Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines (21 page)

Chapter 26

“Everything you say can be used against you in a court of law,” continued Nancy. “You have the right to an attorney.”

“
Wahhhhh
,” wailed Helen, no longer able to contain her anguish.

I interrupted. “Helen,” I said, “why did you do it?”

“I didn’t mean to,” she blubbered. “No one was supposed to find out!”

“How could you think no one would find out?” said Nancy. “Of course, we’re going to find out.”

Helen tried to get hold of herself, failed, and then sobbed, “She told me no one would know.”

“Who told you that?” I said.

“Annette.”

“Annette Passaglio?” I asked.

“She said no one would know it was me that talked to her for the newspaper article. She said I’d be a confidential source! Confidential! I should have known she’d give me up!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Nancy. “We’re not talking about the stupid article. We’re talking about killing those three women.”

“What?” said Helen. “You think I killed them?”

“Yeah, we do,” growled Nancy. “You killed them and put them in the closets.”

“I never did!” exclaimed Helen, the tears gone as fast as they appeared. “I could never kill anyone.” She paused, then shrugged and said, almost to herself, “Well, maybe that Julia Krenshaw.” She looked at me and glared. “Did you know that she took my parking spot twice last week? That’s
my
spot over by the library! I’m a volunteer. I came by the police station and told Dave, but
oh, nooo,
he’s too busy! The police are always
sooo
busy!”

“Helen,” I said. “Back to the point. The story in the newspaper said that Crystal Latimore had a missing earring.”

“She did, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but how did you know that?”

“Everyone knows that,” said Helen. “It’s common knowledge.”

“It is now,” said Nancy, “but it wasn’t then.”

Confusion clouded Helen’s face. “Huh? I don’t understand.”

“When the story came out,” I explained, “there was no way you could have known about the earring. But you did. You knew that Crystal only had only one earring.”

“Oh, my
God!
” said Helen, her eyes growing big as saucers. She lowered her voice to a trembling whisper. “Do you think I really might have killed them? Like one of those dual personality killers, or maybe homicidal somnambulism like in that movie that was just on HBO?”

“Oh, brother,” said Nancy. She looked at me and rolled her eyes skyward.

“How exciting,” said Helen. “Of course, I’ll have to use the sleepwalking defense.” She wrinkled her nose in thought. “I wonder if I can sleepwalk over to Julia Krenshaw’s house. I’ll give her a surprise, I can tell you.”

“Go on home, Helen,” I said, sighing. “We’ll call you if we need you.”

“And don’t leave town,” Nancy added in disgust.

* * *

“Well, that was two hours I’ll never get back,” huffed Meg when she climbed into the truck.

“I take it you did not enjoy the emergency Monday night rehearsal.”

“No one enjoyed the rehearsal. It was like pulling teeth. Pulling them, then putting them back in and pulling them again.”

“Ouch.”

“We bludgeoned the Anglican Chant for forty-five minutes working on ‘shading’ and
still
didn’t finish. I’ll tell you this much. That man is a walking advertisement for gun control.”

“How so?” I asked.

“If anyone in the choir had been packing heat, he’d be stuffed under the organ right now.”

I chuckled and pulled out of my parking space at the police station. I’d brought Meg to choir practice in the truck, then spent my time at the station doing some after-hours work. It had started snowing midmorning and had continued off and on all day. The roads were still fine, but four-wheel drive was a better option once we got off the main thoroughfares. The truck was old, but the heater worked like a champ.

“He gave the solos in the
Mag
and
Nunc
to Ian,” said Meg.

“That might be interesting. Ian’s a good countertenor.”

“It’s
not
interesting. They fawned over each other until I thought I would vomit.” She raised her voice in theatrical exaggeration. “
Ohhh
, Dr. Burch, how do you think this mordent should be executed?
Ohhh,
Monsieur Chevalier
, we should approach the embellishing note from above in the way of Pierre La Fromage in his treatise of 1432.
Ohhh
, Dr. Burch, I kiss your feet. How lucky we are to have your expertise!”

It was a good imitation of both men and I laughed in appreciation. “How about Marjorie? Was she there?”

Meg shook her head sadly.

“I’ll go by and talk to her,” I said. “Does the choir have a plan?”

Meg sighed. “I talked to a few members as we were walking out and told them about him hiring a new choir from scratch using the music fund money. They agreed that we’d stand it as long as we can, just to keep that from happening. Once he’s ensconced, we may never get him out.”

“That does happen,” I agreed. “I’ve seen it more than a few times. How about Georgia? She’s the Senior Warden. Was she there tonight?”

“She wasn’t there. She didn’t sing yesterday either. Maybe she’s under the weather.”

“Maybe she threw up her hands and she and Dwain went on a cruise. It’s about that time of year.”

“Maybe,” said Meg, then changed the subject. “How much is in that music fund? If he does hire a new choir, how long can he keep going?”

“Depends, but it could be a long time. I’ve been putting my salary into the fund since I got rich. We’ve used a lot of it over the years, but I think there’s probably close to two.”

“Two thousand?” said Meg.

“No dear. Two
hundred
thousand.”

“Kripes!” Meg said. “It’s been years since I was Senior Warden and I didn’t worry about the fund because you were in charge, so tell me again. The church musician has complete discretion over the money?”

“Yep. Sweet, huh?”

“The priest can’t get at it? The vestry either?”

“Nope. Sole discretion of the church musician. He does need to be transparent and everything goes through the vestry to keep all the spending above board, but the funds are at his disposal for the musical needs of the church.”

“How about an
interim
church musician?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “An interim needs to hire instrumentalists, buy music, stuff like that.”

“How about a
sabbatical replacement
musician?”

“Same deal. If the Chevalier wants to hire twenty choral singers tomorrow and pay them each a thousand dollars a month, he can do it. At least until the money runs out.”

“Oh, my,” said Meg. “Does he know this?”

“All he has to do read the guidelines set down for the music fund.”

“I’m sure he’s already done that,” said Meg.

“Pretty sure he has.”

“He probably thinks he’s died and gone to church musician heaven.”

“It is a sweetheart deal,” I said. “Of course, since he’s drawing a salary
…
”

“
Your
salary,” said Meg.

“Yes, my salary, there won’t be anything added to the fund. There’s not even a music line item in the budget because we didn’t need one. Anyway, don’t worry about it. I’ll be back in June.”

“I am worried,” said Meg. “What if those two take over?”

“I don’t see it happening,” I said.

“Do
you
have a plan?”

“Um
…
no. Not really. But these things tend to work out.”

Chapter 27

Gliding silently through the gloaming of a nameless Mesozoic sea, the giant mosasaur was blissfully unaware of the trilobites clicking ravenously in the primordial slime far below, trilobites that due to their easily fossilized exoskeleton would become part of the strata and eventually find their way through the rock crusher at the Mercury Concrete Factory and into the sidewalk where we now stood. 68 million years later, Klingle looked at me with a cold, fishy eye.

“What’s it gonna be, Klingle?” I asked. “Is it the big sleep for me?”

“Ja, ja. Der grosse Schlaf.”

“Mind telling me what you’ve got to do with the St. Groundlemas merger?”

“I have nothing to do with it.”

“Then why not pack those 38s back in your dirndl and call it a day?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. You are bound to discover the truth.”

I waited for her to unburden her soul. They all unburdened their souls just about now. They couldn’t just shoot and shut up about it. They had to tell me a tale. It was what separated me and Pedro from the mosasaurs.

“I murdered Anne Dante,” Klingle pringled. “I had to. She was responsible for my father being eaten by snow tigers in Mexico after the expedition was lost in an avalanche.

I nodded knowingly. “Deus ex Machina, eh? I should have seen it coming.”

“Huh?” ringled Klingle. “Don’t you want to hear the rest of my story? I think you’ll find it fascinating and then I can shoot you knowing that you at least will have some appreciation, however brief, of the ignominy that I’ve suffered. What has Deus ex Machina got to do with anything?”

Bang! went Pedro’s gat, bang! bang!

“Deus ex Machina,” repeated Pedro after he’d calmly put three dingles into Klingle’s shingle. “A rather debatable and often criticized form of literary device referring to the incidence where an implausible concept or character is brought into the story in order to make the conflict in the story resolve and to bring about a pleasing solution.”

“Glad you shook loose of the cantoring,” I said. “I thought it was curtains for sure.”

“Nah. Not curtains. Petticoats,” said Pedro, adjusting his crinolines. “I gotta get back. They’re just now getting to the Credo and the I have a reputation to protect.”

* * *

“Another dead end,” said Nancy. We were sitting in the police station, puzzling our dilemma. Dave was out, hopefully writing some traffic tickets.

“I agree,” I said. “Helen Pigeon didn’t do it. We’re missing something. We need to find out what the three women had in common.”

“Do we revisit Dr. Jaeger? They were all her patients. So far that’s all we have.”

I nodded. “I guess so. I can’t see that she was involved in this though. Do you still have that photo of Darla’s medicine cabinet on your phone?”

“Yep. I’ll shoot it to the desktop.”

A few seconds later, she opened the photo up on the large monitor on Dave’s desk, then pointed to the bottle of pills. “Premarin,” she said. “The prescription date is last November. Dr. Alison Jaeger, prescribing physician. Filled at the CVS in Boone. No automatic refills.”

“Nothing special,” I said, looking over her shoulder. “How about the drug store?”

“Maybe,” said Nancy, “but almost everyone I know uses that CVS.”

“The pharmacist?” I said. “A pharmacist would certainly be well versed in aconite. As well as every other poison for that matter. Jed Pierce works down in Boone. Is he at the CVS?”

“I don’t know. I can find out real quick,” said Nancy, pulling her phone back out. “You think Jed has a connection with the three victims?”

“He lives in town,” I answered. “He would have known Darla for sure. Maybe he saw Crystal on television. There were lots of people around town that knew Amy. It’s not that much of a stretch.”

Nancy’s cell phone connected and she asked a couple of questions of the person on the other end.

“Jed Pierce doesn’t work at CVS. The pharmacist knows him, though. She says he works at the Walmart pharmacy.”

I looked back at the photo on the computer screen. “TMJ disorder,” I said.

“TMJ? I don’t get it.” Nancy looked hard at the monitor.

“Alison Jaeger said that Amy Ventura came in complaining about TMJ.”

“Okay,” said Nancy. “What’s TMJ?”

“It’s a jaw thing,” I said. “I know, because it’s a complaint among singers. I’ve known
several people that had it. Look it up on Google.”

Nancy opened a browser window, typed the info into the search engine and clicked on a link.

“TMJ,” she read aloud. “More properly called temporo-mandibular joint disorder. The temporomandibular joint is the hinge joint that connects the lower jaw to the temporal bone of the skull, which is immediately in front of the ear on each side of your head.  The disorder occurs as a result of problems with the jaw, jaw joint, bite, or surrounding facial muscles. Very painful.” She looked away from the monitor and up at me. “You think this has anything to do with the murders?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Dr. Jaeger said that she prescribed some pain medication and referred her.”

“Referred her to who?” asked Nancy.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I said, then tapped the picture, still visible in the corner of the screen, with the eraser end of a pencil. “Look here.” Behind the bottle of Prevarin was a black case made of hard plastic. “Remember this?”

“A retainer,” said Nancy, a slow smile creeping across her face. “You think the referral was made to an orthodontist?”

“Maybe not at first,” I said, “but read this.” I tapped back on the article.

Nancy read, “Problems of TMJ are often aggravated by the lower jaw being positioned too far back so that the blood vessels and nerves of the TMJ are compressed. In phase two of TMJ treatment, neuromuscular orthodontics can relieve this pressure and reduce and pain by moving your teeth to stabilize your jaws in a new, more comfortable position. This movement of teeth can be easily and effectively accomplished by dental braces or other standard orthodontic devices.”

“There,” I said. “Do we have an orthodontist on our radar?”

“We do, indeed,” said Nancy. She used Google again and had a phone number in a matter of seconds.”

“This is Lieutenant Nancy Parsky of the St. Germain Police Department,” she said into the phone. “Oh, hi, Robin. I didn’t know you were working over there. Listen, we’re investigating those three murders you might have heard about. Yes
…
yes
…
I get it. No, we don’t need any confidential information. We just need to know if Darla Kildair, Crystal Latimore, or Amy Ventura were patients. Yes, I’ll wait.”

She looked around the room and tapped her fingers impatiently on the desk. In a minute or so, she was back on the phone.

“Uh, huh
…
uh, huh
…
okay, sure. No problem. Thanks, Robin. Thanks very much.”

Nancy clicked her phone off and grinned at me like the cat that ate the canary. A cat with very good teeth, like he’d been wearing braces.

“All three of them,” she said, “were patients of Dr. Francis Passaglio.”

* * *

An hour later we met Kent Murphee at his office and handed him the black plastic case containing Darla Kildair’s retainer. We had stopped by her place since Nancy still had the key, and retrieved it.

“Don’t touch it,” I said. “Not if aconite can be absorbed through the skin. We’re fairly sure it’s on the retainer plate. The part that fits against the roof of the mouth. I think it’s what caused the lesions on the soft palate.”

“Wow,” said Kent. “That’s a new one. Give me a couple of minutes and I can let you know for sure.” He took the case and walked out of his office. Nancy and I sat down and waited.

“What are the chances?” she asked.

“I’m thinking maybe sixty-five percent,” I said.

Nancy shook her head. “Seventy-five and going up all the time.”

Ten minutes later Kent reappeared and said, “Yep. You were exactly right. The poison was dried, probably at a very high temperature, but then reactivated with the moisture from the victim’s mouths.  Reactivation might take about an hour, give or
take. The retainer probably wouldn’t hurt you to touch it, but once in your mouth, it’s ‘Goodbye, Sally!’ Who did it, do you think?”

“Orthodontist,” I said, “but keep it under your hat.”

“Francis? Really?”

“We’re going over to have a chat with him now,” I said. “All three victims were his patients.”

“The autoclave would work,” said Kent. “For drying out the poison, I mean. He’d have one there on the premises. Smear the retainer with the stuff, pop it in the autoclave, and
voilà
!”

Thanks,” I said.

“Let me know how it goes,” said Kent. “I’m writing a book.”

* * *

“Do you have an appointment?” asked Robin, looking very worried when she saw Nancy and I walk into the office of Dr. Francis Passaglio, DDS. The waiting room was full, mostly moms with adolescents and young teenagers in tow. Two grown women sat against the far wall reading old
People
magazines.

“We do not,” I said. “but we’d like to speak with Dr. Passaglio if it’s not too much trouble.”

“He’s very busy as you can see.” Robin gestured around the room. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “May I ask what this is in regard to?”

I whispered back, “This is in regard to three murders. Now we can wait for the warrant which will show up in a half hour or so, in which case, I’ll make a rude announcement and send everyone home for the day. Or, we can just talk to the good doctor for a few minutes and he might be able to clear all this up.”

“I’ll see if he can spare some time,” Robin said, then disappeared through a door on the back wall.

A minute later she reappeared and motioned us back. We went through the door into the hallway and followed her to Francis’ office. It was nicely appointed; leather furniture including a sofa and two comfortable side chairs; bookshelves containing leather-bound tomes, most of which had never been cracked; several teeth-related art prints and diplomas on the walls; and a monolithic walnut desk. Opulence. The office of a successful orthodontist pitching a twenty-thousand dollar product to a prospective customer. Francis was sitting behind the desk, his hands folded and resting on the blotter.

He was a handsome man — movie star handsome. Medium length salt-and-pepper hair, startling blue eyes, and a killer smile. He was in his early fifties and very fit, not just the kind of fit from eating right: the kind of fit that comes with working out six days a week. I knew that he was a runner as well. I’d seen him burning up the streets of St. Germaine every summer for years.

“How can I help you, Hayden?” he said, focusing on me. He ignored Nancy.

“You know about our three murders?” I said.

“Sure. Everyone knows about them. Three women found in closets. Three foreclosed houses. You know, I bid on one of those. I would have gotten it, except for that woman from Banner Elk. I made her an offer on the house a week later. A fair offer. She would have made ten thousand and walked away. She wouldn’t take it though.” He shook his head, as if disgusted by her stupidity. “What an idiot.”

“Why did you want that house so badly?” I asked.

“Good neighborhood. I could rent it out or even turn around and sell it in a year or two. It was a good property.”

“The Cemetery Cottage.”

“That’s what they call it,” he said, his gaze narrowing almost imperceptibly.

“Do you have any interest in the cemetery part of the property?” I asked. “Or just the house?”

His mouth came open for a moment, then closed, then his shoulders slumped slightly and he said, “Fine. The cemetery is a Civil War burial ground. I could have gotten state money to move those bodies over to Fayetteville or another Civil War memorial.”

“How much?” I asked.

“I don’t know exactly — sixty or seventy-thousand. The house would have been gravy.”

“Who else knew about the cemetery deal?” Nancy asked, and Francis looked at her as if she’d just come into the room.

“No one around here. A friend of mine from Hendersonville told me about the program. He just did the same thing. An old cemetery was on some property he’d bought so he called the V.A. and they put him onto this relocation program. You know, honoring our fallen heros. He made a lot more, but he had a lot more graves.”

Huh,” I said, not sure what to make of this information. Then I said, “You know why we’re here?”

He nodded. “The three women that were killed. Robin told me.”

“They were all patients of yours,” I said. “You didn’t think that was pertinent information you might have volunteered? You didn’t think that we would like to know that connection?”

“I can’t see how that is possibly relevant to the investigation,”
Francis said, splaying his hands upward. He was nervous. I could see it.