The Tenor Wore Tapshoes (2 page)

"Kit!" I called to my Girl-Friday. "You'd better get in here and get a couple of snaps."

Kit scuttled in like a crab on hind legs. She'd been with me for a while and I could trust her--at least as far as I could trust any dame.

I'm an L.D. That's Liturgy Detective. Duly licensed by the Diocese of North Carolina and accountable only to the Bishop. At least that's what it said on my card. I flipped on the light switch.

"Wow!" said Kit, fumbling with the oversized camera hanging around her neck. "Is she dead?"

"As dead as Fishstick Friday," I said. "And make sure you pick up your flash-bulbs this time. We don't need any extra trouble from the coppers."

The entrée's name was Candy. Candy Blather. I had first met her at a hymnology conference where she was presenting a paper on the Pietic hymns of the late l9th century. I didn't care for the lecture--one verse of "I Come To The Garden Alone" gave me the shaking jakes--but she was a dame with a come-hither Madonna look and gams till Advent, and when she was finished, I made my way to the front of the autograph line, throwing more elbows than a Japanese tour group on Dollar Day at Gatorland.

"How 'bout those Calvinists?" I said, using my tried-and-true conversation starter. "Think they'll win the pennant?"

She smiled demurely and reached for the copy of her latest book that I was pushing across the table.

"Whom should I make it out to?" she asked.

"Make it out to me, Doll-face. Just write 'To my dinner date. I'll see you at seven. '"

* * *

"October is a rare month for boys." So began one of my favorite books, and it was as true for me when I first read it at age twelve as it was now, some thirty-five years later. The drive from my house into town took about twenty minutes—thirty if I wanted to stretch it, and in October I usually did.

The Appalachians in western North Carolina are a continuous sunset during October, each day the colors spreading further across the mountain-scape. It's these colors that fueled the economy of St. Germaine. October and November comprised the peak tourist season. We have quite a few summer visitors and a number of seasonal residents, but most of the businesses in town relied heavily on the autumn months for the bulk of their annual income. As a result, on most days the traffic was heavy. On weekends, it was ghastly. The town council had decided that the weekends during these two months required a full staff on duty at the police department. It was my idea, actually, but the council had to come up with the money to pay the overtime.

A "full staff" at the St. Germaine police department consists of myself, Nancy Parsky and Dave Vance. Nancy is an excellent officer and could easily run the department if I ever decide to hang up my spurs. It was Nancy who showed up at my house last Easter just in time to foil what could have been a very nasty murder and save a rich and handsome gentleman, namely me, from an untimely end. To show my gratitude—I am, after all, very rich as well as handsome—Meg suggested I get Nancy a nice present for her birthday. I did. A silver Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide. Now she's a motorcycle cop.

Dave works part-time at the station. He answers the phones and generally puts in more hours than show up on his time card. He enjoys the work, and Nancy and I think that he has some sort of trust fund set up. He doesn't ever seem to be hurting for money. Dave has an obvious crush on Nancy, but she ignores his mooning and they get along fine.

I am the Chief of Police. Criminology was the third stop on my collegiate path. A couple of degrees in music followed by an even less practical one. And finally, after all of that education, I ended up inventing a little contraption that the phone company thought was worth a couple of million bucks. So, as it turns out, I don't have to work at all. I do it because I enjoy the job, and that's a nice position to be in.

My part-time position as choir director and organist at the Episcopal church on the square is a reasonable use of my music degrees and, although I rarely find any practical use for my degree in criminology, the fact that I had one landed me nicely in the Police Chief's chair. I was recruited and then hired by the mayor of St. Germaine—coincidentally my old college roommate—Peter Moss, who moved back to his hometown after finishing at UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in philosophy. Pete put his education to good use by opening a diner.

I pulled onto Main Street and drove my 66 Chevy pick-up past Pete's establishment, the Slab Café. I didn't bother to stop at the Police Station when I saw that, once again, some nitwit had parked in the spot that had a sign clearly stating "NO PARKING—Reserved for the Chief of Police." It was the same thing every day. The traffic was so bad downtown that the out-of-towners decided it was worth the price of a ten-dollar parking ticket to park wherever they could find a spot. It was easy enough to park if you lived here and knew the layout. There were plenty of places for those in the know, my favorite being in the rhododendrons behind the parish hall at St. Barnabas. From the church, it was only a few short blocks back to The Slab Café where, I fervently hoped, Nancy had gotten us a table for our "staff meeting." Tables, this time of year, were as hard to get as parking places.

I was walking up to the front door of the Slab when I heard, rather than saw, Nancy pulling up. The Harley had a very distinctive rumble. Nancy had no problem parking. She just drove right up onto the sidewalk.

"Sorry I'm late, but I called and told Dave to get us a table," she said, taking off her helmet and pulling her hair back into a quick ponytail.

"It's going to get too cold for that bike pretty soon."

"It's pretty cold now. I'll switch back to the Nissan, I guess, but it'll kill me. I love this bike."

I had to laugh out loud. She was still, after five months of riding the big bike, like a little kid at Christmas. I held the door open for her as she wrestled off her leather jacket, walked in and looked around the room for the table we hoped Dave had reserved for us. He was there all right. Table for four, biscuits on hand, the coffee already poured.

"I went ahead and ordered for you," said Dave as we walked up, ignoring the line of twenty or so glaring customers waiting for a table. "It'll be up shortly."

"Excellent police work, Dave," I said.

Nancy draped her jacket over the chair and settled into it, managing to pick up a biscuit in the same move.

"Is Meg joining us?" she asked, pointing to the fourth place setting.

"Nope. She's working this morning. In Boone, I think."

"When are you going to get married, Boss?" Dave asked with a smirk.

"When someone asks me."

"That's a pretty smug answer," said Nancy between bites. "You'd better be careful though. It could happen."

"Hmmm," I said, in what I hoped was a non-committal fashion.

"You've been going with her for what? Four years? Five?" Pete, always an ex-officio member of our staff meetings, at least as long as breakfast was on-the-house, pulled up a chair and jumped into the conversation. "I think you should go ahead and pop the question."

"This advice from a three-time divorcé?"

"I love getting married. What can I say?" Pete waved to his new waitress-in-charge, Noylene Fabergé, who was still buoyant with last week's unexpected promotion. She scurried over with a full coffee pot and began to refill the half empty mugs.

"What do you think, Noylene?" asked Pete.

"'Bout what?" said Noylene, her eyes glued to the task at hand.

"'Bout the Chief here getting married."

"You're getting married?" Noylene looked up suddenly and the stream of coffee, originally intended for Dave's cup, went straight into his lap.

"YOW!" yelled Dave, leaping to his feet. "SON OF A …" He stopped short and looked around at the startled customers. "Well…son of a gun."

"Nice save, Dave," said Nancy, not even cracking a smile.

"Dadgumit," he muttered, looking down and blotting at the stain on the front of his Dockers with his quickly disintegrating paper napkin. "Dadgumit, dagnabit, and crud! This is my only pair of clean pants." We all pushed our napkins dutifully across the table.

Noylene was around the table before Dave had hit his feet, having put the coffee pot down, readying her cleaning rag for the task at hand. "I'm so sorry," she said to Dave, squatting in front of him. "Here, let me help."

"As much as Dave might enjoy that, Noylene," said Pete, "you'd better let him take care of it himself. People are starting to stare."

Noylene took the hint.

"That's quite a blue streak, Dave," I said, grateful for the interruption that had changed the direction of the conversation. "We don't want to offend any of Pete's customers though. Can you tone it down a little?"

Dave looked sheepish and continued blotting.

"Let's get back to your upcoming marriage proposal," said Nancy.

Noylene was suddenly back on track, her serving gaffe momentarily forgotten.

"Are you gettin' married? You know, I'm thinkin' about getting into the wedding business myself. I could do the hair, the flowers, the bridesmaid dresses…everything! And I'll prob'ly be openin' a salon…"

"Stop gushing, Noylene. I'm not getting married."

"I think you should reconsider," said Pete. "Meg is the best thing that ever happened to you, that's for sure. You don't want her getting away. And Noylene would be more than happy to help."

"She's not getting away, and I don't want Noylene's help. Now let's change the subject please. Here's breakfast."

Megan Farthing and I had been together for the last four years. We had met just after she'd moved to town to take care of her mother, and we'd been something of an item ever since. She was a savvy investment counselor and had taken charge of my small fortune quite handily. She is divorced, a few years younger than me, well-versed in music and the arts, a pretty darn good soprano and the town beauty. But I didn't think that marriage was in my future. Like most men comfortable in their current situation, I get extremely nervous when talk turns to nuptials—anyone's nuptials. It gets certain people thinking.

Collette, another of Pete's serving minions, came up to the table with a tray full of food including pancakes, scrambled eggs and country ham, grits, cinnamon buns, another basket of biscuits, toast and gravy, all served "family style." I noticed that all talk of marriage was curtailed as the entire group attacked the food and turned its attention to more important matters: that is, who was going to get the last pancake? My money was on Nancy.

"We can get more," I said, as Nancy fixed Dave with a murderous eye.

"It’s the principle of the thing," growled Nancy. "I'm a girl. He should give it to me. It's the polite thing to do." She aimed her fork in his direction.

"Fine," said Dave. "Just take it."

"I'll get some more," said Collette. "Just give me a minute. I don't even have the tray unloaded yet."

Pete sighed. "You guys are like piranhas. These free breakfasts are costing me a fortune."

"Send the bill to the department," I said. "We can afford it thanks to the parking tickets we're handing out."

"Hey, look at this," said Dave, holding up a cinnamon bun he had placed on a saucer. "This roll looks just like the Virgin Mary."

"Let me see that," said Noylene, her coffee and hostess rounds bringing her back to our table.

"You stay away from me with that coffee pot."

"Relax, honey. I just want to see the bun."

Dave tilted it up so we all could see it, the sticky glaze holding it firmly to the plate.

"My God. It does look like someone," said Pete. "I don't know who exactly. It could be just an old woman with a head scarf."

"Be serious," I said. "Why would just any old woman show up in a cinnamon bun? It
has
to be the Virgin Mary."

"I think it looks more like Jimmy Durante in drag," said Nancy.

"Maybe it's a sign," said Noylene.

"A sign of what?" asked Nancy.

"I dunno," said Noylene with a puzzled look. "But whatever you do, don't eat it."

Chapter 2

It was a Friday--not a T.G.I.F. Friday where you don't get anything done because you're too excited about the opening of fishing season and you've got a new rod from Orvis sitting on the davenport, three fresh-tied flies, and a tub of night crawlers wriggly enough to be deacons at a discernment weekend--but rather that kind of Friday that you dread to see come to an end, knowing that your sister-in-law has four tickets to the Junior Ballet (that gawd-awful
Giselle
) and one of them has your name written all over it.