Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines (17 page)

Chapter 22

The Chevalier Lance Fleagle arrived on Thursday morning. I know this because Georgia walked into the Slab Café, stomped up to the table, put both hands on her hips and announced it.

“The Chevalier Lance Fleagle is here. He’s moving into your office.” Georgia hadn’t bothered to remove her coat, hat, or mittens. “Kimberly Walnut is running around like a chicken with its head cut off saying she’s going to be murdered and left in a closet. The whole place is in an uproar.”

My eyebrows went up. Pete, sitting at the table with me, guffawed. Cynthia, who was working this morning, turned from the table she was waiting on and said, in a small voice, “Oh, my.” I was waiting for Dave and Nancy to come over for our weekly staff meeting (otherwise known as “free breakfast”) and was enjoying my second cup of coffee.

“Moving into my office, you say?”

“Yes,” said Georgia. “Father Dressler told him he could box up your things and stack them in the storage closet down the hall, so that’s what he’s doing. He also requested the password on your computer so he can use it since it contains the music library data base.
And
Kimberly Walnut has gone crazy!”

My eyes narrowed. “
Moving into my office?
”

“Yes,” said Georgia. “He has quite a number of boxes. I believe he brought all manner of books, encyclopedias, and music with him in his van. Also vestments and several cartons of other religious paraphernalia including his own
prie deux
and small Mary altar. Did you hear me about Kimberly Walnut?”

I took a deep breath and relaxed. “A kneeler, eh? Well, that’s certainly reasonable.
Beati possidentes
. Blessed are those who possess. Don’t worry about Kimberly Walnut. She’s not going to be murdered. At least not this week.”

“Quite frankly, it’d be a relief if she was.” She waggled a finger at me. “Back to the Chevalier. He’s screwed his nameplate to the door.” Georgia pulled out a piece of paper and read, “It says
Le
Chevalier
Lancelot Fleagle, KStY, A.A., B.M., M.M. Master of the Musik
, and he spelled ‘Musik’ with a ‘k.’ What do you think of
that
? It’s your office, for heaven’s sake!”

“All I can say is
Date et dabitur vobis
. Give and it shall be given to you. Please tell
Le
Chevalier
that the computer doesn’t have a password and to use it with my compliments.”

“
E pluribus unum
,” sputtered Georgia. “Are you listening to me?”

“I am,” I replied, “but like the holy men of yore, I have found my spiritual center. I shan’t be tousled upon this stormy sea.”

“Oh, my,” said Cynthia again. “This isn’t going to end well, is it?”

I smiled and slurped my coffee.

“How come you never put all those letters behind your name?” Pete asked.

“Too many,” I replied. “It’d be like alphabet soup. There just wouldn’t be room for anything else on my new door nameplate.”

“Okay, smart guy,” said Georgia through gritted teeth. “How about this then? Father Dressler has applied for the full-time position. I have his formal letter of application on my desk and so does the rest of the vestry.”

“He did tell us that he was applying,” I said in my nicest voice, “and he indicated that it shouldn’t be too long before we had a new permanent rector.”

Georgia growled — a deep growl, bear-like, low in her throat. I’d never heard a woman growl like this before. Pete looked startled. Cynthia’s eyes grew wide.

I said, “Never fear. I shall come over and greet the Master of the Musik as soon as I check with Nancy and Dave on a couple of things and maybe have a little breakfast.”

“You do that,” snarled Georgia, then turned on her heel and marched toward the door. Dave and Nancy met her as they were coming in and held the door. She didn’t acknowledge the gesture, as all well-bred Southerners do, but stomped right past them into the frosty air, muttering beneath her breath.

“Wow,” said Dave, pulling out his chair and sitting. “She’s steamed.”

“She’s the Senior Warden,” I said. “This is all on her plate now.”

“I wonder,” said Pete, “how long it will really take to appoint the new rector.”

“Father Dressler is probably correct,” I said. “I don’t think it will take too long. These things tend to work themselves out.” I changed the subject. “Anything new on the murder front?”

“Nope,” said Nancy.

“Nope,” said Dave.

“Well, that’s it for our staff meeting then. Let’s order breakfast.”

* * *

After our delicious repast that included Pete’s new menu item — Belgium waffles stuffed with cream cheese and covered with blackberries — Nancy and Dave went back to the office to detect some stuff, and I walked across Sterling Park to St. Barnabas. The park was desolate, as it is every January. The trees were bare, the grass was brown, and the sounds of the park heard before Christmas — laughter, people talking and walking their dogs, music made by itinerant buskers, late-season squirrels and birds — were all gone and wouldn’t reappear until spring. Even the leaves had vanished, thanks to Billy Hixon and his crew of landscapers. It was a desolate park in January and snow scrambled in the roots of the tall maples and oaks. I crossed the street, bypassed the two red front doors of the church, and walked around the side to the entrance of the offices. I found the door locked, pulled out my keys, then opened the door and walked down the hallway to Marilyn’s office. She was sitting at her desk, rifling through papers with a look of consternation on her face.

“Why is the door locked?” I asked her, in a quiet voice, figuring that Father Dressler probably had his ear to the door.

“He’s out,” said Marilyn. “He told us to keep the door locked in case of vagrants wandering in and asking for a handout.”

“When was the last time that happened?”

“The day he got here. I took care of it like I always do. I took the woman back to the food pantry and loaded her up. She had two little kids with her.”

“And?”

“And Father Dressler doesn’t want to deal with that sort of thing, so now everyone has to be buzzed in. If they’re after a handout — that’s what he called it, a handout — they’re to first check in with the Bartholomew Center and their counselors will refer them to the appropriate agency. If they decide that we’re the ones to help, they’ll make an appointment for them. He’s set all this up with the Center. He doesn’t have time to deal with everyone on a one-to-one basis. Besides, he says that certain people work the system. That’s why everyone has to be buzzed in.”

The Bartholomew Center was a nonprofit agency outside of town that dealt with families in trouble.   They did good work, but I knew they had their hands full as it was. Marilyn had always dealt with walk-ins who needed help. She was happy to do it. She
liked
doing it and she’d told the vestry so on more than one occasion.

“I didn’t even know that we had a buzzer,” I said.

“Well,” said Marilyn sadly, “we do.”

“How about the front doors?” I asked.

“Locked.”

“Are you kidding?” Never in my experience had the front doors of St. Barnabas been locked during the day. Old Henry Landers, the sexton, usually didn’t lock the doors till eleven and had them open again by eight. It wasn’t unusual to find people sitting in the church at all hours.

“I’m not kidding,” Marilyn hissed softly.

I sighed heavily and said, “Is the Chevalier in? I thought I’d say hello.”

“He is. Shall I announce you?”

My eyebrows went up for the second time this morning, something they didn’t do often.

“I like it when your eyebrows go up,” said Marilyn, finally giving me a small smile. “They go up and then stuff happens.” She picked up her phone, punched in three numbers and said. Chevalier Fleagle? The Chief is here to see you.” Silence, then, “No, not Father Dressler. The
Police
Chief. Chief Hayden Konig. Yes
…
yes
…
I’ll send him right down.” She hung up the phone and rolled her eyes, then pointed down the hall to my ex-office.

“The
Chevalier will see you now,” she said.

“What’s that extension anyway?” I asked. “I never bothered to use it.”

“Six six six,” said Marilyn.

* * *

“
Entrez vous
,” called the
Chevalier when I knocked on the door. I glanced at the new nameplate as I turned the door handle and walked in. Gold with engraved script. Lancelot Fleagle was busy putting his hardcover, twenty-nine volume set of the
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
on one of the shelves directly behind where his head would be if he were sitting in my expensive leather desk chair. I didn’t own those particular volumes any longer. I’d given mine to the St. Germaine library. Since the
Grove Dictionary
went on-line, I much preferred to pay the subscription fee and have everything available at my fingertips and easily searchable. With over 22,000 articles, wading through them all was a daunting task and one suited to graduate students. I had done my time in the days before personal computers and I wasn’t going back.

The other shelves contained equally scholarly tomes, some I recognized:
The Study of Counterpoint
by Johann Joseph Fux, first published in 1725, and
French Baroque Music
by James Anthony, the definitive text on the subject. Some I didn’t recognize, but had no desire to read. It was clear that the Chevalier had boxed up my entire hardbound collection of Peanuts comics.

Another wall of shelves was full of books of organ music. A few were unmistakable, even from across the room, and I recognized the spines right away. The Bach complete organ works, Mendelssohn, Handel, Durufle. Standard stuff.

On the desk was a sword stuck into an acrylic stone. Applied to the stone, a small, golden plaque proclaimed his knighthood into the Order of St. Clementine. There was also a framed scroll on the wall, in Latin, advertising the same thing. At least I thought it must. I recognized the words “ST. CLEMENTINE” in bold, Gothic lettering. The desk also had a copy of Sunday’s printed bulletin (Marilyn had been busy this morning), and a working copy of the Evensong bulletin. It wasn’t hard to figure these two out even though I was seeing them upside down. The computer was on, the monitor pointed inexplicably toward the door, and had a new screensaver: the Chevalier being knighted by an even grander knight, presumably the head of the order. To the right of Lance Fleagle was Father Gallus Dressler, dressed in his long clerical garb, but with an heraldic overlay. There were other knights present as well and the venue was a good replication of one of the Great Halls in England, complete with banners, shields, huge oaken beams holding up a vaulted ceiling, and stone walls and floors. It was a portrait worthy of a Pre-Raphaelite.

“Please have a seat,” Lance said, pointing to the small, plastic office chair he’d pilfered from the conference room. He let himself down easily in the leather chair behind the desk.
My
leather chair, bought by
me
, for
my
office, covered with the hides of unborn Nubian goats, hand stitched, rubbed, and dyed by beautiful Alpine
ledermädchens
, and stuffed with the downy pinions of Danish snow geese — or so I’d been told. Knowing what I’d paid for it, I didn’t doubt the veracity of the provenance. I took a deep breath and sat down.
Bis vincit qui se vincit
: He conquers twice who conquers himself.

“I’m Lancelot Fleagle,
Chevalier.”

Hayden Konig, Police Chief. Pleased to meet you.” I extended my hand across the desk, but he didn’t reach to meet it.”

“Forgive me. I don’t shake hands. You understand.”

“Nope,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me?”

He was medium height and build, fleshy, and a little pudgy. His hair was receding and he had it cut short and spiked with some sort of goop that gave him the look of a fat little hedgehog. He sported round, tortoise-shell eyeglasses and a sparse goatee that did little to cover up the fact that he had no chin to speak of. He was wearing a long black cassock just like Father Dressler but without the red cincture. His band-cincture was black and he wasn’t wearing a priest’s dog-collar.

“I must keep my fingers unimpaired,” he snuffled. “I once had an ugly incident shaking hands with a lumberjack. I had a very bad bruise for almost a week.” He wiggled his digits at me. “These are my instrument, as you well know.”

“Are you ordained?” I asked, gesturing toward his dress.

“I’ve almost finished the discernment process.”

“So, the answer is no. You really haven’t even started.”

“No yet, but the bishop says it’s academic,” he said, and waved his hand as though it were nothing, then changed the subject. “I’ve been going over the specs for the organ. It seems to be quite adequate for our use.” He frowned and pouted his lips. “It’s not really a concert instrument though, is it? Who is the designer?”