Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines (8 page)

The café wasn’t full. It was Monday morning. The six a.m. crowd had come and gone. The next wave arrived at eight. By nine, we had the place almost to ourselves. Meg was at our table, and Cynthia was sitting next to her. Two empty tables over sat Billy and Elaine Hixon. Billy had a lawn service company, but at the end of a cold January, didn’t have much work for a month or so. He and his crew did a bit of clean up around the various properties he contracted with, but these were his down months. Come summer, though, he’d be putting in twelve hour days just to keep up. Elaine kept the books for Billy and also sang in the choir at St. B.

“I heard you found eight dead bodies,” said Billy. “Cult murders, all found with parakeets in their mouths.”

“It was only six,” corrected Elaine. “And I heard it was some sort of sex-club.”

Noylene, who was taking the coffee pot around to the two tables, shook her head in disbelief. “Sex-club?” she said. “Parakeets? What some people will come up with! It was poor Darla in that closet.”

“Darla?” said Elaine. “
Your
Darla?”

“Yep,” said Noylene. “My poor Darla.”

I sat down at the table with Meg and Cynthia, and Noylene appeared beside me and filled my coffee cup.

Billy said, “I thought you and Darla had a big ol’ fight.”

“That wasn’t me,” said Noylene. “Me and Darla got along just fine. That was that crazy Goldi Fawn Birtwhistle. Darla never did like Goldi Fawn. Said that Goldi Fawn stole her favorite scissors, you know the one with the comb built right in, and Goldi Fawn comes back that Darla poached one of her best customers and even if she did “borrow” the scissors, it was a fair trade. Then Darla says that Goldi Fawn is a lunatic for believing in all that Christian Astrology stuff and she shouldn’t be giving Satanic readings in a God-fearing House of Beauty, and Goldi Fawn says that she’d be happy to give Darla a reading and tell her the exact date when she’d be going straight to hell.”

“Wow,” said Pete. “Sorry I missed that.”

“Yep,” said Noylene with a sad shake of her head. “Then Darla went at her with a styling wand. All this during a busy Thursday afternoon when we’re having our special on blue-rinse. The place was packed, I can tell you.”

Blue-rinse Thursday, as anyone in St. Germaine could tell you, was Noylene’s busiest day of the month. It only happened on the third Thursday, but on that day, every chair in the Beautifery was booked from eight till eight. Noylene had specials now and again, as everyone knew. You could get into the Dip-n-Tan for half off if you timed it right and got the coupon out of the
Tattler
. College students could get a five dollar haircut on Wednesday morning. If you were lucky (or unlucky) enough to be singled out by the Carolina Neighborly Commission on Beauty — known locally as CarNCOB — and given a citation, you received a fifty-percent discount at any one of the sixteen beauty and stylist shops to which the members of CarNCOB belonged including Noylene’s. The members of CarNCOB spent most Saturdays outside the Walmart Supercenters handing out citations to those offenders who chose to wear spandex leggings with high heels and tank tops.

Noylene Fabergé-Dupont-McTavish had started the Beautifery and had managed to build the enterprise into a thriving small town business. She was now a wealthy woman by mountain standards, and her last marriage to Brother Hog (yes,
THE
Brother Hog, nationally known evangelist) had resulted in a bouncing baby boy named Rahab. Despite her success. Noylene still worked at the Beautifery four afternoons a week, granting her gift of beauty to those less fortunate than herself. She also put in a couple of mornings at the Slab helping out.

“Whatchu want for breakfast?” Noylene asked me, snapping her gum like it was punctuation.

“Ah, surprise me.”

“I’ll just get you what the girls are having.”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

Pete pulled his apron off over his head, then pulled out a chair and sat down. “So, nothing new?”

“Not yet. I did get to meet the new priest.”

“What did you think?” said Meg.

“Well, he informed me that my sabbatical had been cancelled and that I was to report back to work immediately.”

Cynthia, who’d been taking a sip of coffee, spit it back into the cup with a muffled laugh.

“Really?” she said.

“Yep.”

“Hayden,” said Meg, “you weren’t rude to him, were you? You know how you get.”

“I was not rude in the least. I just told him I couldn’t. I told him I was busy.”

Pete’s old cowbell banged against the glass door, signaling another customer. We glanced up and saw Nancy come in. She shed her jacket, hung it on one of the hooks by the door, then came over to the table.

“Good morning,” said Meg brightly.

“Good morning,” echoed Cynthia.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, more used to reading Nancy’s temperaments.

“Nothing’s wrong, I guess.” Nancy dragged a chair from an adjoining table up to the corner and sat down. “Just no luck. I’ve been checking on Crystal Latimore and trying to find out if these women had anything in common. There’s got to be a common thread somewhere.”

“I agree. Did you find anything?”

“Nothing of note.” Nancy flipped open her note pad. “Crystal Latimore worked as a court advocate in Boone. She lived in Linville and owned her own house, although there’s still a mortgage on it. Divorced, no kids. Forty-five years old. A very active member of Mountain Grace Fellowship Church. She had a St. Germaine Library card, but since the library doesn’t open till ten, I don’t know for sure if she used it a lot. I’ll check it out though. We’ll have to get a warrant to look through her house.”

“Maybe they all have the library in common,” suggested Cynthia.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Nah,” said Noylene. “Darla wouldn’t be caught dead in a library. She said the last book she read was
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
and it was so bad it put her off reading forever. She wouldn’t even pick up a People Magazine like everyone else did when she had a break. To tell you the truth, I think she was probably dixelsticks.”

“Or,” said Pete, “dyslexic.”

“Or that,” sniffed Noylene.

“All the women were single though, right?” asked Meg.

“All single,” said Nancy, “but that seems to be the only connection. Amy was a grant writer and worked from home. Darla cut hair
…
“

“She was a purveyor of beauty,” corrected Noylene.

“Sure,” said Nancy. “Darla was a purveyor of beauty and worked at her own shop. Crystal was a court advocate and worked out of the courthouse in Boone. Nothing in common. Hair: different. Weight: different. Body shape: all average, nothing outstanding. Crystal and Darla both went to church, but not the same one. Amy didn’t go. There could be a connection we haven’t found yet, of course.”

“Like what?” asked Meg.

“Anything,” said Nancy. “Their chiropractor for example.”

“The same prescription drug store,” I added. “A Christmas party they all went to. A concert series they had tickets to. A lawyer they all used for something. It could be anything really.”

“I see what you mean,” said Meg.

“So what you’re saying,” said Cynthia, “is that you have no clues what so ever.”

“Oh, we have clues, all right,” I said. “Piles of them. We just don’t know what they mean. I’m thinking that Kent Murphee will shed some light on the crimes. I’ll be going to see him after lunch.”

Chapter 10

After breakfast I walked down Maple Street to see Bud. It was still cold, below freezing in fact, but nothing new for January. Bud told me that it was his plan to give his two-week notice at the Pig as soon as we were sure we’d gotten the house and when I called him yesterday, he said me that Roger said thanks for the notice, but Bud was free to leave. Roger had a couple of employment applications already.

I walked past the St. Barnabas garden, the flower shop and Holy Grounds Coffee Shop to Bud’s new house. There didn’t look to be much activity on this Monday morning. Bud’s old Gremlin was parked in the driveway. There wasn’t any parking for customers on the property, but there was ample parking on both sides of the street. Neither of us thought that would be a deterrent to walk-in business.

I opened the front door, went in to the living room, and called for Bud.

“In here,” he answered from the kitchen. “I’m cleaning out the fridge.”

I followed his voice and found him, head and shoulders buried inside the 1972 vintage Frigidaire in avocado green. He had a giant, plastic, contractor-sized garbage bag beside him and it was already half full.

“Bud, what are you doing?”

“I’m cleaning this thing out. It’s been sitting here for probably a year or so.”

“Three years,” I said, “and we’re not saving it. It’s going to the dump.”

Bud pulled his head out of the fridge and gave me a quizzical look.

“All this stuff,” I added, “is going to the dump. The stove, that microwave on the counter, all of it including the kitchen sink. This is a total redo.”

Bud looked shocked. “You mean we’ll redo the whole kitchen?”

I smiled. “Nope. I mean we’ll redo the whole house. I have an architect coming by in fifteen minutes. You have some drawings of the house, right?”

“Sure. Right there in my briefcase.”

“Then you’re going to meet with her and tell her what you want. Her name is
Jessica Adeline.
This is a wine shop now, not a house. We need a galley kitchen, but we don’t need all this space.”

“A tasting room?” Buds face was alight with possibilities. “We’ll still need a stove to cook hors d’oeuvres. And we’ll need shelves and racks. And wine glasses. And bottle openers. And a long counter for checking out. We could put a walk-in refrigerator in the back bedroom for chilling. And the basement will be perfect for our cellar.”

“You design it, Bud,” I said. “You and the architect. You could get rid of these walls, open this whole space up.” I looked around the room, then added, “Don’t forget bathrooms. His and hers. And your office.”

“Oh, man!” said Bud, rubbing his hands together in delight. “This is gonna be
great!
”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the plans when you’re done. Our contractor is ready to start Thursday, so don’t be too long in the designing. We can make changes as we go if we see something won’t work, but not many, so sit down with the architect and put some thought into this.

“I will!” Bud said, then grew somber. “What about that lady I found in the closet?”

“We’re working on it. You know that two other women were found in the other two houses?”

“Yeah. I heard.”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about. You concentrate on this.”

“I will. Thanks.”

* * *

Dr. Kent Murphee was dressed in exactly the same clothes when I walked into his office on Monday afternoon as he was on Friday night. The exception was that he now held his pipe clenched in his teeth.

“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the uncomfortable chair in front of his desk. “How about a wee scotch?”

“Well, seeing as it’s Monday, I wouldn’t mind.”

Kent pulled open one of the drawers of his desk and came up with two glasses and a bottle of Highland Park 21-year-old scotch. “I’m afraid I don’t have any ice handy,” he said.

“No problem here. Isn’t that the bottle I gave you for Christmas?”

“Nancy delivered me a case, courtesy of the St. Germaine Police Department,” Kent replied with a smile, concentrating on pouring exactly two-fingers into each glass. “This is bottle number two. I have to make it last all year, but I’m happy to share as long as you don’t get greedy.”

We sipped our whiskey, then I said, “Okay, give me the scoop. How did these three women meet their ends?”

“I can’t tell you for sure how they
all
died. I can tell you how the one we found on Friday night died.

“Darla Kildair.”

“Right. The others are still frozen. They may be thawed out by tomorrow evening, but I’d rather take it slowly and keep them refrigerated. We don’t want them at room temperature.”

“I get it.”

“Darla died of a heart attack.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“My suspicion is that I will discover, in due course, that they all died of heart attacks. Highly unlikely of course, that they’d all die of heart attacks and be placed in separate houses in the same positions.”

“All owned by the bank,” I added.

“As I said, highly unlikely.”

“Poison, then?” I asked.

“Maybe. If so, I can’t detect it and I looked for markers for the common ones: potassium chloride, calcium gluconate, renin, the usual stuff. Of course, these are undetectable after a short time as the body absorbs the chemicals, but sometimes they do leave traces — elevated levels of sodium, for example. I didn’t find any of that. She was wearing contact lenses, if you’re interested. And she had a pin in her ankle, but that injury is probably six or seven years old.”

“Should I be interested?”

“Nah.”

“So, heart attack.”

“I also looked for needle marks. None that I could see, but since the body had dehydrated quite a bit, those marks may be indiscernible now. Unless you have a specific poison that I should test for, the chances are not good that I can find it. Even then, it may be a moot point. Sorry I can’t be of more help.”

“You know, the scientists at the Jeffersonian would just re-hydrate the body by soaking it a solution of diluted turkey broth, then run it through the 3-D CAT scan, and discover the needle mark placed inside the belly button piercing.

“Get out,” said Kent.

“Let me know what you find out on the other two when they thaw, will you?”

“You’ll be my first call.”