The Last Suppers (17 page)

Zelda stared at me, her miserly mouth drawn into pinched folds. “Oh, poor Goldy, how should I know?” She patted my hand and turned to Lucille. “People think I know
everything
about this parish, and I’m always the last to know
anything.
Come along now, Lucille, we must get you back home to rest.”

Lucille pointed her dimpled chin in my direction. “Do they know what happened to your fiancé?” she demanded brusquely. Recalling her suspicious interrogation of first Arch and then Boyd, I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

I said, “We’re all hoping for good news.”

“I see.” Lucille raised one pencil-thin white eyebrow. “Did they figure out that message he left? We’ve put it on the prayer chain, you know, that the police will be able to decipher it. We’re going to discuss it at prayer group tomorrow.”

I turned venomously toward Marla, who shrank back in mock horror. Her plump, bejeweled fingers sheltered her face. Bob Preston guffawed. “You might as well have put it in the Post.”

Trying to keep anger out of my voice, I asked Lucille
what time the prayer group meeting was scheduled. This was one meeting I needed to attend, if for no other reason than to shut everyone up. But I hoped that I wouldn’t need to, that they would find Tom before then.

“Now, Goldy,” warned Lucille, “you know we take our praying seriously.”

“So do I. And, I was wondering, are we praying for anyone with the initials V.M.? Or does that stand for Virgin Mary or something? I mean, since you know what was in Tom’s note, have you studied it?”

“Virgin Mary? What in the world—”

“Initials, then. Praying for anyone named V.M.?”

Lucille huffed, “Except for Victor Mancuso, I don’t know. Perhaps it would be good if you did come, dear, you could remind us to ask.” She touched a row of silver curls, then seemed to have an inspiration. “Would you like to bring some lunch? Just for about eight people. You’re so good at that! And it’ll help you get your mind off your other troubles. Fish for Lent, of course. Do you have any?”

“Fish?”

“No? Well,” Lucille confided, “how about shrimp?”

I said, “Oh, sure,” in a sarcastic tone that was clearly lost on her before she breezed off with Zelda. Well, I’d certainly been busy. After the service I was going out for brunch with the Prestons; tomorrow, I was making lunch for the entire prayer group. Nothing like food to quell anxiety.

“Now don’t be mad at me,” Marla began defensively. She kept her voice low. Bob Preston had moved off but was nearby, button-holing a fellow Kiwanian. “You never said that note was a secret.”

“All right, all right,” I conceded. “Listen, I know how you can make it up to me.”

“But I didn’t
do
anything.”

“You’ll like this, I promise. It’s your kind of thing. I need to know more about whether Father Olson was having an affair. Please, it’s important.”

When Marla had finished registering astonishment and was muttering that she’d be delighted, I spotted Father
Doug Ramsey out of the corner of my eye. Leaving Marla, I moved unobtrusively in the direction of our late rector’s assistant, the purported ecclesiastical intelligence agent.

“Need to chat, Father D.”

Unfortunately, I startled him; his first tentative sip of hot coffee splashed down the front of his white alb and stole.

“Oh, dear, I’m sorry,” I said.

His delicate, triangular face was more rueful than his voice. “Don’t worry about it,” he said uncertainly. “I can sponge it out.”

I said I was mixing together some muffins between the services, and could we sponge out the stains in the kitchen and chat? There were some things I was wondering about, things the police had said to me about him and the bishop.

Doug Ramsey did not immediately reply. His doleful brown eyes fearfully roamed the room. I followed his glance and saw Mitchell Hartley chatting reconcilably with Canon Montgomery while Bob Preston regaled some newcomers. Agatha gave her mother-in-law Zelda a tentative hug as she departed, then stood uncomfortably next to her husband. She had taken off the dour black coat and wore a light orange outfit the color of a Creamsicle. I knew the Prestons’ orientation was of the charismatic sort, and that coming early for the second service meant Bob would have more of a chance to draft folks into Bob-projects. The narthex was nearly empty, and the service was not due to begin for thirty minutes. Still, Father Insensitive Ramsey seemed oddly nervous. Interesting.

“Where do you want to talk?” he said under his breath.

“In the kitchen,” I whispered back. “No one will suspect. If we go outside, people will wonder what it is we’re being secretive about.”

“Oh, Lord, that’s not what I want,” he said with a gulp. He ran his fingers through his black ringlets.

I smiled at him. “If we go in the kitchen, people will think we’re doing dishes. They’ll avoid us like one of the plagues that struck Egypt.”

Without further ado, I strode purposefully into the
church kitchen, which was empty. Doug Ramsey reluctantly followed. I silently offered a clean, wet sponge to him, and he dabbed at his alb.

Then I got out the eggs, evaporated milk, oil, and premeasured flour I’d brought and said, “First of all, I’m wondering who has access to the set of keys to Hymnal House and the Episcopal camps vehicle.”

He scowled. “That’s what the police want to know about the bishop? For heaven’s sake! They keep that set of keys down at the diocesan office in the winter. For special events, someone from the parish goes to get them. Why on earth do you need—?” He cast another anxious glance around. “Don’t you think I should be doing something out here? So it won’t look suspicious.”

“How are you at lining muffin tins?” I thrust a box of paper cupcake liners at him and gestured at the muffin pans.

“Uh—”

“Okay,” I continued briskly, “why do the police think you’re the bishop’s spy?”

“Ack!” His face turned bright pink. For once he wasn’t able to think of some long set of words to justify and amplify his response. “Well, I—” he began finally as he opened the box and shook out a tower of pastel liners. He stopped and looked at them as if they were cockroaches. “You know I was hired by Father Olson—”

“Cut the crap, Doug. Why did the bishop recommend you for this post?”

He held a pale blue liner between the very ends of his index finger and thumb. After a moment’s hesitation, he dropped it in a cup, inspected it, did the same with a green one, then a pink. At this rate, the tins would be ready by sundown. He said, “How did you know the bishop recommended me?”

Did this pompous dork think people in this parish didn’t talk? Rather than explain, I merely revved the electric mixer through the eggs, oil, milk, and sugar, and waited for an answer.

“You know, Goldy,”—
drop, drop
—“er, some strange
things have, or had, been going on in this congregation, and Father Olson,”—
drop, drop
—“Ted, was never one to be terribly
communicative
with the bishop’s office. I mean, he didn’t even go to
deanery
meetings, and then when diocesan
convention
rolled around—”

He stopped abruptly when Bob Preston vaulted into the kitchen. Preston, seeing we were engaged in domestic activities, beat a hasty retreat.

“Doug, why don’t you go a little faster?” I suggested lightly. “Why did the bishop need you to spy?” I said brusquely when Preston was safely out of earshot. “The service is going to start in twenty minutes! Do you want to tell me, or do you want to tell the police and four newspapers? ‘Priest held for questioning over secret role in parish’ ought to look real good in
The Denver Post,
not to mention
The Rocky Mountain Episcopalian.”
I angrily dumped the flour, baking powder and salt into the batter and began to beat furiously. “Time is a problem here for the man I’m supposed to marry. But, since I don’t have too much to do now that he’s been kidnapped, I’ll certainly have time to phone each of the newspapers personally.”

Doug Ramsey gave me a helpless expression, then began to drop paper cups in the pan again. “Goldy, don’t threaten me. You know I’m under the bishop’s discipline—”

I swirled in the vanilla and almond extracts, which turned the thick batter golden and fragrant, and then the poppy seeds, which gave it an inviting, speckled appearance. “Why does the bishop need a cleric to report back to him from St. Luke’s in Aspen Meadow? What was he afraid of?”

“That people were worshiping Olson, that’s what!”

“What?”
I stopped the beater and gaped at him.

“You heard me.” He shook with frustration. The muffin tins dropped out of his hands onto the counter just as the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone through the windows. Doug’s alb turned brilliant white. His anger shimmered out in all directions.

“Worshiping him how?” I demanded.

Doug glared at me. He said tersely, “Father Theodore Olson belonged to the Society of Chad, as do I, as do Wickham and Montgomery and twenty other clergy in this diocese.” He inhaled mightily. “You probably think the Society of Chad has something to do with African famine relief.”

Lucky for me I’d taken that course from Canon Montgomery. I picked up the bowl and began to ladle batter into the few muffin cups Ramsey had set out. “Seventh-century English bishop, traveled around his diocese on foot. Died of the plague. What about him? And would you preheat that oven to three-twenty-five for me?”

“We are dedicated to preserving the apostolic tradition, just as Chad was,” Father Doug replied huffily, twirling the oven dial. “And this year as our chosen study we have been looking at miraculous healings. As they validate the sacraments, of course.”

“You’re losing me, Doug.” I took up his abandoned task and started to put the paper liners into the rest of the muffin cups.

“Well, it’s one thing to talk about Lourdes and Medugorge,” he said fiercely. “On the other hand, quite a bit closer to home, a Sunday School teacher suddenly says she doesn’t have any more back pain! Well, that could be because we replaced most of those antiquated chairs in the Sunday School rooms. That infant a month ago that was supposedly born blind? There are conflicting reports on whether his reflexes had even been tested when this healing allegation came up!”

“Lourdes and Medugorge,” I prompted him.

“Yes! Well. It’s quite another thing to get some wild report that Olson lays hands on a terminally ill St. Luke’s parishioner at Lutheran Hospital, and one hundred percent deadly mylocytic leukemia just disappears! I mean,
please.”

“But nobody really knows what happened to Roger Bampton, isn’t that true? This doesn’t really sound like the Episcopal church, Doug.” I scraped the last of the batter into a paper liner and set the pans into the oven. I looked at my watch:
9:45.
I’d have to sneak back during the service to take the muffins out when they were done.

“Oh, tell
me
it doesn’t sound like the Episcopal church. As you may or may not know, Goldy, there is no ecclesiastical …
mechanism
within our communion to verify miracles. And no one actually
saw
the parishioner’s blood tests. Oh, those much-touted blood tests! As if I hadn’t heard enough about
them
…. But soon after the Bampton incident,
another
Sunday School teacher claimed she was cured of lupus after Father Olson laid hands on her. Someone else said somebody’s shingles disappeared. The stories spread and our prayer list is suddenly the length of the phone book. The money isn’t just pouring in, it’s flooding in.” Not to mention, I added mentally, the number of terminally ill folks who will want to be Sunday School teachers. “And who’s containing this?” Doug fumed. “Who’s testing it against church doctrine and experience? It’s as if the
Martians
have landed! Come to Aspen Meadow and throw away your crutches for the entire Anglican communion to see! Talk about headlines! We’ve been expecting the
National Enquirer
here any minute! Now if Olson just would have come to
one
deanery meeting—”

“Who’s we? Who would have been threatened by this, besides the bishop? Someone like Mitchell Hartley?”

Doug Ramsey made a raisin face of disgust. “Mitchell Hartley is one of the ringleaders of this sort of thinking! There’s no foundation to it, I’m telling you! It’s all Jesus-is-my-buddy and the Holy-Spirit-is-my-voodoo. These people are
ruining
the church. Of course, we all thought Olson was grounded in the orthodox faith—”

“You keep saying ‘we.’”

“Why, everyone in the hierarchy, of course. We’re talking about the apostolic tradition here, Goldy—”

“Doug! What about sexual misconduct?”

He shrank away from me and colored deeply.
“Excuse
me?”

Several early arrivals for the second service, enticed by the delicious vanilla-mixed-with-almond aroma wafting out of the oven, poked their heads in to see what was cooking. Father Doug Ramsey and I bustled to start washing
bowl and beaters. Disappointed, the curious churchgoers withdrew.

Over the sound of hot water filling the sink, I murmured, “I heard a rumor that Olson was romantically involved with someone. Having an affair. How’s the Episcopal church’s mechanism for dealing with that?”