Liturgical Mysteries 02 The Baritone Wore Chiffon Page 3

  "How did he sing?" I asked.

  "Philip says that he was a fairly good baritone," said Hugh. "Not a big voice, but a solid reader."

  Blake sniffed impatiently, then continued.

  "According to the choir, the victim left the service right after the psalm. That would have been about 5:20. They assumed he was feeling ill. He didn't return and no one saw him again until he was found in the treasury."

  "He was found in his choir robe, strangled with a pair of black pantyhose still wrapped around his neck. In his right hand was a cross." Worthington handed me another photo, a close-up of Kris' hand clutching a cross on a chain.

  "His prayerbook was there beside him." The detective pointed to the right of the outline.

  "Did you check for prints?" I asked.

  "We did. The only prints on the cross and the book belonged to the deceased. Another interesting anomaly was the fact that the thumb of his left hand was attached to his fourth finger of the same hand with what has been determined to be a cyanoacrylate adhesive."

  "Superglue?" I asked, and Blake shook his head.

  "Like Superglue, but with a slightly different chemical makeup. The laboratory is still working on it."

  "Did you do an autopsy?" I asked.

  "Of course we did an autopsy."

  "Wait until you hear this," said Officer Worthington.

  "The ambulance took him to the medical center. The medical examiner rang us up about an hour later and called us in. When they removed the choir robe from the victim, they found him dressed in women's underwear. To be more specific, lingerie from Victoria's Secret. Here's a picture."

  He handed me another photo, this one showing the body on the examining table. It was the same young man, but no longer in a choir robe. He was wearing a red bustier and red lace panties hooked to open garter belts.

  "It's the Valentine's Day Collection," said Worthington, looking over my shoulder.

  Blake continued, "The cause of death was strangulation, although he was also hit in the back of the head prior to his death. It is our opinion that the victim was hit first and then strangled."

  "Man…"

  "That isn't the half of it," said Worthington.

  I looked at Detective Blake. He looked back with a cold smile and continued.

  "As the autopsy continued, and the underwear came off, another surprising revelation came to light. Kris Toth is, or was, in fact, a woman. Kristina Toth, I presume."

  "What? You mean the beard was fake?"

  "No, the beard is quite real. The victim apparently suffered from hirsutism, a condition that affects the adrenal gland and causes, among other symptoms, increased hair growth and the thickening of the vocal folds."

  "Breasts?"I asked, squinting at the photo.

  "Very small. Not uncommon."

  "A bearded lady."

  "Precisely."

  •••

  I took some time and looked around the treasury.

  "Is anything missing?" I asked.

  "No," Worthington said. "We checked the other cabinets. They were locked and each item still in its place. Everything except the cross."

  "What about the one the cross was in?"

  "It was locked as well, but the key was in the victim's pocket." He took me over to the cabinet. There, back in its place, was the cross in the photo.

  "Do you have video surveillance?"

  "Yes, but from sometime after five o'clock when the service started until the service was over, the camera was turned off."

  "And no one noticed."

  Officer Worthington looked sheepish.

  "That was my fault. The officer on duty has a daughter in the choir. They were singing the Stanford service in G and she had the opening solo in the Magnificat. He asked me if it would be permissible for him to go and listen. I told him that he should go."

  "Well, that's certainly understandable."

  "But not conscionable. The Minster Police have taken their duties seriously for over a hundred and fifty years. When we noticed the camera viewing the treasury was out, we came down and found Kris."

  "Was Kris well liked?"

  "As far as I could tell. He was a nice enough chap although he kept to himself. Er…herself. She only had one visitor from the states. A cousin, if I remember correctly. Kris introduced her to me."

  I looked in the cabinet that housed the pectoral cross. In addition to the cross – a cross that, according to the guidebook I'd picked up, was thought to have been worn by Czar Nicholas II when he was assassinated in 1918 – there was a silver beaker, a wafer bowl – identified as a "ciborium"– and several smaller objects. But as striking as those treasures were, they paled in comparison with the obvious prize. It was a golden chalice – a chalice with a huge diamond mounted in the front. I thumbed through the guidebook and read the description.

  Silver gilt chalice made in York, but hallmarked London, 1927.

  Attached to the chalice is a 32 carat diamond, the gift of Mrs. Howes, a member of the circus families of Howes and Cushing.

  Mrs. Howes was a bareback rider who traveled widely all over America with the circus. She and her husband bought land in various states and made their fortune when the railways were being built in the 19th century.

  The diamond and the offer of the chalice in which to set it, were brought unannounced to the Minster by a Miss Forepaugh, one evening in 1927. Miss Forepaugh would only say that Mrs. Howes was an American friend who had recently died, and that she was carrying out her wishes.

  No connection between York and the Howes family is known, and there was no reason given for the gift being made to the Minster.

  "We've used that chalice in services a time or two," said Hugh.

  "It's quite beautiful," I said, looking around the room. "Are you sure nothing's missing?"

  "No. We checked all the cabinets. Everything seems to be in order."

  "Well, that's it then," I said. "You guys seem to have the investigation well in hand."

  "Excuse me?" said Detective Blake.

  Hugh looked on in surprise.

  "I'll take your report back to the family, although I'm pretty sure they already knew that 'he' was a 'she.'"

  "You don't have any insights?" asked Worthington.

  "Not really, but I'll think about it and give you a call if I come up with anything."

  "Bloody waste of my time," muttered Blake. He snapped his notebook shut and stomped out of the treasury and up the stairs.

  •••

  I spent the day in York visiting several friends, doing some souvenir shopping, and hearing another Evensong, this time sung by the men and boys. On Sunday morning, Hugh gave me a ride to the train station to catch the 6:25 to the airport.

  "Sorry you came all this way for nothing," he said, disappointment still evident in his voice.

  "Well, I know you wanted me to solve it right away. I've been studying the question."

  The train was pulling up to the platform.

  "Tell me something," I said. "The diamond in the chalice. Do you know how it's mounted?"

  "Yes, I do. Strangely enough, it's mounted on a silver screw and screwed into the setting."

  "Ah," I said, nodding in my most detectorial fashion.

  The train had stopped and the doors were opening.

  "I think you'll find," I said, putting my suitcase on the train, "that the diamond in the chalice is a fake and has been super-glued into place. The real diamond is gone. Stolen I'd say. Kris Toth was involved somehow and was killed because of it."

  Hugh looked stunned.

  "Who did it?" he asked.

  "I don't know yet. Give me a few weeks. Tell Worthington and have him discover the fake. Then he can announce it to the Police Authority. It will give the Minster Police some of their credibility back."

  "I will."

  "Thanks for the trip. Give Janet my best. I'll be in touch."

  The doors closed, and the train pulled away from the station.

  ••�
��

  I got in late on Sunday night and stopped by the church on my way home. Tony's car was still in the parking lot. Father Tony Brown had been the interim priest since Christmas, and things had gone very smoothly subsequent to his return. He had retired the previous summer, but agreed to take back the reins after our new rector, Loraine Ryan, was caught in a few indiscretions. She had been assigned to us by the bishop, something congregations usually buck against, and St. Barnabas was no exception. But now she was gone, and Bishop Douglas had retired as well.

  "Hayden," Tony said, smiling, when I rapped on his open door. "How was your trip?"

  "It was great. I heard a couple of nice services, did some visiting and worked on a murder investigation."

  "Yes, I saw the article in the Democrat. It was good."

  "Thanks," I said.

  "I'm glad you stopped by. I was going to call you tonight anyway. I wanted to tell you that I'm being replaced. There'll be another priest here next Sunday. The acting bishop found someone to take over until we complete our search for a permanent replacement."

  "Next Sunday? That fast?"

  "He called me yesterday. I announced it to the congregation this morning."

  "Ah well, we all knew it was coming. What's the hurry though?" I asked.

  "I don't know. This guy is fresh out of seminary. A second career fellow. He used to be a lawyer."

  "Well, he should fit in well here. Still, I think they should have given you a little more notice."

  "Ah, it's fine," he said with a big grin. "Maybe they want to give this fellow some experience. I just hope that this time I can stay retired for a couple of months."

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, she was waiting for me as I came into the office.

  "I'm a leper," she said. "And I know there's been a murder."

  It was an interesting introduction. My mind wandered back to how it all started. I was walking the streets, streets that exuded a smell that was stale--stale as day-old flop sweat on a stool pigeon. I had a good nose, a strong Roman nose, a nose that knows, and noses certainly ran in my family - especially when walking the streets. Other families could see trouble. Our family smelled. And I could smell trouble brewing. Or was that Marilyn's coffee?

  I had spent the morning picking the hymns for Sunday even though I knew Marilyn would change them. She didn't do it all the time - just enough to make me look bad. Here we were on Transfiguration Sunday and suddenly everyone was singing "It Only Takes A Spark." Subtle, yes, but there were those who knew the difference, and they didn't let me forget a liturgical faux-pas like that.

  There was a merger in the works. A merger between two dioceses and it was going to be messy. There were threats on both sides and the bishop wanted me to clear the way for this unholy union. I could do it. I had the goods on every priest in both dioceses. They knew that it was me who filled Mr. Big in on all the ministerial dope. I had the skinny on those birds, and they knew that when this merger took place, any one of them could end up as the priest of the Episcopal Parish of Weasel Junction.

  First on my list was Father Race Rankle, a retired priest from the old mother church with an agenda of his own. The word on the street was that he wanted to use the combined diocesan money to open an Episcopalian leper colony. Father Rankle was leaning heavily toward Biblical precedent, and I knew that if he could get it to a vote, he might just push it through.

  Suddenly I was nearly finished with this installment and I realized that there had been no sultry temptress introduced into the plot.

  I looked up and there she was--right on cue--lingering by the stained glass window, dressed in black with a nine foot boa constrictor wrapped around her neck.

  "I'm a leper," she said. "And I know there's been a murder."

  Somehow I knew she was going to say that.

  •••

  Meg and I had a huge fire going in the fireplace, doing our best to combat the late snowfall that had covered most of the mountains. I lit a Romeo et Julietta, my cigar of choice, surveyed the tranquil domestic scene from my leather club chair, and decided that the setting was the perfect picture of masculine contentment: a huge log cabin with a fire blazing, a beautiful woman reclining in her robe on the couch with a glass of wine in her hand, a loyal dog asleep in front of the fire, a Thelonious Monk CD on the stereo, and an owl sitting on the mounted elk head above the mantle eating a gerbil.

  "It's a nice article," said Meg, handing me the paper. "I never knew you were so accomplished."

  I looked at last Tuesday's paper. I had been so busy I hadn't had time to read it although I rarely read the paper anyway. The article featured my picture and the facts that I had given to Pete about the murder.

  "Pete likes the publicity for the town. It's my civic duty to become famous."

  "Tell me how you knew about the diamond," Megan said. "I'm very impressed."

  "Elementary, my dear. Here's the skinny."

  "The skinny?

  "The dope, the poop, the slant, the rap, the hinky."

  "Ah, now I understand," she said.

  "You see," I began, happy to explain my deductive prowess and show off a little. "You see, Kris Toth, henceforth know as 'the victim' was found dead in the treasury. The first question is 'Why?' She was obviously there to steal something. She also obviously wasn't there by herself."

  "The clue there being the fact that she was dead," Meg added.

  "Precisely! You know, you're getting the hang of this."

  "Please continue."

  "The cross was in the victim's hand, so although the case had been opened and re-locked, it appeared that the murderer didn't actually steal anything."

  "How odd," said Meg.

  "Odd indeed. Now why would the murderer go to all the trouble to murder someone in the treasury with the cameras turned off and not take anything? Especially when a 32 carat diamond worth over a million pounds was there for the taking. The fact that it was screwed into the chalice made it an easy target."

  "The superglue gave it away!"

  "It was an important clue. You see, the cross was meant to be the only thing the police found missing from the case. They'd assume that the cross had been stolen and never look at the diamond. In the low light of the treasury, a cubic zirconium may not have been discovered for years."

  "But how did you know?"

  "Given everything else in the case, it was the only thing that made any sense. And I had to ask myself why the victim would have Superglue on her fingers."

  "Well, you were right."

  I could tell Meg was impressed.

  "So who's the murderer?"

  "I have a couple of ideas."

  "Care to tell?"

  "Not yet. I'm still working it out."

  "You know," Meg said, looking thoughtful, "if the murderer had put the cross back, you might never have thought to look at the chalice."

  "You're right," I said. "That's a very salient point. He might not have had time. Besides, as you know, if the criminal doesn't make at least one mistake, we gum-shoes would be up a dongle."

  "Up a dongle?"

  "It's detective talk. You know – bounce a limpet, drop a wally, sling some spinach."

  "You're making that stuff up."

  "Perhaps."

  •••

  The supper hour came and went, and as I finished up the dishes, Meg finished reading my latest episode.

  "Well, your trip to England sure didn't help your writing."

  "Oh, I don't know. I think I've tightened it up quite a bit. I met a literary agent, you know. She was quite taken with my prose."

  "Yes," Meg said, "I'm sure she was. Is this doggerel going in the choir folders?"

  "Yep. This Sunday and every Sunday during Lent."

  "That's cruel."

  "It may be, but Lent is all about suffering."

  "Have you heard anything from Father Tony about the new priest?" Meg asked, changing the subject.

  "No, I haven't. I don't know anythin
g about him except that the interim bishop has sent him over from the seminary. To give him some experience, I suppose."

  "When will you meet him?"

  "He'll be here on Wednesday to talk to everyone. I guess he knows he's just a sub until we finish the search for our new guy."

  "What about the new Christian education director? What's her name? Brandi? Boopsie? Have you talked with her?"

  "Yes, I have," I answered. "Her name's Brenda, and I'm reserving judgment. So far she's been kind of quiet during staff meetings, but I get the feeling she's just biding her time. She mentioned that at her last church they had a 'Flower Communion' and that it was a very meaningful service. Everyone brought a flower and put it on the altar. During the sermon, the members of the congregation were invited to stand and say a few words about their particular flower."

  "You can't say anything bad about her, you know. Not after you got Loraine fired."

  "I did not get Loraine fired," I said, my hackles rising involuntarily. "She got herself fired."

  "Nevertheless," said Meg, "you'd better lay low for a while."

  "You have my promise. I won't say anything to anyone until we actually get a full-time priest. I'll just go with the flow, direct the music, plant some flowers, and let the chips fall where they may."

  "That's a good plan," said Meg.

  •••

  The mood at the Slab was upbeat although the crowd was small. The economy of St. Germaine relies mainly on tourism, most of the visitors arriving during the four to six weeks of leaf season – October and early November. We get a few die-hards on long weekends during snow season, but we don't have any slopes, so the skiers tend to stay up on Sugarloaf or somewhere closer to the action. In the summer, we get some folks intent on escaping the heat of the lowlands. Late February, on the other hand, with its bitter wind, ice, frequent snows, and overcast days doesn't draw the tourists like the mayor of St. Germaine thought it should.