The Alto Wore Tweed (The Liturgical Mysteries)

by Mark Schweizer

  One thing the man did do before he left, was name his children after beer. The oldest boy, Bud, was fourteen, and he was the one that had been caught stealing wine all over town last year. Name-wise, he was a lucky one, because the shortened version of Budweiser at least resembled a common name. The second child was named Pauli Girl. She was twelve. The youngest was a cute six-year old boy named Moose-Head—Moosey for short.

  Moosey greeted me as I drove up the dirt drive to the trailer. He was playing in a rock pile, heaving stones bigger than his head down a ravine beside the drive.

  “Hayden!” he yelled as I pulled up. He dropped the rock he had balanced over his head and met me as I stepped out of my truck with a bear hug around both my legs.

  “Let go, Moosey. If I fall, we’ll break at least three legs. Why aren’t you in school?”

  “Teacher’s workday.” He was laughing and going throu my pockets, looking for the candy bar I almost always brought him.

  “Where is it?” he asked, looking very disappointed when he didn’t find anything.

  “Sorry, I forgot. Tell you what. I’ll drop by on the way home and bring you something good. How’s that?”

  He was placated immediately and resumed rearranging the rock pile.

  Ardine was standing on the porch. She had her hands crossed in front of her very defensively, her elbows tucked into her sides and a scowl on her face as if she expected the worst. She was wearing a cotton dress that she had probably made herself, just as she made most of their clothes. Her graying hair was pulled into a loose ponytail. Over her dress was an old cardigan sweater, several sizes too large, making her appear even smaller and more bird-like than she was. Her face was thin and lined and she might once have been very pretty. Now in her early forties, she had the look of someone who had lived a hard life. Her right eye had a slight droop and didn’t close all the way when she blinked, which she did often, thanks chiefly to the nerve damage that PeeDee had inflicted upon it with a left hook after a night of drinking. I had rarely seen her smile. She worked at a nearby Christmas tree farm. I had no doubt that it was hard, manual labor and that she actually brought home less money than she would with the state’s unemployment check.

  I went up the steps to the porch.

  “Get to it,” she said quietly, chewing on her lower lip.

  “Ardine, I just need to ask Bud a couple of questions. Don’t get upset.”

  “What’s he done now?”

  “I don’t know that he’s done anything. I just need to ask him a few things. He hasn’t been in trouble since last year has he?”

  “No.”

  “And he wasn’t in trouble before that, was he?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s probably nothing. But I do need to talk to him.”

  Her shoulders slumped and she looked resigned to whatever was coming. “C’mon in then.”

  I went in the front door, sat down on the sofa. I looked around the trailer which was, as always, as neat as Matilda’s hat-pin. Ardine had made the curtains, the slipcovers, the quilts—everything—from castoffs and free remnants she got at the fabric store in Boone. It was a deal that I put together for her. I know the owner.

  Bud came in and sat down across from me. His back straight as a ramrod. He was scared. Bud was a nice, polite kid. Not the usual kid with a chip on his shoulder that came out of these hills. He had a library card and he used it almost daily. He was fourteen and had been driving the old truck since he was eleven, but we never bothered him.

  “How’re you doing, Bud?” I asked him.

  “Fine, sir,” he said, his voice quivering.

  “You know why I’m here?”

  “No, sir,” he answered softly.

  “Someone broke into St. Barnabas on Friday afternoon and stole some wine. Would you know anything about that?”

  Ardine broke in. “He was here with me all day Friday. He didn’t even take the truck into town.”

  “It’s true! I didn’t!” exclaimed Bud. “I wouldn’t take wine from the church anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s awful stuff. You see, communion wine doesn’t have to taste good. It can be just about any red wine and usually is whatever’s on sale. You can get a magnum for under ten dollars. It was probably a Muscadet or something from Mogen-David.

  “If I was going to steal anything,” he went on, “I’d be looking for a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, although the taste is probably no better than a lot of burgundies or a good Spanish Rojas. I’d sort of like to have one though. Pouilly-Fuissé is a pretty good dry and fruity white Burgundy, but what I’d really be after is a Cabernet Savignon or a Zinfandel from Mayacamas. Mayacamas is a California winery and their wine is supposed to be really excellent. I wouldn’t even mind a bottle of Stag’s Leap Chardonnay. The wine is supposed to be pretty good, but I just really like the name, don’t you? You know, Gallo has a Chenin Blanc which has been knocking off premium wineries in comparative tastings, but I just have a real problem with any wine that has Gallo on the label.”

  The words tumbled from his mouth in an enthusiastic rush. I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open. I looked at Ardine. She was just as bewildered as I was.

  “I’d also like to get hold of a Domaine Roux Père et Fils from St. Aubin. Apparently, their wine can hold its own in blind tastings with a lot of other Meursaults. Or a Château de Rodet from the village of Rully. I’m really hooked on the white burgundies. They’re both fairly inexpensive now and guaranteed to go up in price.”

  Bud’s French was far from flawless, most of it picked up from books, and my hand moved to my mouth to cover my smile.

  “Do you...drink a lot of wine?” I asked.

  “No sir,” he said, looking me in the eye for the first time since our interview started. “I’m only fourteen. I’m not allowed to drink.”

  I had to ask. “Bud, why did you steal those bottles of wine last year?”

  “Well,” he said, as though he didn’t know whether to confide in me or not.

  “Well, I thought I might go ahead start my cellar. You know, so that when I reached twenty-one, I’d already have a good start. I didn’t take very expensive bottles. And they always had a lot more.”

  “Where did you learn all this stuff?”

  “At the library.”

  As I stood up, I felt a tug at my arm. It was Pauli Girl. “That boy jest ain’t right. We all knows it.”

  “Bud?” I asked. “You don’t have to let me, but would you mind if I looked in your room?”

  “I don’t mind. Is it OK, Mom?”

  Ardine was still nervous. “I guess,” she said.

  We walked down the narrow hallway to Bud and Moosey’s room. I reached over Moosey’s bed, which was closest to the door, and flipped on the reading light. Then, with Bud and Ardine standing in the doorway watching me, I looked around the boys’ bedroom quickly and not a little self-consciously. I flipped on the little flashlight I had pocketed in the truck and flashed it up into the closet, then bent down and looked under the bed. Finally, I opened the dresser drawers finishing my mock-search. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t find anything. I was trying for some sort of initial reaction to my search question, but Bud’s face was an open book, and if he was lying, it would be easy to tell. He wasn’t lying. I turned off the flashlight and reached back across the bed to flip off the light when something on the bedtable caught my eye.

  “What’s this?” I asked Bud, picking up an old skeleton key, dark brown with age and well used. It had been pushed behind the lamp on the table.

  Bud looked at me blankly. “It’s a key, I guess. But it’s not mine.”

  I held it up and looked at it more closely. I suspected that I had seen this key, or its twin, in the last twenty-four hours.

  “Ardine?”

  “Not mine,” she said quietly. “Maybe Moosey found it. You can take it if you want.”

  “Thanks,” I said, pocketing the key and giving them a smile. “Anyway, I’ve got
to go.”

  “Hey, one other thing,” Bud said, following me down the hall. “I shouldn’t be the one telling, but there’s some stuff missing from our trailer.”

  “Hush now,” said Ardine. “Ain’t nothin’.”

  • • •

  Ardine was still nervous as she followed me onto the porch.

  “So, is Bud in trouble?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll let you know if something else comes up.”

  “Thanks, Hayden.”

  I spotted a quilt she was making on the table by the bedroom door. It was a patchwork job in a wedding ring pattern and very nicely done. It would look great in the guest bedroom. Ardine did her quilting after the kids were in bed

  “Ardine, would you sell me that quilt?”

  She was taken aback.

  “I guess so. It’s almost finished.”

  “I don’t want to take advantage of you,” I said. “How about seven hundred?”

  “Seven hundred?” she said, blinking twice.

  “OK, eight,” I said, reaching into my pocket and peeling off eight hundred dollar bills. “But I want it ready by the time I get back here this afternoon.”

  I liked to drive a hard bargain.

  • • •

  I got to the station at about 11:30. Nancy was going over a fax with Dave as I walked in.

  “What’chugot?” I asked, my accent still holding over from my visit with the McColloughs.

  “Lab report. At least the prelim. It was poison all right, but guess what?”

  “OK, tell me.”

  “Not from the wine.”

  I must admit, I was astonished.

  “What do you mean, it wasn’t the wine?”

  “The residual wine in Willie’s stomach showed no poison. They tested the bottle we found. Nothing there either.”

  “So what was it?”

  Nancy was doing her best to read and answer my questions at the same time. “Unknown toxins found in the blood. They’re sending it to Chapel Hill for further analysis.”

  “Oh, that’s just great!” I said, my disgust evident. “That’ll take about a month.”

  “I’m afraid so,” replied Nancy. “In the meantime they want to know what you want to do with the body.”

  “Is there a next of kin?”

  “Not that we’ve found.”

  “Well, let’s put him on ice for a week or so. We may need him later when we know what we’re looking for.”

  Nancy nodded. “I’ll fax them back.”

  “Where’s the 911 tape?”

  “On your desk, Boss,” Dave answered.

  I went in and dropped the tape in my office stereo. There was the usual 911 identification, then a woman’s voice.

  “I’d like to report a dead man. He’s in the choir loft at St. Barnabas Church in St. Germaine.” Click.

  The operator tried to get some additional information, but the connection was broken.

  Not much, but I thought I detected something about the voice. Whoever she was, she’d tried to hide her identity. It was obviously someone I knew; someone who had a reason to be in the church. I recognized the timbre—it was a familiar voice. I had a feeling I’d connect it with the owner eventually—maybe when I heard it again, but right now I was drawing a blank.

  The rest of the day was pretty leisurely. Later that afternoon Mrs. McCarty called because her hedgehogs had gotten loose again and she wanted someone to come over and help her round them up. sold them to pet stores all over the country and, until the first hard freeze, they were in a pen in the back yard. Unfortunately for her business prospects, the little rascals were always climbing or digging their way out. Once they did, they were pretty much goners. They couldn’t survive the winter even if they did survive the summer lawn mowers.

  “Mrs. McCarty, this is the police department. We’re very busy. We can’t come out to help you catch your hedgehogs,” Nancy explained nicely for the fifth time this month. It was my plan to get out of the office before Mrs. McCarty demanded to speak to me. I heard Nancy call my name just as the door hit me in the rear.

  Later that afternoon, I dropped by the McCollough’s to pick up my quilt and give Moosey a box of Jujubes. Then I headed for home.

  Chapter 5

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times--the best of times because I was sitting at my desk looking directly at a hot Reuben with melted Swiss cheese creeping out around the edges of fresh rye bread and across the corned beef and sauerkraut like the magma of an unseen volcanic smorgasbord--a sandwich that my Lutheran friend and confidant, Pastor Langknecht, never failed to remind me had won the Grand Prix at the International Sandwich Exposition of 1956 and that, looking at it now, reminded me of an old hymn, “Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me”--the worst of times because a deranged alto, Denver Tweed to be exact, was leveling a shotgun right at my midsection, making my stomache grumble for reasons wholly unrelated to the edible work of art in front of me which, I noticed, was developing quite a grease spot--I wouldn’t have to put lemon oil on the desk for years.

  This alto, tweedily dressed, wasn’t here for her elbow patches.

  “Go ahead and eat your sandwich. It will be your last meal.”

  She clenched the cigar between her teeth, apparently in no hurry to finish me. I suspected there was a reason.

  “That’s a pretty disgusting opening sentence,” Meg said. “I think you should send it in to the Bulwar-Lytton Competition. ‘It was a dark and gloomy Sunday.’”

  “My quest is not the quest for glory,” I said nobly. “I simply want to tell my story.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Meg, “When does the choir get to see this masterpiece?”

  “The first installment goes into the choir folders on Sunday morning. I would have put it in last Sunday, but it would probably have been in bad taste.”

  “I think it’s in bad taste for any Sunday.” She quickly left the room—not exactly running, but fast enough to avoid the sofa cushion I flung at her.

  • • •

  My pager went off on Thursday afternoon at about five. I called down to the station and Dave answered.

  “Better meet Nancy out on Old Chambers Road.ut a mile south of town. There’s been an accident.”

  “Anyone we know?” I asked.

  “Darlene Puckett. I’m pretty sure she’s dead.”

  “Jeez. Did you call the ambulance?”

  “Yes, but they’re on another run. They’ll be here as soon as they can. From what I gather, there’s no real hurry. Her husband called from his cell phone.”

  “So he’s all right?”

  “Apparently.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  • • •

  I pulled up to the scene eighteen minutes after I received the call. There was a car and an old pickup truck pulled over on the side of the road. Old Chambers Road was a torturous, serpentine path leading down the mountain. It didn’t get much use since the highway went in, although it had been repaved about thirty years ago. The top speed at which a competent driver could safely navigate Old Chambers was about forty miles per hour and it was well posted. I figured that Darlene had exceeded that directive as she had in so many other locations.

  The ambulance was in the middle of the road, lights flashing. Mike and Joe, our regular EMTs, were putting Darlene into the back doors on a stretcher. Luckily there were no cars backed up.

  “Our other run was a false alarm,” said Joe. “We got here pretty quick.”

  “We’ll take her to the coroner,” said Mike. “Nothing we can do. Her name’s Darlene Puckett. That’s her husband Carlton still sitting in the car.”

  I nodded. “I know them both.”

  Joe shook his head. “Her husband said she jumped out of the sunroof. Damnedest thing I ever heard of.”

  Mike, never at a loss for words, chimed in “She hit the road like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.”

  I was always amazed at the ele
gant and poetic comments of our two EMTs.

  “Did you pronounce her?” I asked to affirmative nods. “Go ahead and give me the paperwork. I’ll fill it out downtown.”

  As I looked over the clipboard full of documents, Nancy pulled up in our one police vehicle, blue lights flashing and siren set on stun. She parked the car behind the ambulance, cut the siren but left the lights flashing and walked over to where we were discussing the unfortunate Mrs. Puckett.

  “She’s dead?” Nancy asked, pretty sure of the answer since she was lifting the sheet off Darlene’s face even as she asked. “Man, she’s pretty beat-up.”

  “She is definitely the ex-Mrs. Puckett,” said Mike.

  Joe closed the doors on the ambulance. “Well, let’s get her to the morgue. I’ve got a date at seven.”

  Mike and Joe pulled away and c the flashing lights on the ambulance as Nancy and I went to talk with Carlton.

  Carlton was still in his Honda Accord, the door open and his feet placed solidly on terra firma where he seemed to be studying his Hush Puppies with great intensity.

  “I was going too fast,” said Carlton, not looking up as we approached.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” said Nancy, pulling her omnipresent “parchment and quill” from her breast pocket. “I know it’s a bad time, but can you tell us what happened?”