calendar. The days were blank. Of course, I had cleared it in anticipation of our three-day honeymoon. Now there was not even work I could do to take my mind off this spiral of events.
Worry for Tom exploded in my chest. Should I have asked Helen Keene to stay with me? When would Julian be back from the airport? What could Tom?s cryptic notes mean? I lay down on my kitchen floor, pulled my knees to my chest, and felt tears slide down my cheeks unchecked. I?m losing it.
The doorbell rang; again, my heart jumped. Leaping to my feet, I raced down the hall, then stared disbelievingly through the peekhole. Marla. She made a face at me and held up plastic bags of food. Just what we needed: more to eat. Arch, who had trotted down the hall behind me at the sound of the bell, moaned in disappointment and muttered that he was going to watch television.
?What are you doing here alone?? Marla demanded as soon as she had heaved herself and her bags into the kitchen. ?I swear.? Still wearing her dark matron of honor suit, she took in my sweatsuit and my face, then shook her head. ?Somehow I knew you wouldn?t want me to take you out to dinner tonight.?
?I?m not alone; Arch is here.? To my horror, it all spilled out. ?Marla ? Father Olson?s killer took Tom. I had to go out to Olson?s place, and it was awful … ?
She pulled me in for a long hug. ?I know,? she murmured in my ear. ?I was down at the church looking for you. Father Doug told me. Do you need to cry??
I thought about the weeping I?d already done, solitary and helpless on the floor. ?Thanks, but no. Not at the moment, anyway.?
?Need to talk??
I pulled away from her, picked up a bag, and set it on the counter. ?How did Doug Ramsey know Tom was missing??
?From the cops.? Marla heaved the other bag onto one of the kitchen counters. ?Some of them are still at the church. They wanted to see if Schulz?s phone call to the church office might have been taped.?
?Oh, Lord.? I stumbled morosely into a kitchen chair.
Marla eased down beside me. She put a hand over mine. I stared unhappily at the black front of Tom?s range, unable to rid myself of the vision of him flipping pieces of chicken on the grill. He?d had friends from the Sheriff?s Department haul the Jenn-Air grill-with-convection-oven over from his cabin and install the ventilation pipe a week ago. He had said he couldn?t live without his oven. With a wink, he?d added, ?Sort of like you, Goldy.?
After a few moments, Marla rose and began to unload her stash. Individually wrapped Beef Wellington. Frozen Scampi. We?d often joked that our ex-husband had found two women who loved food more than they loved him. My passion was working in the kitchen, and Marla was the queen of packaged gourmet.
She looked at me. ?Where?s your choker??
?Upstairs. Why? It?s a miracle I didn?t lose it out at Olson?s place, tramping around in the mud.?
?Goldy, don?t say it?s a miracle to me.? She flopped back down next to me. ?We?ve got a problem. Actually, more than one.?
?What? With the pearls??
?Before your wedding was supposed to begin, I was out in the narthex with the jewelry raffle committee. I told them both of us were wearing the chokers that were going to be sold, and they ooh?d and aah?ed.?
Oh boy, I thought here we go. Some left-wing group had threatened a pearl boycott.
?I?ll get to the pearl problem in a minute.? She sighed. ?Apparently,? Marla continued glumly, ?some of the goings- on in our parish have started rumors floating around in the diocese.?
I sniffed. ?Goings-on in our parish? Rumors? Wait until they hear our priest has been murdered. ? I shook my head, seeing the flash of Father Theodore Olson?s warm smile behind his dark beard when he appointed me to the Board of Theological Examiners.
Marla nodded. ?Right. ?Show me a parish in the diocese without some wild stories,? I say. And so they say, ?Hoho, word?s out Roger Bampton claims his healing was miraculous.? As in feeding-of-the-five-thousand miraculous.?
?Oh, please,? I said, in no mood to discuss disease. ?Roger?s sick. I heard he was a little better Miraculous? That?s what our ex-husband is going to say when he hears Tom Schulz didn?t show up for the wedding.? I felt a sudden chill, thought about making tea, then dismissed it. Too much effort. ?Anyway,? I added, ?Roger has leukemia.?
?He?s out of the hospital.? Marla grimaced. ?Get this. He?s not just a little better, he had a normal blood test. To me, it was a miracle old Scotch-swilling Rog didn?t die of liver disease before they diagnosed him with leukemia. And they?re saying there?ve been other miracles, too.?
?Come on, Marla. I?ve heard some of those stories, the bad knees healed and all that. Who listens? They?re like the stock market. You have a wave of good luck and then a wave of bad. How is this a problem??
?Goldy, we?ve been busy with other stuff, we haven?t been tuned into all the latest. I mean, you?ve been getting ready for the wedding, and I?ve been planning a jewelry raffle and sale with dozens of orders for tickets and chokers. But Agatha Preston enlightened me. Three weeks ago, sick-to-death Roger was suddenly pronounced well. Last week, a Sunday School teacher swore she?d been cured of chronic back pain. An infant born blind got his sight somehow. So I told these folks that I need to lose twenty pounds where do I sign up??
I said, ?I need Tom Schulz back.?
?Just thought you?d like to know.?
?Father Olson wouldn?t have approved.?
?Listen,? she protested, ?Agatha and these women swear Olson was the one whose actions got the rumors started in the first place. It?s Father Pinckney who wouldn?t have approved.? Getting up abruptly, Marla hauled out three bags of Chinese-style vegetables and two frozen Sara Lee cakes. I wondered briefly what had happened to the wedding cake. Marla emerged from my walk-in refrigerator and put her hands on her ample hips ?But remember I said I had more than one problem? Here?s the other: Father Olson kept the rest of the pearls Out at his place. Twenty chokers, two thousand dollars each. The cops didn?t find them at his house.?
?They?ve already search the whole place?? I could not remember ever being so confused. Another wave of weariness swept over me. I ran a hand over the black enamel of Tom?s stove. ?That?s hard to believe. Why did you … why did Olson have the pearls in the first place??
?He always kept the stuff for the jewelry raffle and sale.? Marla sounded disgusted. ?He kept the gold chains last year and the jade the year before that. He said a jewelry thief would never scope out Upper Cottonwood Creek. I told the police to keep looking for them, but they said his house wasn?t burgled, so it?s not as if they searched every nook and cranny. It?s just that the motive doesn?t look like robbery at this point. Of course Olson didn?t have a safe. And they won?t let me or anyone else go into his house to poke around. That Olson. He was such a squirrelly packrat, he probably hid them somewhere we?ll never find.? She groaned.
?Squirrelly packrat??
?Sorry, I?m mixing my rodent metaphors. You going to eat these truffles??
?Go ahead. Marla ? is there a church organization with the acronym P.R.A.Y.??
She took a bite of chocolate and munched thoughtfully. ?Pray? Not hat I know of, and you know if anyone would know about church organizations, it?s me.?
?Well, when was the last time you read the story about Judas??
Marla finished her first truffle, looked over the tray, and chose a second, this one a plump dark mound dusted with cocoa. She popped it into her mouth, put a hand on her large chest, and frowned. ?I certainly don?t know. Why??
?Tom wrote something down before Olson died,? I murmured. ?He mentioned this P.R.A.Y. and Judas, but nobody knows what he was talking about.?
?Judas? He wrote something about Judas? Why?? I shrugged. Marla licked her fingertips. ?Let?s see, what?s today? Still Lent. I always wait for somebody to read the story to me. You know, in church. The Last Supper, Maundy Thursday, then the betrayal by Judas. No, no, it?s the other way around. Wait a minute. You?re the Sunday School teacher, you tell me. Is that all he wrote? What was it, some kind of ransom note??
?No.? I?d probably already said too much. I gritted my teeth in preparation for further interrogation, but Marla pushed away the truffle tray and gazed in my direction, concerned. Clearly, she was more worried about me as a friend than she was about the details of the homicide/kidnapping investigation.
?Goldy, want to come and stay at my place? I can take care of you. Honestly, it?s the least I can do. Matron of honor and all that.?
