Liturgical Mysteries 01 The Alto Wore Tweed (9 page)

BOOK: Liturgical Mysteries 01 The Alto Wore Tweed
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Pete hadn’t changed much since college. He had grown his ponytail back after his fling with Uncle Sam, although it was now graying and thinning on top, and he sported an occasional earring. He was partial to flowered Hawaiian shirts, jeans, sandals, and as far as I know, had not worn any underwear since we were roommates in 1975. This, at least, was his modus operandi in college, and I suspect that he remained true to his vision of a “truly free society” even throughout his army career. He used to favor recreational pharmaceuticals, but I’m sure that his indulgence is a thing of the past. I point that out to him often—as a friend
and
as a police officer.

“Pete. I need a Reuben,” I called out as soon as I hit the door.

“Got it covered.”

“Rye bread?” I said.

“Check,” he replied.

I had gone over the litany of ingredients more times than I could remember.


Three inches of corned beef. And not that store-bought prepackaged corned beef that looks and tastes like reconstituted wallpaper either. Real corned beef, sliced to order.”


Check.”


Sauerkraut. Kosher.”


Check.”


Swiss cheese. Imported.”


Check.”


Thousand Island Dressing. Not Russian.”


Check.”

Despite Pete’s best efforts at obtaining the correct ingredients, I finally resorted to making a monthly trip to an Asheville deli, buying the perfect corned brisket, a round of Baby Swiss cheese, and three gallons of homemade sauerkraut and keeping them in his walk-in. Then I could order a Reuben whenever I felt the urge. This was one of those times. It was my comfort food. Meg ordered a vegi-kabob on rice and I got a cheap bottle of Chianti to finish off the sumptuous repast.

“What do you think?” she began, embracing the obvious topic of conversation.

“Well, I’ve been in this business a long time,” I started philosophically.

“Knock it off. What do you think?”

“If she didn’t do it, she’s guilty of something. I don’t know what exactly, but as soon as I find out, you’ll be the first to know. That is, right after the bishop. May I have one of your onions?”

“She did it,” Meg said. “I knew I didn’t like her.”

As we finished our meal, the door of The Slab swung open and the cowbell that hung on the inside of the door heralded the arrival of Malcolm and Rhiza.

“We just thought we’d stop in for a cup of coffee,” squeaked Rhiza in her husky voice. “May we join you?”

“Sure,” I said. “Pull up a chair.”

Malcolm pulled a chair out for Rhiza and they sat down. Malcolm called to the waitress, “Two coffees, please.”

Although Meg had never said anything, I had the feeling that she didn’t really care for Rhiza in the way that most women don’t care for wealthy men’s beautiful and slender second wives. But I could be wrong. She did say to Malcolm, “So, what do you think?”

“I think Loraine is telling the truth,” Malcolm said, as his coffee arrived at the table.

“Really,” I said, more as a statement than a question. I had thought that Malcolm didn’t really care for Mother Ryan. His defense of her was a bit of a surprise.

“I don’t think she could have had anything to do with it,” said Rhiza.

“So you say,” I said, drinking the last of the Chianti. “I’m not inclined to be as charitable.”

We chatted with the Walkers for about ten minutes, then excused ourselves. I drove Meg back to the church to pick up her car.

“Well, that was odd,” I said as soon as the car pulled away from the curb.

“It’s almost as though they came to find us to tell us Herself was innocent. How strange is that?”

“I don’t know what to make of it. That’s for sure,” I said, shaking my head and pulling into the church parking lot. “Can you come on over?”

“I think so. Let me see what Mother’s doing and then I’ll be out. If I can’t make it, I’ll call you.

“Thanks,” I said, giving her a kiss.

I sat watching her until she was in her car and pulling out of the lot. Then I pointed my truck for home.

Chapter 6

Standing there, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese dripping down my chin and a shotgun pointed at my midsection by a demented alto, my mind raced to find a reason for my immediate predicament. Perhaps it had started with Isabel. Yes, that was it. It all became very clear.

I had met her last year when she came by my office. I heard a knock at the door, looked up and quickly tried to pick my eyeballs back up off the desk. Her lips quivered as she stood in the doorway, her red hair drifting gently to her shoulders. “I want to join the choir,” she said in a voice so low it belonged in a Popeye cartoon, a cartoon starring Brutus, to whom she bore no resemblance other than her voice. “I

m a soprano.”

I wasn

t taken in so easily. I

d been around the block a few times. I

ve heard sopranos before and this wasn

t one. I reached slowly into my top drawer for my bachelor

s degree. Others? Yes I had others, but I wasn

t ready to pull out the heavy artillery yet and there was no use showing all my virtues this early in the game.


I know what you have in that drawer,” she said nonchalantly as she postured her way into a soprano-esque pose. Her legs were long. So long they seemed to go clear up to her ears. I wondered where she bought her dresses. Legs-R-Us?

Yes, she had the moves all right, but the voice was all wrong. I slid the drawer closed, catching my fingers at the first knuckle, and muttered a curse from the Second Book of Esdras.

I looked up to see if she was shocked. She hadn

t moved. Either she hadn

t heard me or she was very familiar with Apocryphal anathemas. And I had a feeling her hearing was very good. I lit my cigar and pulled my hat down low over my eyes.

I threw her a hymnal and she caught it on the first bounce.


What

s your favorite hymn?” I asked her through cigar-nched teeth, puffs of smoke accentuating each syllable like the exhaust of a finely tuned automobile.

She threw the hymnal back to me without opening it.


Es flog ein kleins Waldvögelein,” she said, a dry smile playing on her lips.

Ah, the Woodbird. I knew the hymn. It was one of my favorites. A subtle tune, majestic in nature yet somehow humble, with just a hint of familiarity. I also knew it wasn

t in this hymnal. She was toying with me, that much was obvious.


What about

How Great Thou Art?

” I asked slowly, trying to draw her into a trap of her own design.


A Danish drinking song.”

My eyes narrowed to the size of two small oysters. “O Sacred Head?”


Bach chorales are not hymns. They don

t belong in a hymnal.”

Suddenly I knew who she was. It was obvious. Why hadn

t I recognized her? She had graced the front cover of the
Journal of Anglican Musicians
Swimsuit Edition for four years running, although, to her credit, the pictorial essay didn

t do her justice.


Hello, Isabel.”


Hello, handsome. I was wondering when you

d recognize me.”

Isabel Gerhardt. Great-great granddaughter of Paul Gerhardt, the German hymnodist, and wanted by the police in connection with the recent spectacular murder of the chairman of the Bishop

s Commission on Church Music. She was also the foremost expert on 18th-Century German hymnody alive today. Her lectures were sold out until the murder. Scalpers got two hundred dollars a ticket.


I didn

t do it,” she sobbed, turning on the tears as easily as some people turn on their radios. “You

ve got to believe me. I need your help.”

They all need my help.

• • •

I got to church early on Sunday and headed to the office. The whole murder was still a puzzle, but I expected the lab report, which would be delivered tomorrow morning, to clear up quite a few things. This was the first murder to take place in St. Germaine since my administration and although I had a Criminal Justice degree and didn’t skip all that many classes, I had been inventing our police procedure on the fly.

I took the first installment of
The Alto Wore Tweed
into the office and made enough copies for the choir. My usual modus operandi was to put a copy of what I termed “interesting reading” into each of the choir folders behind the first anthem.

I began the service with the Karg-Elert
Marche Triomphale
and the rest of the liturgy followed without incident until the sermon. It was at this point that Elaine Hixon, the Junior Warden’s wife and one of the back row altos (a quasi-militant feminist group which we, in the choir, refer to as the BRAs) decided that the choir loft was just a bit warmer than she had thought it would be and began to take her sweater off. I have to presume that she wasn’t wearing a blouse under her sweater because it was her objective to remove her garment while remaining vested in her black robe and white surplice. This is a Houdiniesque maneuver that women ostensibly do fairly regularly, but unfortunately for Elaine, while her arms were inside her robe, her bra somehow got caught on her sweater which was, at that point, already over her head. The ensuing struggle resembled a couple of woodchucks mugging a nun.

What was quite amusing for the choir also became very amusing for the congregation when an unnamed tenor, reading
The Alto Wore Tweed,
let loose a guffaw just as Herself reached the pinnacle of her sermon. Most of the parishioners turned and looked up. It was at this point that Elaine’s head popped through her choir robe. She saw the congregation looking up at her, tipped her chair sideways, and, with her arms totally immobile and no way to keep herself upright, fell onto the floor. Luckily she wasn’t hurt, but the whole episode caused her and the rest of the alto section, to break into hysterical muffled laughter—the kind of laughter that, once started, probably couldn’t be stopped unless I pulled out “Old Betsy” from underneath the organ bench. I admit I thought about it.

“Don’t do it,” said Meg, in a hushed whisper, seeing my eyes shift.

Other than this small flaw in the warp and woof of the tapestry of our devotion, the service finished up with no incidents. I put the final touches on the Bach
Meine Seele erhebt den Herren
fugue and Meg and I made our exit out the front doors, skipping coffee time and thereby avoiding, until tomorrow at least, the inevitable caustic comments from Herself. We were heading out for a quick picnic lunch before Darlene’s funeral, scheduled for three o’clock at the Mountainview Cemetery.

We swung by The Slab, where they had our sandwiches waiting for us. I had taken advantage of the disrupted sermon to call in a quick to-go order on Meg’s cell. Luckily she had The Slab on the auto dial.

“You have to set a better example for the choir,” Meg said, as we stood at the counter and picked out a bottle of chilled chardonnay and some pasta to go with the chicken salad. “Calling in a lunch order during the sermon just will not do.”

“Yes, you’re right. I am suitably chastised,” I said, paying for the lunch and ushering Meg out the door.

• • •

We had a nice spot picked out that we hadn’t yet tried on our search for the perfect alfresco locale. Our culinary quest was hardly what you’d call “roughing it.” In her trunk, Meg kept a folding table for two, a couple of chairs, a complete set of flatware and china, various condiments, a crystal vase that we placed on the table filled with whatever wildflowers were handy, cloth napkins, two wine glasses and a portable CD player.

“This is a great sandwich,” said Meg between bites of the hard crusted bread surrounding a delicious chicken and chutney salad and eaten to the strains of a Haydn string quartet. “I’m glad you didn’t shoot the altos.”

BOOK: Liturgical Mysteries 01 The Alto Wore Tweed
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