Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 (26 page)

Father John looked blankly at her. “Did it disappear? All I know is, I brought it up to the sacristy that day I loaned you the book, wrapped it in a white sheet, and put it in one of the drawers.” He looked at the secretary. “Crystal, did you take it out of there?”

“I didn't know it was in there, Father. I don't think anyone did. We've been looking for it.”

Betsy said, relieved, “I was hoping you'd let me have another look at it.”

“Of course. Crystal—”

But Patricia, already moving, said, “I'll get it for you, Betsy. I want to talk to you about the project anyway.” She gestured at the thin man on the seat. “You may have my turn.”

The man looked at the secretary, then at Father John, who nodded and said, “Hello, Hadley. Come on in.”

Patricia had vanished down a short hall. She was gone barely a minute, then came back, to walk past Jill and Betsy to the secretary's desk. “Crystal, I can't find the tapestry in any of the drawers,” Patricia said. “I wonder if Father John is mistaken.” Her voice was a trifle thick, and she coughed. So it was a cold, not worry, that had Patricia looking ill.

“I wouldn't think so,” said the secretary. “I mean, he said he wrapped it in a sheet and put it in a drawer in the sacristy, right? That's kind of specific for even him to be mistaken about, you know what I mean?”

“May I look?” asked Betsy.

“I can help, too,” said Jill.

Patricia glanced at the secretary, who shrugged, then said, “Go ahead, if you like.”

“Come on, Betsy,” said Jill.

Jill led her down the short hall to a small room lined with wooden cabinets. There were two sets of wide, shallow drawers. One of the top drawers was pulled out, showing a green chasuble, the vestment that covers the arms and torso of a priest during the communion service.

Betsy bent and looked to the back of the drawer without seeing anything but chasuble. She closed it and pulled the next one out. It was empty. The one below that had a red chasuble.

Jill opened a vertical door and began gently pushing aside the rows of albs, the white gowns worn under vestments.

Finished with the drawers, Betsy opened a tall cabinet full of long candle holders designed to be carried in a procession. Another cabinet contained shelves with censers and other paraphernalia. A tall, narrow hanging space held stoles, the long, narrow bands hung from the neck. Next to the cabinet was a door, in the wall opposite to the one they came in by. Betsy opened it and saw it led into the chapel, which was as innocent of white sheets as the cabinets she had searched. She closed it again and opened the cabinet of albs, and checked each one to make sure Jill hadn't mistaken a white sheet for an alb. She hadn't.

Even with total overlap, it took less than five minutes to complete the search.

“What do you think?” asked Betsy.

“I think it's not in here,” said Jill. “I don't know why.”

“Where else could it be?”

“Beats me. It's not in the outer office, and I doubt if it's in Father John's office. You looked in the chapel and didn't see it.”

They went out of the sacristy. Betsy saw another door on her right that had a small metal sign: Rest Room. It was slightly ajar, and she opened it to find the world's smallest bathroom. It had a toilet and a tiny sink. If the sink had been full size, there wouldn't have been room for the toilet.

“Find it?” said Patricia from outside the room.

Betsy turned around and said, “No.”

Jill said, “Maybe someone saw it in the sacristy, realized it didn't belong, and put it somewhere else.”

Patricia said, “Now that sounds very likely. I'm afraid Father John does put things down instead of away, so the staff is pretty used to picking up after him.” Her voice was more indulgent than annoyed, and Betsy remembered Patricia was on the vestry.

Betsy said, “I bet Father John was kind of a letdown after the fabulous Father Keane.”

Patricia frowned a little at Betsy. “Not at all. He's different, but every man is different from every other. John's kind and wise and has an amazing sense of humor.”

Betsy laughed. “Good to hear someone finally say that.”

“Say what?”

“Most of us women complain that men are all alike!”

Patricia started to laugh, but sneezed instead. “You're right, you're right!” she said, pulling a handkerchief from her coat pocket and blowing. “But don't tell anyone I said it, or I'm liable to be drummed out of the gender corps!”

Betsy said, “But what are we going to do? This will hold up the restoration.”

“Well, nothing's going to get done during the holiday season anyway; you know that. Even I'm going out of town—but I think I told you that. We're leaving this afternoon for Phoenix. The tapestry will very likely turn up a day or two after Christmas, when it's less of a madhouse around here.”

Jill said, “So you think it will be found.”

“Of course! After all, it's not exactly something someone would steal. And everyone knows about it, so they aren't likely to throw it away by mistake. It's around here somewhere.”

Betsy said, “Yes, I suppose you're right. Okay, I'll just wait for it to turn up. If I don't hear between now and New Year's, I'll call Father John or you.”

“Thank you, Betsy.”

W
hen they got back to the apartment, the phone message light was blinking.

Betsy pushed the Play button, and the happy voice of her insurance agent said, “Hello, Ms. Devonshire! ServiceMaster says they want to stop by with a pair of their ozone generators. Call me as soon as you hear this and let me know where you'll leave the key so I can let them in.”

Jill reminded her, “Don't leave your key with anyone. Ask him when they want to come, and we'll be here to let them in.”

Betsy did so, and found they would be over within the hour. Then she went into the kitchen to open a can of tuna and heat some tomato soup for lunch. “Do you think Patricia could have taken that tapestry?” she asked, handing Jill's plate to her.

“I don't know where to. You looked in the chapel, didn't you?”

“I looked through the door. But she didn't have time to go in there to tuck it back behind something, did she? She was only gone a minute, barely long enough to open a couple of drawers.”

Jill nodded. “You're right. And in that short coat and slacks, she wasn't wearing it. So assume someone else got there ahead of her. We'll have to ask Father John who he told about putting the tapestry into the sacristy.”

“Yes,” said Betsy, “because I agree with Crystal: He was too specific about where he put it to be mistaken.”

Since she'd skipped breakfast, she finished her sandwich quickly and drank her mug of soup before calling Trinity. Father John had gone out but she was told he would be back soon. Betsy left a message, asking him to call back.

The ServiceMaster man was tall and young and wore a forest-green jacket and shirt. The ozone generators were small black boxes that made a faint humming sound. “It's like concentrated oxygen,” he explained. “It just eats smell.”

Soon the box on the checkout desk was emitting a sharp, unpleasant odor. “Do we have to rent another box to get rid of this stink?” asked Betsy.

“No, ma'am,” said the man. “An hour after you shut it off, there's no smell at all.”

After he left, Jill and Betsy went upstairs, Betsy carrying a bundle of sales slips to enter them in her computer.

But she'd barely started before she was overwhelmed by a nap attack. She managed to stagger to the beautiful four-poster bed before collapsing across it and falling almost instantly asleep.

 

When the silence in the back bedroom had gone on for a while, Jill peeped in and saw Betsy sound asleep. Jill went into the closet, pulled a soft blanket off a shelf, and laid it over Betsy, who didn't stir.

Jill went back to the living room and sat down on the love seat with her needlework, but in half an hour her needle slipped from her fingers, and she dozed off.

The phone's ring yanked her awake, and she hurried to the kitchen to answer it.

“Hello, this is Father John at Trinity. May I speak with Betsy, please?”

“Oh, hello, Father. This is Jill Cross. Betsy's asleep. What she wanted to ask you was, how sure are you that you put the tapestry in that drawer?”

“Very sure. I wanted it in a safe place, but also where it wouldn't come in contact with anything else—that mildew, you know. I don't know how it got out of the drawer; I certainly didn't remove it.”

“Did you tell anyone it was there?”

The priest thought for a bit. “Phil Galvin,” he said. “Phil said something to me about it, and I told him where I put it.”

“Anyone else?”

“I don't think so. I should have told Crystal, of course, but I didn't. Now, when I talked with Phil, it was after the Wednesday Advent service, and we weren't alone. There might have been a dozen eavesdroppers. And of course, Phil himself might have told others.”

Jill nearly groaned aloud. “All right, thank you, Father. I'll pass this information along.” So long as she was in the kitchen, Jill made a pot of coffee—and added coffee to the grocery list on the refrigerator—drank a cup, then went back to her needlework refreshed.

Betsy slept for three hours. She came out of the back bedroom with a grumpy face. “Why'd you let me sleep so long?” she complained.

“You looked as if you needed it.”

Betsy stood still, blinking, then nodded. “I guess I did. But now I won't sleep tonight.”

Jill smiled. “Wanna bet?”

Betsy yawned suddenly. “No.” She lifted her head, inhaling gently. “Is that coffee I smell?”

“Yes, I'm afraid I drink it all day long.”

“Well, how about I get a cup and then we'll go Christmas shopping.”

“Mall of America?”

“No, that place is too big. What's near here?”

“Well, there's Ridgedale in Minnetonka.”

Soon Betsy found herself standing on a mezzanine overlooking a tiled square whose center was taken up by what looked like an in-construction snow-country lodge with a big stone fireplace and plank floor. In front of the fireplace was a big wing chair, and sitting in the chair, entertaining one child at a time, was Santa Claus—the really good kind, who hangs his red coat on a hook and whose beard and stomach are real.

In a little less than two hours, her credit card still smoking, Betsy piled her purchases into the backseat of Jill's big Roadmaster for the drive home.

There is something relaxing about spending a lot of money in a short time. Betsy, still tired from last night's adventure, felt she could melt into the comfortable passenger seat. The short winter day was nearly over, and Betsy was recalled to her childhood, being driven home in the purple dusk. How comforted and at peace she had felt then—and now, with warm light from house windows making safe the coming night, and Christmas lights gleaming and twinkling—those new icicle lights were like lace edging on the eaves of houses, very pretty.

Jill had to wake her when they pulled into the parking lot.

Betsy had planned to look again at the saints' attributes after supper, but she didn't even stay awake long enough to eat.

 

Around eight the next morning, driving Betsy in light traffic to get her daily shot of Dimercaprol, Jill asked, “Which Christmas service are you going to?”

Betsy hadn't planned on going to church for Christmas. She didn't think much of people who went twice a year, at Christmas and Easter. Well, maybe that wasn't true any longer. It was more that she was uncomfortable with what had been her unchristian opinion of them, back when she was a regular churchgoer. On the other hand, since Jill was assigned to Betsy, if Betsy didn't go, neither could Jill, and it would be unkind to make Jill miss church. Besides, Father John had saved Betsy's life with a prayer, and Betsy felt a debt of gratitude. It wouldn't hurt to go. Maybe it would jump-start her back into going regularly.

So she said, “Which one do you go to?”

“I always liked the first service Christmas morning.”

“All right,” said Betsy. After a few minutes, she asked, “What were your other plans for Christmas before you volunteered for this?”

“Nothing much.” And Jill could not be moved in any direction from that statement.

They got back quicker than usual from Dr. McQueen's office, and Betsy went to lie down until her stomach stopped doing flip-flops. But she was smiling; Dr. McQueen pronounced this the last shot.

A few minutes after they got back, the ServiceMaster man rang the doorbell and asked to be let into the shop to take away his ozone makers. By the time the shop opened at ten, the smell of ozone had in fact melted away, leaving nothing in its wake.

Shelly came at five after, exclaiming over the sunshine and relatively high temperature-thirty-four degrees, actually above freezing, in late
December!
—though an Alberta Clipper was predicted to blow through in the afternoon. She helped dust and vacuum and rearrange displays as the shop opened for business. It being Christmas eve, there was an urgent press of customers.

One young woman, with blond hair and a brisk air, went to the bookshelves to see what they had on blackwork. Another, a middle-aged woman in a pale gray coat, came to the desk with a Crewel World bag in her hand and a pleased smile on her face.

“Good morning, Mrs. Hamilton,” said Betsy, smiling back.