The Treble Wore Trouble (The Liturgical Mysteries) (4 page)

Employment: Walmart Associate

Assistant Pastor, Augustana Lutheran Church

Self-employed clothing design consultant

Supply priest (Episcopal)

Turn ons: Long walks on the beach, puppies, sunsets, rainbows, sharing feelings, unicorns

Okay, I made that last one up, but I suspected that I wasn't far off base. We'd been exposed to the ministry of the Reverend Pepperpot-Cohosh, known to her parishioners as Mother P, since last November, and she was steadily, with the help of her husband, (also a bona fide Lutheran pastor), molding St. Barnabas into the vision that they had for the church universal.

How did a Lutheran pastor become an Episcopal priest? Pretty easily, as it turns out. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America came into full communion with the Episcopal Church several years ago, meaning that each churches recognizes the clergy of the other and allows them to function in each other's parishes. Mother P officially transferred from the clergy roster of the Evangelical Lutheran Church to that of the Episcopal Church with the blessing of both bishops, after serving as a supply priest in the Diocese of Iowa for a couple of years. That she'd never had a full-time charge in the Lutheran church didn't seem to bother anyone. When she saw the opening advertised at St. Barnabas, she applied, and four months later was offered the job.

It is well known throughout the Episcopal church that each parish operates as a little fiefdom, with the parish priest as the overlord. The vestry has the final say and can overrule the priest's wishes, but usually this doesn't happen unless things get really out of hand. Mother P had come to St. Barnabas just before Advent, and, to her credit, had left us alone to continue as we had through Christmas, content to celebrate the Eucharist each Sunday, offer prayers, visit the sick and bereaved, and get to know the lay of the land. Now, though, as Ash Wednesday loomed less than a week away, it was clear that Mother P was ready to begin exercising her despotic prerogatives.

Chapter 3

The Treble Wore Trouble

It was a dark and stormy night, dark like the oil slowly oozing out from under the 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air sedan parked in front of Tad Grassfin's mobile home where he'd moved the old jalopy in hopes of
selling it (four hundred dollars "as is"), and stormy like the courtship
of Norwood Wenzell and Lucy Hickenlooper who used to make out in the back seat of that same Chevy until Norwood went off to Korea and Lucy married Tad in a fit of pique, and now, fifty years later, Tad needed the four hundred to pay for his glaucoma medicine; but this is not Tad's story, nor
even the story of Norwood and Lucy (who died together
in a motel room in 1965, but don't go jumping to conclusions, they were just friends), it just starts out dark and stormy like that.

Three thousand miles away, Marsha suddenly woke to the sound of beetles scurrying and the smell of sewage, and couldn't help thinking that if she had only gone to choir practice instead of that Beth Moore Bible Study, none of this would be happening, the First Methodist youth group wouldn't have been eaten by cannibals, and she wouldn't be left with only seven toes, or be locked in a Peruvian jail with a large, unhygienic woman named Adelgonda who liked having her feet rubbed; but this isn't Marsha's story either, although hers is pretty interesting, but rather short (hint: it ends badly for Marsha in another twelve minutes or so).

* * *

"In just two sentences, you have almost single-handedly destroyed the English language as we know it," said Meg, reading the typewritten page I'd handed her. She was sitting at the kitchen table nursing her first cup of coffee and had been thumbing through yesterday's copy of the
St. Germaine Tattler
.

"Thanks," I said. "It took some work. I like to think that Raymond Chandler would be proud."

"He would not be proud."

Meg held up the piece of paper distastefully in two fingers and I took it from her.

"I am not dissuaded," I said, reading back over my prose. "This is only the beginning. I have many more locutions at my disposal."

"I'm sure you do," said Meg, "but put some pants on, will you?"

"Hey! I'm wearing my hat at least."

"Raymond Chandler's hat. Don't you have to go to work today?"

"It's Saturday," I said. "I've got time to finish this chapter, run, shower, and make it to the office in time for donuts."

"What time would that be?"

I shrugged. "Ten? Ten-thirty?"

"You're running?"

"Yep. Gotta get back into it. The snow's almost melted and we should see temperatures in the high 40s today."

Meg tapped the newspaper in front of her, "Did you know that Mildred Kibbler found a rabid possum in her garbage can? It got away when she tried to shoot it. That's right next door to Mom."

"Two questions spring to mind," I said. "Number one: what made her think it was rabid?"

"According to the article, there was a lot of foaming and snapping."

"I'm sure there was," I said. "But what about the possum?"

"Oh, ha, ha," said Meg, sarcastically.

"Second question: how can you miss hitting a possum in a garbage can?"

"Don't know. It's not funny, though. What if that possum
does
have rabies and it gets into
Mom's
garbage can?"

"Have no fear. She's a far better shot than Mildred Kibbler."

There was no doubt that Meg's mother, Ruby Farthing,
was
a better shot. I'd taken her target shooting several times up on the ridge above the cabin. Ruby was a natural markswoman with a ·410 gauge shotgun, preferring the old-timey "point and shoot" method, cradling the stock under her arm rather than bringing it up to her shoulder. A .410 was very small, a kid's gun really, but it was fine for Ruby who didn't like the kick of a bigger gun, but wanted something handy in the house. I could throw a potato into the air and Ruby would blow it apart from twenty yards ten times out of ten. I was sure she could hit a possum in a garbage can.

Ruby Farthing is now in her seventies and still a beautiful woman. Like Meg, she's tall and willowy. She has the same smile, the same blue-gray eyes, and the same incorrigible sense of mischief. Unlike Meg, her once-black hair has turned to a shimmering silver gray. Also, unlike Meg, she can shoot. That she is a savant with a ·410 shotgun irks her daughter no end.

"I'll check it out when I get to town," I said. I waved my story at her. "Right now, I have to strike while the ineffable inflatus is fragrant upon me."

Meg looked up from the newspaper. "The what?"

"The ineffable inflatus," I said smugly. "To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning. See? This is why I'm a writer and you are but a financier."

Meg smirked at me. "Take Baxter when you go running," she said.

* * *

I lit a stogy, looked out the window into the dark storminess and smiled as I remembered another Marsha, long ago — a Marsha who, as I recalled fondly, also had a Chevy, glaucoma, four hundred dollars, and a girlfriend named Adelgonda — which, I thought as I puffed on my cheroot, tied up the similitude nicely. My high school English teacher would be proud.

I'm a detective, a Liturgy Detective, duly appointed
by the Bishop, baptized into eleven denominations, and pre-absolved by His Holiness himself. Things were slow, and my bank account was into negative numbers. I needed some work, a case, and if the bishop wasn't going to throw some moil my way, well, it was every gumshoe for himself.

Suddenly the door opened and there she was, all dressed in black, the very image of St. Grizelda of Guacamole, her long yellow-orange hair flowing over her shoulders like Velveeta cheese sauce cascading onto a bed of nachos, making my stomach sing "La Cucaracha" while my gall bladder used my kidneys for castanets.

"Marilyn," I hollered, "hold my calls."

"No one is out there," said the woman, giving a nod toward the empty desk outside my door. "The note on the desk says she's gone for the day."

She glided across the wooden floor like a skater: one skating on ice, not wood, even though she wasn't wearing skates, not even roller skates, which would make more sense indoors because ice skates would carve these pine boards like a carrot peeler and I'd want to refinish them the same way I wanted to treat this dame, strip her veneer, run my hands over her smooth, naked planks, and fondle her the way Norm Abram fondles a piece of wormy chestnut on "This Old House."

"My name is Carrie," she crooned. "Carrie Oakey." Her hips moved to a melody of their own, a siren's song that beckoned a palooka's thoughts into dark, smoky bars where saxophones honked out a living like brass-plated geese begging for nickels: "C'mere, big boy," they beckoned on the upswing, then, on the backswing, made a dozen promises I knew they could keep.

She squiggled into a chair, crossed her legs, and hiked her black dress up over one knee, then hiked it a little more and showed me more thigh than my "Victorious Secret" Bible-lingerie catalog.

"Hiya, Toots," I said, picking up the cigar that had fallen from my mouth. "What can I do for you?"

"I hear that you're a Liturgy Detective. And I need help."

* * *

I left the story hanging in the typewriter and headed to the bedroom for my running gear. Baxter was already outside chasing whatever wildlife he could scare up, and even with two hundred acres to roam he was in no danger of getting lost. His current interest was an otter that had appeared in the river just after Christmas.

Our house began life as a log cabin in 1842, the same year that St. Barnabas Church was founded, if Wynette's account was accurate. The log portion of the house was a twenty-by-twenty two-story cabin purportedly built by Daniel Boone's granddaughter and her husband in Old Landing, Kentucky. The logs had been numbered, taken down, trucked to North Carolina, and reassembled on the property. Along with the cabin came some pretty impressive documentation which, if it can be believed, placed Daniel Boone in this very cabin at least twice in his life while traversing the Bluegrass State. The census report from 1880, which I'd also found, showed that there had been eight people living in the cabin including two servants.

Now the cabin serves as the den with the rest of the house built around it. The stone fireplace in the den has an elk head hanging above the mantle — a trophy from a hunting trip out to Wyoming once upon a time. The elk had been joined a few years back by a stuffed buffalo that stood in the corner, a Christmas present from Meg that she'd gotten from a Western-themed restaurant going out of business. This was now the extent of the animal decor. All other bearskins, raccoon tails, beaver pelts, cow skulls, and miscellaneous shells, feathers, fur, and teeth had been relegated either to Nancy's house or the storage shed. Once Nancy mentioned to Meg that she would rather enjoy having a bearskin rug in front of her fireplace, I watched as the trophies of my bachelorhood disappeared one by one.

Not that I minded too much.

Meg had a good eye for decor and knew what I liked. The house had never looked better. After we had gotten hitched, she'd overseen some redecorating and renovations that included a new, updated, fancy kitchen, a master suite, a heated garage, as well as polishing up the old cabin. I'd never needed a garage for my old pickup truck, but Meg's Lexus was a different story. Her car needed heated floors, ambient overhead mood lighting, chamois polishing cloths made from the skins of unborn goats from the Carpathian Mountains, and some kind of wax squeezed out of baby sea turtles. My 1962 Chevy truck, on the other hand, was happy just not to be left in the middle of the river — something I'd done once or twice.

I finished tying my running shoes and went out the bedroom door that opened onto the back deck. A long whistle produced Baxter, tearing across the field, his ears flapping and his tail straight out behind him. He'd been down at the river, but my whistle brought him running. I didn't wait for him. I ran down the steps and took off jogging up the drive, knowing that he'd catch up with me in a couple of moments.

My morning run, three days a week, took me on a two-mile loop. I used to do a five-mile loop, but I couldn't really tell any difference in how I felt after doing just two miles as opposed to five. The plain fact was that I felt just horrible after either one. This had to do, I suspected, with the aging process. My goal in continuing to run is to stay in the same size clothes for a few more years, the fact that I'd switched to expando-pants a few years back notwithstanding. Expando-pants, I believe, are possibly the most significant fashion breakthrough since the whalebone corset. Side gussets hidden in the waistband allowed a three-inch differential and made Thanksgiving dinners a pleasure once again. After Pete Moss discovered this extensible apparel and filled me in, we never looked back, although both Cynthia and Meg were ready to disparage them as "maternity pants for men."

Baxter lost no time in closing the gap. I was puffing uphill and he passed me like I was standing still, before crashing into the mountain laurel and disappearing. I didn't see him again for the better part of the run, but then, as I turned for home, he lurched out of the undergrowth in front of me, licking his chops, and wagging his back end furiously. I knew that look. Baxter wasn't adept at catching live varmints, but he was perfectly willing to follow his nose and devour almost any small animal that had expired or was otherwise defenseless. By the fur still clinging to his muzzle, I suspected rabbit, or maybe a nest of baby rabbits, and decided not to tell Meg.

Baxter is one of two animals that shares our home. Invited animals, anyway. Living out in the hinterlands, we were bound to have our share of mice, snakes, bats, the occasional raccoon, and whatever other critters gravitated toward the warmth of the house during the winter months. Our other invited guest isn't entirely domestic but is happy to share our space. He is a barn owl. Archimedes.

I trotted across the field and headed toward the house. I'd put up a small barn in the last couple of years to house some tools. Meg kept her gardening equipment in there; I had a small tractor and an ATV — a four-seater Kawasaki Mule that I used to drive around the property and survey my realm. The little barn was also Archimedes' secondary hangout. I glanced up into the eaves as I ran by. He wasn't there. I hadn't seen him for a couple of days, but that wasn't unusual, especially when the snow began to melt. With no leaves on the trees, chipmunks and mice were easy pickings.

Archimedes spent most of the winter in the house, perched on the head of the stuffed buffalo. If you didn't know better and happened into the room while he was resting, you might assume that he was part of the decor. A moment later, though, you'd be startled as he launched himself soundlessly into the air and glided though the house into the kitchen, where he'd land on the sill and trigger the electric eye that opened the window allowing him access to the great outdoors. He returned the same way. Over the years Archimedes had granted us stroking privileges but we knew that, despite his appreciation of the supplemental mice we offered him as a treat, he was a wild creature. He came and went as he pleased, and that pleased us.