The Tenor Wore Tapshoes (30 page)

"Nope," said Meg. "Starting in 1899."

"Okay, here goes. In 1899, Robert Brannon, Sr.—presumably Rob Brannon's grandfather…"

"Great-grandfather," I corrected.

"Great-grandfather," continued Nancy, "left $75,000 in the Watauga County Bank in the form of a bond, payable to St. Barnabas Church and maturing in 1904, at which time the Watauga County Bank would pay St. Barnabas Church $100,000. The church had been destroyed in a fire and it seems likely that the sum was set aside for the rebuilding of the church. But Robert Brannon, the priest of St. Barnabas, and two parishioners were killed in a flood in March of 1899. So, in all probability, no one except the president of the bank knew about the bond, and he forgot about it over the years. That about right so far?"

"So far, so good," said Meg. "Continue."

"The bond was never cashed and so was not used during the rebuilding of the church in 1904. However, when the Watauga County Bank was getting ready to merge with Northwestern Bank in 1937, an audit was probably performed including trying to find the owners of accounts that had not been accessed for several years. It was in this audit that Lester Gifford found the bond and brought it to the attention of his boss—the owner of the bank—Harold Lynn, who was also the Sr. Warden of St. Barnabas. There's a little conjecture, I admit, but I think it will read well at my conferences," said Nancy.

"Merely corroborative detail intended to lend artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and uninteresting narrative," I said. "To quote William S. Gilbert." Meg giggled. I love it when she giggles.

"Harold Lynn was in a financial bind," continued Nancy, "which was why he was selling the bank. In addition, the note offered the interest rate…no, let me change that," said Nancy, scribbling with her pencil. "The
princely
interest rate of six percent - a half percent over what most banks were offering in 1899, but the president of the bank, Wesley Lynn—Harold's father—was a member of St. Barnabas and willing to do the church a good turn."

"Nice touch," said Meg. "You should consider writing detective novels. I know where you can get a typewriter."

"There was a bond issued and, since the money wasn't withdrawn, it had grown over the thirty-eight years to $686,568. In 1937, Harold Lynn, now president of the bank, didn't have the money to pay the bond if it had been presented. So Harold—never having seen the actual bond—forged a duplicate showing it was paid in 1904 and wiped the loan off the books. It was not a good forgery, but with no original to compare it with, it went unnoticed. He then went to St. Barnabas and set a fire to destroy the records."

"Okay," said Meg. "But why did he kill Lester?"

"When Lester was doing the audit for the merger, trying to find the owners of accounts that hadn't been accessed for years, he found the account and brought it to the attention of Harold Lynn. Lester knew about the account. And if Lester knew, he was bound to tell someone eventually."

"Got it," said Meg.

"The original bond is what Rob Brannon found in Lester Gifford's papers. Lester had gotten it from Jacob Winston, a Sunday School teacher at St. Barnabas who was also the church historian. I'm betting that Lester had asked Jacob to see if he could find anything about the deposit in the church archives."

"That would be my assumption as well," I said, trying to put my meager stamp of approval on what was turning out to be a very good job by Nancy. She just smirked at me and continued.

"Harold Lynn didn't know that Jacob had found the bond and given it to Lester. He probably thought that, if it still existed, it was with in church archives. He murdered Lester Gifford and placed him in the altar, then started the fire in the record room hoping to burn all the documents."

"Then he planted evidence implicating Jacob Winston in Lester's murder," added Meg.

"Exactly. Since Jacob was the church historian, Harold probably surmised, and rightly so, that Lester had already talked to him. Harold didn't know that Jacob had already given Lester the bond. And, surprisingly, Lester's dead body was never found."

"Here's the funny thing," I said. "Harold never wondered why Lester didn't smell."

Nancy jotted a couple notes and continued. "I'm sure that Harold made it clear to Jacob that he'd better keep his mouth shut or be tried for murder. Jacob kept quiet."

"But," I said, "the altar had the unique property of being highly radioactive and served to keep Lester Gifford's body from decomposing over the years. Had they found Lester in 1937, Harold or, more probably Jacob, would have been sent to prison for murder and the bond would have been discovered."

Meg nodded. "The merger wouldn't have gone through and the Watauga County Bank would have declared insolvency and gone out of business like a hundred other post-depression institutions," she added.

"Exactly," I said.

"Hey," said Nancy. "This is
my
paper. Don't be horning in…and if you do, at least give me time to write it down."

"We don't know how Rob got hold of the bank records and found out about the forged bond, but once he discovered it, it was obvious to him what happened," I said. "Then it was only a matter of getting the vestry to sign it over to him."

"What!?" said Meg. "We did no such thing!"

"Do you have the paper that the vestry signed?" I asked.

"Sure. We just sold him the two Civil War stock certificates."

"Let me see the paper." Meg handed it to me.

"St. Barnabas Church agrees," I read, "to sell the two aforementioned stock certificates
as well as any interest it may have in any pre-existing financial institution
for the sum of $4500."

"That little sneak!" Meg exclaimed. "It wasn't the Civil War stocks he wanted at all! He wanted the interest in the financial institution!"

"Did any money change hands?" I asked.

"Yes," said Meg. "Rob had a certified check from
The Sons of Richmond.
He gave it to Father George."

"Smart," I said. "It's a done deal, then."

"Wait a minute," said Meg. "What about the cinnamon roll and all the other crimes?"

"All pointing to me," I said.

"He needed Hayden out of the church and under suspicion," said Nancy. "He engineered being appointed church administrator as well as Senior Warden. The only person standing in his way was Hayden. If Randall hadn't forwarded a copy of that letter, we wouldn't have found out for several weeks. Northwestern Bank may have contacted us eventually, but St. Barnabas already signed over their rights to the bond."

"Is there anything we can do?" Meg asked.

"Maybe," I said. "It's time for a warrant. I'll call Judge Adams."

Chapter 24

I looked around the room like a hedgehog in a room full of badgers.

"Everyone, calm down," I said, "or I'll never get paid."

I don't remember who started shooting, but when it was over, it was clear that the Possum 'n Peasel would need a redecorator. Piggy was as cold as the pork salad in the walk-in, a bullet hole squarely in his short ribs. Alice was stretched out like a guitar string on a cello, as dead as a Presbyterian Revival. Kelly had sat down where he bought it, ending up, appropriately enough, sitting on the bun warmer. Marilyn didn't appear to be hurt and had retreated back into the freezer. Kit, always perky, was now, not.

Stumpy was now Double-Stumpy and didn't look like he'd last till the ambulance arrived. Toby Taps wouldn't be dancing again. He had tripped his last Fandango and gone to that big ballroom in the sky where, if there was any justice, he'd be forced to tap in the chorus of
Riverdance
for all eternity.

The only one left, and she wasn't in good shape, was Starr Espresso. She was draped over the bar like a bad prom date.

"Why'd you do it, Starr? Why did you kill your own sister?"

"How'd you know?"

"You were the only character I had left," I said sadly. "You had to be Jimmy Leggs. That, plus the fact that you and Toby Taps were the famous dancing duo of Leggs and Tapperton, winners of last year's International Ballroom Dancing Competition held in Fargo. I saw the finals on PBS. I recognized you both right away."

"I had to kill her. She was queering the deal. We were making a fortune, but she was getting cold feet. She thought this last hymn would give us away."

"I thought you guys were rich. What about the coffee fortune?"

"It's not all jumping beans and Cremora, you know." She coughed and closed her eyes.

"Wait a second
!
" I said. "What was the hymn? The hymn she wouldn't put in the hymnal?"

"It was ...(cough)... 'Whispering Hope.'"

"Whispering Hope?"
Meg said. "Mom loves
Whispering Hope.
"

"No accounting for taste," I said. "I just tell the story."

"So everyone's dead but Marilyn?"

"Yep. I like to wrap everything up neatly. No characters left over to muck up the next story."

"Oh, no. You mean there's going to be another one?" groaned Meg.

"Maybe. I'm not saying."

* * *

We had a warrant in our hands early the next morning. We called Rob Brannon, but he wasn't home. When we called his office, his answering machine indicated he would be back in town on Thursday. Nancy and I took our warrant and headed over to his house. As we made our way down the sidewalk, we ran into D'Artagnan and Moosey, both of them heading toward the Slab Café.

"What's up, guys?" I asked. "You seem to be in a hurry."

"Guess what we found?" said Moosey, his excitement evident.

"You didn't!" exclaimed Nancy. "For real?"

"Yep. We've got the Blessed Virgin Mary Cinnamon Roll," said D'Artagnan, with noticeable pride.

"Hey," I said to Moosey. "Why aren't you in school?"

"Fall break this week," said Moosey with a grin. "You wanna see it?" He held up a brown paper bag. "D'Artagnan's letting me carry it."

"Sure," I said. "Let's see it.

Moosey unrolled the top of the grocery bag and rooted around with his hand for a few seconds. Then he pulled out the BVMCR and held it, flat in his hand, for us to inspect.

"Where did you find it?" asked Nancy.

"It was in Rob Brannon's office," said D'Artagnan. "Bottom drawer of his desk. In the back."

"How did you get in there?"

"D'Artagnan's real good at that," said Moosey. "He's got a set of picks and stuff."

"Hush up, Moosey!" hissed D'Artagnan.

"That's what you wanted the warrant for?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"How did you find out who had it?"

"Traced one of the IPs from the eBay site. The e-mail was bogus and the IP address was a Holiday Inn in Charlotte, but the IP of the download of the JPEG was still on there. Everything leaves a footprint. I got a friend who has a friend that knows a guy. The JPEG was downloaded from a computer in Rob Brannon's office."

"Excellent work D!" I said, clapping him on the back. "Rob probably won't even charge you with breaking and entering."

"Huh?" He started chewing on his bottom lip. "Um…why not?"

"I'm hoping he's going to have bigger problems shortly."

"That'd be good," said D'Artagnan.

"Hey, wait a minute," said Nancy, looking closely at the cinnamon roll. "What's wrong with this thing? There's a bite out of it."

"We was pretty hungry," Moosey chagrined. "D'Artagnan just took a little bite."

"It didn't taste good either," said D'Artagnan, making a face.