I Shall Not Want

ask Clare-Reverend Fergusson.' She plunged a slotted spoon into the pot and stirred while listening to Russ breathe. He had this certain way of doing it when you pushed his buttons just right. She smiled to herself.

'I'm going to bring Amado back to your place-the new place-after he finishes up tonight. It'll give me a chance to check out the house he's living in. Just to get a feel for things.'

Oh, shit. 'Aren't you supposed to get a warrant before you search people's property?'

'Well, it sort of depends, Janet. Do I need to get a warrant on you and Mike?'

She dropped the colander in the sink, letting the crash disguise her hiss of frustration. 'Of course not,' she said, when her voice was under control. 'By all means, bring him home and check out the house. Maybe you'll find he's got a box of Playboys under his bed and he feels guilty about that.'

His voice was dry. 'If I do, I'll hand him over to Mom. Since she's already had experience with that sort of thing.'

The doorbell dinged. 'Emma!' There was no answering yell from her thirteen-year-old. The bell dinged again. 'Hang on,' she told Russ. 'Somebody's at the door.'

God. She was going to have to call over to the bunkhouse and have all the men clear out. Their stuff, too. Where was she going to put them, the barn?

She yanked the door open. A tall heavyset man in shit-kicker boots stood there. He wore a barn jacket and blond hair that had escaped from 1983. ' 'Scuse me, ma'am,' he said, 'but I'm looking for Amado? He works for you?'

She shook her head. 'He works at St. Alban's Church, in town. He just rooms out here.' She'd seen this guy before, but she couldn't place where. The IGA or the Agway? 'I'm sorry. Have we met before?'

He stuck out a grubby hand. 'Dunno, but I've met your husband at the auctions. I'm Neil.' He pumped her arm like he was trying to get water from a well. She resisted the urge to rub her shoulder when he finished.

'How on earth do you know Amado?'

'Hah. How I know Amado. Well. It's like this.'

'Mom!' Oh, of course, now Emma was around. 'Uncle Russ is on the phone and wants to know if you're going to be all night?'

'What are you doing picking up the phone?' She glanced at the guy. 'Sorry.'

'I wanted to know if you were using it! I'm waiting to get on line! If we had cable I wouldn't have to wait!'

'Oh, God,' Janet muttered. Emma could go on in that vein for an hour.

'I can see you're busy, ma'am. If you could just let me know when he's getting home?'

Oh, sure. The last thing she needed was another stranger roaming around by the bunkhouse, ready to stumble over seven illegals. 'He's at St. Alban's late tonight, cleaning up after their concert. Your best bet is to catch him there.'

'Thanks, ma'am.' He stepped off the porch and was vanishing into the dusk by the time she had the chance to close the door. She wondered again, for a second, how another local farmer had met up with their church-cleaning boarder. It teased at her, but then Emma started up again with her tirade against dial-up Internet access, and she remembered Russ was waiting, and she thought, How am I going to hide my employees from my brother? And the thought was gone.

XI

Peace be within thy walls,

And plenteousness within thy palaces!

The choir finished. The organ thundered to a close. There was a moment of silence, as the last triumphant notes of Parry's 'I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me' reverberated. Then someone clapped, and in a second, St. Alban's stone walls echoed with deafening applause. Clare, whose official duties had been completed after welcoming everyone to the church and introducing the choir, whanged away with the rest of them, amazed, as she always was, that the same group of people she heard grumbling and going flat and repeating a single musical phrase over and over and over in their rehearsals could create a sound of such inexpressible beauty.

The choir bowed, and then the music director, Betsy Young, emerged from behind the organ, her cheeks brilliantly colored, bits of her hair sticking to the side of her face. One of the tenors brought her a hefty bouquet of roses, and she turned an even more spectacular shade of red.

Clare caught Doug Young's eye and slid out of her pew at the rear of the church. Betsy's husband had been pressed into service collecting the 'suggested donations,' and now it was time to see how well they had done. He scooped up the metal change box and Clare fished the sacristy key out of her skirt pocket. 'They were wonderful,' she said, as they threaded their way through the crowd to the front of the church.

'They were,' he said. 'And I am so glad it's over.' He flashed her a grin.

Yes, well. Betsy had been a tad caught up in prepping for the concert.

Doug glanced around. 'Your friend from New York's not here?'

'Hugh? No, he had to work. Some deal his bank is putting together. He had to fly to Las Vegas.'

'Too bad. For you, I mean, not for him. Vegas isn't any hardship.'

'It's okay. We're pretty casual. And he'll be up for the St. Alban's Festival next month.'

'I hope he has some money left over from his trip.'

Clare laughed.

'Reverend Fergusson,' someone called. 'Can I speak to you for a sec?'

She handed Doug the key and told him she'd be back as soon as she could. Which turned out to be forty-five minutes later. She fielded questions about the upcoming parish picnic, spoke to a woman who wanted to volunteer for their teen mother mentoring program, praised every choir member she clapped eyes on, and, gratifyingly, talked with no less than three different people who expressed interest in trying out next Sunday's Eucharist.

'I feel like we're getting them under false pretenses,' she confessed to Betsy. The church had emptied out except for a few last choristers, gossiping in the center aisle. 'They don't know the choir's about to break for the summer.'

'We'll just have to rely on your preaching to snag them after Trinity Sunday, then, won't we?'

'Oh, yeah, they'll come for miles around for that.' She let the music director precede her into the sacristy. 'The only thing people want from a sermon in the summertime is that it be five minutes or less.' She spotted Amado, peeping around the corner from the main office. His bright yellow cast glowed in the shadow. 'It's okay, Senor Esfuentes. You can go ahead and start cleaning. Uh, Limpiar la iglesia, por favor.'

'I bet you can't wait for Glenn Hadley to come back to work,' Doug said from his seat beside the lockbox.

'He is easier to communicate with,' Clare admitted. 'On the other hand, Senor Esfuentes doesn't feel compelled to call me Father.'

'How'd we do?' Betsy asked. The choir was planning an August trip to a choral festival in England-if they could raise enough to cover some of their expenses. They had been fund- raising with concerts and bake sales since last fall.