The Master’s Hand

by Diane Noble

  After a few minutes, Nehemiah closed in prayer. Kate looked up after the prayer, as did the rest of the congregation. Then Nehemiah, as Kate had heard he’d done so often at the end of his sermons when he was pastor at Faith Briar, began singing a cappella, “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds Thy hands have made...” His voice was a bit raspy with age, but his strong baritone was filled with joy.

  On the last chorus, the congregation, at his invitation, rose to their feet, joining their voices with his. “Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee; How great Thou art, how great Thou art!”

  After the final prayer, Kate joined Paul and Nehemiah to greet the parishioners as they filed out of the church. There were many hugs and even tears as families he’d known for years stopped to tell him how much they missed him and how happy they were to see him again.

  Renee and Caroline were near the end of the line. Kate could see Renee’s impatience growing as the people in front of her took their time chatting with Nehemiah. Finally Caroline made her way around the crowd and pushed through the doors, Kisses trotting beside her on his leash with an obvious need to head to the nearest bush or tree.

  A few minutes later, Renee finally reached Nehemiah. She sniffed importantly, leaned in, and shaking his hand, said, “I need to speak with you. Perhaps Paul can lend us his office.”

  After a quick look of affirmation from Paul, she continued, “Ten o’clock tomorrow morning works for me.”

  “Of course,” Nehemiah said with a nod. “Ten o’clock it is.”

  Chapter Six

  Though he had received several invitations to dinner at former parishioners’ homes, Nehemiah turned them down graciously, preferring to spend his time with Kate and Paul.

  Kate suspected that when he saw the recipe for the chicken-and-artichoke-heart casserole she planned to make after church, nothing would keep him from having a hand in it. And it wasn’t a decision based purely on culinary reasons. She understood his sentimental reasons as well. He and Rose had lived in the parsonage for years, and he was as familiar with the kitchen as Kate was.

  She tossed him an apron after he’d changed from his suit into his worn jeans and old flannel shirt—his “kickin’ around clothes,” as he called them.

  He tied the bright red apron around his waist and grinned. “Now I’m feeling at home more than ever.”

  She quickly pulled out the ingredients. While Nehemiah sautéed the mushrooms in melted butter, she dredged the chicken breasts in a little flour, then splashed some chicken broth, half-and-half, and a couple of tablespoons of cooking sherry into a casserole dish. After she browned the chicken, she placed the breasts in the casserole dish, then leaned against the counter while Nehemiah worked on the buttery mixture of mushrooms and artichoke hearts.

  Paul came in and sat down at the kitchen table, and the three talked about the strange occurrences with Nehemiah’s computer.

  “You don’t suppose someone’s hacked into your system, do you?” Even as Kate asked Nehemiah the question, she wondered why anyone would bother a retired pastor living on a fixed income in a retirement home. It didn’t make sense.

  Unless there was some other reason.

  Nehemiah shook his head. “I can’t imagine why”—he waggled his brows—“unless someone in the Ukraine is suspicious of me watching my favorite radio program every night.” He laughed. “I’m just trying to learn to speak Russian—good for the brain, you know.” He tapped his head. “But some ex-KGB agent with nothing better to do may think I’m a spy.” He laughed again and went back to whisking grated parmesan cheese into the mushroom-and-artichoke-heart mixture.

  As he poured the sauce over the chicken, he frowned. “I’m making light of it, but I am curious as to why it just started since I arrived here.” He looked up, glancing first toward Kate, then to Paul. “Don’t you find that curious?”

  “More than curious,” Kate said, slipping the casserole dish into the oven. “Along with a half-dozen other questions that are beginning to crop up—also since your arrival.” She smiled. “Or slightly before.”

  Nehemiah chuckled. “I would hate to think I brought some sort of mystery with me.”

  Paul sighed, casting a worried but affectionate look at Kate. “Knowing how these things happen to my wife, I would say the mystery grabbed her attention before you got here. But I have to agree the plot seems to be thickening.”

  “It started out as just my doing a favor for a friend, and there still may be nothing to Livvy’s worries.” She went over to the sink and rinsed the sautéing pan. “But something tells me that all this fits together somehow. And Livvy’s not one to be overly concerned with her kids.” She turned around to face Paul and Nehemiah, who had moved to the table beside Paul. “So when she says she’s worried about James, I believe she has cause.”

  She held back a shiver as she thought about what the teenager might have gotten himself into at his new job. “Nehemiah, can you do a Web search for me? Look up Safe Keeping, and Clive Garfield? Livvy tried to find them the other day, but nothing came up. Maybe we can think of a new angle to explore.”

  He grinned at her. “I’m a novice. If Livvy couldn’t find them, I’m almost certain I won’t be able to either.” But he headed to the guest room and returned a few minutes later with his laptop. After the computer was running, he typed in the company name. Kate dried her hands, grabbed a pencil and some paper, then came over to the table to watch.

  “Nothing,” he said after a moment. “Let me try Clive Garfield.” He typed in the name. Again, nothing.

  Kate sighed. They were having no better luck than Livvy’d had. “She’s right, it doesn’t make any sense,” Kate said, “unless he uses some other name.”

  Paul leaned forward thoughtfully. “Maybe Clive is short for something else. Or he’s a Garfield Junior or a Garfield the Third, or something like that.”

  Nehemiah shrugged. “Worth a try.” He typed in several combinations. “Still nothing.”

  “Let’s try going to one of the people-finder sites,” Kate said as she doodled with her pencil and paper. “That radio site,” she mused, “the one in the Ukraine.” Nehemiah nodded as she looked up. “What kinds of names do the people have?”

  He grinned. “Usually ones that are difficult to pronounce—even for me, and I’m trying to learn to speak Russian.”

  “What if he changed his name because he or his parents immigrated here from another country? Maybe he changed it to something memorable, something people wouldn’t forget—something soft and fuzzy.”

  Nehemiah and Paul exchanged grins. “Like a lovable cat.”

  Kate smiled. “A cat everybody loves. Garfield.”

  “And easy to remember if you’re going into business,” Nehemiah added.

  Paul leaned forward again. “But why wouldn’t Garfield still come up on the Internet? Or the name of the business—Safe Keeping?”

  Kate leaned back with a sigh. “I haven’t figured that out yet...And, of course, I could be wrong about the whole Garfield thing anyway.”

  Nehemiah frowned. “How can we find out?”

  Kate stood to go over to the oven. She opened the door to check the casserole, then turned back and smiled. “I guess I’ll need to ask him again. Maybe I’ll have better luck this time.”

  Nehemiah went on to show Paul more of the sites he frequented while Kate went to the refrigerator to pull out ingredients for a tossed salad.

  “I can pull in real-time weather stations at the South Pole, mimes and magicians on Las Ramblas in Barcelona...”

  Kate chuckled. “Rear Window?”

  “Just like the Hitchcock movie with Jimmy Stewart, though not nearly as dramatic or dangerous.” He laughed. “I get a kick out of visiting all these sites. It makes God’s world seem smaller somehow.”

  Nehemiah checked his watch, then pressed the keys again, and after a moment, Kate recognized the sounds of the monks’ voices lifted in song.

  “This time we’
ve picked them up on their way to vespers,” Nehemiah said. “It’s Sunday, so the tone is more joyous. On Thursdays and Fridays, it’s more somber as they remember Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.”

  After a few minutes, Nehemiah clicked on another site. “You’ve got to see this! Both of you. Here’s a live scene from Piccadilly Circus in London.” He chuckled as Kate dried her hands. “And this! Here’s airport traffic at JFK International. “And here’s the radio station I told you about.” He turned the computer so that Kate could see as she walked toward the table. Paul leaned closer so he could get a better look. Judging from the strange lettering on the announcer’s window, it appeared to be a Baltic language. Obviously the radio station he’d mentioned earlier.

  She started to ask, but Nehemiah tilted his head and squinted at the computer screen, which was now facing him. “Well now, here we go again.”

  “What?” Kate and Paul said, almost in unison.

  He looked up. “The Webcam just switched to the museum interior, the three paintings, then back again.”

  “Can you make it do that again?” Paul asked.

  Nehemiah shook his head. “That’s the strange thing. I didn’t hit a key or do anything. It just switched to the new site again without my telling it to.”

  “Just like before,” Kate said, wondering why he looked so disturbed this time.

  “This time instead of exterminators...” He paused, frowning, almost as if he didn’t believe what he was about to say. “This time I saw a monk dressed just like those at Montserrat. Brown robe with a hood, rope tied at the waist, sandals.”

  “You’re sure?” Kate asked.

  “It happened so fast—just a split-second glimpse,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe it was my imagination.”

  “If it was,” Kate said, “your imagination certainly took in a lot of detail.”

  Chapter Seven

  Kate called Livvy first thing Monday morning. “Have you received your key to the Victorian yet?” she asked as soon as Livvy answered the phone.

  “Sorry, I haven’t,” Livvy said. “I was told by Safe Keeping that they were changing the locks, and new keys were to be issued before the grand opening. But as far as I know, none of us on the restoration committee, or even the docents, have received a new one. You might ask Eli Weston, though. As head of the volunteer program and docent training, he’d be the first to get one.”

  “So even the old locks don’t work. It wouldn’t be a problem, except the museum’s closed on Mondays. My curiosity is piqued. I don’t know if I can wait till Tuesday.” She paused. “Besides, I’d like to take a look when no one else is there.”

  Kate told Livvy what Nehemiah had observed on his computer, though she left out the part about the monk. Nehemiah had seemed confused about that, which had made Kate wonder if he just thought he saw the cloaked figure because of the images he’d been watching at Montserrat.

  “Did you know anything about an exterminator?”

  Livvy surprised her by laughing. “Oh yes. That was a big deal a month or so ago. Like to have scared some of our volunteers to death. Millie Lovelace was painting the upstairs bathroom when a good-sized rat ran underneath her ladder.” She chuckled again. “Then it darted into the adjoining bedroom and almost scared Joe Tucker to death; he was replacing the crown molding on an even taller ladder. He couldn’t get down fast enough, but the thing skittered down the hallway and disappeared. No one ever saw it again.”

  “Well, that explains that part of the mystery,” Kate said, relieved. “And it makes sense that the exterminators were working off-hours so they wouldn’t frighten any visitors.” Still, though she couldn’t pinpoint the reason she questioned their presence, she did. The phrase, one swallow doesn’t a summer make, came to her. Neither did one rat an infestation make. She paused, then added, “How is James? Has there been any change?”

  Livvy sighed. “Not really. He left for work about an hour ago. Said he needed to meet his boss at the diner for breakfast to go over some new plans.”

  “For the museum?”

  “I asked, but he just shrugged and looked away.”

  “I’m still working on the identity of the man who calls himself Clive Garfield.”

  “You don’t think that’s his real name?”

  Kate hesitated for a moment. She really didn’t have any concrete evidence and hated to just throw out suppositions. But Livvy was more worried than Kate was about all this. And after all, she was Kate’s best friend.

  “I have a gut feeling he’s using an alias, or perhaps changed his name for some reason,” Kate said.

  “Wouldn’t that be working against promoting or advertising his own business?”

  “Maybe the only jobs he’s had have been with Davis Carr. As long as a businessman of Carr’s stature trusts him and gives him the jobs he needs to make a living, why advertise?”

  Livvy sighed. “Let me know what you find out.”

  “I’m hoping to find him at the museum this morning.”

  “Are you going alone?”

  Kate laughed. “Hey, I handled Mr. Evasive Big Guy once before. I can do it again.” She paused. “He must have an office here in town—at least temporarily.”

  Livvy told her where James reported to work each day—a double-wide trailer that served as the Safe Keeping temporary office. “It’s outside town, out toward Joe Tucker’s place,” Livvy told her.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Kate said, thinking about the portable office and the lack of name presence on the Internet.

  KATE DECIDED TO DRIVE BY the Victorian before heading to the temporary office.

  She was in luck. The exterminator’s truck was parked in front, and the two men standing nearby looked pleasant enough. They wore white uniforms with the logo of a dead bug, legs and antennae in the air. The top of the pickup cab sported a large replica of a roach, also on its back, feet and antennae in the air. She shivered at the creepy figure and parked the Honda on the opposite side of the street.

  Moments later, she gave a friendly wave to one of the exterminators, who was leaning over the tailgate of the pickup, adjusting a large, noisy compressor. A hose was draped from the truck, over the picket fence and lawn, up the porch stairs, and through the front door of the museum. She caught a glimpse of the other white-suited figure—who was wearing a gas mask—through the front window.

  She reached the door, but before stepping inside, she looked down at the hose, obviously about to pump the Victorian full of poisonous gas. She frowned, thinking that surely there was a better way to dispose of a rat.

  Kate walked back to the man running the compressor, trying not to frown her disapproval. “Isn’t this a bit of overkill?” she asked.

  The man frowned. “Sorry?”

  She repeated her question, then added, “Why not just set a trap? An old-fashioned mousetrap, only bigger.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The rat that’s inside. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

  For a split second he looked puzzled, then he said, “Oh, yeah, yeah. That’s what this is all about. The rat. And where there’s one, in our business, there are usually more.”

  He flipped off the compressor. “The product isn’t in the pipeline yet. Did you need to go inside for something? We can wait, if you’d like. Somebody was by here earlier, said she left her handbag the day of the grand opening. She was in and out in a jiff. Had a little dog with her. One of those yippy things with big eyes.”

  Kate blinked. Renee. Of course. She’d already sniffed something unusual going on herself. Kate bit back a smile.

  “No, actually, I don’t need to go inside after all,” she said. “I’m looking for Mr. Garfield. Have you seen him around?”

  “Who?”

  “The CEO of the security company. His name is Clive Garfield.”

  With a shrug, the man turned back to the compressor. “Never heard of him.”

  Kate started to walk back to her car. “Was s
omeone from your company here Saturday?”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t me or my partner, but we’re a pretty good-sized outfit. Coulda been another crew.”

  Kate nodded, took two steps, then stopped again and turned around.

  “How did you get inside today? Who gave you a key?”

  “You some kinda Columbo or somethin’? Always thinkin’ of one more question.” He smirked.

  “Just an idle question,” Kate said pleasantly. “I tried to get a key earlier and was told that they weren’t available yet.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” the man said. “My boss just said to get over here with our equipment. We did like he said. Got here, and the front door was open.” He shrugged. “That answer your question?”

  Kate studied his face. His expression was the portrait of sincerity. But why would the front door have been left open for any reason, considering the valuable artwork inside?

  “Close enough for now,” she said, though he’d started up the compressor again and didn’t hear her.

  She drove around the block and headed out toward Joe Tucker’s place to see if she could spot the security-company trailer. She imagined it wouldn’t be difficult to find; she didn’t remember any such double-wides on the way to Joe’s.

  She had just driven a little over a mile when she spotted a dark SUV coming toward her in the opposite direction. She glanced at the driver just long enough to realize it was Clive Garfield behind the wheel. She drove another several yards, then pulled over, made a U-turn, and followed the SUV, lagging just far enough behind to keep out of sight.

  Garfield turned on Main toward the museum. Not a surprise, she told herself. That was his beat, as Renee would say. Instead of parking in plain sight of the Victorian, though, as she’d done before, she stayed on Smith and made her way to the library and parked in its lot.

  Quietly she exited the Honda, then she crossed the street to the Town Green and made her way to the museum. She unlatched the gate at the rear of the rose garden and then slipped through the garden to the side of the house. Standing in the morning shadows, she peered around the corner.