twentieth century masterpiece."

  "What about Bach? Or some medieval chant or maybe a cantata? Even Albinoni? This is just painful."

  "All in good time, my pretty. Ash Wednesday is four days away. We haven't even begun to suffer."

  I am, by vocation, a police detective, by avocation, a church musician, but my fortune was made with the phone c
ompany thanks to a little invention that paid off handsomely and which Meg, also my investment counselor, has brokered into quite a tidy sum. I actually don't have to work, but I enjoy it, so every day I make my way into St. Germaine, a quaint little town up in the mountains of North Carolina, where I am the Chief Police Detective, and straight to my table at The Slab Cafe. At least for my morning coffee.

  On Sundays it's off to the downtown square and St. Barnabas Episcopal Church where I am the resident organist and choirmaster. It's a nice job and one I would probably treat a bit more reverently if I actually needed the salary. As it is, I put the money back into the music fund. And it's a fair use of my first two college degrees. It was my third that got me into police work.

  "Well, you've chased the boys outside. I doubt they'll be back for a while."

  "The boys" Meg was referring to were Baxter and Archimedes, who usually have the run of the house. Baxter is a Burmese Mountain Dog, not even six months old and already huge. I had given him to Meg for a Christmas present, but he'd ended up living out here. Meg, who lived in town with her mother, didn't have the room, and Baxter had the makings of a terrific watchdog – even at his tender age.

  Archimedes is an owl. He showed up about five months ago on my windowsill. I fed him for a few weeks, and he gradually became reasonably tame. We feed him, but he's a wild owl and we don't pick him up. I tried letting him step onto my hand, but his talons went right to the bone and I still have the scars. He has a window with an automatic opener which he learned to activate without much trouble, and now he comes and goes as he pleases, knowing there's always a dead mouse or squirrel waiting for him in the kitchen. I buy the frozen rodents by the case from Kent Murphee, the coroner in Boone. Where he gets them, I have no idea, and I don't ask.

  The sopranos hit a particularly high and harsh note.

  "If Lent is going to be like this, you can kiss me good-bye till Easter." Meg was getting a bit perturbed. And she was beginning to develop a twitch in her left eye.

  "OK. I'll turn it off for now, but just know that I'll be listening to the rest of it later on. It's no good suffering unless someone knows it. You have to have an audience."

  "Oh brother!"

  "And, by the way, giving up needlepoint for Lent is hardly a sacrifice. You don't even needlepoint any more. What's your real plan? To give up watching your mother needlepoint?"

  "Oops, I've got to go," Meg said, suddenly looking at her watch and racing for the door. "I forgot that I have to pick Mother up at her book club."

  "What about supper?"

  "Put it in the fridge. I'll be back in an hour and I expect some decent dinner music. Till then, have a miserable Lent."

  "Yes, that's the idea," I called after her.

  •••

  Kit was waiting in my office when I came in.

  "I need a job. I need a job bad."

  Her grammar wasn't great, but then grammar never is. I really didn't need a Girl-Friday, but I figured that if I could get the client to cover the cost, I'd be that much ahead.

  I'm an L.D. That's Liturgy Detective, duly licensed by the diocese of North Carolina and appointed by the Bishop's Council on Physical Fitness. The International Congress of Church Musicians had me on retainer, but since the case of The Alto Wore Tweed, things had been a little slow around the office. Polite, church-going people had apparently shunned me. It seemed like there still wasn't room for people of all fashions in ecumenical society. My latest case involved a family of Full Gospel Raccoons that was wreaking havoc on an Episcopalian Mobile Home Park. I couldn't tell yet if they were proselytizing or just eating the garbage, but it was just a matter of time.

  "Sprechen sie hard-boiled?" I asked.

  "You dumb palooka, get your nose out of the eel juice before I stuff that stogie down your mush. I'm a dame that needs some bim." She grinned.

  She was good all right. Maybe too good. She could speak hard-boiled better than most flatfeet.

  "The sucker with the snoozle poured a slug but before he could drift, a couple of ginks showed him the shiv and he hopped in a boiler. It was eggs in the coffee."

  "Yeah. OK. You'll be fine. Now hustle your pins down to Marilyn and tell her to order me a sandwich. I'll call you when I need you."

  It was gonna be a long day.

  •••

  The phone was ringing as I stepped out of the shower on Sunday morning.

  "Hayden Konig," I said.

  "Hayden, how are you? It's about time you were up and about." I recognized the voice right away.

  "Ah, Hugh, how are things in England?"

  "Terribly busy, as usual. I just called to give you a heads up."

  "About what?"

  "You're going to be getting a call from one of our city's finest. It seems that there's been a murder at the Minster."

  Hugh Kirkby was a priest and canon at York Minster.

  "So why call me?" I asked.

  "He was a choir member – a songman – who was over here on a fellowship from North Carolina. Raleigh to be exact. Anyway, the Dean wanted someone from the colonies involved – strictly as a courtesy – so I suggested the Minster Police contact you. It would be a free trip across. And some cash to boot."

  "That sounds like a deal. Do I actually have to do anything?"

  "Just solve the crime and make us all look good."

  "That should be no problem at all," I said.

  "Great. We'll clear it with the Home Office and get all your papers in order. Otherwise you won't get paid."

  "By all means," I said agreeably.

  "Get a flight on Thursday. See you soon."

  •••

  Monday morning found me down at the Slab. I opened the door and saw Nancy and Dave already holding our table. Nancy Parsky is the other full-timer on the force and can only be described as "an efficient law enforcement professional." At least to her face. Dave Vance answers the phones, has a crush on Nancy, and only works about twenty hours a week.

  "Mornin', Pete," I called, as I walked over to the coffee pot and poured myself a mug.

  Pete Moss is my old roommate from college, the mayor of St. Germaine, and the owner of the Slab Cafe.

  "Good mornin', yourself. Grab your chair. I'll be out in a minute with some grub."

  I pulled up a chair across from Nancy. She had just taken her notepad from the breast pocket of her freshly starched shirt. Nancy was the only one of the three of us who wore a uniform and the only one to carry a gun. Dave almost always wore a Land's End ensemble. This time of year, I'm usually in a flannel shirt and jeans – not to mention a jacket. The weather in February in the mountains of North Carolina can be downright bitter. We hadn't had a lot of snow since January began, but the cold hung on like a kitten on a pair of corduroy pants.

  "What's on the agenda?" asked Dave.

  I deferred to Nancy with an upraised eyebrow.

  "Nothing much," said Nancy, checking her notebook. "It's another cold week, and all the various and sundry ne'er-do-wells have holed up for the duration of the winter. It's my new theory."

  "Sort of like criminal hibernation," said Dave.

  "Exactly."

  "Maybe you should write a thesis on your hypothesis," I quipped. "They'd be happy to hear about it in Alaska, since they obviously have no crime at all ten months out of the year."

  "What about Antarctica?" said Dave. "That's even colder than Alaska."

  Nancy rolled her eyes. "Dave, there are no actual people in Antarctica. Just scientists and penguins."

  "What about seals?" Pete had just come up to the table, bringing some country ham biscuits and a big bowl of grits. "I'm pretty sure there're seals."

  "How 'bout when they kill them baby seals to make fur coats?" It was Noylene Fabergé, Pete's new waitress. "I'd sure call that a crime." She paused. "Unless I had me one of them coats."

  "Forget about those seals, Noylene," I said. "You should be worrying about those little polyesters slaughtered on the ice by harpoon wielding Eskimo
evangelists in lime-green leisure snowsuits."

  Dave choked back half a laugh and covered it with a mouthful of coffee.

  Noylene looked shocked. "No kiddin'? Well, I'm writin' a letter. My congressman's gonna hear about them Eskimos." She was shaking her head as she left the table.

  "You shouldn't do that to Noylene," Pete said, pulling up a chair and making himself at home. "Have some grits."

  "Anyway," continued Nancy, spooning some grits onto her plate as if nothing had happened. "It's shaping up to be a very slow week. So unless we have a major crime spree, it would be a good time for a vacation."

  "Speaking of which," I said. "I'll be going over to England for a few days to help in a murder investigation."

  "It's probably not cold enough over there," said Pete through a mouthful of ham biscuit.

  "I guess not. There was a choir member killed in York Minster. A guy from Raleigh over there on a fellowship, so they want me to be on hand."

  "And they're calling you to come over?" asked Pete. I could tell he was impressed. "Are you that well known?"

  "I know a few folks over there and they want an American involved in the investigation. Politics I think."

  "Can I call the newspaper and get something in there about it?" asked Pete. As mayor, he was always looking for any chance of publicity. "It'll be a great local interest story. 'St. Germaine Cop Called To Assist Scotland Yard'"

  "Sure," I said. "It's fine with me. I'll e-mail you the details."

  "Great!" said Pete. "I'll call it in this afternoon."

  "How about me?" asked Nancy, hopefully. "I'll be happy to go. I want to be in the paper, too."

  "Nope. You have to stay here and keep watch over your hypothesis."

  Chapter 2