?Oh … just some dumb thing about marriage vows lasting forever. I was stressed out.?
Boyd puckered his lips and shrugged. ?Olson could have just talked to him at the wedding.?
?No, there wouldn?t have been time. Do you think Tom?s disappearance has anything to do with needing to be in court next week? Someone involved in the case who needed him to conveniently disappear??
Boyd shook his head. ?Nah, it?s a forger. The guy?s still in jail, I checked. And no known accomplices. About your theory of the reverend wanting to talk to Schulz before the wedding Maybe Olson was afraid of something. Didn?t want to tell Schulz his fear over the phone. So he got Schulz out there with a fairy tale about car trouble. Maybe he wanted Schulz for protection from somebody. Was Father Olson having problems??
?:What kind of problems??
?Woman problems. Money problems. Church problems. You tell me.?
My fingers brushed over the moist crushed velvet of the box that held my wedding band. I felt my heart compress, the way that air become more dense when the temperature suddenly drops.
Boyd scowled. ?Goldy. He was your priest, he?d been at your parish for three years You must have known how he was doing.?
I held the velvet ring box tightly. ?There are a number of different groups within our church. One is the Old Guard. That would include priests like our former rector, Father Pinckney, and people like Lucille Boatwright, head of the Altar Guild and Art and Architecture Committee, and Zelda Preston, who was our organist. Emphasis on the was. Olson had just fired Zelda, and knowing how much he hated conflict, that must have been painful.?
?Oh yeah? Zelda Preston?? Boyd wrote in his notebook. ?What?d he ax her for??
?They fought continually over the music. He would pick the hymns and she would change them without telling him.? I stopped, uncertain of how to elaborate. ?Father Olson was a charismatic, which means he wanted people to have a personal relationship with the lord. The kind of music he favored was sort of, ?Jesus Loves Me? set to folk music. The Old Guard, on the other hand, prefers, say, ?A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.? ?
Boyd stopped writing and raised his eyebrows. The match drooped from the side of his mouth. ?That?s it? Changed hymns? The Old Guard guards the hymns??
?Well … not exactly. When it comes to Zelda, I mean.?
There was a silence in which Boyd drummed his knee with his free hand.
?Okay, look,? I went on. ?I know what I know about Zelda because we were in a Lenten discussion group together when we were both going through some difficult times.? Privacy was a precious thing, and little of it survived exposure, especially at church meetings. In a small town, gossip was the weapon of choice in destroying your enemies. And Zelda had been my friend.
Boyd grunted. ?I?m trying to find Schulz, not write an article for the local paper.?
?Don?t even mention that local paper to me.?
?Goldy!? interjected Helen Keene. They were her first words since she?d rejoined us from the kitchen. ?For heaven?s sake!?
All right, all right.? I pause. ?It was five years ago. We were discussing something very innocuous, a book called In the Wilderness, and Father Pinckney was the leader. I went because I was depressed about the awful state of my marriage, and had to get out of the house. I figured a daytime church discussion group would be kind of nice.? I held out my hands in a helpless gesture. ?one day Zelda very unexpectedly broke down. You see, she had two sons. One is Bob Preston, who is a parishioner at the church. His wife?s name is Agatha.?
?Yeah, I want to talk to you about her,? Boyd said. ?But go ahead.?
?Zelda?s other son, Mark, had leukemia. Mark was the swimming coach at Elk Park Prep, and he was married to Sarah Preston, who lives in Elk Park with their son Ian, who was twelve at the time.? I looked out my front window. But instead of seeing the cold night, I pictured Zelda?s gray braid wobbling on top of her head as her body shook with sobs. ?On Ash Wednesday of that year, Mark, who was in his mid-twenties and had had the leukemia for about six months, went into a coma in a hospital in Denver. What kept him alive while he was comatose were the daily blood transfusions Sarah had to okay. After a couple of weeks of this, I guess Sarah just decided she?d had enough. So she refused the daily transfusion.?
I fell silent. Boyd and Helen were staring at me.
?Mark Preston died within hours.? I brushed unseen lint off my sweatsuit, feeling my eyes fill with tears. ?Zelda wasn?t at the hospital. No one consulted her about stopping the transfusions. She didn?t get to say good-bye to Mark.?
?My Lord,? murmured Helen.
?That wasn?t the end of it,? I said softly ?At our book discussion group, Zelda blurted out that Sarah had killed her son. She would never forgive her for that. She said she wanted Sarah out of her life forever.?
Boyd and Helen Keene were silent. ?And the grandson?? Helen finally asked. ?Ian??
?Zelda wrote off the grandson, too. She was just so angry .l . . ? I sighed. ?Anyway, Sarah eventually remarried. I heard her new husband is a Catholic, and the three of them go to the catholic church. From all the accounts around town, Zelda hasn?t seen or spoke to Sarah or Ian in, well, five years.?
Boyd tapped his notebook. ?So how does this relate to Olson??
?I?m getting to that. At the discussion group,? I sand reluctantly, ?no one knew how to react o Zelda?s outburst. Father Pinckney just shriveled up. I mean, the old fellow looked as if he could have crawled under a rock. And of course, the rest of the women were aghast. You have to understand, members of the Old Episcopal Guard never, ever, ever spill their guts in front of a group.?
?But you were there,? Helen prompted.
?Yes. I was there.? Indeed. ?I almost didn?t go to the meeting that day. My head was throbbing from the whack John Richard ? my ex-husband ? had given me after he broke my thumb in three places the previous week. My hand was in a cast. When Zelda told her story and began to weep, I felt so bad, I cried with her. Despite the stupid cast, I put my arms around her and held her.? I took a deep breath and thought back. ?I guess everyone else was embarrassed. They left. No one even said a word. Hours later, it was just Zelda and me, sitting next to each other in our folding chairs, sniffling. When it was almost time for Arch to come home on the schoolbus, I insisted she drink a cup of instant coffee that I fixed in the church kitchen. After Zelda took a few sips, Lucille Boatwright suddenly appeared to drive her back home.?
Boyd asked, ?So did you and Zelda become friends??
?Zelda spent the next two weeks sending me casseroles and discount swim coupons for Arch. But she and I never talked about what had happened again.?
?Not meaning to be rude, Goldy,? Boyd continued patiently, ?but I?m still wondering what this has to do with Olson, since this happened during the time of the other priest.?
?Zelda was the organist. After Mark died, playing the music, and doting on her other son, Bob, and his wife, Agatha, became Zelda?s whole life, even though Bob and Agatha are charismatics and supported having Olson as the new rector after Pinckney retired. Anyway, in Father Pinckney?s time, Zelda picked the hymns. She also ran the choir and every aspect of the church?s music. Then Olson came. He appealed to a whole different group in the church. He wanted the music changed, and technically, according to the church law, he was the one in charge of the services. So he and Zelda fought. And fought and fought and fought.? I shook my head, remembering some of the acrimonious exchanges.
?Did they talk about this … . problem with the son who died?? Boyd asked.
?Oh, yes,? I replied. ?Remember, Olson hated conflict. He said he wanted everybody to have a personal relationship with Jesus and be reconciled to each other. According to Marla, who hears everything, Zelda and Olson weren?t having any reconciliation in their weekly shouting matches. Supposedly it was over the hymns. Bu the rumor was that their conflict went much deeper, that he wanted to force her to make up with her widowed daughter-in- law. Zelda told him to mind his own beeswax. She had the Old Guard on her side though,? I added, ?when it came to the music.?
?Why?s that??
?Look. The Old Guard just doesn?t want anything changed from the way the Episcopal church was when they were little. As long a there are fund-raising luncheons, gold courses, and the 1928 prayer book, they?re happy.?
Boyd chewed on his match and wrote some notes. The inviting smell of popcorn wafted out of the kitchen. ?Besides Zelda Preston, did these Old Guard people dislike Olson??
?They did. Lucille is building a columbarium she intends to dedicate to Father Pinckney. I think she believes when it?s done, he?ll come out of retirement and be our rector again.?
