The Last Suppers (7 page)

In the shower the spray went to scalding as I rocked back and forth, back and forth. Eventually I wrapped myself in a thick terrycloth towel and sat on the bed, dizzy and exhausted. I rose and pulled on a sweatsuit. Again I caught a glimpse of my wan reflection. What to say to Arch? To Julian? I didn’t even know what I was going to say to myself.

In the kitchen the counters were empty except for a tray of marzipan-covered petit fours and chocolate truffles that had been meant to be take-home presents for our wedding guests. I asked Arch if anybody had called. He said no and went back to methodically pulling off the wrapping and then eating truffles, one small bite at a time. I hugged myself and began to rock again. Arch stopped in midbite, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

“What’s going on, Mom?”

“Oh, Arch … I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“Father Olson. I heard.”

“No. This is about Tom.” Arch was one of the people who had to know. I braced myself, then flatly recounted the bare outlines of the story: Tom finding the mortally injured priest and then apparently being hurt and forcefully taken.

As I spoke, my son’s freckled face went numb with shock. When I’d finished, he sat motionless for a long time, then, carefully, he put the half-eaten truffle back on the paper napkin embossed with
Tom and Goldy, April 11.
He pushed his glasses up his nose and clasped his hands under his armpits.

“Tom Schulz was kidnapped?”

“They think so.”

“They’re going to find him, aren’t they?”

There was no point in equivocating. I
hope so,
or
The police are working on it
would only lead to a tangle of unanswerable questions and a flood of worries. There was no reason to voice the unwanted fears that chilled my spirit the way winter winds howl down the mountains. I saw myself picking out a plain coffin for Tom Schulz. In a few short years, Arch would go off to college. I would live out my days alone.

“Yes,” I told my son firmly, with more conviction than I felt. “They will find him.”

Arch started to sweep the kitchen floor, an order-restoring chore he often undertook when his outer life was in chaos. My stomach said I should eat, but one glance inside the walk-in refrigerator at the platters of beautifully decorated reception food made me turn away. Would whoever abducted Tom feed him? I paced around the kitchen, felt the gnawing in my stomach develop into spasms, willed the pains away. Arch finished the floor, took out his drawing materials, and sat at the kitchen table. He knew I would want him within sight.

My business line rang. The sudden noise made me cry out as if I’d been struck. I dived for it.

“What?” I shouted. If it was a client, I thought belatedly, I could kiss this booking good-bye.

“Goldy?” came the tentative, frightened voice of Zelda Preston. “Are you all right? I mean, I know you aren’t all right … you can’t be after what’s happened …”

Zelda Preston, mother-in-law to scarecrow Agatha in the church kitchen, was a current Altar Guild member and, until very recently, the organist at St. Luke’s. Zelda and Lucille Boatwright had both been widowed about a decade ago. The two women were almost constantly in each other’s company now, except when Zelda met with the master swimmers and did her weekly three miles’ worth of laps. With her attenuated face that always reminded me of a camel’s, her wiry muscles, and her long braid of gray hair wound on top of her head, Zelda Preston seemed the tall, rod-thin counterpart to Lucille’s stodgy, solid self.

I said, “Are you calling about Lucille?”

“Oh, my dear Goldy. No. I’m calling about you. I want to do something for you, poor dear….” Her voice faltered.

Zelda carried a painful past, but we’d never had any sisterly soul-baring talks. An older female Episcopalian would rather die impoverished than discuss psychic wounds, a conversation she would put in the same category as comparing bra sizes. Nevertheless, Zelda’s attempt to offer sympathy touched me, and awakened guilt. I hadn’t called
her
this past month, when the many disagreements she and Father Olson had had about ecclesiastical music had ended up with his firing her. Still, what would I have said?
You want to have lunch and talk about how getting fired is like getting divorced?
I didn’t think so.

“Zelda. You are thoughtful to call. I don’t need anything, thanks.” I cleared my throat, keenly aware that I needed to keep both phone lines clear in case the police needed to reach me. I didn’t know which number they had. Since I had no call-waiting, I couldn’t risk giving the police a busy signal. But explaining all this, plus Tom’s disappearance,
were more than I could handle at the moment. “I need to go.”

“Oh, all right. But Goldy,” she went on meekly, “I am so terribly sorry to bother you about this, but I’m just trying to see what you want done with your wedding flowers. Lucille isn’t available, as you probably know, so I need to step in for her to help plan the Holy Week services and the funeral for Father Olson.” She paused. “Have you heard anything? I mean, about what happened to him?”

“Not yet.”

“Well … If you wish, we could try to use these flowers for Father Olson … I know it sounds petty, but someone must start to make the decisions, and Doug Ramsey is
impossible….
If you donated the flowers, it would certainly save the parish money, goodness knows. However, I do not know what our
new
priest will want. Not our new priest,” she corrected herself, “whoever those people down at the
diocese
send to us.” Zelda’s voice dropped on the word
diocese
in a way that left no doubt as to her opinion of that ecclesiastical body.

“Tell you what,” I said placatingly, desperate to clear the phone line. “Why don’t you donate them to the Catholic church? Their parish is bigger; they’re sure to have a wedding coming up soon.”

“The Catholics! Having a wedding during Holy Week? For heaven’s sake, the least you could do is donate them to someone from our parish who is ill. Honestly, Goldy. The
Catholics.”

“Fine, Zelda. Really. Who’s in the hospital at the moment? Whatever will make you happy.” This whole conversation was absurd. But however much we might disagree or be upset, Episcopalians did not hang up on each other.

She trilled, “Roger Bampton is home from the hospital, although …” She broke off and announced, “Victor Mancuso has shingles, but I don’t know which hospital he’s in, and of course it would be difficult to track down the church secretary, since she took her Easter vacation early.” She paused again. “And it’s
you
I want to have happy, my dear.”

“Victor Mancuso?” I said, incredulous. VM. I demanded, “Who’s Victor Mancuso?”

“No one really, he’s the secretary’s uncle. She just put him on the prayer list before she left. Nobody else knows anything about him, I already asked.”

On the prayer list, on the prayer list.
P.R.A.Y.
I struggled to think: The prayer list contained names of all those for whom the parish offered intercessory requests. Or, as Arch maintained, it was the list of people and things we wanted God to fix. The charismatic segment of the congregation, those parishioners who put ultra-enthusiastic emphasis on spiritual gifts and a personal relationship with Jesus, offered intercessions on a much more regular and serious basis than most of the rest of us. There was also a small noncharismatic women’s prayer group that met weekly. Zelda, I remembered, was a member of this group. Maybe she could help decipher the acronymns in Tom’s note.

I asked sharply, “Is there an ecumenical or parish organization with the initials P.R.A.Y.? Maybe something like, Protestant-Roman Catholic Association of Youth?”

Zelda drew in her breath, confused. “Goldy? What in the
world
are you talking about? Are they the ones you want to donate the flowers to? Because I can’t be calling all around—”

“Zelda, is there such an organization? P.R.A.Y.? I’m sure I’ve heard of it somewhere.”

“Well, I’m sure I haven’t, and I’ve been in this parish for twenty years, ever since Father Pinckney—”

“Okay, thanks, Zelda. Please. Use the flowers in any way you wish. I’m sorry, I
have
to go.” We both stuttered good-byes and gently hung up.

Arch glanced at me, frowned, and left the room to look for some colored pencils. I stared at my catering calendar. The days were blank. Of course, I had cleared it in anticipation of our three-day honeymoon. Now there was not even work I could do to take my mind off this spiral of events.

Worry for Tom exploded in my chest. Should I have asked Helen Keene to stay with me? When would Julian be
back from the airport? What could Tom’s cryptic notes mean? I lay down on my kitchen floor, pulled my knees to my chest, and felt tears slide down my cheeks unchecked. I’m
losing it

The doorbell rang; again, my heart jumped. Leaping to my feet, I raced down the hall, then stared disbelievingly through the peekhole. Marla. She made a face at me and held up plastic bags of food. Just what we needed: more to eat. Arch, who had trotted down the hall behind me at the sound of the bell, moaned in disappointment and muttered that he was going to watch television.

“What are you doing here alone?” Marla demanded as soon as she had heaved herself and her bags into the kitchen. “I swear.” Still wearing her dark matron of honor suit, she took in my sweatsuit and my face, then shook her head. “Somehow I knew you wouldn’t want me to take you out to dinner tonight.”

“I’m not alone; Arch is here.” To my horror, it all spilled out. “Marla—Father Olson’s killer took Tom. I had to go out to Olson’s place, and it was awful …”

She pulled me in for a long hug. “I know,” she murmured in my ear. “I was down at the church looking for you. Father Doug told me. Do you need to cry?”

I thought about the weeping I’d already done, solitary and helpless on the floor. “Thanks, but no. Not at the moment, anyway.”

“Need to talk?”

I pulled away from her, picked up a bag, and set it on the counter. “How did Doug Ramsey know Tom was missing?”

“From the cops.” Marla heaved the other bag onto one of the kitchen counters. “Some of them are still at the church. They wanted to see if Schulz’s phone call to the church office might have been taped.”

“Oh, Lord.” I stumbled morosely into a kitchen chair.

Marla eased down beside me. She put a hand over mine. I stared unhappily at the black front of Tom’s range, unable to rid myself of the vision of him flipping pieces of chicken on the grill. He’d had friends from the Sheriff’s
Department haul the Jenn-Air grill-with-convection-oven over from his cabin and install the ventilation pipe a week ago. He had said he couldn’t live without his oven. With a wink, he’d added, “Sort of like you, Goldy.”

After a few moments, Marla rose and began to unload her stash. Individually wrapped Beef Wellington. Frozen Scampi. We’d often joked that our ex-husband had found two women who loved food more than they loved him. My passion was working in the kitchen, and Marla was the queen of packaged gourmet.

She looked at me. “Where’s your choker?”

“Upstairs. Why? It’s a miracle I didn’t lose it out at Olson’s place, tramping around in the mud.”

“Goldy, don’t say
it’s a miracle
to me.” She flopped back down next to me. “We’ve got a problem. Actually, more than one.”

“What? With the pearls?”

“Before your wedding was supposed to begin, I was out in the narthex with the jewelry raffle committee. I told them both of us were wearing the chokers that were going to be sold, and they ooh’ed and aah’ed.”

Oh boy, I thought, here we go. Some left-wing group had threatened a pearl boycott.

“I’ll get to the pearl problem in a minute.” She sighed. “Apparently,” Marla continued glumly, “some of the goings-on in our parish have started rumors floating around in the diocese.”

I sniffed. “Goings-on in our parish? Rumors? Wait until they hear our priest has been murdered.” I shook my head, seeing the flash of Father Theodore Olson’s warm smile behind his dark beard when he appointed me to the Board of Theological Examiners.

Marla nodded. “Right. ‘Show me a parish in the diocese without some wild stories,’ I say. And so they say, ‘Hoho, word’s out Roger Bampton claims his healing was
miraculous.’
As in feeding-of-the-five-thousand miraculous.”

“Oh, please,” I said, in no mood to discuss disease. “Roger’s sick. I heard he was a little better. Miraculous?
That’s what our ex-husband is going to say when he hears Tom Schulz didn’t show up for the wedding.” I felt a sudden chill, thought about making tea, then dismissed it. Too much effort. “Anyway,” I added, “Roger has leukemia.”

“He’s out of the hospital.” Marla grimaced. “Get this. He’s not just a little better, he had a
normal
blood test. To me, it was a miracle old Scotch-swilling Rog didn’t die of liver disease before they diagnosed him with leukemia. And they’re saying there’ve been other miracles, too.”

“Come on, Marla. I’ve heard some of those stories, the bad knee healed and all that. Who listens? They’re like the stock market. You have a wave of good luck and then a wave of bad. How is this a problem?”

“Goldy, we’ve been busy with other stuff, we haven’t been tuned into all the
latest.
I mean, you’ve been getting ready for the wedding, and I’ve been planning a jewelry raffle and sale with dozens of orders for tickets and chokers. But Agatha Preston enlightened me: Three weeks ago, sick-to-death Roger was suddenly pronounced well. Last week, a Sunday School teacher swore she’d been cured of chronic back pain. An infant born blind got his sight somehow. So I told these folks that I need to lose twenty pounds, where do I sign up?”

I said, “I need Tom Schulz back.”

“Just thought you’d like to know.”

“Father Olson wouldn’t have approved.”

“Listen,” she protested, “Agatha and these women swear Olson was the one whose actions got the rumors started in the first place. It’s Father Pinckney who wouldn’t have approved.” Getting up abruptly, Marla hauled out three bags of Chinese-style vegetables and two frozen Sara Lee cakes. I wondered briefly what had happened to the wedding cake. Marla emerged from my walk-in refrigerator and put her hands on her ample hips. “But remember I said I had more than one problem? Here’s the other: Father Olson kept the rest of the pearls. Out at his place. Twenty chokers, two thousand dollars each. The cops didn’t find them at his house.”