?When do you think the Sheriff?s Department will get here?? Arch asked impatiently when we returned to the van and I slid open its side door.
?Any minute,? I assured him with more confidence than I felt.
?Forgot to tell you,? Arch said as he snapped the buttons on the flashlights to test the batteries. ?A guy named Canon Montgomery called. Wanted to apologize for his little outburst, he said. Wants to get together with you before the exams. What outburst? What exams??
So Canon Montgomery had called. If he truly was feeling contrite, maybe I could play off his guilt to get him to discuss the women waiting for Ted Olson outside the Society of Chad meeting. ?You know,? I replied, ?the exams for the candidates for the priesthood. They start Tuesday night … ?
But Arch wasn?t listening. ?What?s all this?? he asked. He shone his flashlights in the corner of the van that held the two thick files and books I had pilfered from Olson?s office.
?Oh, that?s just ? ? Startled by the approaching whine of a car engine, I stopped talking. For a moment, we were transfixed by the sight of the small foreign automobile barreling down the conference drive.
?Mom,? said Arch, ?that looks an awful lot like ? ?
?Don?t tell me. Quickly, hustle up to Hymnal House. We need to hide.?
I slammed the van?s sliding door. And then we ran. But the steps were snowy, and Arch was unsure of which way to go. We were not fast enough to elude Frances Markasian. The Mountain Journal?s investigative reporter lunged out of her Fiat, hoisted up her voluminous bag, and bounded up the stone steps to Hymnal House in hot pursuit. Gasping for breath, she caught up with us on the old stone patio by the double-door entrance. We stood panting just feet from the window that hung, snaggle-toothed and cardboard-covered on the inside, after Julian?s breakage and Mitchell?s repair.
Holding my side, I noted that the shoes enabling Frances to sprint up the steps were sneakers held together with duct tape. Above these hung her oversized black trench coat that was either a journalistic affectation or the only piece of outerwear available at the same garage sale where she?d unearthed the sneakers. The recession had obviously left its mark on Aspen Meadow. She dropped the big handbag on the flagstones and sent her dark stringy hair shaking wildly as she pounded her chest and coughed hard.
?Gee, Goldy, where?re you going so fast? You?re going to give me a heart attack.? As if to remedy this situation, Frances leaned against a pile of metal deck chairs and on the stone patio, leaned down to retrieve the bag, and groped inside. After a moment?s search, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and book of matches. She shook out a smoke and looked us over. ?Whatcha doin? with the flashlights? Looking for something??
?We?re going in to find some pans of mine,? I said laconically. ?I know by order of the Aspen Meadow Fire Department that there?s no smoking within ten feet of any of the conference buildings.?
?That?s too bad,? said Frances. She lit the cigarette and inhaled greedily. With the other hand holding the cigarette, she pulled a curtain of her hair off her face so she cold see what she was doing. With the other hand, she brushed snow off one of the deck chairs, a rusted green contraption that looked as if it had been salvaged from the Titanic. Blowing the smoke out in a thin stream, she dragged the chair over to the short stone wall that edged the deck. Fifty feet below, cars passed along Main Street. Without giving the view even a cursory glance, she plopped on the wet chair and put her feet up on the wall. ?If I don?t sit close to the building for a smoke, then I won?t be able to tell you what I?ve learned about your parish.?
Arch raised one thin straw-brown eyebrow above the frame of his glasses. I cursed inwardly. But the flesh is weak. I brushed snow and ice off two more chairs.
?Is this something Arch can hear?? I demanded as I scraped our chairs across the flagstones to the wall.
?You don?t need to protect me, Mom,? my son said grittily. ?I am a week away from being thirteen, in case you forgot.?
Frances waved this off and carefully balanced her cigarette on the edge of the stone wall before again reaching down into her bag. She brought out a Jolt cola, shook it lightly, then popped the top and sucked fizz.
Arch watched in open-mouthed awe. He said, ?That is so Cool!?
Frances retrieved the smoke and smiled beatifically. ?What, the drink or the cigarette??
?The pop! I?m not allowed to have that stuff. Triple the caffeine of regular cola? Are you kidding? Man! You must be cruisin?!?
?Uh, excuse me?? I interjected mildly. ?What happened to your Diet Pepsi and Vivarin??
?That?s only for morning.? She set the can on the stone wall and sucked on the cigarette as if it were an oxygen machine. ?This is for afternoon. Listen. Bob Preston is b-r-o-k-e.?
?No kidding?? I looked off the deck at the tops of pine trees that grew along the steep slope. An evenly spaced line of antique cars passed sedately on the road below. The Model-T Club of Denver often brought their point-to- point rallies through our little burg. It was better than the motorcycles. Beyond the chugging cars, the A-shaped roof of St. Luke?s resembled an enormous tent top.
?Flat broke,? added Frances. ?Busted. And in hock up to his sanctimonious ears.?
?I thought he had oil well royalties or something.?
She chugged more Jolt and made a satisfied lip-smacking noise. ?That?s why I?m the reporter and you?re the caterer.?
?Cut the chorizo, Frances. What are you saying? And who?d you get this financial information from??
I tried to stare her down. Unfortunately, her eyes were mostly concealed by that dark stringy hair that looked as if it?d just been released from dreadlocks. ?Bob?s well,? Frances intoned with a swipe at the hair, ?is dry. Literally and figuratively. But then there are forty thousand dollars worth of pearls floating around somewhere.? She rubbed the cigarette between her fingers and smirked. ?Forty thousand clams ? or is it oysters? ? might not be enough to kill for, but it would give somebody a nice little stake. Now about Agatha and your priest, Olson ? ? Frances studied my face avidly. Since I didn?t have any dreadlocks to hide behind, I kept my expression resolutely blank. She went on ? ? I heard she wanted him a whole lot more than he wanted her.?
?Really? Who told you that? Please, Frances, I need to get into the conference center to look for my stuff. The police were here, and they?ll be back soon.?
?What?s the hurry?? She glanced over her shoulder at the broken window. ?What?d you leave over here, pans? They?re probably stolen by now, if anybody would think to look up here.?
If anybody would think to look up here. This woman was driving me crazy. I shrugged. If I let her know I was waiting for the police so we could look for Tom Schulz, I?d never get rid of her.
Frances chugged more Jolt. ?How are you feeling about the kidnapping of your fiance??
?One more personal question and I?m driving home.?
?Okay, try this. Think your bishop would have put up with a priest having an affair??
My parish, my priest, my bishop. Pretty soon she?d have me owning the Anglican church worldwide. ?No, Frances, of course I don?t.? All across the country, female parishioners had been suing dioceses, claiming psychological damage when their priests were their lovers. All it took was a few million dollars lost when the women won their suits for the church to take notice.
I said, ?You think we?re looking at a lawsuit? Or that we were??
She blew smoke rings to Arch?s rapt admiration. ?I think we might have been looking at blackmail.? Arch raised his eyebrows dramatically.
?Blackmail from whom?? I demanded ?From Agatha Preston? And where would Olson figure in that??
?Say the priest is having a little illicit tickle between the sheets, or he?s scared people will think he is.? Arch?s brow wrinkled, and I could imagine his mind working: Who is getting tickled? Frances continued, ?Don?t you think that Bob Preston could use this knowledge to blackmail Olson? Maybe to find out where those pearls were??
?And then shoot him? Why not just sue and recover a couple mil??
Frances inhaled noisily and warmed to her subject. ?Say the priest refuses to give him information he wants, about his wife or the pearls or something. Or,? she added pensively, ?maybe the canon theologian, Montgomery, has a little heart-to-heart with his beloved former student, Olson. The heart-to-heart turns loud, and a bunch of folks at the diocesan center overhear them yelling.? She paused. ?Maybe the diocese is saying to Olson, give up fair Agatha or else.?
?Or else they?ll kill him??
She held out her arms and shrugged dramatically. The big trench coat collapsed like a nosediving black kite. ?Look, Goldy, I?m just trying to put this unconvincing nadvete. ?There?s one more thing. You know the Habitat house they?re building over by you?? I nodded. ?There?s a flap among the neighbors, in case you weren?t aware. They?ve just
