Duck the Halls: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries) (15 page)

The place seemed much more crowded than usual, partly because several tables had been sacrificed to allow space for Christmas decorations and the rest moved even closer together. In the back left corner, Luigi’s Christmas tree was, as usual, decorated entirely in green, white, and red, the Italian national colors. In fact, the angel gracing the top was waving a tiny Italian flag. The back right corner contained an eight-foot-tall
ceppo
—a traditional Italian Christmas decoration consisting of a pyramid-shaped set of shelves trimmed with candles and evergreen, with presents, candies, and a small Nativity scene gracing the shelves.

I was a little alarmed to see a pair of white ducks in an evergreen-trimmed cage by the kitchen door. Was this part of some new expansion of the menu—an advertisement for duck marinara, perhaps? I pulled out my phone and figured out that the Italian word for duck was “
anitra,
” so I could scour the menu for it.

But Paolo, our waiter, reassured me.

“Oh, no, they are just pets,” he said. “Luigi’s grandson, little Tonino, was heartbroken when they took all the ducks out of the church, so we asked Randall if he thought his cousin would sell us a pair. These are going home with Luigi tonight.”

“A pair,” Michael asked. “Are you planning on raising ducks?”

“No!” Paolo muttered something in Italian while shaking his head. “They are both supposed to be boy ducks, God willing.”

We managed to pry the boys away from Tonino’s ducks only by promising them a visit soon to Ducky Lucky.

In honor of the season, Luigi’s cousin Guiseppe, the failed opera singer, was occupying the small stage in the main room, singing Christmas carols in Italian, accompanied by Zia Filomena on the badly tuned upright piano. Jamie enjoyed the performance enormously, but Josh found it strangely disturbing to hear familiar carols with strange words, even after I explained that it was just another language.

“He’s not singing the right words, Mommy!” he said loudly during one of the quieter moments of “
Astro del Ciel
”—better known to Josh as “Silent Night.”

I’m not sure he bought my explanation. And I had to admit, when Guiseppe launched into the Italian version of “White Christmas,” in a passable imitation of Bing Crosby’s mellow baritone, even I found it a little strange.

But listening to Guiseppe was a good appetizer for the New Life choir’s second concert, which was just as splendid as the Saturday night version had been, even though we did get stuck sitting in the front row again. Josh insisted on singing with the choir, which would have passed unnoticed if, at the end of “Angels We Have Heard on High” he hadn’t gotten carried away and added a few more “Glo-o-o-o-o-rias!” to the song, to the great amusement of both choir and audience. Jamie spent most of the concert craning his neck to look up at the overhead decorations, trying to spot a snake, but at least it kept him occupied.

Even Barliman Vess seemed in a good mood, although I doubted he was enjoying the music. More likely he was comforted by the thought that every verse brought us closer to the moment when Lightfoot and the choir would be leaving Trinity. By the end of the concert he was actually smiling.

As Michael, Rob, and I were filing out with the boys we ran into Robyn. When she spotted us, she looked relieved.

“Is there any chance one of you could do a quick check around the church before you leave?” she asked. “Make sure everything’s locked up with no stragglers? I could do it of course, but for now, I have to stay here to make sure everyone really leaves—we think the pranksters got into New Life by staying after the choir rehearsal. And that’s going to take a while, and—”

“And if someone checks all the doors and windows and closets while you’re guarding the exit, you’ll get home all the sooner.” I turned to Michael. “I need to drive my car home anyway. Why don’t you take the boys home and start the bedtime process? I should be there before you get them tucked in.”

“Can do,” Michael said. He and Rob exited.

Robyn handed me a key ring and I started my inspection on the small hallway on the right side of the vestibule that held the offices and several storage rooms. No intruders in Robyn’s office, and her windows were all properly locked. Ditto for my small office, although I couldn’t actually get anywhere near the window. As far as I could tell from across the room, it was latched; and if it wasn’t, any burglar foolish enough to attempt entry would probably impale himself on the upturned legs of the half dozen battered chairs stored just under the window. Riddick’s lair looked like a filing clerk’s bad dream, untidy stacks of paper covering every horizontal surface, but it was secure and intruder-free. A couple of locked storage rooms finished off the short hallway. I unlocked the doors and peered in, seeing nothing amiss.

I returned to the vestibule, gave Robyn a thumbs-up, and crossed to the other side, where a longer hallway led to several classrooms and eventually the parish hall. I checked them all, methodically—even the bathrooms—and then headed down to the basement. Or should I work on calling it the undercroft, to please Mother and Robyn? A couple more classrooms on the downhill side, which had natural light, and on the side that nestled into the hillside was the furnace room, which also doubled as a huge storeroom.

The classrooms were a little cramped, thanks to the rows and rows of Shiffley Moving Company boxes stacked in the corners.

I had a brief anxious moment when I peered into the furnace room and thought I saw a human figure crouched against the wall at the far end. But when I turned on the light I saw that it was a coat tree covered against the dust with an old sheet that fluttered slightly in the draft from one of the air vents. There were a lot of hulking shapes in the furnace room, with and without dust covers. Like the greater part of my temporary office, it was filled with boxes, interspersed with heavy vintage furniture. Mrs. Thornefield’s legacy, no doubt.

“She had some very nice things,” I remembered Mother saying, when news came out that Mrs. Thornefield had left her entire estate to Trinity. “I shall look forward to the estate sale.”

Presumably the nice things were in the boxes. Unless Mother’s taste had changed dramatically, I couldn’t imagine her coveting any of the furniture I was seeing. No antiques, nothing light or graceful or elegant. Just a lot of big, heavy, dark, battered furniture with faded, threadbare upholstery and cheap, corroded metal fittings.

And scattered in and around the boxes and furniture I could see the detritus of decades of parish life. Hideous paintings in dusty, ornate frames. Every piece of broken equipment that had ever been banished from the offices above, including an IBM Selectric typewriter, an Apple IIe computer, and what appeared to be a 1950s mimeograph machine. Hulking unidentifiable papier-mâché objects left over from bygone children’s pageants. Why did we have a mini trampoline leaning in one corner?

Still, the undercroft was looking better than it had the last time I’d seen it. Shortly after Robyn’s arrival, Mother and the ladies of St. Clotilda had renewed their long-standing offer to reorganize all the church storage spaces, from attic to undercroft, and unlike Father Rufus, Robyn had given her approval. The crowded shelves of food that formed the food bank were gone, reorganized into a former junk closet upstairs. The dozens—perhaps hundreds—of cardboard boxes of old files had been sorted, weeded down to the essentials, and stored in neatly labeled waterproof plastic bins in the attic. The basement really was the last bastion of disorder—well, the basement and my office—and once the Christmas season was over and the guild had time to organize the rummage sale, even those would be gone. The very thought made me cheerful.

I ended my inspection at the back door, which opened into a concrete well where a set of steep stairs led up to the churchyard. The stairwell was screened by a thick privet hedge, which made the back stairs precisely the sort of discreet entrance I would use if I were a prankster looking to smuggle ducks, snakes, skunks, or other unwanted livestock into the church. I double-and triple-checked the locks on that door.

And then, having found no stowaways and no security breaches, I took the stairs back up to the ground level and reported to Robyn.

“All secure,” I said as I handed over the key ring.

“Thanks,” she said. “But keep the key ring. Until the prankster is caught, we’ll be locking the church a lot more. Which shouldn’t inconvenience anyone with a legitimate reason to be here—we must have a million spare keys out there in various parishioners’ hands—no reason you shouldn’t have one set, in case you need to get into your office.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but shouldn’t Riddick be helping with all this checking out and locking up?” I asked.

“He’s home with his migraine,” she said.

“Again? He had one yesterday, didn’t he?”

“He seems to be having a lot of them lately.” She shook her head. “Frankly, I doubt if we’ll see much of him as long as we have so many people from other congregations coming and going. Intruders, as he calls them.”

“He’s very protective of the church,” I said.

“I’d call it possessive,” Robyn said. “And frankly, it’s been driving me crazy. Hard enough coming in as the new kid, dealing with people who want an older priest.”

“Not to mention a male priest,” I put in.

“Yes,” she said. “But I seem to have gotten off on a particularly wrong foot with Riddick, and nothing I’ve done seems to have made any difference. Well, at least the end is in sight.”

“‘End’?” I didn’t like the sound of this. “What do you mean, ‘end’?”

“He’s retiring,” she said. “Theoretically. It was supposed to be end of the year, but now he’s pushed it back to the end of January. And it’s his decision, not mine. Retiring and moving to someplace warmer. He asked me not to announce it until he could tell people himself—though I think with only a month to go it’s about time we said something to the congregation. I mean, people will want to throw him a good-bye party, won’t they?”

We both thought about that for a few moments.

“We’ll all feel bad if we don’t,” I said. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Robyn shook her head sadly.

“So much for my New Year’s resolution to find a way for us to get along better,” she said. “I’ve been talking to Reverend Trask over at the Methodist Church. He has some wonderful wisdom on how to get along with difficult people.”

With Mrs. Dahlgren to deal with, no doubt he did. Reverend Trask must be a saint.

“I confess,” Robyn went on. “I resented Riddick at first—he had it within his power to make my arrival at Trinity so much easier, and instead he seemed to be putting up obstacles at every turn. But then I took a step away and looked at the situation. He’s served the parish for twenty years—all of them under Father Rufus. I’m sure my arrival can’t have been easy for him.”

No, I suspected it hadn’t—particularly since Dr. Rufus J. Womble had been a mild-mannered, easygoing sort, perfectly content to leave all the practical matters to Riddick’s marginally more capable hands. The three of them—Riddick, Father Rufus, and Trinity—had quietly moldered away until Father Rufus, while walking around the rectory, as usual, with his nose in a book, had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken both legs, prompting the bishop to decide that he was overdue for retirement. And along came Robyn, with her huge supply of enthusiasm and energy. Even those of us who adored her sometimes felt a little tired. How must it have been for Riddick?

“There’s so much I could have learned from him,” Robyn said.

“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes he’s the only one who can get that window in the kitchen to open when it gets stuck. And every year, the decorating committee nearly has a nervous breakdown until he figures out where the boxes of decorations have gotten to.”

“I was thinking more of the wisdom he must have learned from working with Father Rufus for so long,” Robyn said. “And his deep knowledge of the congregation. But yes, those things are useful. Although Randall Shiffley’s promised to find me a carpenter who can fix the window, and once we have that yard sale and clear out thirty years’ accumulation of pure junk, finding things around here won’t be nearly so difficult.”

I could understand why Riddick was leaving, even though I was very much in favor of Robyn’s plans.

And it occurred to me that although very few people knew it yet, two of the most annoying people in my life right now—Riddick and Mr. Lightfoot—were probably leaving town soon. Could life get any better? Well, possibly if Barliman Vess decided to convert to one of the other denominations in town. Unlikely, and I didn’t really want to wish him on any of them.

And if Michael’s mother would go back to her long-standing tradition of taking a cruise to some warm climate for Christmas and showing up with armloads of presents for Epiphany, thus avoiding the dueling holiday dinner crisis we were having this year. But that was a problem for another day.

“Speaking of clearing out,” I said aloud. “Time we both did that.”

“Not quite.” She closed her eyes briefly, and I could see how tired she was. “I’m not leaving until the night watch gets here.”

“Night watch?”

“A small group of parishioners have agreed to stay here in the church overnight,” she said. “To guard against any more pranks.”

“Smart idea,” I said.

“All the churches are doing it,” she said. “Just until Chief Burke catches who’s pulling these pranks. And did you know the temple has a guard who stays there every night? Times being what they are I’m sure that’s wise, but isn’t it sad for a house of worship to have to do any of this?”

“Very sad,” I said. “How soon are our volunteer guards coming?”

“They were supposed to be here at ten.”

We both glanced at our watches. The volunteers were fifteen minutes late. And no doubt at this time of year Robyn had a busy day tomorrow.

“Don’t worry,” she said, as if reading my mind. “They should be here any minute.”

“I could wait for them,” I began.

“But you have Michael and those sweet little boys waiting for you,” she said. “And when I go home it’s to a cold house—my husband had to dash down to North Carolina to see about his great-aunt again.”