The Diva Wore Diamonds

by Mark Schweizer

  “Dewey,” I growled. “Come with me.”

  Dewey’s eyes went wide and he followed me meekly out of the tent.

  “Kevin,” I said, “go inside and untie them. If you need help, go get your tent-mother.”

  Kevin darted inside the tent, and I put an ominous hand on Dewey’s shoulder. “Which tent is next?” I asked.

  Dewey pointed to the tent with the Zebulun sign in front. “We only used the ones that had flaps,” he said. “That way, we wouldn’t be discovered until our mission was accomplished.”

  I walked him over to the Zebulun tent. “And what was your mission?”

  “To get all the coins, of course. That was my idea,” he said proudly. “Samantha planned it. She’s great!”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we take the coins to the candy shop, buy all the candy, and disappear.”

  I opened the flaps, walked in and found the same situation that I’d found in the previous tent. This time it was Bernadette standing guard and twelve little frightened faces looking back at me. Bernadette looked like a Celtic warrior queen. Boudica, maybe. Her hair was wild and she was adorned with some sort of green face paint. She was leveling a spear at the nearest prisoner. Her face fell when she saw me come in. I took the spear out of her hand and snapped it in half.

  “The jig is up,” I said.

  Kevin came running in a moment later. “The rest of them are in Asher,” he said.

  I left Kevin to free the prisoners and took Bernadette and Dewey with me to the next tent. I pushed them in ahead of me and followed a moment later. Moosey and Samantha were sitting on the ground dividing a huge mound of candy into six smaller piles. Christopher was standing guard over about fifteen kids, not tied like the others, but all sitting quietly at the back of the tent. Christopher had a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other and would occasionally jab one of them toward a hostage in a threatening manner. Ashley was busy tying their ex-friend Robert to a tree stump that the Asher tent-mother had been using as a table. I was afraid to ask the reason. Some sort of sacrifice, I presumed.

  “Oh, crap,” said Samantha, when she saw me.

  “Oh, crap, indeed,” I replied. “The law is here. Let’s go.”

  The six of them piled their weapons on the ground and lined up. “What about the candy?” asked Moosey.

  “Spoils of war, I think they call it,” I said. “Anyway, that’s the least of your problems. Your tent-mother is going to open up a can of whupass on you guys.”

  “You can’t say ‘whupass’ to us,” said Ashley. “We’re just little kids.”

  •••

  I wasn’t far off. Meg was so mad I thought we might have another Slaughter of the Innocents on our hands. Cooler heads prevailed, though, and after an almost sincere apology from the tribe of Issachar to the rest of Israel, all seemed to be forgiven, especially since the other eleven tribes were allowed to split all the ill-gotten candy. By the time everything had been sorted out, it was a little past five o’clock.

  Kimberly Walnut was in a tither. She might have gotten over the fact that six of the ten-year-old Bible-Schoolers had managed to forge their own weapons, take most of the camp hostage while the mothers were drinking tea, steal everyone’s coins, and almost make off with all the candy. Yes, she might have gotten past all of it, except that now her schedule was off! She ran back and forth like a rabid sheepdog, herding each group over to the drama area where they dutifully plopped onto the ground for another episode of “The New Testament According to Kimberly Walnut.” This episode was entitled The Stoning of Stephen.

  The tent-mothers were standing in the back, all of them keeping a close eye on the Issachar gang. Cynthia stood near me, looking mighty fine in her belly-dancing outfit, and chatting with Noylene who had wandered over from the Beautifery.

  “Look at this,” Noylene was saying, holding her hands in front of her face and blowing on her nails. “It’s called Passionella Pink. Brand new. It’s gonna be a bestseller.”

  “Lovely,” said Cynthia, catching my eye and making a wry face.

  Father Tony was decked out in his high priest togs. Ardine, Bud and Pauli Girl had come to pick up Moosey and were standing next to Father Tony. The two Roman soldiers were lurking at the edges, as Roman soldiers do, and the shopkeepers had arrived on the scene as well. The beggar and the leper were still working the crowd. Apparently no one had informed them that all the coins were gone. Even Seymour Krebbs had abandoned his camel for a moment to watch the festivities.

  Kimberly Walnut was the narrator for this skit, and quite a skit it was.

  “Stephen was full of grace and power,” she said, doing a pretty good impression of Charlton Heston. “And he did great wonders among the people.”

  St. Stephen, played by Russ Stafford, took center stage and did his best to look like he was full of power and grace. It was a stretch.

  Varmit Lemieux stepped forward, a plant from the audience. “We have heard him speak against God!” he said. “This man is always speaking against the holy Temple and against the law of Moses. We have heard him say that this Jesus will destroy the Temple and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”

  Father Tony piped up as well, in his role as high priest. “Is this true?” he intoned.

  Russ began his sermon. “You stubborn people! You are deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you! Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Jesus whom you betrayed and murdered. You deliberately disobeyed God’s law.”

  It was at this point that several large baskets started being passed through the crowd—baskets containing large, gray styrofoam rocks about the size of grapefruits.

  “The Jews were furious with Stephen,” thundered Kimberly, “and they shook their fists with rage.”

  She shook her fist at Russ and hissed at him. The kids caught on quickly and soon everyone in the crowd was shaking their fists and booing him. Russ looked especially serene.

  “Look,” he hollered above the din, pointing at the sky.

  “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”

  Kimberly Walnut threw the first styrofoam rock. It bounced off Russ’ shoulder. It was followed by a slew of rocks, most of which didn’t make it to the stage due to the relative weight of styrofoam, wind resistance, and eight-year-old throwing arms. Many of the projectiles landed in the crowd and bounced harmlessly off uncounted heads with more than a few giggles. This didn’t stop Russ from falling to his knees and crying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and don’t charge them with this sin!”

  The kids, most of whose rocks had fallen short, came forward in a surge, picked up the light-weight boulders and, laughing, made sure they were near enough to pummel Russ from close range. Some adults moved toward Russ as well, tossing the odd piece of styrofoam toward the pile of children, and generally getting into the spirit of the play. It was a mass of people, young and old, all laughing and having a jolly time. Much, I thought ironically, like it might have been at a real stoning.

  After a few minutes, the adults started collecting the kids and moving them over to the temple tent for the final ceremony. It was quite a mob scene, good enough to work in any Monty Python movie. I smiled, shook my head, then turned and walked to the tent with the rest of them.

  We stood through Father Tony’s opening prayer, Kimberly Walnut’s thank-yous, the prize for the best tent, and the conferring of the certificates. Cynthia and the little belly-dancers had just begun their routine when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned and saw Gerry Flemming. He was white as a ghost.

  “You’d better come quick,” he whispered. “Russ is dead.”

  Chapter 9

  Choir practice was called off, of course. We spent the three hours securing the scene of Mr. Stafford’s untimely demise, first getting the children out of the park—not a difficult ta
sk, since their parents were picking them up, anyway—then making sure that Brianna was taken care of, and finally calling the ambulance to take his body down to the morgue for an autopsy. I didn’t think we needed one. It was pretty clear how Russ met his fate, but it was protocol in a murder investigation. We went over the crime scene several times, Dave taking pictures, and Nancy taking notes. Russ Stafford’s body had been lying just where we’d left him when the play concluded, stretched out amidst a good-sized pile of styrofoam boulders and one large, melon-sized piece of granite that seemed to fit perfectly into the indentation in Russ’ head. The stone matched the granite that had been used for the exterior of the new church, a left-over piece dropped under a bush or kicked behind a tree. Nancy took the murder weapon over to the police station and locked it up. Tomorrow it would go to the lab in Boone for DNA analysis and fingerprinting. After we’d finished, Nancy and Dave came up to the house at my invitation. Supper was at Meg’s insistence.

  The three of us were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking beer and anticipating the shrimp pasta that Meg was putting together at the sink. Baxter was being scratched behind the ears by Nancy and, judging from the way his tail was thumping a back beat on the kitchen floor, had found true love.

  “This is great,” Dave said, taking a sip and looking at the bottle. “Sprecher Black Bavarian Style Lager. Where do you get this stuff?”

  “I have my sources,” I said smugly.

  “Beer of the Month Club,” said Meg, putting the bowl of pasta in the center of the table. “Help yourselves. The bread’s coming out of the oven in a minute.”

  We followed Meg’s directive and, in a moment, the four of us were digging into a delicious meal.

  “Did you get Skeeter out of the clink?” I asked Nancy.

  She shook her head. “Forgot all about it. I’ll go down there tomorrow morning. It won’t hurt him to stay there for another night.”

  “I don’t suppose it was an accident?” said Meg. “Russ, I mean.”

  “Nope,” said Dave. “That rock probably weighed twenty pounds. Hard to mistake it for styrofoam.”

  “Well,” said Meg, “then I suppose the question is, who hated Russ enough to kill him?”

  “It’s not always about hate,” I said. “Sometimes it’s about expedience.”

  “Or justice,” said Nancy. “Or revenge.”

  “Jealousy,” added Dave. “Greed.”

  I nodded. “So the question we need to ask is not who hated Russ enough to kill him, but rather, who wanted Russ dead? Pass me a piece of that bread, will you?”

  “Hmm,” said Meg, passing me the plate of bread. “Okay. Who wanted Russ dead?”

  “Any number of people,” I said. “Russ was a singularly dislikable man with very little moral character.”

  Meg looked at me expectantly.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go through the list. Just the people who were at the Bible Bazaar. It had to be one of them.”

  Nancy pulled out her pad and pen.

  “Hmm,” I said. “I suppose we can put one of those Fellowship Baptist elders on the list. With Russ dead, I’m guessing that lawsuit will go away and Francis Passaglio will take the insurance settlement. Since the referendum didn’t pass, Brother Hog remains a hero and the church isn’t out the two million dollars.”

  “Two million dollars?” said Meg. “That old feed store wasn’t worth two million dollars!”

  “That’s what he was suing for. Actual damages, loss of income, and damage to the establishment’s reputation.”

  “Still…murder?” asked Meg.

  “Sure,” said Nancy. “How about Noylene?” I had filled Nancy in on Noylene’s plight earlier in the afternoon.

  “How about Noylene?” asked Meg, obviously shocked.

  “Russ was getting ready to take her property—most of Quail Ridge, actually—under a little-used statute called Adverse Possession. I’m pretty sure he was planning on doing some diamond mining.”

  Meg sat there, stunned. “Noylene would never…”

  “Sure she would,” said Dave. “Noylene’s a mountain girl. She wouldn’t think twice about protecting what was hers, especially if it had been in her family for years.”

  “Will Brianna continue with the action?” asked Nancy. “This pasta’s great, by the way.” Meg smiled her thanks.

  “Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “She can’t. Russ was the only one who could have filed the suit because he was the only one who used the property.”

  “So with Russ dead…?” said Dave.

  “The point is moot,” I said. “Noylene keeps her property. And you can bet she won’t make the same mistake again. How about another beer?”

  “I’ll take one,” said Nancy.

  “I’m the one driving,” said Dave. “Thanks, though.”

  Meg shook her head, then said, “Is that everyone?”

  “Ardine McCollough,” I said, getting up and getting two more brews out of the fridge. “Pauli Girl. Maybe Bud.”

  “What?” said Dave and Nancy at the same time.

  I looked over at Meg. She sighed.

  “We think that Pauli Girl’s been molested,” she said. “Or at least someone tried. I don’t know for sure because she wouldn’t tell me. Ardine certainly thought so.”

  “Russ?” asked Nancy.

  “We all think it was someone connected to the youth group at the church. An adult. That would be either Russ or Gerry Flemming.”

  “Or Brianna,” said Dave, with a wink. “Or maybe Wilma.”

  “Hadn’t thought of that,” Meg said. “But you’re right.”

  “I think we can assume it was Russ,” I said. “Since he’s the one who’s dead.”

  “But what if it was Ardine that killed him and she made a mistake?” Meg said.

  “Good point. Ardine’s certainly no shrinking violet, and we all know that she’s settled some scores in the past, but we also can’t discount Pauli Girl, if indeed, she was molested. She was standing right there, and she might have taken the opportunity to even things up.”

  “What about Bud?” said Dave.

  “Ardine was talking with him the day before. It’s why he missed his entrance during the skit. I wonder what his mother said to him.”

  “You think he was protecting his sister?” said Nancy.

  I shrugged. “Can’t discount it.”

  “How about Brianna?” said Meg.

  We all looked at her, blankly, waiting for an explanation.

  “She’s Russ’ wife, for heaven’s sake! Maybe she found out that he’d molested Pauli Girl.” Meg narrowed her gaze. “Maybe Pauli Girl wasn’t the first.”

  “Holy smokes!” said Dave. “Never thought of that.”

  “Anyone else?” I asked.

  “Anyone left?” said Nancy.

  Chapter 10

  Dr. Kent Murphee was a curmudgeon, easily identifiable by his tweed suit. Only a curmudgeon wears a tweed suit in June. Lovable, yes, but a curmudgeon nevertheless.

  “I hate to get up early on a Friday,” he grumbled, busily tamping down the tobacco in his pipe with the end of his fountain pen.

  “It’s ten o’clock,” I said. “And it’s Thursday.”

  “Ten o’clock, you say. How about a drink then?” he asked, pulling open his right-hand desk drawer and coming up with a bottle of bourbon.

  “I dunno, Kent,” I said. “If I start drinking at ten o’clock now, I won’t have anything to look forward to when I’m your age.”

  Kent, the Watauga County coroner, was in his late fifties, but looked ten years older, partly due to genetics, partly due to a little too much to drink. His office was located in Boone. We didn’t have a coroner in St. Germaine. We didn’t have a hospital. We didn’t even have a full-time doctor.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he groused, pushing a glass across the desk in my direction. “If you want some ice, there’s some in that box over there.” He waved a finger toward a white plastic chest in the corner.

&nbs
p; “Kent,” I said, not unkindly, “isn’t that what they use to transport organs for transplant?”

  “Yeah,” said Kent. “But the dry ice is great in a drink. Just use the tongs. You don’t want to get that stuff on your hands.”

  “I’ll just have mine straight,” I said. “Now, how about that body we sent down yesterday?”

  Kent looked across the desk at me and stroked his chin. “You know there’s a national park in Canada where the Indians used to run buffalo over a cliff?”

  I shrugged and gave him a puzzled look.

  “It’s called ‘Head-Bashed-In-Buffalo-Jump.’ I visited there last summer. You know what they say when you call for information?”

  I shrugged again, this time smiling.

  “Head-Bashed-In. May I help you?”

  That brought a laugh.

  “So, you’re saying…”

  “Head bashed in.”

  I chuckled. “Anything in the wound?”

  “Not much. He had a lot of hair, though. I’ll say that for him.”

  “He was a real estate salesman. Used cars, too.”

  “Ah,” said Kent, with a knowing look. “That explains it. Anyway, some dirt, other debris. Did you find the weapon?”

  “A big rock. It’s down at the lab.”

  “Sounds about right. I can match it exactly if you need me to. There’s a pretty nice impression on the victim’s skull.”

  I finished my drink, stood up, and reached across the desk to shake Kent’s hand. “I’ll let you know,” I said. “Probably won’t need to if the blood and the tissue match, but I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  “Always glad to help,” said Kent.

  •••

  “We have two problems,” said Bev Greene.

  “We have more than that!” said Kimberly Walnut.

  “Number one,” said Bev, ignoring her. “Now that the building is finished, we’ve got to find a full-time rector. Father Tony will only stay until the end of the summer. The last Sunday in August, he says goodbye for good. That gives us less than three months.”