The Countertenor Wore Garlic (The Liturgical Mysteries) (22 page)

"Which way did he go with the pumpkin?" asked Nancy.

"I didn't see," said Gina.

"Me, neither," said Grover.

***

"Light brown," I said, as we walked back to the truck.

Chapter 17

"This pope ain't going to go for it," I said, eyeing the vampire Amish while pulling up my turtleneck. "You backed the wrong werehorse this time. He isn't known as 'God's Pit-Bull' for nothing. He'll pull the plug on your Vampire Parish so fast you'll think you were in the Intensive Care Unit down at the Lottery Winners Nursing Home."

"The pope won't even know what happened," Race rankled. "You think he's got nothing better to do than worry about an ancient parish in the middle of..."

There was a poof of smoke in the center of the room, much larger than the previous leaf-blower poofs, this time like maybe a '72 VW Bug with fouled plugs and a bad ring job, and that's when His Holiness showed up.

***

Dave was at the station when we returned. He'd gotten a box of bear-claws on his way in, not the ones from the Pig with the apple-pie filling, but the real ones from Yardborough's, large semicircular pastries with cuts around the outside edges evoking the shape from whence came the name: almond flavored, stuffed with dates and pecans.

"Thanks, Dave," said Nancy, taking one of the treats. "Did you happen to go by Rob Brannon's place in Newland yesterday?"

"Yesterday
was
my day off, you know," said Dave. "But yes, I went to Newland. There was no one home. I talked to a neighbor and he said that Brannon hadn't been there for about a week."

"Dave," I said, "get a recent picture of Rob Brannon and make some copies. They would have taken one when he was released. We need to show it around town. We don't even know what he looks like now."

"Got it," said Dave.

"And how was Wilkesboro?" Nancy asked, dragging out the name of Collette's new home town just ever-so-sweetly. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

Dave, unable to help himself, smiled like the cat that ate the vampire bat. "I guess," he said.

"Save it for later," I said. "Anything happen we should know about?"

"Bud called. He says he's fine and he's going back to school. He just had some things to sort out."

"Good deal," I said. "What else?"

"Elaine Hixon called. She said she had something important to show you. Her number is..." Dave stopped and looked out the front window. "Never mind," he continued. "Here she is."

Elaine opened the door and took the five steps to the counter. She had a brown package in her hand. "Ooo," she said, spotting the bear-claws. "Are these for anybody?"

"Help yourself," said Dave.

"In a sec." Elaine's face transformed in a moment from her usual animated visage to something much more serious. "Look here," she said. "I was in the choir dressing room in the sacristy. There were some surplices tossed in the corner and I was hanging them up. I don't know who tossed them there. These were extras, I think, because all the robes were hanging up and had their surplices with them."

"Point of clarification," said Dave, through half a mouthful of pastry. "For us Baptists. Surplice?"

"You know," said Elaine, trying to come up with a definition. "The white tunic thingy that we wear over the choir robes. It has sleeves... It's sort of flowy..."

"Oh, yeah," said Dave, with a nod of recognition. "Surplice. Got it."

"Anyway, I was picking up the surplices in the corner. There was some trash and this."

She put her brown package on the counter. It wasn't really a package. It was a brown leatherette fanny-pack.

"I opened it up to see whose it was," said Elaine. "I hope I didn't do anything wrong, but I really didn't even think about it. I read the driver's license and called Dave right away. I've been waiting at the church for you to come in and when I saw your truck pull up, I rushed right over."

We didn't need to see the driver's license. We all knew who it belonged to.

Flori Cabbage.

***

I dumped the fanny-pack onto the desk, picked up the cell phone and handed it to Nancy. She flipped it open and punched a couple of buttons.

"It's dead," she said.

"Well, charge it up," I said.

"Not that easy," said Nancy. "Cell phone manufacturers all use different chargers. This is an LG. I don't even know anyone that has an LG. We might have to order one."

"Or," I said, speaking very slowly, "Dave could go over to her apartment and... get... hers."

"Oh, yeah," said Nancy. "I guess that'd be easier."

"On my way," said Dave, picking up a second bear-claw before hitting the door.

There was nothing else of interest in the pack. A granola bar, her set of keys, her driver's license in a black slipcase, a package of tissues, a comb, some Burt's Bees lip balm, a small embroidered coin purse with some bills stuck in it. Elaine helped herself to a bear-claw. I thanked her and she left the station, looked both ways, then crossed the street and headed across the park toward St. Barnabas.

"So where's Rob Brannon?" said Nancy.

"I don't know, but I don't like this. Not one little bit. Why would he have killed Flori Cabbage? So what if she knew him from Charlotte?"

"Maybe she had something on him," Nancy said. "He's only been in prison for four years. There are a lot of crimes he'd still be liable for. In fact, most all of them. The statute of limitations is seven years."

"If she did, I think she'd have given him up long ago. No reason to wait."

"Let's say that he had some stolen money in a bank account—a lot of money. Money that Flori Cabbage knew about. If they had been involved, she might have thought that they'd get back together when he got out of prison and split the take. Then she saw Rob Brannon in Boone, realized he'd gotten out and hadn't called her, and told Ian about it."

"That's a plausible scenario," I said.

"When Brannon got out, he decided that he didn't want to split that money with Flori Cabbage, but he also knew that if he didn't share the loot, she'd turn him in. He killed her and put the pumpkin on her head in case she was discovered prematurely, thus giving him time to ransack her apartment and steal the laptop, figuring that any info that Flori had concerning him would be on it."

"Brilliant," I said. "One thing. What was Flori's fanny-pack doing in the choir dressing room at St. Barnabas?"

"Umm..." said Nancy, thinking. "I've no idea."

"And where are Bud and Elphina?"

"Huh," said Nancy.

"And why was Dr. Ian Burch, PhD, really wearing garlic?"

Nancy looked at me, confusion clouding her face.

"I was just kidding about that last one," I said. "The phone?"

Nancy nodded. "The phone."

***

Dave came back into the police station about an hour later. "Sorry," he said. "It took me this long to find the stupid thing. Her place was upside down. Know where I finally found it?"

"I couldn't care less, Dave," said Nancy, taking it from his hand. She plugged it into an outlet and stuck the round nib into the bottom of the phone. It beeped, the screen turned a bright fluorescent blue and a message came up. "Please enter your password."

"Dammit!" said Nancy. "Hang on. I can do a carrier search and find out what company she uses. What's her phone number?"

"I have no idea," I said. "Look on Ian's phone. It's on my desk."

Nancy got the phone, returned to her computer and banged on the keyboard for a minute, then gave us the info.

"U.S. Cellular," she said. "We'll need a warrant to get her password, though."

"I'll call Judge Adams," I said.

***

That afternoon, we had a warrant in hand and a promise from U.S. Cellular to get back to us as soon as possible, or if this is an emergency, please hold for the next available operator.

Chapter 18

Marilyn had finished the bulletin and I'd gone to the church to look it over before it was printed. Friday mornings were usually slow for the police force. Oh, who was I kidding? Every morning was sort of slow: that is, unless we had a murder, and we seemed to have plenty. Anyway, Friday mornings were my mornings to practice. I never did get in as much organ practice as I'd like, or maybe that was just the standard line for a part-time organist happy to play most of the notes.

I walked from Marilyn's office into the church by way of the sacristy and saw Carol Sterling at the sink, busily preparing communion for Sunday. She looked up from her work and waved. Beside her, on the floor, were two large cardboard boxes of books. I bent over, picked one up, and blew some dust off the cover. Book of Common Prayer, 1928.

"We're using these Sunday?" I asked.

"Yep. Clarence is supposed to put them into the pews."

Carol had the flatbread wafers out on the counter in a giant ziplock bag. The wafers were made by a group of women in the church that saw it as their ministry. No Styrofoam communion wafers for us. Carol had also brought in two bottles of the wine we used for communion from the storage closet in the kitchen. In the old church, the closet had a lock that could be picked by any competent first grader. We'd had that problem fixed when the church was rebuilt.

Carol took the wine opener, one of those fancy new ones, inserted the needle straight through the cork, pressed once on the top of the low pressure propellant cartridge and, pop, the cork eased out of the bottle like a Baptist out the side door of a Bingo parlor.

"Neat, eh? The only downside is that you have to rinse it off every time before you use it."

"I definitely am going to get one of those," I said.

"I'm going to need another bottle of wine. Will you get me one?" She dug in the pocket of her apron and came up with a key on a pink ribbon. "Here you go. Bring me back the key."

"Sure. No problem."

***

Mattie Lou Entriken, Wynette Winslow and Wendy Bolling were cleaning out the refrigerator, one of two industrial giants that seemed to hold as much food as a refrigerated truck. Elaine Hixon was standing warily behind them.

"Here," said Mattie Lou, pulling her head out of the fridge. "You two do something with these, will you?" She greeted me with a plate of something that might once have been tuna salad. She handed the other one to Elaine.

"Eew," said Elaine, holding her plate at arm's length. "Is that hair? Is this tuna salad growing hair? This is like an advertisement for 'The Hair Club for Men!'"

"Well," said Wynette, "it
has
been in there for a few months. It was in the back, behind that Fourth of July sheet cake."

"I'll just set mine here in the sink," I said. "Before it develops sentient thought. The garbage disposal should take care of this nicely."

"Take mine, too," said Elaine walking her plate over to me. "Anyone who doesn't believe in evolution never saw this."

"Here," said Mattie Lou, handing me two plastic covered bowls filled with macaroni and cheese. "Put these in the freezer, will you? Behind those boxes of coffee."

I went over to the freezer, opened it up, and put them behind the two big boxes labeled 'Kopi Luwak Coffee.' There was a hand-lettered sign taped to one of the boxes:
All Saints' Day. Given in memory of our beloved Junior Jameson. Keep frozen until ready to use.

"Hey," I said, closing the door of the freezer behind me as I came out. "Coffee from Kimmy Jo Jameson. That's a nice gesture."

Junior Jameson was a race car driver who had ties to St. Barnabas. We'd blessed his race car right up into the NASCAR "Top Ten" before a tragic accident on the track cut his life short. His wife, Kimmy Jo, although now remarried, always made the pilgrimage to St. Barnabas at least once a year.

"Yes, sir," said Mattie Lou. "Kimmy Jo's a sweetheart. The boxes were on the counter last week when we came in. We put them right into the freezer."