Liturgical Mysteries 01 The Alto Wore Tweed (28 page)

“Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon,” Rhiza quoted. “Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun.”

It seemed to me that she had done her research just a little too well. However, I had to admit that a Biblical Literalist might agree that her quotation from the
Song of Solomon
could be loosely construed as an admonition directly from the Old Testament that we should all strive to have nice tans. In defense of orthodoxy, I also mentioned to her that the Southern Baptists hardly ever read the
Song of Solomon
except on mriage encounter weekend retreats—and only then behind closed doors with the lights out.

Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit.

I said, “I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit.”

“Brother Dan says that we shouldn’t have to go out to a secular tanning facility just to obey the scriptures,” Rhiza said. “It’s obvious that God has a plan for my life. No visible tan lines.”

I pondered Rhiza’s No-Tan-Line Theological Construct as I drove past the manger scenes still decorating Main Street on my way to the church on Thursday morning. The snow drifts were about three feet high inside the stables and some smart-alec, who shall remain nameless, had placed a dozen two-foot high plastic penguins around the Kiwanis Club manger. It wasn’t my fault. Archie McPhee and Co., outfitters of popular culture, had them on sale.

?

The family service at 5:30 was packed—as it always was. The choir didn’t sing but Father Brown did a nice children’s sermon, the retelling of the Christmas Story and a lot of congregational singing. I noticed that Ardine and her kids were in the front row sitting next to Nancy. At the 11:00 service, the choir would sing the Charpentier
Midnight Mass
as well as several anthems during communion including the “Moldy Cheese” madrigal, and would end with the traditional
Silent Night
after which
Meg and I would head over to the McCollough’s with the presents for the kids.

• • •

The Eucharist finished up around seven and I had told Megan I’d meet her at the cabin after the service. She was there waiting for me, looking beautiful in a red velvet dress.

“Like it? It’s my Christmas Eve dress.”

“Stunning,” I said, meaning it.

“Here’s your present,” she said, handing me a nicely wrapped box. “You know, you’re incredibly difficult to buy for.”

“I know what this is,” I said, opening the package and expecting the leather bomber jacket that I had hinted about for weeks. It was empty.

“Hey, what’s the deal?”

“I didn’t want to get you just any old thing. Go look in your study.”

I walked through the living room into the old two story cabin and there standing in the corner, a full six feet tall, was a stuffed buffalo.

“No WAY! This is GREAT! Where on earth did you get such a thing?”

“There was a restaurant going out of business in Chapel Hill. I do the investments for the owner. So I made him a offer he couldn’t refuse.”

“How did you get it in here?”

“ few choir members lent their muscle to the task.”

“Well, I must say that this is the finest present I’ve ever received,” I said taking her in my arms and kissing her soundly.

“Hmmm. Aren’t you forgetting something?” Meg was nothing, if not direct.

“Ah yes. Wait here for a second. I’ll be right back. You can give Archimedes a few mice while you wait.” The owl had been sitting patiently on the table since I’d come in, but now was looking around the room in consternation for his dinner.

I disappeared out the back door and reappeared a few moments later with a wriggling bundle that I could barely hold on to. Finally I put him down and he was in Meg’s arms before I could say “Merry Christmas.”

“I LOVE him!” Meg said, sitting on the floor, the six-week old puppy dancing all over her new dress.

“He’s a Burmese Mountain Dog. Very loyal, and a good watchdog.”

Archimedes had retreated to the elk head to eat his mouse, but otherwise didn’t seem too ruffled at the prospect of another animal in the house.

“By the way, you see that little cask around his neck?”

“Yes, it’s SO cute!”

“Well, my dear, open it up.”

Meg opened the end of the cask and pulled out a strand of Australian pearls.

“Wow. They’re beautiful. I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” She eyed me suspiciously. “Are they real?”

“Of course they’re real. I am a millionaire, you know.”

“I love them!” she said, putting on the pearls and turning her attention back to the puppy. “What should I name the little rascal?”

“How about Mr. Peepers?”

“Oh shut up. I’ll have to think about it. He needs just the right name.”

“Well, think about it,” I said. “You’ll come up with something. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you.”

And it was.

Chapter 22

I waited till Ardine’s kids were back in school and the Beautiful Snow Princess of December had morphed itself into the Howling Ice-Beast of January before I decided to go back over to her trailer. It was snowing heavily as I drove up, parked my truck and knocked on her front door.

“Hi, Ardine,” I said as she opened the door, at the same time stomping the snow off of my boots. “May I come in?”

“I suppose.”

“I have a couple of things to show you.”

I wed into the living room and put the paper grocery bag I was carrying onto the kitchen table, then shook my arms free of my coat and dropped it over the back of the chair.

“May I sit down?” I said, sitting down.

Ardine shrugged, sat across from me and watched me nervously, her hands folded in front of her, resting on the table.

“I have some things here you might be interested in.”

I opened the bag and began to put some items on the table. A half-smoked cigar, two bottles of wine, a matchbook, an old skeleton key and a thirty year old census report.

“It seems,” I started, watching her eyes dart back and forth from object to object. “It seems that Willie Boyd had a half-brother. I had to go to the census figures from 1970 to find him. Did you know that Willie was your husband PeeDee’s half-brother? Course you did. PeeDee’s father was Roger McCollough and Willie’s father was Percy Boyd. Both born in Watauga County. Their mother, Emma, was married to Roger for only a year or two. Percy came along later a couple of years later, but she never married him.”

“Look here,” I said, pushing the census report across the table to Ardine, who made no move to take it. “Census report from 1970. Emma McCollough, single mother. Her two boys were living with her. Peter Dennis McCollough, age thirteen—That’d be PeeDee—and William Raymond Jefferson Boyd, age eleven.

Ardine was chewing on her bottom lip. She didn’t say anything.

“I’m sure that Willie probably told you if you didn’t know before.”

I pushed the half-smoked cigar to the center of the table.

“This is the cigar that Willie left up in the choir loft where he died. I took it down to the coroner and guess what? The end was probably soaked in boiled oleander leaves just like the cross. I suspect that it wasn’t the cross gave him the heart attack at all. It would have taken him quite a while to get a fatal dose unless he just sucked on it like a candy cane, and although he was a strange fellow, I doubt that he’d go quite that far. Anyway, he died pretty quickly.”

Ardine sat quietly.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that the Loraine Ryan wanted him dead and she surely dipped that cross in the mixture that JJ was cooking up, but I don’t think that the cross killed Willie Boyd.”

With one finger I slid the green book of matches with ‘Pine Valley Christmas Tree Farm’ emblazoned across the front across the table.

“These were beside the cigar up in the choir loft. That’s where you work, isn’t it, Ardine?”

“A lot of people come by there.”

“Yes, they do. But the Pine Valley Tree Farm hasn’t had these match books for a couple of years. Wonder where he found this one? I’ll bet that if I looked around the trailer, I’d come up with another book or two.”

“Don’t know.”

I pushed the two botes of wine to the center of the table.

“These were in Willie’s room. The interesting thing is, is that no dealer in the state of North Carolina even sells this kind of wine. They’re Portuguese red wines. Not very expensive, but a good value for someone who collects. You can get it on the internet if you know where to look and if you have a credit card. Now why would Willie buy wine on the internet?”

“I don’t know.”

“I suspect that Willie didn’t even know how to turn on a computer, much less know how to find a rare Portuguese wine and order it. Not to mention the fact that he didn’t even have a bank account or a credit card. Doesn’t Bud have a bank account?”

“I suppose.”

“And a debit card?”

“I don’t know.”

I held up the old, brown skeleton key.

“This is the key that I found in Bud’s room. Remember? It’s the key to the wine closet at St. Barnabas. It came off of Willie’s key ring. He was here a lot, wasn’t he?”

I looked at Ardine for a full minute without saying anything. Her head was down and her hands remained locked on the table in a prayerful position as if she was getting ready to say grace.

“Look, Ardine. I already know what happened. Just tell me why.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

I studied her for a moment before making up my mind.

“No.”

She nodded and said “I’m believin’ you on that.” Then she took a deep breath.

“Willie came by here about six months ago. He tole me that he knew that I killed PeeDee and he knew how I did it and that he was gonna tell the police. Then the police would come and put my kids in a home. I grew up in a home. I’m not lettin’ them put my kids in one,” she said angrily.

“Did you kill PeeDee?”

She pointed her finger at me and looked right into my eyes with new fire in her voice.

“I ain’t sayin’. But things are different here in the hollers than they are down in town. You know that.”

Her voice got quieter.

“Anyway, Willie started comin’ by here every couple of mornin’s after the kids got on the bus. I guess he didn’t dare do it before Moosey started goin’ to school. Anyway, he’d make me...you know...him and me.... And then he’d take off for work leavin’ me sick to my stomach and feeling like dirt. I’d go take a shower but I felt like I couldn’t even scrub his filthy stink off me.”

She picked up one of the bottles.

“He stole those bottles from Bud, I guess. I seen ’em in his room. The judge said Bud wasn’t s’pposed to have any wine and those bottles were under his bed But he used his own newspaper money, so I didn’t say anything to him. Willie was stealing other stuff from us, too. He took one of my quilts down to Boone and sold it for twenty dollars,” she said in disgust. “Twenty dollars. And then was laughin’ about it.”

“And?”

“Willie tole me he was dyin’ but I didn’t believe him.”

“He was telling the truth. He had maybe three or four months left.”

“I just couldn’t stand it anymore,” she said, her hands shaking. “When JJ came around asking about the oleander, I had the idea. He left his cigars here one morning...”

“That’s enough,” I said, interrupting her. “Don’t tell me any more. It wouldn’t do for me me to hear it.”

“I ain’t sorry.”

“Listen Ardine,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“As far as the law is concerned, Willie died from the poison on that cross.”

She looked across the table at me as I put the cigar and the matches back into the bag. I dropped the key into my pocket and left the wine and the census report on the table.

“So don’t go killing anyone else.”

Ardine nodded.

“Especially me,” I added as an afterthought.

“I won’t.”

Postlude

“
Marilyn,” I snarled over the phone. “I
’
ve got three dead people up here and I still have to pick the hymns for next week.”

“
So what else is new?” she answered. “I
’
ll send up the janitors.”

I sat down at my desk, pulled my hat low over my eyes and lit up a stogie. This was one for the books, all right, and I knew the Bishop well enough to know that he
’
d clean up the mess. I buzzed Marilyn back.

“
Hey darlin
’
, how
‘
bout some Java? This cigar tastes like a plumber
’
s handkerchief.”