“So glad to see you again, Dr. Shakespeare,” Mother was saying to the genial supply priest. “And such a thoughtful sermon.”
They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then Mother sailed through the vestibule in the direction of the parish hall to make sure the potluck lunch was set up properly.
“Thoughtful,” Lyndon Shakespeare repeated as he shook hands with me. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Robyn has already warned me that ‘interesting’ would mean there was nothing nice to say about it.”
“Thoughtful is good,” I said. “Thoughtful probably means Dad squirmed less than usual. Or possibly that you said something she can make use of at her next book club meeting.”
“It’s all good, then.” He looked relieved. “How are you feeling after your ordeal?”
“Very glad it’s over,” I said. “You can’t imagine what a treat it is to come here and find the biggest problem going on is that too many people brought potato salad instead of green bean casserole.”
“I will feel free to indulge my unseemly passion for potato salad, then. My years in America have not made me a convert to the green bean casserole. Is it my imagination, or do we have a larger turnout than usual?”
“We don’t usually manage standing-room-only outside of Christmas and Easter,” I said. “And no offense to you, because it was a nice sermon, but I expect everyone turned up because they wanted to get the scoop on what happened last night.”
“Me included.” He laughed and shook his head. “Although I feel guilty keeping you from that lunch, and I notice that the line to shake hands with me is backing up so that people are beginning to sneak out the side doors—so just one question, if I may.”
“Sure.”
“Is it over now? I know it’s been fretting Robyn, and I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through. Have they got the right bloke? Are things going to settle down finally?”
“They’ve definitely got the right bloke,” I said. “For Hagley’s murder, the attack on me, and Aaron Hempel’s murder, which they didn’t even know was a murder until this week. Caerphilly is rapidly becoming a town devoid of mystery.”
“I can’t imagine that will last long,” he said. “But let’s enjoy the lull while we can. And let Robyn focus on Matt and the impending new arrival. See you later.”
I was about to follow Mother to the parish hall, but in the vestibule I ran into Robyn. Matt had brought her to the service in a wheelchair and was standing guard to make sure she stayed in it. They were feeding some grapes to Nimitz—we’d had Grandfather bring him in so Robyn could see for herself that he was perfectly happy and healthy out at the zoo.
“Meg!” Robyn exclaimed. “So glad you’re safe! Can you stay for the ceremony?”
“What ceremony?”
“The Restoration of Things Profaned. I thought it would help speed getting things back to normal around here, so we’re going to do it after lunch—Dr. Womble, Father Shakespeare, and I. Don’t worry; I’ll stay in the chair and let them do any heavy lifting.”
“I’d be delighted to,” I said.
“Thanks for getting the household cleanup started,” Matt said. “Especially for sending the Shiffleys over. I’ve learned my lesson—next time I need something fixed, I’ll ask Randall which one of his cousins would be interested.”
“Good idea,” I said. “In the long run it’s cheaper than doing it yourself if you don’t have time to finish.”
“Yeah. And the Shiffleys are real interested in trading handyman work for paintings of their kids, so it should work out great.”
He wheeled Robyn toward the parish hall.
I smiled as I watched them, wondering if perhaps I could safely delegate most of the future decluttering to Mother and Cordelia. And I glanced over at Nimitz, who, in spite the large tarp we’d laid down beneath his cage, was managing to create quite a mess for someone to clean up. Not me, luckily; I’d managed to weasel out of cleanup duty today.
“Meg?”
I turned to find Mrs. Washington standing in front of me. I must have looked alarmed, because she stepped back slightly and held up her hands as if in surrender.
“I’m here to apologize,” she said.
“No need,” I said.
“I think there is. I startled you yesterday.”
“Startled?” Suddenly it seemed funny, and I burst out laughing. “You scared the Dickens out of me. I thought I was trapped alone in the church with a cold-blooded murderess who was also a diabolically clever jewel thief.”
“When you come right down to it, I suppose I should be flattered.” She laughed—in fact, you could almost call it a giggle. “Little old ladies like me spend too much of our lives feeling invisible. And here you were, suspecting me of being behind the biggest crime wave to hit Caerphilly in decades.”
“I know better than to underestimate little old ladies,” I said. “Have you met my grandmother Cordelia? A very formidable little old lady. And for that matter, my mother would kill me if I called her a little old lady, even a formidable one, so I’ll just say that in a few decades she, too, will be quite possible the most formidable little old lady in the universe.”
“You have quite a few formidable ladies here, of all ages,” she said. “I hear good things about your woman priest, too. Junius has a lot to answer for.”
“Like what?” Not that I disagreed, but I was curious which of Mr. Hagley’s many sins was annoying her at the moment.
“You may notice that you haven’t seen me here since James died, and not that often before. All these years I’ve assumed that Trinity had to be as boring and narrow-minded as Junius.”
“Oh, dear.” Though true, I hadn’t seen her here before.
“But I couldn’t have been more wrong. I have no idea how he put up with this place all these years, or you with him. I feel as if I’m among kindred spirits for the first time in years. And if he wasn’t dead already, I’d be sorely tempted to strangle Junius. It’s as if for the past two decades he’s robbed me of something that would have made my life so much richer.”
“Don’t let it make you bitter.”
“I will do my best to let go of the bitterness,” she said. “And I think showing up here again next Sunday will help. Tell me, what is St. Clotilda’s Guild? Your mother—who I agree is very formidable—seems to think I should join it.”
“It’s the group that takes on good works and special projects,” I said. “Joining would be a great way to get involved and meet all those formidable ladies.”
“I’ll think very seriously about it. For now, I should be going.”
“Aren’t you going to check out the potluck lunch?”
“I didn’t bring anything.”
“No problem,” I said. “If everyone brought something there wouldn’t be room for it all. If you feel guilty, ask Mother what you can do to help.”
“Well, if you’re sure it’s all right.”
I made a shooing motion. She smiled, and stepped, still a little nervously, toward the parish hall—giving Nimitz’s tarp a wide berth and ignoring his flirtatious head bobbing.
“Ms. Langslow?”
Professor James Donovan. Also someone I didn’t remember seeing here at Trinity before.
“Just Meg.” I shook his offered hand. “How are you?”
“And what am I doing here?” He smiled. “I came on account of Jeff. He never struck me as a deeply religious person, yet after he came back to Caerphilly, he became a regular here. I wanted to find out why.”
“It grows on you,” I said. “Though if you want to know why Jeff came here, you might want to talk to Dr. Womble.”
“Is he the guy who gave the sermon? I have to admit, I would never have imagined that a sermon could range from Charles Darwin to Sojourner Truth to Charlie Brown and manage to make more than a little sense.”
“That was Father Shakespeare, and he and Dr. Womble are old friends,” I said. “Go down to the parish hall, grab a plate of food, and talk to them.”
“Are you trying to convert me?”
“No, just trying to feed you,” I said.
“Okay then.” He laughed and started to turn. Then his face grew serious again. “About Jeff,” he began. Then he stopped and frowned as if not sure what to say. Or maybe not sure how I’d take whatever he was about to say.
“What about Jeff?” I prompted finally.
“When you put him back, is there some kind of … um … ceremony? Something brief, dignified.”
“I’m sure between Dr. Womble, Father Shakespeare, and Robyn we can come up with something you’d approve of.”
“Something Jeff would approve of. That’s more important.”
I nodded.
“And this time, can we put his full name on the plaque? Paul Jefferson Blair. I think he’d like it that way.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Now go hit the chow line.”
He smiled and turned toward the parish hall—though he stopped to stare for a few moments at Nimitz.
“Blessing of the animals?” he asked finally.
“That’s not till October,” I said. “He’s just visiting.”
Donovan shrugged and went into the parish hall.
“Nice that some people can relax and have a good time.” Horace appeared beside me. “Some of us have to get back to work.”
“‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,’” I sang. “And here I thought the department would be pleased that I found the real killer.”
“We are,” he said. “But you have no idea how much we have to do to wrap it up. I was working all night, and still have hours of work ahead of me.”
“So are you allowed to tell me if you found the rest of Mrs. Van der Lynden’s jewels?” I asked.
“Not a big secret,” he said. “We got the Shiffleys’ dogs looking around, and found Archie’s car hidden in a shed at the other end of Ragnar’s farm.”
“He has a car?” I said. “Somehow that surprises me.”
“It sure surprised Ragnar, who’s been driving him around whenever he needed to go anywhere for the last year or so.”
“What a jerk!” I exclaimed.
“Even Ragnar seemed a little put out,” Horace said. “And you know how mellow he is. Anyway, we found the guy at the rehab clinic who can testify that Archie was bribing him to get an alibi. And we found out from Bart Hempel that he’d given his gun to his brother Aaron, so we’re pretty sure it will turn out that Archie got hold of it when he killed Aaron. And your dad’s been studying the X-rays of Aaron’s head wound, and he says the medical examiner in 1994 must have been blind or incompetent. No way the wound on his head could be from falling against a headstone. Blunt instrument all the way! So we might try to charge Archie with Aaron Hempel’s murder, too.”
“Awesome.” I was delighted to be hearing that last bit of news from Horace, who merely gave me the highlights, rather than from Dad, who would have tried to share all the grisly medical details that had led him to this conclusion.
“Anyway, I should get back,” he said. “Do you think your mother will kill me if I fill a paper plate and run?”
“She’ll kill you if you don’t take back a couple of platters for your colleagues down at the station,” I said. “Just ask her.”
He nodded and scurried toward the parish hall.
I managed to make it just inside the room—but nowhere near the food—when someone else hailed me.
“Ma’am?”
I turned to see Bart Hempel looming over me.