Liturgical Mysteries 01 The Alto Wore Tweed (18 page)

Denver
’
s eyes flashed toward the door and I knew that Isabel had arrived. I could have smelled her coming-- wisteria, gin and cheap cigars, my favorite combination.

I looked up and there she was, six-feet-five-inches of hard right angles. She wore two shades of red that she had obviously selected to match her eyes. Her dark red hair hung to her shoulders in long, damp tendrils, gently swaying in the faint breeze of the ceiling fan like the legs of a couple of Spanish spiders doing the Tango D
’
Amore beneath her hat.

“
Now that we
’
re all here,” growled Isabel, standing in the doorway, “we can get down to business.”

“That’s it?” said Meg, incredulously. “The ‘Tango D’Amore?’ Well, at least you have them all in the same room.”

• • •

The next morning, before I left for town, I put a freshly deceased mouse on the window sill. I didn’t want my little friend to go hungry and, truth be told, I liked to see him perching there. If I could entice him to come around now and then, all the better. One thing I wasn’t short of, living in the woods, was mice. I cleaned out the mousetraps in the barn every morning and tossed the tiny corpses off the back deck for the wildlife. I didn’t catch too many—two or three a week in the summer, more in the winter, but I decided to save them in the freezer. Even though I had written on the top of the coffee can in big letters “DEAD MICE,” I made a mental note to tell Meg about it. Otherwise, I’d be picking up frozen rodents all over the kitchen. I also decided keep a couple of thawed ones in the vegetable crisper in a baggie. They’d make for easier digestion. I knew I’d better mention that to Meg as well.

I had recorded a cassette tape of Moosey’s newly-composed song so he could learn it quickly. It was my experience that kids could learn anything if you put it on a tape and let them hear it a couple of times. And Moosey was smart. He might not know what was going on, but he’d be great as “The Penguin of Bethlehem.” On my way into work, I dropped off a brand new boom box with the tape already loaded on the McCollough’s front porch along with the words to the song and a note explaining what Moosey’s part was in this program. The note also informed Ardine that the CD player was Moosey’s reward for such hard and diligent work, thus insuring that Ardine would drill the song into Moosey’s head until he had it cold. A pretty good deal, I thought. A singer
and
a teacher, all for $29.95 at Wal-Mart.

I was going to stop by Meg’s house for some breakfast. Her mother was cooking waffles and once I got wind of it, I went fishing for an invitation like an angler on the first day of trout season.

“I can’t meet you for coffee,” Meg said when I called her earlier. “Mother’s making breakfast for me.”

“Hmmm. What’s she fixing?” I asked, beginning my finagle.

“Oh, just waffles and scrambled eggs. And maybe some country ham.”

“Oh, well...”

“She has some blackberries to go on the waffles. You know, to go with that fresh hand-whipped cream and hot maple syrup.”

I tried to sound very hungry by smacking my lips. “Well, I’ll probably just try to get a stale bagel over at the gas station. It’s going to be a busy day. I’d meet you for lunch, but I don’t think I’ll even have time to eat,” I sighed.

“Oops, I’ve got to get the biscuits out of the oven or they won’t taste very good with this homemade gravy. And stop drooling into the phone. You’re invited.”

“I’ll be right over. One stop.”

“Pick up some coffee ’cause we’re out. See you in a bit.”

“Two stops then. Bye.”

• • •

I picked up a bag of coffee at The Slab but declined Pete’s invitation for breakfast. I nodded “hello” to Rhiza and Malcolm, who were breakfasting at the corner table, before scooting out the door.

“Sorry, I have another date,” I said, getting out the door quickly.

“See you later,” I yelled as the door closed behind me.

• • •

The breakfast was every bit as good as I anticipated. Megan’s mother, Ruby, was an excellent cook and I suspected that Meg was helping out as well. As a culinary tag-team, they couldn’t be beat.

“Dee-licious,” I said, settling back in my chair and wishing I had had the good sense to wear sweat-pants—or at least some old-man jeans with an elastic waist band. “You two are pretty good at word games. I need some help.”

“How would you know we’re good at word games? You never play with us,” said Ruby pointedly, starting the dishes.

“Well, that’s because I
hate
word games,” I said as Meg punched me in the leg under the table. “I’m no good at that stuff. But I need someone to figure out an anagram. ”

I had Ruby’s interest now. Meg’s, too.

“What anagram?” Meg asked.

“Our clue,” I said. “Geoffrey called last night. He thinks it’s an anagram and I’m betting he’s right.”

“Do you have it with you?” Ruby asked, leaving the dishes and coming over to the table.

“I do indeed,” I replied, and pulled out a piece of paper from my breast pocket.

O hark the herald angels sing;

The boy’s descent which lifted up the world.

“Where’s the first line?” asked Meg. “The part about Matthew?”

“We don’t think it’s part of the anagram. It doesn’t fit the pattern.”

“Why don’t we get the Scrabble game out and lay out the letters,” said Ruby, getting up and going to the hall closet.

“My thought exactly.”

We laid the tiles on the table, spelled out the clue and came up a few letters short.

“We’re going to need five more h’s,” Meg said. “I’ll cut up some paper.”

“I’ve got to get over to the station. Let me know if you come up with anything.”

“We’ll work on it,” muttered Ruby, already rearranging the letters on the table into various words. “Is there anything specific we should be looking for?”

“We think it’s a clue to the murder. That’s all I can tell you about it. Thanks for a lovely breakfast.” I closed the front door behind me leaving the two women huddled over the table..

I arrived at the office about ten minutes later, just in time to hear Dave’s end of the conversation on the phone.

“What do you mean, no parade? Listen, Marta, we’ve had it on the schedule all year. Kiwanis Club Christmas Parade, December eighteenth. No, you didn’t do the parade last year. It was two years ago. Last year Kiwanis did the Living Crèche. Yes, I know it was well-received. Well,” said Dave, wrapping up his futile conversation, “
you’re
going to have to tell Pete.”

“What’s up?” I asked, knowing the answer was going to be bad news.

“The Kiwanis Club isn’t going to sponsor the Christmas parade this year.
They
want to do the Living Crèche.”

“Isn’t it the Rotary’s turn for the crèche.”

“According to us and Bob Solomon it is. They’ve already built a new scene, arranged for all new costumes and hired Seymour Krebbs’ camel.”

“A camel. That’s pretty good.”

Dave went on, “Marta says that the Kiwanis Club got permission from the Rotary to do their crèche again because it was such a big hit last year. You know, with the petting zoo for the kids and the llamas and all.”

“I never did understand how a South American animal made it all the way to Bethlehem.”

“Probably on a boat. Anyway, Bob says he didn’t agree to anything with Marta and it’s the Kiwanis Club’s turn to host the parade. Apparently, the Rotarians really spent a bundle to outdo the Kiwanians’ crèche from last year.”

“Sheesh. Does Pete know?” I asked, shaking my head and heading into my office.

“No. I told Marta to call him, but I don’t think she will till it’s too late to do anything about it. He’ll have to hear it from you.”

“It’s already too late to do anything about it. Have there been any parade committee meetings?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Is anyone expecting to be in it? You know, bands, floats, stuff like that?”

Dave looked at his information from last year’s parade and flipped through the papers. “Nope. They would have had to send in an entrance fee by November 10th. No one sent any information out, so no one sent in a fee.”

“That’s that, then. At least no one will be mad. Maybe it will all just disappear,” I said. But I doubted it.

• • •

I called Pete and gave him the scoop on the parade. To paraphrase his immediate utterance, rendering it inoffensive to human ears and allowing it to float harmlessly into the stratosphere, knocking down a few birds that might be passing by, but generally doing no permanent damage: “We are not amused.” Actually Pete is one of the only people I know that can say a thirteen-word sentence using nothing but expletives. It’s an art really. He works in profanity the way another artist might work in watercolors, each word carrying various hues and subtleties not available to the casual curser. His work in the field of gerunds alone would make him a legend in any seaport on the east coast.

I held the phone away from my ear as Pete voiced his displeasure at the situation and took the opportunity to loudly emphasize a number of details concerning the Kiwanian’s common ancestry and the moral character of all their sisters and mothers.

• • •

Later that afternoon, I dropped by the Farthing residence to see how mother and daughter were faring on the word games.

“Come on in. We’ve got a couple of things worked out,” Meg said opening the door. Her dark hair was tousled and pulled back. She was wearing jeans and one of my old sweatshirts. She looked ravishing.

I went into the kitchen and saw the Scrabble tiles still spread across the table, words placed hither and yon, but with no discernible pattern that I could see.

“There’s a lot of letters,” said Ruby. “You could make almost anything out of them. Here’s one for instance.”

She wants to sing Bill Gaither tunes.

Choked chef hardly plowed the herd.

How’s that?” Med added.

“Pretty bad,” I said. “I like the part about the Bill Gaither tunes, though.”

Meg was digging through her stack of papers. “Here’s one.”

Ring thanks. God real. He heals.

When rested, bathed, clothed, I putt softly.

I started looking through the papers on the table and read several anagrams that really meant nothing that I could see.

Bad newsletters deduct the filthy photo

Hello, earth-shaking gardens

This filthy snow troubles hat depth

detected large longer handshake

“Hmmm, interesting, but I don’t recognize anything usable,” I said. “What about this? We think that the first line. ‘I saw who did it. It’s him. It’s Matthew,’ is part of the clue and that Matthew is the gospel and ‘it’s him’ refers to a hymn, right?” I asked the two ladies, now watching me intently and nodding in the affirmative.

“Then, that being the case,” I continued, “maybe the anagram is a hymn title, which would narrow our search considerably.”

“I’ll get the hymnal,” said Meg.

“And I’ll pour the coffee,” added Ruby, getting up and quickly returning with three mugs, which she placed on the table amongst the scattered Scrabble tiles. I always appreciated a coffee mug.

Meg returned with two copies of The Hymnal 1982, and I recognized the inscription on the front of each: “Property of St. Barnabas Church.” She looked a little sheepish as she handed one to her mother.

“I’m just
borrowing
them. You aren’t going to arrest me, are you?”

“Not today, my dear,” I said sipping my coffee.

“We should probably start with the Christmas section,” Ruby suggested. “The anagram seems pretty Christmasy to me. The first Christmas hymn is number 77. I think this will go pretty fast. Once we rule a hymn out, we can go on to the next one.”

“Great idea,” said Meg, opening her own book. “I’ll take 78.”

Thirty-eight minutes later, while rummaging around the refrigerator for sandwich fixin’s, I heard Ruby cry out, “Bingo! I’ve got it!”

“That was quick,” I said, munching on a dill pickle and pulling out some leftovers.

Meg looked over at Ruby’s paper. “I was on 93, so it must be 94.”

Ruby nodded and pointed to the anagram, then to her scribblings.

O hark the herald angels sing;

The boy’s descent which lifted up the world.

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,

all seated on the ground.

“You have to admit it’s good,” I said.

Meg was already coming back into the room with a Bible.

“Let’s see. Hymn 94. Matthew 9:4.” She thumbed through the pages quickly. “And Jesus, knowing their thoughts said, ‘Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?’” She pondered the scripture for a moment. “Well, that doesn’t help a bit, does it?”