The Last Suppers gbcm-4

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Oddly, this is Frances Markasian of the Mountain Journal – “

  “Don’t.” I could just imagine stringy-haired Frances Markasian perched aggressively at her desk, smoking a cigarette with a great length of ash and swigging Diet Pepsi spiked with Vivarin. The woman never slept.

  “Goldy, please, I’m sorry about this – “

  “The heck you are.” I cursed myself for not taking Helen Keene’s advice. I should have disconnected as soon as I heard Frances’s voice.

  “We know about Olson and we know about Schulz,” Frances continued as if I had not spoken. “We know Mitchell Hartley’s a suspect. But I saw some big heart thing hanging on your porch when I drove by this morning, and I took a picture – “

  In spite of my upbringing, I hung up. The doorbell rang; it was Boyd. His black crewcut glistened in the morning sun; a battered leather flight jacket did not quite cover his pear-shaped belly. He was chewing vigorously on his match, and he didn’t look happy.

  “We don’t have him,” he said abruptly when I opened the door, without waiting for me to ask. The uniform shirt he wore underneath the flight jacket was so wrinkled I was certain he’d been up all night. “But you and I need to talk.”

  “I was just about to go to church – “

  “I’m coming with you. Think I look okay?”

  “You look fine. But go to church with me? You’ve got to be joking. Why?” I looked at him sympathetically. “You look exhausted.”

  “I’m okay. And I don’t joke.”

  Boyd wanted to take my van so we could talk on the way. I asked him to hold the rolls in his lap. He obliged and we took off.

  “Go the long way,” he ordered, “whatever that is. I need to know a few things before we get there. What do you know about Olson being the protégé of a priest named Canon George Montgomery?”

  I obligingly swung the van right instead of left on Main Street. Our trip to church would take ten minutes instead of five. “Montgomery is the canon theologian and one of the staunchest conservatives in the diocese. He’s not the kind of fellow who would fall on his sword over the old hymns. I mean, this fellow’s dream is to go to sleep wrapped in the Shroud of Turin. He used to be the rector of a big church in Pine Creek, but now he’s semiretired. Montgomery’s on the Board – “

  “Yeah,” said Boyd, “Theological Examiners, we know. Served with Olson at the cathedral some years back, when Montgomery was dean. They were real thick until they had a big spiritual disagreement, sort of like the ones you’re telling me about in your parish. They get along on the committee?”

  I remembered Montgomery complaining bitterly in one of our meetings about a candidate’s explanation of prayer. “Well, the only disagreement I can recall was when Montgomery insisted that prayer was about relationship and not about making coconuts grow. He really worked himself up into a dither. The next meeting, Olson brought in a giant coconut. Montgomery didn’t think it was funny That’s the only conflict I can remember they had.”

  “Late last night,” Boyd drawled, “Mitchell Hartley told us Canon Montgomery and Father Olson had another argument. This one was last week in some other meeting. About whether miracles were happening at your church. Sounds as if there was a lot of yelling. Harley said they could hear it through the doors of the meeting room at the diocesan center.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” I said. I didn’t add, But nothing would surprise me, arguments are the church’s way of life. I’d made that pretty clear to Boyd yesterday. “Are you thinking their animosity was really bad? Bad enough to kill for? Because if you are, Father Doug Ramsey mentioned Montgomery was at St. Luke’s yesterday waiting for our wedding to start.”

  “Ramsey. The guy with the windy explanation for everything. He said Montgomery was at the church?”

  I nodded and swerved around a corner. Maybe I was driving too fast. I eased my foot off the pedal. “I invited all the parishioners, as well as the board. Twenty minutes before our wedding was supposed to begin, Ramsey said, ‘The whole committee’s here.’ Nobody in the church could have gotten out to Olson’s and back in that amount of time.”

  “Well, that’s really not what we’re thinking about. This guy Hartley says – “

  “Hartley was at the diocesan center when he heard this argument between Father Olson and Montgomery? Doing what?”

  “He says he works in the office of Congregational Services there, and he hear things. Was there resentment or anger over this miracles thing? From anybody in the church? Maybe somebody wanted to get healed and didn’t?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, I haven’t heard anything about that. But my friend Marla might. She’s a lot more involved with the various groups than I am. And by the way, a reporter called me this morning and said Hartley was a suspect. Is that true?”

  “Everybody’s a suspect at this point, Goldy. That’s just our policy until we know differently.”

  Boyd shifted the rolls around in his lap and seemed to be formulating a new question. Poor Boyd, I thought. This wasn’t the greatest way to introduce somebody to church life. I slowed down behind an exhaust-spewing truck.

  “All right. You’ve told me about some of the people. What you didn’t tell me was why the Old Guard hated Olson. I mean, besides the fact that they had different tastes in music.”

  I pulled the van onto a muddy shoulder one block away from the church. I cut the engine and looked over at Boyd. “It’s what he represents. Represented. A lot of things have changed in our church over the last two decades. The Old Guard hates the liturgical innovations of the last twenty years, especially the passing of the peace, a point in the service when people embrace each other.”

  Boyd chuckled. “People in their sixties and seventies not liking body contact with strangers? Not surprising. Now give me the two-minute drill on what they hate about the music.”

  “Zelda and the traditionalists dislike the new hymnal. Intensely.” I explained to Boyd that when the Episcopal hymnal had been revised in 1982, we’d lost “The Son of God Goes Forth to War” because it was deemed too militaristic, “Once to Every Man and Nation” because it supposedly undermined traditional theology, and “We Thank You, Lord of Heaven” because one of the things the hymn was thankful for was “dogs with smiling faces.” This last never did bother me. Why not also be thankful for “cats with inscrutable faces”?

  Body glanced at his watch. “Get to the point, Goldy. The service starts in fifteen minutes.”

  “Well, what the older crowd is most allergic to is the folk music booklets that Father Olson had tucked in every pew. The Old Guard wanted no part of the new songs. The way they settled the issue at St. Luke’s was to have the earlier service traditional, the later service the one for the charismatics. To the traditionalists, the guitar-and-tambourine tunes are a flood of disrespectful noise that sounds an awful lot like ‘Jesus, the Magic Dragon.’ “

  “Huh,” muttered Boy. “I can see we’re getting into some important issues here.” He fingered something in his breast pocket that looked suspiciously like a pack of cigarettes. Then he cast a longing look at the plump cinnamon rolls in his lap. Wordlessly, I reached into my supply bag for a knife, paper plate, and napkin.

  “Please have one,” I urged as I sliced through the thickened brown sugar syrup that clung to the rolls’ sides. I lifted out a dark, dripping spiral, maneuvered it onto the plate, and handed it to him. He groaned with delight.

  “Go on about the music.”

  “Okay. Even though the first service the Old Guard attends has traditional music, and the second service has the renewal music, they didn’t want it at St. Luke’s at all,” I explained as I pulled the van back on the road. “To them it was like creeping communism, remember that? Anyway. The Old Guard had finally gotten a petition going. They called it Halt the Hootenanny and they had a bunch of signatures. Lucille Boatwright had just begun her rotation onto the chairmanship of the Altar Guild, and she was going to present the petition to Olson. They thought that might force him to drop the new music. That was the last I heard.” I pulled into the church parking lot.

  Boyd
chewed thoughtfully. Finally he said, “I still need to talk to you about the Prestons.”

  “If you want to be at the service from the beginning, we need to go in now. Or if you want to talk – ?” Boyd shook his head, folded the empty paper plate, and started to open his door. I took his plate to put in my van trash bag and said, “Wait. Don’t come in with me. Don’t sit with me or act like you know me. Please.”

  “You care to tell me why not?”

  I took the rolls from him and carefully rearranged the plastic over them. “Two reasons. If people see you and your Sheriff’s Department uniform, they won’t tell me a thing. On the other hand, they might tell you something they wouldn’t share with me.”

  “Yeah? What’s reason number two?”

  “People will talk,” I said simply. I gave him a steady look. “They’ll say Tom Schulz left me because I was having an affair with you. And I don’t even know your first name.”

  “It’s Horace. And now you know why I prefer Boyd. And there’s not even a shred of truth – “

  “So what? Horace. Boyd. Please. I’ll go in first, you lock my van and follow.”

  He grunted. “I thought this was gonna be a place where people would be happy to see me.”

  “Welcome to the church, Horace.”

  When I came through the heavy wooden door into the narthex, I immediately realized it was Palm Sunday, a liturgical fact that had slipped my mind with all the disasters of the past twenty-four hours. My wedding flowers had disappeared. They had been replaced with the elaborate fans and sprays of the palms that symbolized Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and in the church, the beginning of Holy Week. We were only seven days away from Easter, the most sacred festival of the church year, despite all the hype about gunnies and baskets. Whether Boyd knew all this or even cared I did not know.

  In any event, Palm Sunday always brought out more folks than was customary during Lent. The activity in the church kitchen was at a fever pitch. I intended merely to leave my pan of cinnamon rolls for someone to dole out after the service along with the other baked goods. However, when I appeared by the oven, all activity ceased. Six women, including a remarkably stalwart Lucille Boatwright, eyed me with a combination of surprise, pity, and unnervingly intense silence.

  “For after the service,” I said lamely. I put down the pans.

  A chorus of “We’re so sorry” and “Isn’t this just so awful” and “My poor dear, you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble” sent me reeling back into the narthex. There I was greeted by a frantic Father Ramsey.

  “Doug,” I interrupted matter-of-factly before he could rattle on, “we need to talk. It’s about Father Olson. And the bishop.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Boyd, looking extremely uncomfortable, leafing through the pamphlets at the back of the narthex.

  Doug Ramsey raised startled dark eyes. “Oh, Goldy, how are you? I’ve been so worried, but with everything going on, a funeral to plan, the meetings … honestly! Are you managing all right? Did the food arrive?” His black clerical suit was wrinkled and covered with dandruff, as if he too had slept in his clothes. I wondered why he wasn’t wearing his vestments. His eyes darted past me to see who was coming through the parish door. “Sorry, I can’t talk now,” he said. “We’ve had the most extraordinary mix-up. Have you decided to do the food for the board meeting?” When I did not immediately respond, he again assumed a sympathetic expression and made his voice low an serious. “Have you heard anything about the … .you … ?” I shook my head. Doug Ramsey strained his neck inside his white clerical collar and shook his head of floppy dark curls. “Well, ah, I must go tend to some last-minute problems. The money the churchwomen are raising selling raffle tickets for pearl chokers? I thought they had their spending plans all set. Now it turns out that a third of them want to give it to African famine relief, a third want to use it for the columbarium stones, and another third want to invest in more pearls for next year. They want me to arbitrate, which means two-thirds of them are going to hate me … .Then Zelda came back in this morning wanting her old job back, and Canon Montgomery was trying to be pastoral, so he said yes – “

  “Montgomery? Here already? I thought you were going to fill in for a while, at least.”

  “Yes, well so did I.” Ramsey cleared his throat noisily and rant the fingers of one hand through his hair, disarranging his curls. “Anyway, ah, then Zelda said she always picked the Palm Sunday hymns, and Montgomery had already chosen the music, and then the new organist showed up! And all this plus what happened to Olson … Oh, dear. So the new organist stomped out of the sacristy, and one of the churchwomen though he was the fellow coming to give an estimate on the columbarium stones, and that he’d been driven away by the investin-pearls faction. Then, if you can imagine – “

  I couldn’t. And I thought catering was bad.

  “ – just as I am straightening out the organist fiasco, Mitchell Hartley shows up and starts asking about the oral exams for the candidates for ordination! The exams don’t even begin until Tuesday! Now Canon Montgomery needs me to find a King James version of the Bible while he deals with the, er, music. Not to mention that of course, some time in the next five, I have to vest.”

  “Doug, please. I need to talk to you about my fiancé. It would help me if I could ask you a few questions.”

  “Well, can’t it wait until the coffee hour? Please?” He torqued around and went flying after the new organist, who had banged open the rear door of the church to make a dramatic exit. I turned in desperation to look for Boyd and saw the short, fully robed body and ruddy face of George Montgomery as he entered the narthex. Lucille Boatwright marched up behind him and snagged him by the robe. Canon Montgomery tripped and barely prevented himself from falling over.

  “Father Montgomery, I must talk to you about the drainage from our columbarium project after the service!” Lucille rasped. Montgomery, recovering, did not immediately reply. He got Lucille’ acid test: “Canon Montgomery, did you know Father Tyler Pinckney?” When Montgomery was mumbling that he had not known Father Pinckney very well, I sidled up and gave him a welcoming smile. Lucille briskly turned on her spectator pump hells and stalked away.

  “Thank you, oh, thank you from the bottom of my heart,” said Montgomery. His voice caught, as if he had been crying. His mottled face had aged much in the two years since my Sunday School course. His hair seemed whiter and thinner than I remembered, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “Are you all right?” I asked impulsively.

  He tilted his head and raised his bushy white eyebrows. “I’ve had a hard time. Olson was my right-hand man at the cathedral. He was very dear to me. I talk to grieving people all the time, but here I am – “ His voice faltered.

  “Yes. I … I’m sorry.” I did not know what to say. You did not hug the canon theologian, even if you were on the same committee. Montgomery’s duty was to articulate the theology of, for, and by the diocese, which in our case was all the Episcopal churched in Colorado. It was not his duty to be affectionate. Embarrassed to be staring at his sagging face, I looked at his robes. Montgomery was wearing an elaborately needlepointed red stole.

  “That’s Father Olson’s … you’re wearing his … “

  “I know.” Montgomery’s haggard features crumpled. He lifted the thick, perfectly stitched edges of the stole. “I was called in somewhat late, and all my stoles are packed away. Actually, I’m still in shock – “ He gave me the benefit of his close-set, kindly brown eyes, his warm, tentative smile that slanted sideways. He patted his white hair, parted exactly in the middle. “Father Ramsey told me you, too, have been suffering.”

  The formal address of Ramsey did not surprise me. “Yes, well, as Doug … Father Ramsey knows, the police are scouring the county. They’re keeping me informed.”

  Montgomery nodded and reached out to brush my arm with his fingers, then drew back hastily as Doug Ramsey himself approached with a freckle-faced, red-haired young man taking long, aggressive steps beside him.

  “Do you know Mitchell Hartley?” Montgomery said to me under his breath.

&nbs
p; “Not very well,” I replied, equally conspiratorial.

  “The reality is much worse than anything you could have heard,” Montgomery told me in a pleasant tone. He turned to Hartley and added stiffly, “I didn’t know you were a parishioner.”

  “I’m not surprised you forgot,” growled Mitchell Hartley, who was probably in his late twenties and had a head of thick orange-red hair that he combed up in an exaggerated pompadour. Holy Elvis. He had eyes the vivid color of blueberries and a wide jaw that jutted out defiantly. Doug Ramsey mumbled something about vesting and scuttled away. Hartley and his red tidal wave of hair leaned in toward me. He assumed a condescending, pastoral tone. “I am sorry to hear your sad news, Goldy. I am praying for you.”

  “Ah,” I said, embarrassed. “Thank you.”

  Canon Montgomery pulled in his chine and leaned away from Mitchell Hartley, as if he had suddenly come upon some especially noxious form of poison plant. Mitchell Hartley quirked one orange-red eyebrow at me.

  “I know you know,” I said uncomfortably. “But I don’t believe we’ve met. You see, I usually go to this service rather than … “

  “Yes,” he said impatiently. “I know that.”

  “Well,” I faltered, “how nice. I guess I’ll be off then – “

  “You’re the woman, the caterer,” Mitchell Hartley said with a bitter smile, “that Theodore Olson appointed to the board. And you’ve just had this tragic loss … “

  “Ah, well, yes.”

  Canon Montgomery cleared his throat and puffed out his chest. “Miss Bear is a very highly respected member of this parish. She represents, shall we say, the Woman in the Pew. I trained her in one of my Sunday School seminars. But she probably won’t be attending our meetings next week, as she’s in the middle of another crisis.”