Dark Tort

us the whole story. The reason Althea Mannheim probably was reluctant to tell her cousin Grace why she was visiting is that it was something belonging to their mutual grandparents that had been stolen. An antique gold chalice and paten, used for Communion services on Holy Days there at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. But they were found at Bishop Sutherland’s residence. When he was apprehended, he said the chalice and paten had been given to him, not to the cathedral. Which of course was baloney, since they’d been used at the cathedral since long before he’d gotten there.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“Well,” Tom interjected, “for the church’s sake, everything got covered up. Because once Bishop Sutherland was caught, he worked out a deal with the Diocese of Southern Utah. A confidential deal, with the only people participating being the bishop-elect, the chancellor, who’s their lawyer, I guess—”

“That’s right,” I said.

“And Bishop Sutherland.”

“How did they ever apprehend him?” I asked.

“That’s where our friend Althea Mannheim comes in. You see, she’s on the Altar Guild. And even though Bishop Sutherland had counted on getting away with this, he hadn’t counted on Althea Mannheim discovering the loss…and breaking into his house and searching it until she found them!”

“I’ve heard of taking the law into your own hands,” I said.

“This is the Wild West,” Julian said. “What did they do to Althea?”

“You ever try to arrest an elderly woman who’s just uncovered, via breaking and entering, a three-million- dollar heist?” Tom asked mildly. “Piece of advice: don’t.”

“Three million dollars?” I repeated, incredulous.

“Black-market value of antique gold chalice and paten,” Tom said ruefully.

Julian asked, “Did the church get their stuff back?”

“Yes,” said Tom. “And Uriah Sutherland claimed he had heart problems. That’s how he got out of Utah with his reputation more or less intact.”

“Less and less,” I said, “the more I know. Do you think Uriah Sutherland ran down Althea Mannheim?”

“We don’t know,” Tom said. “But we’re working on that, too.”

The next morning, it snowed. Gus and Arch called to say how ticked off they were that CBHS was still having classes. But as Gus’s grandfather drove oh-so-slowly down to Denver, the radio announced that CBHS had been closed after all. Arch called us, gleeful, from the road.

The plumbing contractor who’d been working on the lines at the Roundhouse called to say he had good news and bad news. The good news was that the plumbing lines were done and that the Roundhouse was good to go for our dinner tonight. The bad news was that his subcontractors had tracked in “quite a bit” of mud over the past couple of weeks. If we were going to go ahead with the dinner in the Roundhouse that night, we might want to come in and do some cleaning.

I said, “You can’t win.”

Tom announced that they’d called from the department asking him to come in early, but he could stave them off for a few hours to help with the cleaning. I told him to go on, deal with Louise Upton. I’d rather clean.

Julian cheerfully offered to help me with the scrubbing. Marla, who had had a sore throat—all that gossiping, Julian teased her—since the party Saturday afternoon, had missed the christening and was therefore “starved,” as she put it, for news. She would go to the grocery store and buy ammonia, buckets, and brushes, she promised, and might even help us do the work, she promised further, if we would fill her in on what she’d missed over the past— well, let’s see—day.

We said we’d take all the help we could get.

The actual mess at the Roundhouse would have been colossally depressing if I had not had Julian and Marla to help clean up. Marla, dressed in sequined orange jeans and silk T-shirt with matching headband, proved true to her word and immediately began wiping down the tables in the Roundhouse’s hexagonal dining room. Julian had claimed the kitchen, with at least half an inch of dried mud covering most of the wood floor, as his special province to get into working order.

“You two will want to visit anyway,” he said by way of dismissal. “And I’ve heard all the latest gossip from Goldy already.”

So I told Marla everything as we worked for six hours cleaning the Roundhouse. I told her about the paintings and inventories Dusty had hidden in her blind grandfather’s room, the arrest of Louise Upton (“I never trusted her” was Marla’s comment), my visits with K. D. Chenault and Grace Mannheim, and Bishop Uriah Sutherland’s stealing of valuable antiques. And then there was Charlie Baker’s changed will, the contents of which I doubted Richard Chenault would give up without a fight over a client’s right to confidentiality. Oh, confidentiality! Is it ever enforced?

“And it may not matter to Richard,” I commented bitterly, “since Charlie’s dead.”

“Charlie is indeed dead,” Marla replied. “But Uriah or no Uriah, once Charlie’s will is done slogging its way through probate, this Mountain Pastoral Center will get built, and Charlie will live through an institution that will do good things for clergy. Needed things.” She looked around the dining room as she stretched her back. “Listen, girlfriend, I’m officially wiped out. I’m supposed to be going to this ribbon cutting, and coming back here for the dinner, since I’m one of the ones who put up additional money so that the center could be started before Charlie’s estate was settled.”

“Oho,” I said, “so that’s how they got the construction going so early.”

“It is indeed,” said Marla. “But Meg Blatchford will be coming, too, to both the ribbon cutting and the dinner. So the evening won’t be totally without the possibility of fun. Meg,” she added, “was a great believer in Charlie and his work, too.”

“I know,” I said quietly.

Marla said she was too sweaty to give me a hug, but would give me a huge one once she returned for the dinner.

Julian had wrought a miracle in the kitchen, every surface of which sparkled. This was a good thing, as it was already four o’clock. At five, the guests were having champagne—paid for by an anonymous donor, the events coordinator had assured me when she dropped off the ice cream—up by the construction site. I chuckled and shook my head. Marla had probably heard the diocese wasn’t planning to serve booze at the ribbon cutting and had immediately rectified that situation.

At twenty to five, when I had almost worked my way through the necessary pounding of the chicken breasts, my cell rang. Aspen Meadow Imports? I was sure it was a wrong number, but I answered it anyway.

“This is Gary over at A-M Imports,” came an insistent, hoarse male voice. “You the lady tore the door off the Rover?”

“Um, well, sort of.”

“Well, is you or isn’t you?” More impatient this time.

“I am! I am! Have you found a replacement door already?”

“No, but what I do got is a bear coming down every night, getting into our garbage! Had to put it inside, lock the doors, you unnerstand?”

“Yes, but I’ve got a dinner—”

“Just listen, will ya? You got garbage in this damn Rover! And it stinks! Bear comes down every night, starts pawing at the garage door, he can’t get in, so last night he broke one of the garage windows—”

“Okay, okay,” I said, feverishly imagining the guests at the ribbon cutting swilling their champagne and commenting to one another about how hungry they were getting. “Tell me what you need.”

“What I need? What I need is for you to come get your trash, lady! We’re on Highway 203, near the innerstate. Close at five. You don’t come get this garbage, I’m rolling the Rover into the street.”

“No, don’t do that—”

But he was gone.

“Julian,” I said desperately, “we’ve got a problem.” I explained to him about the garbage situation, and how it