The Last Suppers (16 page)

I raised my voice over the roar of the motorcycles. “Excuse me. Mitchell, why did you call to me to stop?”

When he smiled, his crooked, wide-gapped teeth reminded me of something Tom had told me while explaining how he sized up suspects.
People who grow up poor have
bad teeth, teeth that are either crooked from lack of orthodonture or worse, missing altogether from lack of proper care.

“I came over to the conference center early to study,” Hartley replied, with more false cheer. “I live next to a kennel, and it is noisy like you would not believe. I’m staying in Hymnal House.” He waved vaguely upward in the direction of the Aspen Meadow Conference Center. “It’s quiet now, before everyone gets there.”

His awkwardness in my presence translated alternately into arrogance or too-familiarity. The effort to be polite made him nervous. It was as if he were waiting for me to say that I liked him, that this time he was going to pass his exams because God was in charge, that everything was going to be okay. But his resentment of my purported power over his career seeped through every pore. I almost blurted out that I’d been appointed to the committee because of my culinary, as opposed to theological, expertise. But there was something else.

The bikers continued to roar past us. “Mitchell, how could you possibly have gotten into Hymnal House? The place was locked yesterday morning when we were trying to get in for the reception and—” The motorcycles drowned me out. I fell silent.

“The place was open,” he cried back defensively. “What reception was that?”

The last of the motorcycles growled past. I had invited Hartley to our wedding, as I had all the parishioners. But since he had responded that he wouldn’t be able to come, I gave a brief overview of the previous day’s postponement of the ceremony after Olson’s murder. And about Tom missing. Ah, but he knew all about that. Hartley informed me that someone had put the news about Schulz on both the parish and the diocesan prayer chain.

He furrowed his brow; the red pompadour shook ominously. In a quickly assumed pastoral tone, he said, “Goldy, have you turned the search for your fiancé over to the Lord?”

I replied evenly, “I’ve turned the search over to the Furman County Sheriff’s Department.” His flinch almost
made me laugh. “Mitchell. Who made the arrangements for you to get into Hymnal House? Was it before or after you heard about Father Olson? It just seems so weird,” I added pensively, with an equally furrowed, equally pastoral brow.

Mitchell Hartley backtracked to give his story of how he’d come to know about Olson’s murder. Last night, his calls to Olson to ask when the exams would start had gone unanswered. Frustrated, Hartley had then phoned Montgomery, the next most senior person on the Board of Theological Examiners. Montgomery had tearfully told him the news he’d heard from the bishop, that Olson had been shot by an intruder. Of course, Hartley informed me, he was dreadfully concerned about Father Olson’s tragic demise, although he was joyful that Olson was now with the Lord. But, Mitchell went on in a worried tone, as a candidate for Holy Orders, he was also frantic about whether the exams would still be held. So, as he’d planned—I could check with the diocesan office, if I wanted—Hartley had come to Hymnal House last night. Like my own experience with catering up there, he’d never given a thought to the building not being open, which it had been because someone had broken a window.

“I put a piece of cardboard over the broken pane and locked the place up when I went to bed,” he said in his own defense. “But I left it unlocked today, since I didn’t have any keys.” He shrugged.

“The police are on the way up,” I said. I didn’t mention the abandoned diocesan vehicle they had found. “Be sure to tell them about your arrangements.” I had every intention of filling Boyd in myself about Mitchell Hartley’s unorthodox residency across the street from the church. I’d also ask that the police check with the diocesan office on his reservation. When Hartley made no move to leave, I added, “Mitchell, I’m feeling really stressed out from all that’s happened, and I need to go home and check on my son and finish some cooking—”

“I’ve been in this diocese for ten years.” He leaned toward me. His voice was suddenly raw with anger.

“Well, I guess the ordination process takes a long time….”

“A long time? A long time?” The blue eyes blazed.
“Some
people get through in three years. That’s what it is in other dioceses. But not Colorado. They seem to take a kind of … pleasure in making people wait. Making
some
people wait, anyway.”

I wanted desperately to put the books with the stolen files in my van, wanted even more desperately to be out of this conversation. I tried to look dour, the grieving bride.

I said, “Guess I need to shove off.” He didn’t get the hint. I added, “I don’t believe in making people wait.”

He lifted his chin and shot me a suspicious look. “You don’t?”

I edged backward toward my van. Mitchell Hartley, unrelenting, followed. I wanted to ask,
Have you turned your waiting over to the Lord?
But I didn’t want to hear the answer. Instead I sped up my retreat. Ever eager to impress, Hartley kept remorseless pace right beside me. “I know waiting is supposed to make you grow stronger,” I said noncommittally, “but that depends on who or what you’re waiting for, doesn’t it? How does that psalm go? ‘I waited patiently upon the Lord, he stooped to me and heard my cry.’ Like that.”

Effortlessly keeping up with me, Hartley glanced down at the books in my hands. He shook his head almost imperceptibly: This woman doesn’t interpret the psalms correctly, and she hasn’t turned the search for her fiancé over to the Lord. In a sadly condescending tone, he said, “Of course, I know the psalm.” We’d reached my van. He leaned against the door so that I couldn’t open it.

I took a deep breath. “I heard last year didn’t go so well for you. At the exams, I mean.”

“Some of the questions were really off base,” he replied impassively. “In fact, I was wondering what kind of questions I could expect from you. If you’re coming, that is.”

Hmm. “How about,” I said thoughtfully, “eschatology?” Maybe Hartley had a unique take on
‘til death do us part.

“What about it?”

“Anything about it.”

“Well, that’s not very helpful.” His eyes had turned icy.

“Mitchell, please. I really must go—”

“Look, Goldy, I’m really sorry about your policeman. I just—I want to tell you something. But don’t say you heard it from me, okay?”

Of course, I was immediately interested. “Don’t say what?”

“Ted Olson had, like, a double life. He … well, I saw him in a restaurant on Colfax, down in Denver near the Diocesan Center. He was with a woman. I knew it was him because of that fancy Mercedes he always drove around. Then I heard he was having an affair, that the bishop was about to discipline him. They’d found some letters or something.”

This was Mitchell Hartley who had avidly told Boyd about a heated argument between Father Olson and Canon Montgomery? What was he trying to do here? I asked, “Who was Olson having an affair with? Did your source know that? What did the woman look like? Not that it’s against the law to have lunch with someone. Even if she is a woman.”

He ignored my flippancy. “She had on a scarf and sunglasses. That’s all I remember. I tried to talk to Ted about it once.”

“And what did he say?”

“He acted like I’d hit him.”

“You weren’t trying to talk about what he was going to ask on the exams, were you? I mean, since he’d flunked you once already.”

Mitchell Hartley’s blue eyes darkened; he scraped one large, scuffed shoe across the gravel and pivoted to walk away. Over his shoulder he said harshly: “I thought Ted Olson was someone I could rely on. But it was revealed to me that he was not.”

I
heaved the stolen books and files into my van. Boyd thought Schulz knew the whereabouts of something, something perhaps belonging to Father Olson, a
something
the killer needed. And now that model candidate for the priesthood, Mitchell Hartley, was making more accusations, this time about illicit affairs, some letters, and what God had spoken in his ear. I sat for a moment in my van and tried to think. What would Tom be asking? What would happen if you had a letter or some letters, say, or needed to know where something was? What good would having that something do? I had a sudden image of Tom being interrogated, and Boyd’s suspicions about something else going on.
That’s why the killer is keeping him alive.

When I went back into the church, Zelda Preston and Lucille Boatwright were engaged in a spirited conversation that ended abruptly with my appearance. Before I could figure out a reason to ask them about the Hymnal House keys, Marla sashayed up to my side. In the parking lot, I hadn’t noticed that her hair had returned to its normal willful tumult, despite the fact that it was held here and there by barrettes covered with tiny flowers fashioned of green and pink silk. Outside of the pew, I now also had a chance to admire her fashionable floral-print chiffon dress, which clung in thin folds around her ample body. Tiny rows of appliquéd pink flowers adorned the neckline and
hem. Marla always dressed according to the season. This was obviously the couture statement for spring.

“Well?” she demanded
sotto voce.
She pressed her fingers into my forearm. Her rings sparkled with pink diamonds and pale emeralds. “What did Boyd say? Have they found him? Did they figure out what that note meant?”

“No news. They did find the car that he was transported in.” I didn’t tell her the car belonged to the diocese. “Listen, Marla,” I said earnestly, “you didn’t tell anybody about that note Schulz left, did you? I don’t think Boyd would approve of anyone else knowing about it.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could speak, Bob Preston strutted over and assessed us. With difficulty, he wriggled his hands into his double-stitched denim pockets and rocked back on his cowboy-boot heels. It was clear that the church was one of Bob’s domains.

“I feel so bad about hanging up on you yesterday, Goldy! So to make it up to you, Agatha and I would like to take the town’s prettiest caterer out to brunch. After the ten o’clock service.”

“Gosh, Bob,” said Marla, “don’t mind me.”

He didn’t. I consulted my watch. Nine fifteen. I was becoming oddly popular. Bob Preston either didn’t know or wasn’t worried about the police coming back to Aspen Meadow to question him. Before I could respond, and just as Marla was saying a warning “Uh-oh,” under her breath, Zelda Preston and Lucille Boatwright approached us.

“How are you, Goldy?” asked Zelda. Her voice was filled with concern. “Poor dear. Did you get the casserole?” Unlike Lucille, Zelda did not dress in understated, expensive outfits. Her faded turquoise knit dress, with its sloping shoulders and hemline from a decade past, screamed
thrift shop.
A single strand of not-exactly-antique glass beads decorated her throat. Her face was a wrinkled mass of worry. “You haven’t mentioned it since you came to church.”

“I’m … hanging in,” I told her, “thanks. And thanks for that lovely orange afghan, too. So thoughtful of you, when the weather’s still so cold—”

Her concern turned to puzzlement. “Afghan? I use electric blankets. Goodness! But at least my lasagne arrived safely.” Her gaze drilled into the guitarists arriving for the second service. “I suppose I should be leaving.”

“Oh,” I begged hastily, “please stay. I really want to talk to you about …” How to say, about whether you had the car and Hymnal House keys? About the guitar music petition you were battling over with our murdered priest? “About … lasagne. And the
Halt the Hootenanny
petition.”

Marla groaned.

Lucille Boatwright narrowed one flinty blue eye at me. Because I was divorced, because I was commonly engaged in food service, and probably just because I existed, Lucille did not like me. She would be suspicious of me if Mother Teresa were giving me a kiss. Now she bristled inside her dark gray double-breasted wool suit with its armory of tiny, ornate gold buttons. I thought she was probably still assessing where Schulz had run off to, abandoning me at the altar. Tahiti. Borneo. But instead she announced, “We had fifty signatures, but Father Olson wasn’t interested. So we took it to the bishop.”

Marla giggled. Incredulous, I choked. “You did what?” These two dutiful women in their sixties had bypassed their rector and taken their petition directly to the bishop? That kind of authority-flaunting behavior would have been unthinkable during old Father Pinckney’s time. “What happened?” I demanded.

“That’s what we don’t know,” Lucille replied defiantly, as if I were painfully dumb. “The bishop’s office says they formally replied to our request to halt guitar music. But of course we never heard from Olson on the matter. You know that man would have misplaced his tax return. He probably never even filed, and now that he’s dead, the IRS will come looking and the church will to have to pay—”

“Ah, Lucille,” interjected Zelda sweetly, “you musn’t get yourself upset talking about the music again—”

Behind us, Bob Preston snorted.

“Well,” I said desperately, “why don’t you stay and we
can talk more about it after the next service?” Then I remembered that I had agreed to join Bob and Agatha for brunch, because I wanted to milk
them
for information. “Zelda, I’d really love to hear you play the organ again—”

“Ha!” cried Zelda. Her nostrils flared. She looked like a poodle refusing to eat what had been set before her. She gestured significantly at the musicians testing their tambourines. “There’s no way I’m playing that blather they call music at the next service. I am a professional.”

Trying with a remarkable lack of success to suppress more laughter, Marla overdiligently smoothed down the pleats of the green-and-pink dress and announced, “I’ll talk to you about lasagne, Goldy. When it comes to pasta, I am a professional. I just don’t do cookies.”

I shot her an exasperated look and lightly touched Zelda’s arm. “Please … wait. Was it someone from the Altar Guild who left the afghan for me?”