Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines

by Mark Schweizer

  All of us looked at Kimberly Walnut, not just for affirmation of the nursery, but for some objection or comment as to the suitability Moosey and Bernie as acolytes. I had no problem with either of them, but they were two of Kimberly Walnut’s arch-nemeses, having been two thorns in her side since she met them during the first Bible School she put on three years ago when she was hired as our Director of Christian Formation. Kimberly Walnut was pale and chewing on the inside of her lip, but she didn’t say anything except, “Yes, we’ll have a nursery available.”

  “We will have a service of Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament,” Father Dressler said. “I’m sure you’re well acquainted with the service …”

  “Actually, we’re not,” I said. “We’ve done Evensong, of course, but we haven’t followed it with the Benediction.”

  “It’s quite simple really,” said Father Dressler. “It’s simply a blessing of the congregation with the Eucharist at the end of a period of adoration. The consecrated host is placed in a monstrance set upon the altar. We shall have a reasonable time for reflection as the choir sings the Tantum Ergo. I will bless the people with the monstrance. Then we will repeat the Laudes Divinae — the Divine Praises — and the Blessed Sacrament will be returned to the aumbry as the choir sings Psalm 117.

  “What the heck is a monstrance?” asked Carol.

  “This,” said Father Dressler, reaching beside his chair and lifting the heavy wooden box he’d come in with onto the table. The box was two feet tall and eighteen inches wide and was unassuming — stained a dark brown with a coating of polyurethane. He released two clasps and opened the case revealing a traditional “solar” style monstrance. This was a vehicle of adoration that had more roots in Catholicism than anything the Anglican community had to offer. Twenty inches tall, the gold-plated sunburst sat atop a candlestick-like base that was about six inches in diameter. The spiked rays of the sunburst were of varying lengths and surrounded a large glass eye set in the center of the crown of the monstrance. The eye was designed to enclose the Eucharistic host and display it to the worshipers as they were blessed by the priest.

  “Wow,” said Joyce. “Is that yours?”

  “Yes,” said Father Dressler. “Of course.”

  “So,” I said, “am I to understand that the choir needs to prepare the Psalm for the day, the Preces and Responses, an evening setting of a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, an anthem, a Tatum Ergo, and a setting of Psalm 117? As well as he music for this Sunday.”

  “Yes,” said Father Dressler. “Also, if you could have the choir chant the Angelus at the end of the service, it would be most meaningful. If you’d like, you can substitute an O Salutoris Hostia in place of the Tantum Ergo.”

  “Ah,” I said with a nod. “Good to know.”

  “If you’re not up to the task, maybe I can call the Chevalier and see if he can come earlier.”

  “Oh, I’ll take care of it.”

  * * *

  Kimberly Walnut pigeonholed me in the church kitchen as I was getting a cup of coffee. The church always kept a pot of Community Coffee brewed and sitting on the Bunn coffee maker.

  “You’ve got to help me!” she whispered. “I’m in real trouble!”

  “Kimberly Walnut, in the three years you’ve been working here, I can’t remember any time you’ve not been in trouble.”

  “This is different.”

  “Is it the murderer? Has he contacted you?”

  She squinted at me and pursed her lips. “No. It’s Father Dressler. You know he hates me, right?”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t.”

  “If he gets hired as the new rector, I’ll be the first one to go — and you’ll be the second. He seems to really love this Chevalier.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Of course you’re not,” said Kimberly Walnut, tears welling in her eyes. “You’re rich. You have another job. People like you.”

  “Well …”

  “I’ve done a terrible thing,” she blurted, “and I don’t know what to do.”

  “What?”

  “You know the St. Germaine Garden Club?”

  “Sure.” I didn’t know all the members by name, but I knew they existed as a group. “What do they have to do with you?”

  “I told the Garden Club that I would preside over a service they want to have at St. Barnabas.”

  “Okay. That shouldn’t be a problem. Just clear it with Father Dressler and Joyce.”

  That’s the problem. It’s part of their Winter Festival and it’s scheduled for Wednesday, February 2nd at five o’clock.”

  Oh,” I said. “Same time as the Evensong. Was your service on the church calendar?”

  “No. I forgot to put it down. Now the Garden Club has already advertised and sold raffle tickets. The festival is in Sterling Park right across the street from the church. I didn’t know that the priest was going to have a Candlemas Evensong. Who’s even heard of Candlemas?”

  “It’s a very important day in the Anglo-Catholic year.”

  “Apparently. So now I have to either tell Father Dressler that we have something else scheduled that I forgot about, or tell the Garden Club that they can’t use the church and that I can’t be in their service. They were counting on me.”

  “It’s a tough spot,” I agreed.

  “I’m going to get fired for sure. I need this job. It’s all right for you, but I’m fifty years old and I’ve got nothing else.”

  Well, you’d better say something soon,” I said, knowing that she probably wouldn’t. If there was ever a procrastinator who avoided any hint of conflict, it was Kimberly Walnut. “I don’t think there’s any way you can combine the Garden Club thingy with a Solemn Evensong. What kind of service are you doing anyway?”

  “It’s a Service of Blessing,” she said, bursting into tears. “The Blessing of the Groundhog.”

  * * *

  Dr. Alison Jaeger called me back that afternoon.

  “The three women didn’t meet in the waiting room,” she said. “At least not that I know of. They never had appointments on the same day. Not even close.”

  Chapter 20

  The rising sun squirmed its way through the smog and slithered across the squalid cityscape into every nook and cranny like hot grease on a Waffle House griddle in the Sunday morning rush. I pondered the St. Groundlemas question. We were looking at the problem from the groundhog perspective, but what if we turned that pig around and peered prudently into the pitchy panoply of a proxy presumption?

  “Alliteration is not your friend,” snorked Pedro derisively.

  “Maybe not,” I said as flinty as a Presbyterian minister at an eHarmony speed mixer, “but I can use a simile quicker than a romance writer on diet pills.”

  Pedro fluffed the petticoats under his cassock. “I’m off to the basilica,” he said. “St. Gertrude the Pretty Good. They’re so high church the priests carry incense snuff boxes. We’re singing the Ockenghem ‘Missa Adorna thalamum tuum’ with extended antiphons for twelve deviant voices.” He looked down at his watch. “We should be out of church by three o’clock. We’ll run out of candles by then.”

  Suddenly it hit me - hit me like one of those anvils dropped on a cartoon character after he already fell off a cliff because he forgot the first law of cartoon physics, “Gravity doesn’t work until you look down,” flattening him like a Shrove Tuesday pancake. It wasn’t the groundhog. It was the candles.

  * * *

  I walked the two blocks from downtown to Bud’s new house to check on the progress and things were moving quickly. Roberto and his crew had gutted the interior and were bustling inside, putting up new walls and running the electric wires. We had several inspections scheduled and the first one was tomorrow. I had no concerns. Roberto Gonzales was a topnotch contractor. Bud wasn’t there, but had gone to Asheville to meet with a supplier.

  The septic problem had been taken care and the groundhog infestation dealt with. I hadn’t seen Moosey for the pas
t few days, but I presumed he was thrilled with his new pet. The yard had been put back together, but still looked forlorn in the dreary doldrums of January. The big maple tree in the front yard was bare, the Indian hawthorn hedges, brown and sere. The grass was now mostly mud thanks to the tramping of the workers, supplies set in the yard, the large dumpster, and Harmonious Pooter’s backhoe.

  Bud had been toying with names for his shop for a number of months. He had decided on The Wine Press since he was also planning an on-line newsletter that would carry the same title. He’d registered the business with the North Carolina Secretary of State as a partnership.

  I headed back down the sidewalk toward town and saw Nancy coming toward me. We met in front of Holy Grounds and went inside to warm up.

  “What can I get you?” said Kylie Moffit, the owner and barista. Holy Grounds was not busy. Not at this time of the day.

  “Coffee,” I said.

  “How about an espresso coretto al cognac? It’s a cold day outside and it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  “There’s cognac involved?”

  “Well, sure, but if you’d rather …”

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  “Me, too,” said Nancy. “Put it on his bill.”

  We got our coffees and found a table. “Anything going on?” I asked.

  “Glad you asked,” Nancy said. “Kent just called. That’s why I came to find you. He’s identified the poison.”

  “Excellent. What is it?”

  Nancy pulled out her pad and read. “Aconitum, otherwise known as aconite. It’s the Queen of Poisons.”

  “Monkshood?”

  “Exactly,” said Nancy. “How did you know?”

  “My brain contains a vast store of irritating and useless knowledge.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot. F.Y.I., it’s also known as wolf’s bane, leopard’s bane, and blue rocket. Since there were no gastrointestinal effects apparent — no vomiting, etcetera — Kent thinks the toxin was absorbed through the skin. If the poison is absorbed rather than ingested, tingling will start at the point of absorption and extend to the arms and shoulders, after which the heart will start to be affected. Heart failure is imminent and will usually occur within the hour.”

  “Great. So where does that leave us?”

  “Well, Kent says that the strange thing is that the point of absorption was probably the soft palate since that was where the lesions occurred. Also, that where he discovered the traces of the poison.”

  “Why is that strange?”

  “Well, if the poison was in the women’s mouth, it makes more sense for it to have been swallowed. But it wasn’t.”

  “Huh,” I said. “That is odd, isn’t it?”

  “How about the book club?” said Nancy. “Anyone look to you like a poisoner?”

  “Or maybe a gardener,” I said. “Rachel Barstow gardens and sells at the farmer’s market if I recall correctly. You have your list?”

  “Sure,” said Nancy, and went to the other breast pocket. She pulled out her list of Bookworms.

  Rachel Barstow – home gardener, herbalist, sells at the Farmer’s Market; has quite a Pinterest following; favorites include historical mysteries, political satire, and existentialist fiction.

  “Historical mysteries would include murder by monkshood most certainly,” I said. “What’s her Pinterest following concerning?”

  Nancy pulled out her phone and spent a moment connecting with the Holy Grounds WiFi, then said, “Herb gardening mostly. Nothing here about monkshood though … hang on.” She scrolled her finger across the small screen of her iPhone. “Hang on …” she said again, then “nothing about monkshood, but here’s an entry about wolfsbane. There’s a poem. A medieval charm used when harvesting the plant for medicinal purposes.” She passed me the phone.

  O one berie, who planted you?

  Our Ladie with her five fingers trewe,

  thru all her miht and power,

  She brought you hyd to flower,

  hwæt I shall have my healthe.

  I passed it back. “Motive?” I asked, taking a sip of coffee and considering one of the muffins I’d seen lurking in the glass case beneath the cash register.

  “Usually either money, sex, or revenge,” said Nancy. “Some criminologists throw in fear and rage, but those tend to be impulsive. If the homicide is planned, and this one certainly was, I’d go with one of the first three.”

  “How about ‘accidental?’ As an herbalist, maybe Rachel was using the monkshood as some sort of remedy and made a mistake on the dosage, then remembered the book and used the coincidence in careers to cover it up.”

  “That’s a stretch,” said Nancy. “Possible, though.”

  “I agree. Let’s go with the first three, So which is it? Rachel Barstow admitted knowing Amy and Darla. Did she know Crystal as well? Also remember, it was Rachel that recommended See Your Shadow to the Bookworms in the first place.”

  “Seems kinda easy when you put all the pieces together,” Nancy said with a grin.

  I stood up. “I’m getting a banana nut muffin. You want one?”

  “Sure. A celebratory muffin.”

  “We still need a motive,” I said, “and actual evidence.”

  “We’ll get it,” said Nancy.

  Chapter 21

  It took the better part of Wednesday afternoon to put all the music together for Father Dressler’s Candlemas Evensong. I decided that the Tantum Ergo would do double duty, and we’d sing it this Sunday during communion as well as next Wednesday for the service. I chose a Tantum Ergo by Anton Bruckner because we’d sung it before. It was straightforward and something we could put together easily. The Preces and Responses were Richard Shephard’s and so were the evening canticles — the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. The canticles were easy: a unison treble line with a four-part Gloria at the end of each. We had learned those pieces last Advent and hopefully they had stuck. The Psalm appointed for Candlemas was Psalm 84: How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place. Psalm 117, which was to be sung at the end of the service, is only two verses long and I had a lovely little Baroque Charpentier setting that would be just fine. We would also use this one on Sunday for the offertory anthem.

  I cleared all the music with the priest and was feeling good about the whole thing, so I took a break for supper and met Meg at the Bear and Brew. Now we were now back in the choir loft waiting for the crowd to arrive.

  Marjorie was first. She was always first. I surmised the reason was to retrieve her flask from behind one of the organ pipes before everyone showed up. No one ever asked what was in the flask, and she kept it hidden unless she was in the choir loft, in which case it was in the hymnal rack in front of her.

  “Good evening,” she said sweetly, putting her purse down on her chair and making a beeline for the organ case. “I trust you are both well.”

  “Great,” said Meg. “And how are you, Marjorie?”

  “Terrible!” barked Marjorie, her mood suddenly turning. “Where’s my flask?”

  “I haven’t seen it,” I said.

  “I didn’t take it,” said Meg.

  “Well, it’s gone! The last time it disappeared it was that drunken sexton that took it. The one that Ardine killed.”

  “Ardine didn’t kill him,” I said. “That’s just rumor. Rumor and scuttlebutt.”

  “Of course you couldn’t prove it,” said Marjorie. “That’s the beauty of Oleander tea. But that’s neither here nor there. I want to know who swiped my flask!”

  “Maybe you misplaced it,” I said, knowing it was a vain hope. Someone had found Marjorie’s flask and I had a good idea who.

  “It’s that nosey little priest, isn’t it?” said Marjorie, venom in her voice.

  “Take it easy. I’m sure it was just misplaced.”

  “Misplaced, my Aunt Millie’s butt!” Marjorie was already across the choir loft and jimmying open the door to the bell tower. It was supposedly kept locked, but anyone could get in by using the old nail that w
as left sticking into the door casing for just such emergencies. The door opened and she disappeared into the bell tower for a minute, then reappeared holding another flask in her hand. She pulled the door shut behind her.

  “He didn’t find this one,” she said. “It’s a good thing, too.

  “How many of those do you have up here?” asked Meg.

  “Not as many as you might think,” Marjorie replied. “The trick is to keep them moving.”

  Sheila DeMoss was the next one up the stairs, followed by Bev, Rhiza, and Elaine.

  “Ah,” said Sheila, picking up her music, “the newest installment.” I had copied my latest effort onto the back of Psalm 84. It seemed appropriate.

  * * *

  “Follow the money.” That’s the third rule in the Detective Handbook right after “Don’t put your tongue in the jar of mustard at a dinner party” and “If there are clowns involved, do not take the case.”

  I snuck into the back of St. G’s and squinted through the blueish-gray haze. One thing about the Anglo-Catholics at St. Gertrude the Pretty Good: when they smoked the place up they didn’t mince around with a couple of swinging smoke pots, but went ahead and hooked their incense machine up to the exhaust fan. The atmosphere was Los Angeles on Labor Day, not that it was full of glitz and glam, although it was, and unseasonably warm, which it also was, but rather that LA is known for its poor air quality despite the prevalence of electric cars and “alternative energy” nuts, and therefore the metaphor is apt, so don’t send me any emails.

  There were bells going off every few seconds, priests twirling like manatees in the aisles, rampant nuns genuflecting to every guy with a beard, and Pedro at the front, wearing his night-vision goggles so he could see the music, canting for all he was worth. The place was lit by candles, hundreds of ‘em, maybe millions, and although I couldn’t see much, I saw right through this little scam.