The Alto Wore Tweed (The Liturgical Mysteries)

by Mark Schweizer

“He kissed the cross and put it in his pocket. He didn’t see me,” she said quickly and softly.

  “He kissed it?” I asked. “How did he kiss it?”

  “Well, you know,” she added, now embarrassed. “He held it up sort of in front of his lips and he kissed it.” She paused. “It was a long kiss. He closed his eyes.”

  “A long kiss?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but it was creepy.” Her eyes went to the floor. “And that wasn’t the first time he’d taken it.”

  I waited for her to explain.

  “He’d taken it before. Mother Ryan caught him at least once putting the cross in his pocket. And a couple of times it was missing, but then showed up a few days later. I don’t know why she didn’t just give it to him.”

  “OK, then what happened?”

  She looked up again. “He locked the closet door back and went out the sacristy door into the church.”

  “Did he take the wine with him?”

  “Yeah. He took it. I forgot.”

  “Beverly, why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Why not?” I persisted.

  “If I do tell you, will you promise not to arrest me?” She looked into my eyes and I could tell she was quite serious.

  “I can’t promise you that,” I said. “But I will try to talk the judge into a minimum sentence. Just tell me the problem and we’ll work it out.”

  Her shoulders tensed as she readied her confession. “I was called for jury duty that morning in Boone, but I told them that I had made a doctor’s appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester six months ago that I couldn’t reschedule. So they let me off.”

  My laugh could have been heard in the jury room.

  “It’s not funny!” she exclaimed. “They’ll throw me in jail. You can’t just skip jury duty.”

  “Did you write the note I found on the organ?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “What note?”

  .

  • • •

  After I got back to the office, I phoned Kent Murphee at the coroner’s office.

  “Hi, Kent, this is Hayden Konig.”

  “Hayden! How’re you doing?”

  “I’m just fine. Listen, I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You remember Willie Boyd?”

  “The oleander poisoning? Sure, I remember.”

  “Did he have anything in his pockets when he was brought in?”

  “I don’t remember. Hang on a sec.”

  I heard the rustling of papers and hoped that Dr. Murphee was a little more organized in his professional life than I was.

  “Got it,” he said, coming back on the phone. “Let’s see...here it is. A bottle cap from a Red Dog beer, a ring of keys, a wallet with various business cards, three dollars, a library card and his driver’s license, forty-three cents in change and a wooden cross on a chain.”

  “No kidding? A library card?” I was surprised. “What happened to all that stuff?”

  “We sent it back with Mr. Boyd.”

  “To the funeral home?”

  “Yeah. No one claimed it.”

  “Thanks, Kent. You have a fine day. Oh, and if I don’t see you again before the Yuletide season begins, have a Merry Christmas.”

  “You do the same. Bye.”

  My next call was to Swallow’s Mortuary in Boone, the outfit that had seen to Willie’s burial.

  “Mr. Swallow, please.”

  “Speaking,” came back a low, gravelly bass voice straight out of a Dickens novel.

  “Mr. Swallow, this is Detective Konig from St. Germaine.”

  “Yes sir, how may I help you?”

  “You made the arrangements to have a Willie Boyd interred here in St. Germaine about six weeks ago.”

  “I remember.”

  “When he was sent over to the mortuary from the coroner’s office, were his effects sent with him?” I asked.

  “That is usually the case.”

  “I need to look at those personal effects.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Swallow. “Let me check my records.” He must have had them close at hand because it wasn’t more than a few seconds before he was back on the phone.

  “We sent Mr. Boyd’s effects to St. Barnabas Church in St. Germaine.”

  “St. Barnabas?” I asked.

  “The church was paying for the funeral and there was no next-of-kin. It seemed the prudent thing to do.”

  “Thanks for your help, That should take care of it.”

  “One more thing,” Mr. Swallow added before he hung up the phone. “He had a wooden cross.”

  “Yes?”

  “I placed it in his hands myself before we sealed the coffin. I thought it would be a comfort to him.”

  • • •

  I phoned Judge Adams in Boone and got a court order to open Willie’s coffin. We would dig Willie back up on Wednesday morning. I didn’t think he’d mind. Then I stopped by the church office.

  “Marilyn?” I asked. “Did we get a package from Swallow’s with Willie Boyd’s belongings?”

  “We got a package. I didn’t open it though.”

  “Where’d you put it?”

  “It’s in the kitchen pantry I think. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

  “That’s great. Thanks,” I said, heading out the door with the kitchen in sight.

  I found the package in the kitchen pantry just where Marilyn said it would be. I opened it up and dumped Willie’s effects onto the counter. In front of me, on the stainless steel counter, was a bottle cap, Willie’s wallet and library card, some change and his ring of keys. I picked up the keys and looked at them carefully. Then I took them over to the wine closet and, not finding the old skeleton key on the ring, reached into my pocket and returned the missing closet key to Willie’s collection.

  • • •

  Later that afternoon I got a call from the bishop.

  “Hello Hayden,” he said in a vacuous baritone. “This is Bishop Douglas.”

  “Well, hello George. Good to talk to you.” It always irked him when I called him George, which is probably why I continued to do it.

  “Listen Hayden, I’ll get right to the point. Loraine Ryan has called my office three times in the last two hours to complain that you won’t play the organ for her Women’s Conference. I want you to get over to St. Barnabas right now. Don’t give her any more trouble.”

  “Do you have any idea what kind of services she’s planning?”

  “It’s a conference for women in the ministry. I presume the services are from the prayerbook.”

  “Well, George,” I explained gently, my ire rising. “These services are definitely not from the Book of Common Prayer. And not that I am accountable to the diocesan office, but sincwe are on a first-name basis, I will offer you this purview of my inexplicable actions. Firstly, I’m an employee of the church only for insurance purposes. I take no salary. My compensation is put back into the music department’s trust account which is managed by the music committee—not the church. That being said, I will play for whomever and whatever I want, and I would no sooner play the organ for those wacko services than I would give a recital of Christy Lane’s Greatest Hits. Now I suppose the church could replace me, but I doubt that they will.”

  “Ah. Well, I didn’t understand the situation.”

  “Yes. Well, now you do. Bye, George.”

  “Hayden, just a min—” Click.

  My, but that was satisfying.

  • • •

  I wanted to see Meg that evening and fill her in on the recent developments, but she was off to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville with her mother to view the Christmas festivities. So Monday night I was home alone with a couple of Cubans—Romeo and Julietta —some Blanchet’s Single Barrel Bourbon and J. S. Bach’s Magnificat and Christmas Oratorio. Three hours of Baroque bliss.

  • • •

  Tuesday
morning found me at The Slab. I generally met Nancy and Dave for breakfast on Monday to have our departmental meeting and hit the highlights of the week ahead but Nancy had been under the weather and I had business to attend to. So it was Tuesday. On this glorious morning, Pete was acting as waiter, cook, cashier and host due to the flu bug that had laid low his help. Luckily for him, we were the only ones in the café.

  “I hope it hasn’t been too busy,” I joked, as he brought the dishes to our table.

  “It was a bit hectic around eight, but I just told Louise and Carlton they had to make their own breakfasts. They jumped right in.”

  “And paid you for the privilege, I’ll bet.”

  “Yep. And left a tip to boot,” Pete said, pulling up a chair. “Dave, get me some coffee, will you?”

  Dave laughed and got up to bring the pot over to the table.

  “You know,” I said. “If this is an Official Meeting...”

  “I can’t afford any more of your Official Meetings,” Pete broke in. “Let’s just say I’m sitting in as an interested party—and as such, would there happen to be any developments in the Boyd case that I can pass on to the council? It’s still on the ‘old business’ portion of the agenda.”

  “We were just going to talk about that,” said Nancy, attacking her pancakes with gusto. “It would be a shame to let these get cold though.”

  “Good point,” I said, picking up my fork.

  We polished off the major portion of our breakfasts in short order. Pete made another pot of coffee and I pulled out my list.

  “OK, first on the agenda is the Boyd case.”

  Dave was pouring his fourth cup of coffee. “It’s really the only thing on our agenda.”

  “Not so,” I replied. “Don’t forget the Christmas parade and the Living Crèche on the eighteenth. We’ve got to get the street closed and hire a couple of guys from Boone to help us with the traffic.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” said Nancy, twirling the last bit of pancake through the remaining maple syrup on her plate like an imaginary ice skater doing a triple toe loop before popping it into her mouth.

  “I thought the Supreme Court decided that live manger scenes in public places were against the law,” Dave said. “Wasn’t it some sort of ACLU case?”

  Pete broke in. “The hell with that! If we can’t have a goddamn manger scene, what’s the point of Christmas?”

  “Elegantly and succinctly put,” I said, hiding a smile. “I presume that the Rotary Club is still in charge of the event.”

  “I think this is the year that Kiwanis does the parade and Rotary does the crèche,” Pete said. “I’m pretty sure that last year Rotary did the parade.”

  “Dave, will you check with Bob Solomon? He’s the president of the Rotary. Who’s in charge of Kiwanis?”

  “Marta Jenkins,” Pete said.

  “And check with Marta about the parade,” I said to Dave who was diligently taking notes. “They should have everything all planned out, but we’ll still have to touch base with them. We need to know starting times, who’s in charge, their contact people...anything else?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I’ll check on everything,” Dave said. “If something else comes up, I’ll let you know.”

  “Now,” I said, pulling my tattered list from my pocket. “Let’s see where we are. You understand, Pete, that this is all highly confidential.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “OK, here’s what we know,” I began.

  “Are you still using that list?” said Nancy, pointing at it with her pancake laden fork and dripping syrup irreverently across the top of the page, disgust evident in her voice. “I’m really getting embarrassed for you, Hayden. You’re supposed to be a professional.”

  “Quiet, you. I’m the boss,” I said, as I began reviewing my list.

  When?

  Willie Boyd was killed on a Friday afternoon. 5:12 p.m.—give or take. JJ saw him around five as he passed through the kitchen. Anverly Green saw him at 5:10 making a phone call to police. He then went up to the choir loft where he had a drink and expired. He stole the wine earlier that afternoon, hid the cases of wine in the trunk of his car and drank from one of the bottles that he took to the choir loft. However, the wine wasn’t poisoned.

  Who?

  There seems to have been a witness and there’s a possible clue in the form of a cryptic note. I was pretty sure the clue was genuine.

  I saw who did it. It’s Him. It’s Matthew.

  O hark the herald angels sing;

  The boy’s descent which lifted up the world.

  All the Matthews (first and last names) in the county have alibis. It’s the last line that puzzles me. We’re still working on it. JJ was the one cooking up the oleander broth. Mother Ryan was in the kitchen with her, but claimed not to remember. What is her reason? I think she’s still the key.

  Why?

  I had a new theory. I think that Willie’s death was an accident. It was a murder all right, but it was the wrong murder. If this is the case, there may be another.

  How?

  Oleander poisoning. But it wasn’t found in Willie’s stomach. The poison entered his system through his mouth, absorbed though the oral membranes, but was not swallowed. I suspected it was Mother Ryan’s olive wood cross that did him in. We wouldn’t know until Wednesday when we disinterred Willie.

  “What about ‘What?’” asked Dave.

  “What what?” I asked.

  “You know. When, who, why, how and what. That what.”

  “Shut up, Dave.”

  • • •

  At 4:45 the church was abuzz with “wimmyn” priests and reporters. I sneaked up to the choir loft to watch the opening service. I didn’t turn on the lights however, preferring to remain a shadowy specter. There, sitting in the dark, were Elaine Hixon, Beverly Greene and Georgia Wester.

  “Shhh,” they hushed me as a group. I locked the choir loft door behind me. “No sense inviting trouble,” I said as I took off my coat and hat and sat in a chair against the back window. Looking down at the back of the congregation’s heads, I tried to pick out which of our own flock had decided to engage in these liturgical shenanigans. I recognized Rhiza and Malcolm Walker right away. He was the Senior Warden and expected to attend. They had ‘their’ pew, of course, which they always sat in and were easy to find. Rhiza’s golden locks always seemed to shimmer. JJ was in attendance, as was most of the altar guild. Bob Solomon and his wife Sandra were sitting back a bit, away from the action. There were a few others, but definitely not a huge swell of support from our own congregation.

  The service began with all the wimmyn in their finest priestly regalia, gathering around the altar, whichd been moved out front to make room for the celebration. The priests circled the altar, joined hands—all except two of them who began playing hand drums of African origin, and started a low hum. One of them, the featured speaker of the conference and, I presumed, the “celebrant” for this evening’s event, began speaking.

  “Here we taste, see and savor how good it is to be in our bodies.”

  The beat of the drums got louder and more insistent.

  “As we ReImagine God in our feminine image, please speak aloud any name for God that you wish to use,” said Herself, hands raised, filled with glory. A number of flashes went off as reporters took advantage of the photo op which had obviously arranged in defiance of the St. Barnabas edit against flash photography during a service of any kind.

  From the circle of women came new names for the deity.

  “Moon Mother,” said one woman with a Boston accent.

  “Sophia,” said another.

  “Mary,” offered the third.

  A pause; the drums and the humming; then Mother Ryan.

  “That’s wonderful. Any others?”

  “Wanda.”

  I’m sure my snort was audible because the three ladies in the balcony spun around and glared at me before turning their attention back to th
e show.

  “Wanda?” I whispered.

  “Shhh.”

  Each womyn had taken a glass of milk mixed with honey off the table. Now they sang together “Sophia, Creator God, let your milk and honey flow. Shower us with your love.”

  “Our maker Sophia, we are wimmyn in your image. With the hot blood of our wombs we give form to new life,” sang the celebrant.

  “Our mother Sophia, we are wimmyn in your image. With the milk of our breasts we suckle the children,” sang Herself.

  After each verse came the refrain from all the women “Sophia, Sophia, Sophia, shower us with your love.”

  “Our guide Sophia. With our moist mouths we kiss away a tear. With the honey of wisdom in our mouths we prophesy to all peoples.”

  At this they all drank their honeyed milk.

  “O Sophia, goddess of Wisdom, you are a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.”

  “O Moon Mother...Wanda...goddess of Creation, we enter into community which strengthens and renews us.”

  They all sang together “Bless us now and dream the vision, share the wisdom dwelling deep within.”

  When the “milk and honey” service had concluded, the wimmyn had a period of briefnnouncements before the evening service began. It followed the standard Evening Prayer service pretty closely with all the music accompanied by an electronic keyboard played by one of the priests. The anthem was a piece titled As God Is Our Mother on a text by Hildegard von Bingen, the twelfth-century mystic. They had rehearsed it earlier in the afternoon and it wasn’t very difficult. I know this because I wrote it.

  The anthem was written about two years ago for a competition that invited women composers to submit an anthem utilizing a text by a prominent woman poet. I sent it in under the name Dame Marjorie Wallace. It didn’t win. At least I never saw any prize money. The reason it didn’t win, I figured, was probably because of the fictional biography of Dame Marjorie that I wrote to accompany it. When I opened the service bulletin I almost choked on the cigar I had been chomping angrily since the milk and honey ceremony.

  Our anthem this evening, “As God Is Our Mother,” is by the esteemed composer Dame Marjorie Wallace. Dame Marjorie has had an interesting and varied career. First coming to national prominence as a member of the 1968 British Olympic Bicycling Team, she also held a position as one of the Queen Mother’s premier hat makers, stunning the fashion world with her bold and innovative hat designs. She retired from Haberdashery after losing her left leg in a horrible accident involving a terrorist attack on the Queen Mother in the form of an exploding hat wren—one of the stuffed birds her employer insisted on decorating her hats with in the early 1970’s.