The Alto Wore Tweed (The Liturgical Mysteries) Read online

  The smoke that burning incense produces is very pungent and is manufactured that way purposely so the fragrance will carry throughout the nave of the church, following the old testament edict “Let my prayers rise as incense.” On this, the first Sunday of Advent, the smoke to rector ratio was very high.

  As soon as Herself inhaled a billowing cloud of smoke, I knew she was finished with the “Great Litany in Procession.” As she started choking, Elaine, who was leading the choir behind her, sat her down in the end seat of one of the pews. I immediately took over, chanting the text from the balcony as the thurifer, the crucifer, and the choir made their way around the church. It was a pretty good transition and the only people who noticed anything amiss were the choir—and they were used to changing horses in the middle of the stream.

  “She turned green pretty quickly,” Elaine told me afterward. “I would call the color somewhere between ‘Julep Ice’ and ‘Frogbelly Mint.’” Elaine took pride in her interior decorating skills.

  Herself managed to get through the first part of the service once the procession was over. I noticed that her sermon was shorter than usual and she didn’t really get any of her normal color back. Still, I thought she might make it to the end of the service. I was wrong.

  It was the communion ritual that finished her off. She managed to get through the liturgy, but when she had to drink the wine, it was more than her queasy stomach could endure. She left the Lay Eucharistic Ministers to administer the bread and wine to the congregation, and quickly disappeared behind the hidden door into the sacristy. I was beginning to play something appropriate for communion when I detected the first hint of what will probably become one of the legendary services in the history of St. Barnabas.

  The control board for the sound system at the church was located up in the choir loft. Down in front were two reading microphones on the lecterns and a wireless mike—what we called the “walkin’ mike”—clipped to the rector’s frock and turned off and on at his or her discretion by means of a toggle switch on the battery pack. Unforttely for Loraine Ryan, she had left the toggle on.

  I looked up at Bob Solomon, one of the basses, who was nearest the amplifier. The rest of the choir was heading down for communion and he was the last to leave. My eyebrows arched as I continued to play, asking the wordless question. There, in front of him as he looked down, clearly marked, was the dial on the amp that would silence the walkin’ mike. He looked back at me and smiled with an innocence belying his black heart, patted the amplifier affectionately, gazed briefly toward heaven as if asking forgiveness, and followed the rest of the choir, closing the door to the choir loft behind him.

  Mercifully, it didn’t last too long. But most of the parishioners will never forget hearing, as they knelt to receive the sacrament on that first Sunday of Advent, “The gifts of God for the people of God.”

  “Hurrrrraaachhh!”

  “Take in remembrance...”

  “Urrrrallllccch!”

  “And feed in your heart by faith...”

  “urrgh...”

  “with thanksgiving.”

  “Bluhreaaaarch!”

  • • •

  Six weeks after the murder and Megan was still on the case.

  “What about the 911 tape? Have you forgotten about that?”

  I was chopping some chives for our salad. I had some pork chops on the grill outside, but they would be working for another half hour or so.

  “No, I haven’t forgotten about the tape. I have a copy right here somewhere,” I said, pointing with my knife to a pile of debris which was creeping across the sideboard like so much administrative kudzu. “I just haven’t listened to it for a while.”

  “Well, put it in the player.”

  “Then you have to finish the salad.”

  I handed her the knife and rummaged around in the papers until I came up with the copy of the tape. Then I turned off the Monteverdi Vespers Service, which had been gracing our pre-luncheon revelry, and dropped the cassette into the player.

  It was a woman’s timbre, all right, but deeper than it should have been, with a hollow sound like someone disguising her voice.

  “I’d like to report a dead man. He’s in the choir loft at St. Barnabas Church in St. Germaine.” Click. It played four more times. I had dubbed it over and over so I wouldn’t have to rewind the tape.

  Meg stopped chopping and sat at the table with a cup of lukewarm coffee, listening intently to the voice.

  “It sure sounds familiar. Can’t you send this tape to the forensic voice lab and get an analysis done? Then you could listen to it with the technician, and he can tweak the speed and pitch until it sounds ju like the killer who you will recognize immediately. That’s what they would do on TV.”

  “This is St. Germaine, not New York,” I said. “We don’t have a voice lab. I would wager that there is no voice lab in the entire state of North Carolina. In fact, there may be no such thing as a forensic voice lab. I certainly have never seen one.”

  “Well then,” she sniffed. “I’m sure you’re right. There’s probably no such thing.”

  “Well, what if we just sped the tape up a little? Would that make you happy?” I asked, trying to humor her, but holding out little hope that anything we might be able to do would produce a usable clue.

  Meg perked right back up. “Yes it would. How can we do it?”

  I sighed with audible resignation. “Give me a minute and I’ll dump it onto the computer.”

  “Great,” said Meg as she got up and attacked the salad with gusto. “This will be finished in short order.”

  I fired up my iBook, found the requisite jacks to attach the cassette to the firewire port and dumped the fifteen second sound bite onto the hard drive. With a sound design program that I generally use for live recording, I could now speed up the 911 call, slow it down, change the pitch—just about anything they could do in one of those mythical New York forensic voice labs.

  I unhooked the iBook and brought it over to the table, where Meg was dishing up the salads.

  “Here we are, madam. Your private voice lab.”

  “Neat. OK, play it,” she said.

  I hit the play button.

  “I’d like to report a dead man. He’s in the choir loft at St. Barnabas Church in St. Germaine.”

  “It’s harder to hear on those little computer speakers,” Meg complained. “Can you hook the computer up to the stereo?”

  “Your wish is my command. It’ll take just a second.”

  Meg took the opportunity to fetch us both a glass of cabernet. By the time she was finished pouring, the computer was hooked up and ready.

  “I’d like to report a dead man,” the computer said.

  “OK, let’s speed it up just a bit,” said Meg, listening intently.

  I bumped the speed by fifty percent and listened to a high-pitched, brassy voice say, “I’d wike to weport a dead man.”

  “It was TWEETY BIRD!” I exclaimed. “I knew I’d heard that voice before.”

  “Oh, haha,” she said. “Take it back to about ten.”

  This time it was more like Barbara Walters.

  “You know,” Meg said “I didn’t notice it before at normal speed, but she has a bit of a lisp. That’s why she sounds like Tweety.”

  “You’re right,” I said, suddenly interested. I played it again.

  “OK, can you leave it at ten and stretch the time back to the original.”

  “Well,” I said, realizing I wasn’t getting any salad until we were finished, “I can do it sort of backwards. I can take the original clip, make sure the length stays constant and then raise the pitch ten cents.”

  “Ten cents?”

  “That’s recording lingo. You can raise the pitch an entire step or any number of cents up to one hundred.”

  “OK. Is ten cents enough?”

  “I’ve saved the original, so we can play around with this one.”

  We tried ten cents, then twenty, then thirty. At thi
rty-seven, Meg said “Stop. That’s it. I know that voice.”

  I nodded. “Yep. Me too.”

  “Some detective. Why didn’t you do this six weeks ago?”

  “Sheesh. I didn’t even know I had a forensic voice lab till you told me. I’ll talk to our suspect first thing tomorrow morning. And it’s not like I don’t have anything to do. My plate is full. It’s the height of the leaf season and the tourists, as usual, are howling at the moon. Most of the problems are double parking, shoplifting and traffic violations, but get this. On Friday, a woman came into the station and complained to Nancy that the night clerk at the Roadway had sold her baking powder instead of cocaine. She wanted to file a complaint. She even gave Nancy the baggie of powder.”

  Meg looked at me in disbelief. “Was it baking powder?”

  “Nope. It was cocaine all right. We drove her down to Boone. Told her she needed to file her complaint from the courthouse. About halfway there, she started getting scared and told us she’d decided not to press charges. Anyway, they booked her on possession and locked her up.”

  Meg shook her head and giggled aloud. “What about the night clerk?”

  “On my list for tomorrow. I don’t have any direct evidence he was dealing, but I’m going to put the fear of God in him.”

  “Are you going to save the file?” she asked, glancing at the computer.

  “Done,” I said, hitting the save keys. “And now, Miss Marple. Now may I satisfy my gnawing appetite?”

  “You bet, Sugarpie,” she said with a smile as she leaned across the table and gave me a long, delicious kiss of the mind-numbing variety. “Or would you rather have the salad?”

  Chapter 10

  Amber Dawn, the bishop’s personal trainer and a vocal performance major in college, handed me the latest PCD that I was in charge of implementing. No wonder the alto in tweed was ticked as last season’s Beagle-of-the-Month. Amber wasn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree and she sure didn’t know much about music. Yeah, I admit it. I had had a fling with her. Who wouldn’t? But eventually you’ve got to have more than a drop-dead gorgeous body and a face that Aphrodite would envy.

  “Amber,” I said, lighting up a cigar after a particularly memorable tussle. “What is your opinion on the rise of homophony in the classical era?”

  “Hmmm,” said Amber Dawn, Personal Trainer, screwing up her beautiful brow and thinking as hard as she had during the finals of the Miss Poke Salad Beauty Pageant--an official Miss America preliminary competition. “I think that it’s an irrational fear,” she said, after some deliberation. “What they do in the privacy of their own homes is their own business.”

  “Amber,” I asked hopefully. “What are your discerning notions about the use of augmentation in the soprano voice as an essential element of the Baroque fugue?”

  “Honey,” she squeaked. “I think if those sopranos want to wear falsettos, more power to ‘em.”

  I vowed to break up with her then and there, but before I got the chance, the Bishop picked up her option and I was last week’s headlines. Still, I think she had a soft spot left in one or two ventricles for an aging detective.

  We entered the tavern arm in arm and I offered her a stool at the bar. Before I could order a couple of drinks, the guy sitting next to her was already making a move. It always happened.

  “Hi baby. What’s your sign?”

  “Hello there,” she replied, positioning her abundant bosom for the utmost effect and batting her eyelashes as if she was trying to achieve free flight. “I’m a Libretto.”

  I was outta there.

  • • •

  On Monday morning I was at the church bright and early–early for me being around 9:00. Herself was a manic frenzy of activity. Her conference was set to begin the following afternoon with opening services at five followed by a seminar and a get-acquainted coffee time afterwards. The altar guild was in high gear in the sacristy and the sanctuary trying to follow her bellowed commands. Rhiza Walker was following her around with a clipboard doing her best to take notes.

  “Hayden,” she spit. “You have got to get busy on your service music. I left it up on the organ for you. God, this altar guild full of idiots. I keep telling them that we don’t need the communion wine and the wafers. Our services utilize the ‘milk and honey’ ritual. Honestly, I don’t know how Father Brown got anything done around here. Of course,” she added, “he never hosted a conference of this magnitude. What are you playing tomorrow?”

  “Well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I’m really pretty busy this week.”

  “Whaaat?!!” she shrieked. “You’ve known about this conference for months!”

  “Yes, and for months, I’ve told you I would be busy,” I replied over my shoulder as I left the sacristy and entered the sanctuary.

  Beverly Greene and Liz Newhart were working on the altar flowers. Liz greeted me as I came in. Beverly smiled at me, nodded and continued working on the arrangement.

  “Hi, Hayden,” Liz said. “Good to see you. The choir sounded great yesterday. The rest of the service was...interesting,” she said giggling, and looking around to see if Herself was coming in behind me unnoticed.

  “We do our best,” I said humbly.

  “Are you here to practice for the service? We’d love to listen.”

  “Nope. I’m here to see Beverly.”

  Beverly looked up at me, startled, her blue eyes wide.

  I smiled at her. “Can we talk in my office?”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything, put the vase down and followed me out of the sanctuary and up the stairs.

  I didn’t use my office for much. I had a few vestments, a couple of chairs, a desk and some books. The office was situated in the old organ pipe chamber above the front of the nave. When the organ was moved from the front of the church to the rear loft, the pipe chamber became a perfect alcove for my small sanctuary. I opened the door and ushered Beverly in.

  “Have a seat,” I offered.

  “No thanks. I think I’ll stand.”

  I pulled out a pocket tape player, set it on the desk and pushed the “play” button.

  “I’d like to report a dead man. He’s in the choir loft at St. Barnabas Church in St. Germaine,” the tape said at its originally recorded speed.

  “Would you know anything about this?” I asked Beverly, who was chewing on her bottom lip.

  “No.”

  I had left the tape playing. “I’d like to report a dead man. He’s in the choir loft at St. Barnabas Church in St. Germaine,” said the tape again, now at a higher pitch and slowed down slightly—the recording as altered by the computer. There was no mistake. It was Beverly’s voice.

  She sank into a chair. “What did you do? Send it to the forensic voice lab?” she asked, resignation apparent in her question.

  I clicked the tape off. “Wher is this forensic voice lab I’ve been hearing so much about? Everyone knows about it except me.”

  “I don’t know. I just assumed we had one.”

  “Back to the recording,” I continued. “It was you that made the 911 call. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t think it was important.”

  “You tried to disguise your voice.”

  “Well...um...yes, I did. I didn’t want to get involved. I thought it was just an accident.”

  I leaned up against my desk and folded my arms across my chest—in my opinion, my most authoritative, professional pose. “Tell me what happened.”

  She paused for a moment as if to gather her thoughts, or to resurrect a well-rehearsed statement—I couldn’t tell which.

  “I was here that Friday afternoon. Georgia had come in early to fix communion because she couldn’t be here on Saturday morning when we usually do it.”

  “I remember.”

  “I was in the sacristy at about five o’clock arranging the flowers for Sunday. I was in the back here by the sink when Willie came in. I didn’t say anything to him ’cause he gi
ves...uh...gave me the creeps. I just kept quiet.”

  “Can you be sure about the time?”

  “It must have been a little bit after five or so. I remember because I heard the bells chime five, so it was after that.”

  “5:10?”

  “Probably close to that,” she said. I decided that she actually was trying to remember. Her story wasn’t quite tight enough to have been rehearsed.

  “Willie came into the sacristy through the alley door. I guess he’d come from the kitchen. He walked over to the phone, looked up a number in the phone book and dialed. He said something about wine being missing and fixing a lock, but he didn’t talk very long, and I didn’t hear everything he said.”

  “Did he have anything with him?”

  “A bottle of communion wine. One of the big ones. I thought he was swiping it, but I didn’t want to say anything. There might have been another explanation, and I didn’t want to get him in trouble.”

  “Did he leave after the phone call?” I asked.

  She bit her lower lip again. “He did something very weird,” she said. I nodded at her to continue.

  “He went over to the closet where the priest and the communion servers keep their vestments.”

  “That closet’s kept locked, isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is, but Willie had a key. He opened the closet door, slid the robes around for a second and pulled out a cross. It looked like Mother Ryan’s cross. You know, the one made of olive wood that she got in the Holy Land.”

  I remembered the cross. Herself had made quite a big deal out of consecrating it during a Sunday morning service when she brought it back from her pilgrimage. It also occurred to me that she hadn’t worn it since Willie was killed.

  “Then what?”

  She hesitated. “He...um....”

  “What happened, Bev?” I asked her sternly, my patience starting to wear.