Shepherd by the Sea: A Pastor Clarissa Abbot Mystery

by Glen Ebisch

  “How did you make out?”

  “Shepherd Jonathan is very impressive.”

  “Shepherd Jonathan,” Rudinski said with undisguised contempt. “What kind of a man calls himself that?”

  “I’ll grant you that the title is a bit pompous, but the man isn’t. He seems quite sincere and appears to be doing good work.”

  Rudinski gave her a long look. “It sounds as if you liked him.”

  Clarissa shrugged. “Hard to tell after one brief conversation, but he’s certainly passionate about what he’s doing. He didn’t strike me as being some sort of con man.”

  “He must be making money from the scheme in some way.”

  Clarissa described how the members of the community tithed and contributed their labor to the running of the place.

  “So he could be making a nice bundle out of all this?”

  “After he pays the mortgage, covers the utilities and buys the food, I suppose there could be something left over for him. But there are only twelve members of the community, and it sounded like several of them are only making minimum wage. I’m not sure he’s going to get rich on the Church.”

  “Maybe it’s a sex thing, and he’s got his own little harem,” Rudinski suggested.

  “The only commune member I met was Miranda. I didn’t get the feel of anything kinky going on, but, like I said, I wasn’t there very long and I didn’t get to ask her any pressing questions.”

  “Do you think he’ll get back to you on Rebecca Carlson?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’ll speak with her, but I don’t know whether she wants to see her parents.”

  “I didn’t meet the parents, but according to Lieutenant Baker, they really wanted to see her. Her father in particular is pretty intense.”

  “I’ll follow up with Jonathan if I don’t hear back and see if something can be worked out.”

  “Jonathan? Are the two of you buddies now?”

  “Colleagues is more like it.” Clarissa set her lips firmly. “I’m not going to say anything negative about another spiritual leader until I have some evidence of wrongdoing.”

  “Fair enough. Is there any way you can find out more about this community?”

  “I could attend a worship service there on a Sunday evening, but that’s a few days away. I may know more about Rebecca’s status before that.”

  Rudinski got to his feet. “Would you like to go out to get something to eat tonight?”

  Clarissa shook her head. “It’s been a long day, and I’ve got what’s left of one of Mrs. Morgan’s casseroles in the refrigerator that I should be working on, or else tomorrow she’ll be lecturing me on my eating habits. But I’ll walk you out.”

  Clarissa followed Rudinski out the door to the office, and locked it behind her. He took her by the arm and led her a few steps away from the door, out of sight of the street. He put his arms around her and gave her a firm hug.

  “I’m sorry to get you involved in this Church of Good Grace thing,” he said, after releasing her.

  “And I’m sorry I let Brenda pressure me into being part of the murder investigation.”

  “Maybe they’ll both work out with no problems.”

  Clarissa smiled. “Let’s hope so.”

  She waved to Rudinski as he walked down the sidewalk to the front of the church where his car was parked. Then she followed the path to the side door of the parsonage and let herself into the kitchen. Mrs. Morgan had left for the day, but a note had been prominently placed in the middle of the kitchen table urging Clarissa to finish the casserole because she had a plan for a new meal for the next night.

  Clarissa got a glass of water and sat down at the table reviewing the day in her mind. She’d been honest with Rudinski. She really didn’t know what she thought of Shepherd Jonathan. On the one hand, she was by nature a bit skeptical of eccentric religious practices because so many of them in the past had turned out to be frauds, but she was also aware that many of the world’s religions, including Christianity, had begun as just such odd practices, scorned by the average person on the street. Also, Jonathan seemed to have founded his community on meeting a definite human need.

  But if she was going to be completely honest with herself, Clarissa had to admit that part of her attraction to Jonathan was personal. She’d always been drawn to men who were passionate about what they did. One of the reasons she’d become engaged to Tyler Hamilton while in the seminary was that she’d thought he shared her devotion to a ministerial calling. The recent discovery that his enthusiasm was less than her own had been one the reasons for the finalization of their breakup. She’d forced Tyler into being what she wanted rather than allowing him to be what he actually was, and this hadn’t been fair to either one of them.

  She suspected that some of her feelings toward Jonathan had been apparent to Rudinski, who’d seemed a bit jealous of the other man. Since she hardly knew Jonathan, there was no reason for Roger to be concerned, but she warned herself to be cautious in her dealings with Shepherd Jonathan because of her weakness for men like him. She would have to be careful because she knew little about him, and if he turned out to be some kind of con artist, he would be skilled at concealing his true intentions.

  With a sigh, she got to her feet and headed toward the refrigerator for more of Mrs. Morgan’s casserole.

  Chapter 9

  Clarissa walked into the office of Triple M Realty and told the young receptionist that she was there to see Brenda Fisher. The receptionist made a call and in a few seconds Brenda appeared from a back room. She appeared nervous but happy to see Clarissa.

  “Let’s wait in the conference room,” Brenda said. She turned to the young woman. “I’m expecting two other people. Would you show them to the conference room when they arrive?” The woman nodded.

  “I can handle a deal worth a million dollars without thinking twice about it, but seeing the sisters of a dead woman has me all anxious,” Brenda said, once they were seated on opposite sides of the table in the tastefully decorated room.

  Clarissa smiled. “You’ve made lots of deals in your life, but this is the first time you’ve had to talk to the relatives of a murdered woman. It’s natural to be apprehensive. Just remember you can only tell them what you know, and nothing that happened was your fault.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  The door to the room opened, and the receptionist ushered in two women. Both were in their thirties and wearing masks. One was short and a bit plump but had what appeared to be a very pretty face. The other had a long thin face and a body to match. She gave the appearance of someone who exercised regularly, perhaps to excess. The shorter one was introduced as Cheryl Thorndike and the taller one as Rhonda Rizzo. Brenda introduced herself and said that Clarissa was a friend. The sisters looked at Clarissa with some curiosity, but said nothing.

  “Can I get you tea, coffee or water?” Brenda asked once they were seated.

  They both said they were fine, and took a moment to glance around.

  “This is a very nice conference room,” Cheryl said.

  “Yes, the entire building was constructed about five years ago, and all the spaces are bright and airy,” Brenda answered. She cleared her throat. “First let me tell you how sorry I am about the death of your sister. I only met her briefly, but she gave the impression of being a very nice person. Her death came as a great shock to me.”

  “To us as well,” Rhonda said, with a note of asperity in her voice. “Our sister never told us that she was coming down to Shore Side, so we have no idea what this was all about.”

  “Did Karla say anything to you about why she was here?” asked Cheryl, flashing Brenda a pleasant smile through her mask.

  This was clearly going to be a good sister bad sister act, thought Clarissa.

  “All she told me was that she’d wanted to get away from home for a bit of vacation.”

  “She didn’t say anything about where she planned to go or who she intended to see?” asked Rhonda, m
anaging to sound incredulous.

  Brenda shook her head. “We only spoke for a few minutes. I told her how to get from the condo she was staying in to the pedestrian mall, and explained our policy on the key return. She didn’t ask me any specific questions.”

  “Had your sister ever been to Shore Side before?” Clarissa asked.

  The sisters both turned to stare at her as if she’d just appeared in the room.

  “Not as far as we know,” Cheryl answered. “We’ve all been down to the Jersey shore as kids, but never this far. We just can’t believe she’d come here without telling us. We’re very close. I’m the oldest by one year, then there’s Rhonda, and Karla was a year-and-a half younger than her. So we did a lot of things together when we were growing up.”

  “Was Karla married?” Clarissa asked.

  “She was separated and in the process of getting a divorce,” Rhonda said. “Her husband, George Evanston, was a hound. She dumped him because he was cheating on her. I knew George was no good right from the start. I tried to warn Karla, but she could be obstinate.”

  “Her husband worked for a car dealership, and he got involved with one of the other salespeople,” Cheryl explained. “Someone who worked there and didn’t like him squealed to Karla. She confronted him, and he said he was leaving her for this other woman.”

  “But that didn’t work out,” Rhonda said with evident delight. “His girlfriend didn’t want to live with him. They got into a big fight right in the showroom, and the manager fired him on the spot. So he ended up with no wife, no girlfriend, and no job. Only seems right to me.”

  “You said that you never liked him. Why was that?” Clarissa asked.

  Rhonda smirked. “He was one of those guys who always bragged about how great things were going, but it was almost never true. Karla told me once that he was a lousy salesman, and if it wasn’t for what she earned as an accountant, they’d be out on the street.”

  Cheryl frowned, clearly not happy about having family scandals aired in public.

  “But George did want Karla back,” Cheryl said. “He kept asking her to forgive him.”

  “He’d follow her around and approach her in public, begging her to forgive him,” Rhonda said. “It actually reached the point of being creepy. In fact, I’d call it stalking. But Karla wanted nothing more to do with him no matter how much he groveled. I’m afraid our sister was not very forgiving.”

  “That’s not true,” Cheryl objected.

  “Remember the time you accidentally broke the arm off her doll when she was four? Even though Dad glued it back on and it was like new, she wouldn’t talk to you for a month. And twenty-five years later she’d still bring it up to you whenever she got angry.”

  Cheryl pursed her lips, but didn’t deny it.

  “Are your parents still alive?” Clarissa asked.

  They nodded. “Dad retired a couple of years ago,” Cheryl said, “He and Mom moved down to Florida shortly after. We go down to visit them once a year and talk on the phone now and then. But they pretty much lead their own lives.”

  “Would they know more about what Karla might have been doing down here?”

  Rhonda shook her head. “I asked them when I called to tell them about Karla’s death. They hadn’t heard from her in a couple of months.”

  “She sort of stopped contacting them when she and George split up,” Cheryl said. “I think she was embarrassed. No one else in the immediate family has ever had a failed marriage.”

  Clarissa thought about the fact that when people needed the support of family most, they were often reluctant to seek it out.

  “Was Karla dating anyone?” Clarissa asked.

  The sisters glanced at each other. “A couple of friends tried to fix her up, and she went out to bars occasionally. But she thought that all the guys she met were losers,” Rhonda said.

  “Finally, she decided to take a more scientific approach and use a dating site,” Cheryl added. “She figured she’d be more likely to get a match.”

  “How did that work for her?” asked Brenda, the interest obvious in her voice. Clarissa remembered that Brenda was also single and perhaps was looking for a tip.

  Rhonda shrugged. “Karla was rather picky. She met a couple of guys that way, but I guess the hype didn’t live up to the reality.”

  “But there was one . . . ” Cheryl began.

  “Yeah. I think she started mailing back and forth with this one guy a couple of weeks ago. She seemed pretty excited about it. She felt that they had a connection,” said Rhonda, shaking her head as if amazed by her sister’s naiveté.

  “Do you know his name?” asked Clarissa.

  “She never told me,” Rhonda said. “Karla was pretty secretive about stuff like that.”

  “She didn’t tell me any more than that there was a man of interest,” said Cheryl.

  “Could he have lived in Shore Side? Would she have travelled this far to meet someone?” asked Clarissa.

  “She might,” Rhonda said. “She sure wouldn’t want him to know where she lived until she was certain that he was a keeper. If they did hit if off, you can be sure that she’d insist he make the trip up to see her from then on. Karla didn’t wait on guys; she expected them to wait on her.”

  “What are you going to do while you’re in Shore Side?” asked Clarissa.

  “First of all, we want to talk to the police and make sure they’re doing everything possible to find her killer,” Rhonda said sharply.

  “We also thought that we’d go to some bars and restaurants and show her picture around to see if anyone recognizes her,” Cheryl said.

  “I’m sure the police will do that,” Clarissa said.

  “If we do it ourselves, we’ll be certain it gets done,” said Rhonda.

  Rudinski and Baker are going to have fun talking to these two, Clarissa thought, although she could understand why they might want to check things out for themselves. As someone who occasionally went her own way when investigating a crime, she couldn’t exactly fault them.

  Cheryl checked her watch. “Well, I guess we’d better be on our way to see the police,” she said. The women stood up and everyone nodded cordially. Brenda escorted them to the door, and Clarissa joined her out in the hall.

  “What do you think?” Brenda asked, watching the sisters walk across the parking lot to their car.

  “I think the police are going to have their hands full.”

  Chapter 10

  Clarissa was back at her office putting the final touches on the draft of the newsletter before passing it on to Ashley to proofread when the phone rang. Ashley was out on an errand, so Clarissa answered the phone.

  “Hello, Clarissa, this is Jonathan,” the voice said.

  She paused for a moment, not registering who it might be.

  “Jonathan Porter of The Good Grace Church.”

  ‘Oh, of course, I must be particularly slow this morning.” She’d hardly expected him to make his own phone calls when he had a staff of willing helpers.

  Jonathan chuckled. “Not a problem. We all have mornings like that. I just wanted to let you know that I have spoken with Rebecca Carlson, and she’s willing to meet with you at four o’clock this afternoon if that works for you.”

  Clarissa glanced at her calendar. The page was blissfully empty.

  “That will be fine.”

  “Good. You can meet with her in my office. I’ll be out this afternoon, so it’ll be just the two of you. I assume you’d prefer it that way?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “I think you’ll find Rebecca to be an intelligent, forthcoming young woman. I believe all your questions will be answered.”

  “That would be good.”

  Jonathan paused. “Perhaps we could get together some time to discuss our perspectives on the role of religion in the world today. Possibly in a less formal setting than my office.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Fine. I’ll give you a call.”

&nbs
p; Clarissa hung up the phone wondering whether Shepherd Jonathan had just invited her on a date. She also wondered why she’d been so quick to accept.

  Before she could consider the matter further, Clarissa heard the outside door open. She went into the outer office just as Ashley settled in behind her desk.

  “I was just out getting a few things for the office,” Ashley said nervously.

  “Good,” Clarissa said, wondering why her assistant seemed so defensive. It wasn’t like her to feel she had to account for every minute of her time. “I just got back a few minutes ago from meeting with the murdered woman’s sisters.”

  Ashley’s eyes sharpened. “Were they able to tell you anything useful?”

  Clarissa gave her a summary of the conversation.

  “So maybe Karla was down here to meet some man she had contact with over the internet, and it went wrong,” said Ashley.

  “Or it could be that her ex-husband followed her down here, and they got into a fight that turned deadly.”

  “Wouldn’t her ex have killed her before if he was the homicidal type? Why wait until now?”

  “Jealousy. He sees her going out with another man and goes crazy,” Clarissa said.

  “Good point. He may have harbored hopes of winning her back until he saw her with another man. Then he lost it. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “But unless the police or the sisters are able to find someone who saw Karla out somewhere, it’s going to be hard to decide which scenario is the correct one.”

  “If the police do find anything, maybe your friend Rudinski will clue you in to what’s happening?”

  “Maybe, although the police don’t seem to be too keen on my getting involved in the case.”

  “Even though you’re helping them out with The Church of the Good Grace?”

  “On that front, I’ve got a meeting with Rebecca Carlson set up for later on this afternoon.”

  “That was fast. The good shepherd must really like you.”

  Clarissa blushed and bit her lip.

  “I must have struck a nerve,” Ashley said with a grin.

  Clarissa recounted her recent conversation with Jonathan.