The Countertenor Wore Garlic (The Liturgical Mysteries) (28 page)

"We hear you're leaving us," said Meg.

"Aye," said the vicar, the brogue rolling over his lips and down the front of his black cassock. "I've done what I could. Congregational Enlivener..." He shook his head in dismay. "There's no hope for ye."

"Ah, there's always hope," I said. "Hope is what we have. Hope and grace and Kimberly Walnut."

Postlude

We had the coffee and the grounds tested and they contained, as we thought, enough Tetrodotoxin to do us all substantial harm. Kylie Moffit got sick from the stuff and went down to the hospital in Boone, but since she had gotten such a low dose, she recovered quickly. No one else was affected. We suspected that Rob Brannon had been in town that morning because he couldn't stand to be away. He wanted to see the effects of his horrific plan. We never did find him, and he never checked in with his parole officer. He just disappeared.

The Ashe County sheriff caught up with Mary Edith Lumpkin, a.k.a Elphina, in Weavers Ford up by the Virginia border. She was in a car with a young man who seemed to share her vampire fashion sense. Unfortunately for him (as well as Mary Edith), he was going through one of the most famous speed traps in Western North Carolina and the Ashe County sheriff's department tended not to embrace the spiky hair, fishhook-in-the-face look, especially when accompanied by a lot of attitude. Also unfortunately for him, there was a warrant out for Mary Edith's arrest. She admitted the deed when faced with the evidence—Bud's statement, the text messages, the murder weapon—but just shrugged when asked why she'd placed the pumpkin on Flori Cabbage's head. She plead guilty and managed to cut a diminished capacity deal with the D.A. Pauli Girl wasn't surprised.

"I always knew that girl weren't right," Pauli Girl said.

Dave and Collette became an item again, although we rarely saw Collette in St. Germaine. Dave was happy to make the hour drive down the mountain to Wilkesboro to see her, and although they'd been engaged once before, there was no talk about a wedding, at least not to us.

Bud went back to school, got over his heartbreak, and by Christmas was dating another girl, this one, according to Ardine, less toothy.

Kylie Moffit, along with her husband Biff, continued to run Holy Grounds coffee shop, although Kopi Luwak coffee was no longer on the menu.

Marjorie finished her book review for the church newsletter. She was not kind.

The bishop sent us another supply priest until we could hire a new rector. He was a nice fellow who had retired to the mountains from Florida with his wife. With his blessing, we sent the 1928 prayer books back to Lord's Chapel.

Salena Mercer went on to become the biggest seller of vampire fiction of all time, eclipsing even Anne Rice. Her zombie-walk video went viral on YouTube and spurred sales into the millions. She offered to come back to Eden Books on the next Halloween. Georgia politely declined. "It's too nerve-wracking," she said.

Kevin the Zombie ended up choosing not to sue Amelia Godshaw for shooting him in the buttocks with rock-salt. Once his lawyer saw the pictures that Nancy forwarded on to him, the barrister decided that working on contingency, in this case, wasn't going to pay off.

Dr. Ian Burch, PhD, was a man of single-minded intent and once he had his cap set for someone, was determined to win her affections. He continued to add his countertenor to the choir and to woo Tiff St. James to the best of his ability. He even asked me for relationship advice. I referred him to Nancy. Nancy, who still had Flori's laptop, mentioned that she thought she might have discovered the password, and that was the end of it.

Martha Hatteberg never regained her back row seat.

***

Me and Pedro had the coffins looted and were back at the office at 10:06 Eastern Standard Time, which was 7:06 Pacific Time, which if you transpose it, was actually 6:66 PM, not that it mattered to the plot because we were definitely in the prior time zone, but was kinda foreboding nevertheless since Marilyn was sitting primly at her desk when we arrived, her head on backwards, furiously typing sixes.

"You're supposed to be on permanent vacation," I said.

"I heard you were back in business," said Marilyn, spinning her head back around with a sexy shake of her wig and teeth. "How much did you get from those Amish vampires?"

"How did you know we had a case?"

"I have a sense about these things," Marilyn said. "Like the way a beautiful female snake can sense another, even richer snake. The Amish always have gold. They hate banks, you know."

I slung a heavy bag of gold coins onto the desk. It landed with a clunk and a ka-ching. Pedro did the same.

"They had all their coins in their coffins," he said. "Once we got past the Mother Superior, we were home free."

"She didn't whack you with a ruler?"

"Oh, yeah," I said. "We got whacked. Then I got away and Pedro stayed to be whacked a little more."

"What can I say?" remarked Pedro with a grin. "I gotta thing for nuns and it's good to be a detective."