The Bass Wore Scales (30 page)

I went into the cage and looked around. It had been cleaned yesterday, and there was fresh straw on the floor. In the corner was half a head of cabbage, a few carrots and a banana peel. I stepped on something that crackled under my foot. I looked down, picked it up and stuck it in my pocket.

“
I know someone else with a set of padlock shims,” I said to Nancy.

“
Yeah,” said Nancy. “Me, too.”

* * *

Nancy and I went into the Slab and sat down at a table. Kent and Penelope had driven back with me, but headed directly back to Boone to report to the University. Dave and Gwen hadn’t found any anomalies around the perimeter of the fence, and Dave had headed out to the Baptist church to start sorting through the trash. Nancy told him she’d join him as soon as she could.

“
Two questions,” said Pete, as he pulled up a chair. “Did the Fish and Game Commission do its duty, and how about some waffles?”

“
We’re not here for breakfast,” I said. “I need to talk to Bud.”

“
He’s not here. What’s up?”

“
Kokomo got away,” said Nancy.

“
No kidding?” said Pete.

“
I thought that Bud was working here this summer,” I said.

“
Oh, he is. But he’s off this week. He got a gig as a roadie for a rockabilly band while they do a swing through the Carolinas. The Carburetors. Ever heard them play?”

“
I have, actually. Meg and I saw them over at the Eagles Nest in Banner Elk.”

“
Well, Bud’s gone for the whole week. He left yesterday morning. You need a sommelier?”

“
Not right now,” I said. “You remember when we had that rash of wine thefts about three years ago.”

“
Yeah. Nancy caught Bud red-handed. Hey, wait a minute. He’s not doing it again, is he?”

“
No,” I said. “But the lock was picked on Kokomo’s cage. Those scratches sure look familiar.”

“
Oh, yeah?” said Pete. “Well, it wasn’t Bud. Not if it happened last night. He’s not even in town.”

“
Bennett Shipley has put a bounty on Kokomo’s head,” said Nancy. “Five thousand dollars.”

“
Wow! Five grand! That’s a lot of money up here in the hills. There’s going to be quite a stampede. How’re you going to handle it?”

“
I don’t know yet,” I said.

“
Well, I do,” said Pete. “We’ll sell a gorilla hunting license for $80 and tell the hunters that if they don’t have a license and they shoot that gorilla, they’ll spend three months in the county lock-up. That’ll weed out most of them. At least you won’t have six hundred hunters walking around the mountains with high powered rifles.”

“
It might work,” I said. “It won’t stop all of them, but it might make them think twice.”

“
And the city will make a pile of money!” said Pete. “Now, how about those waffles?”

Chapter 19

“
Thanks for coming over,” said Gaylen. She was sitting on a bench in the garden in back of the church. She had been reading her prayer book as I walked up, and now she set it on the bench beside her and stood to greet me.

“
No problem. Is this about the funeral?”

“
Partly. I think it’s going to be quite a show. But there’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

I nodded.

“
The main reason I asked you in is to tell you that Princess Foo-Foo is no longer with us.”

“
Princess Foo-Foo?”

Gaylen laughed. “Meg told me what she called her. Princess Foo-Foo is pretty apt. Anyway, Brenda was supposed to have a Bible School plan for me yesterday morning. She called in sick yesterday and resigned this morning.”

“
My, but you do have a way about you,” I said, with a smile. “By the way, any thoughts about what St. Barnabas will do with fifteen million dollars?”

“
Oh, I have lots of thoughts. For now, it’s going into a money market account. Meg thinks that, even in this market, we can realize seven or eight percent.”

“
Wow,” I said. “That’s a little over a million dollars a year in interest.”

“
Meg pointed that out. If we leave it alone for a year, the church will have the entire sixteen million back and we can spend a million a year on outreach, camp improvements, Habitat houses, music and art festivals or whatever we decide without ever touching the principle. That’s a whole lot of money.”

“
I’ll miss seeing our name on that racecar, though. What about Lucille Murdock? She’s the one who decided that the money should go to Junior Jameson—coincidentally, her favorite nephew.”

“
I’ve spoken with Lucille. She’s understandably upset about Junior’s demise, and she’s declined to be involved in the decision again.”

“
It sounds as though you have everything under control.”

“
I still have Bible School to worry about. I guess I never should have had Marilyn print up those flyers.”

“
It’s this Saturday, right?”

“
Yes.”

“
If you want to drive up to Sugar Grove, I’ve got a friend who puts food baskets together every Saturday. People start coming out of the hills and down to the Good Shepherd Food Pantry at about one o’clock. He could use the help, and it might be good for the kids.”

“
How far is Sugar Grove from here?”

“
Half an hour drive,” I said.

“
That’s perfect!” said Gaylen. “I’ll put together a little lesson, we’ll help at the Good Shepherd Food Pantry and then stop for pizza on the way home.”

“
Sounds like a plan,” I said. “I’ll give him a call this afternoon.”

* * *

It was creeping up on lunchtime, and I decided to be a good boss for a change and take some vittles out to the New Fellowship Baptist Church for Nancy and Dave. They’d been rooting around in the dumpster for a couple of hours, and I figured they could use a break. I called the Bear and Brew and arranged to pick up a large deep-dish “Heart Attack” pizza with garlic crust and three bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I was feeling pretty good about my leadership attributes as I hopped in my truck, set the pizza in beside me, put on a CD of Bach’s
Orchestral Suite No. 1
and headed out of town to the sounds of a merry gavotte.

It was a warm day, to be sure, and I had the windows down. I decided to take the scenic route out to the church, the drive taking me three miles out of the way, but through a couple of passes that were awash in rhododendron, the rich pink and purple flowers that covered the mountain’s lower ridges. High above the rhododendron, white clusters of the mountain laurel blooms were still visible and dotting the roadside were clusters of wild geraniums. I was rethinking my lack of appreciation for the month of June.

I turned off the music as I pulled into the parking lot. I’d already parked by the front door before I remembered that Nancy and Dave were around back by the dumpsters. By then, I’d turned off the truck and decided to hoof it around the big metal building with the pizza and refreshments. I turned the corner at the back of the church and saw the two twenty-foot long, red dumpsters sitting side by side—each of them six feet tall and about twelve feet wide. I didn’t see Nancy or Dave and thought they might be inside the church taking a break. I set down the pizza and the three brews in the shade and walked over to the newly delivered dumpster to check on the progress that Nancy and Dave had made in the last couple of hours. I grabbed the edge of the dumpster, stepped up onto a metal ledge and hoisted myself up.

“
Hey, you two,” I said, barely able to keep the laughter out of my voice. “Get off that piano. You’re both out of uniform!”

* * *

“
You missed a button,” I said to Nancy, when she and Dave climbed out of the dumpster. “That one, right there.”

“
Yeah…well…we…uh…” stuttered Nancy, fumbling with her shirt.

“
Uh…I…that is…we…umm…” added Dave. “You see…”

“
I see, exactly,” I said. “And I brought pizza and beer to celebrate!”

“
I am
so
embarrassed!” said Nancy.

“
You should be. I mean
really!
Snookie-Pie Dumpster Love? What if one of the Baptists had come out here?”

“
Not much chance of that,” said Dave. “We couldn’t even get anyone to answer the door. The church is locked up.”

“
Bootsie’s probably at lunch.”

“
Oh…yeah,” said Dave.

“
This certainly is an interesting turn of events,” I said, offering pizza all around. “Is this serious? What are you going to tell Collette?”

“
I can’t marry her. She’s too holy. She just wears me out.”

“
Well, you’d better tell her soon,” I said. “Because you’re supposed to get married next week.”

“
I think we’ve postponed it,” said Dave. “But I don’t know for sure. We’re still waiting to hear if our apostle can make it over to perform the wedding.”

“
You have an apostle?” Nancy asked.

“
Well…the church has one. Apostle Jerome. He’s from somewhere down in Georgia. He comes up twice a year for revivals, but whether he can come up next week or not, I’m not getting married.”

“
Because of…umm…this?” asked Nancy.

“
Not entirely,” said Dave, smiling. “But mostly.”

My piece of pizza disappeared with a smack, and I got to my feet. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone. Finish lunch and then see if you can manage to go through the dumpster before dark. Let me know if you find anything.”

* * *

“
I need to talk to Bootsie Watkins,” I said to Pete later that afternoon, over a piece of pecan pie.

“
Good idea. The church secretary always knows more than she’s telling. That’s one of the first things they teach you in detective school.”

“
Exactly. If Jimmy Kilroy was killed, she might have some insight. Mona’s personality isn’t exactly peaches and cream.”

“
Yeah, she’s quite a piece of work,” said Pete.

“
On the other hand, her husband’s just been killed, and she has no reason to believe that he wasn’t killed by the gorilla. I can see where she’d want it destroyed.”

“
But if there were doin’s afoot at New Fellowship Baptist Church, Bootsie would know,” said Pete.

“
Doin’s?”

“
Yep. Doin’s. Like if Brother Kilroy was having an affair with the piano player and her husband found out and threatened to kill Kilroy if he didn’t stop. Those would be
doin’s
.”

“
Those would indeed be
doin’s
.”