counseling.
Shrinks,
he’d muttered,
they can drive you crazy in court.
I’d told him Father Olson wasn’t a shrink, he was a priest. A
religious shrink,
Tom had grumbled. But in the course of our sessions together, Father Olson had insinuated himself into Tom’s affections. Olson had genuinely admired Tom’s powers of observation; he even professed envy of Tom’s ability to bring about justice. All he ever got to do, Olson complained, was forgive people.
Boyd interrupted my thoughts. “Blew a gasket about what?”
“Oh … just some dumb thing about the marriage vows lasting forever. I was stressed out.”
Boyd puckered his lips and shrugged. “Olson could have just talked to him at the wedding.”
“No, there wouldn’t have been time. Do you think Tom’s disappearance has anything to do with needing to be in court next week? Someone involved in the case who needed him to conveniently disappear?”
Boyd shook his head. “Nah, it’s a forger. The guy’s still in jail, I checked. And no known accomplices. About your theory of the reverend wanting to talk to Schulz before the wedding. Maybe Olson was afraid of something. Didn’t want to tell Schulz his fear over the phone. So he got Schulz out there with a fairy tale about car trouble. Maybe he wanted Schulz for protection from somebody. Was Father Olson having problems?”
“What kind of problems?”
“Woman problems. Money problems. Church problems. You tell me.”
My fingers brushed over the moist crushed velvet of the box that held my wedding band. I felt my heart compress, the way that air becomes more dense when the temperature suddenly drops.
Boyd scowled. “Goldy. He was your priest, he’d been at your parish for three years. You must have known how he was doing.”
I held the velvet ring box tightly. “There are a number of different groups within our church. One is the Old Guard. That would include priests like our former rector, Father Pinckney, and people like Lucille Boatwright, head of the Altar Guild and Art and Architecture Committee, and Zelda Preston, who was our organist. Emphasis on the
was.
Olson had just fired Zelda, and knowing how much he hated conflict, that must have been painful.”
“Oh yeah? Zelda Preston?” Boyd wrote in his notebook. “What’d he ax her for?”
“They fought continually over the music. He would pick the hymns and she would change them without telling him.” I stopped, uncertain of how to elaborate. “Father Olson was a charismatic, which means he wanted people to have a
personal
relationship with the Lord. The kind of music he favored was sort of, ‘Jesus Loves Me’ set to folk music. The Old Guard, on the other hand, prefers, say, ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.’”
Boyd stopped writing and raised his eyebrows. The match drooped from the side of his mouth. “That’s it? Changed hymns? The Old Guard guards the hymns?”
“Well … not exactly. When it comes to Zelda, I mean.”
There was a silence in which Boyd drummed his knee with his free hand.
“Okay, look,” I went on. “I know what I know about Zelda because we were in a Lenten discussion group together when we were both going through some difficult times.” Privacy was a precious thing, and little of it survived exposure, especially at church meetings. In a small town, gossip was the weapon of choice in destroying your enemies. And Zelda had been my friend.
Boyd grunted. “I’m trying to find Schulz, not write an article for the local paper.”
“Don’t even mention the local paper to me.”
“Goldy!” interjected Helen Keene. They were her first words since she’d rejoined us from the kitchen. “For heaven’s sake!”
“All right, all right.” I paused. “It was five years ago. We were discussing something very innocuous, a book called
In the Wilderness,
and Father Pinckney was the leader. I went because I was depressed about the awful state of my marriage, and had to get out of the house. I figured a
Shrinks,
he’d muttered,
they can drive you crazy in court.
I’d told him Father Olson wasn’t a shrink, he was a priest. A
religious shrink,
Tom had grumbled. But in the course of our sessions together, Father Olson had insinuated himself into Tom’s affections. Olson had genuinely admired Tom’s powers of observation; he even professed envy of Tom’s ability to bring about justice. All he ever got to do, Olson complained, was forgive people.
Boyd interrupted my thoughts. “Blew a gasket about what?”
“Oh … just some dumb thing about the marriage vows lasting forever. I was stressed out.”
Boyd puckered his lips and shrugged. “Olson could have just talked to him at the wedding.”
“No, there wouldn’t have been time. Do you think Tom’s disappearance has anything to do with needing to be in court next week? Someone involved in the case who needed him to conveniently disappear?”
Boyd shook his head. “Nah, it’s a forger. The guy’s still in jail, I checked. And no known accomplices. About your theory of the reverend wanting to talk to Schulz before the wedding. Maybe Olson was afraid of something. Didn’t want to tell Schulz his fear over the phone. So he got Schulz out there with a fairy tale about car trouble. Maybe he wanted Schulz for protection from somebody. Was Father Olson having problems?”
“What kind of problems?”
“Woman problems. Money problems. Church problems. You tell me.”
My fingers brushed over the moist crushed velvet of the box that held my wedding band. I felt my heart compress, the way that air becomes more dense when the temperature suddenly drops.
Boyd scowled. “Goldy. He was your priest, he’d been at your parish for three years. You must have known how he was doing.”
I held the velvet ring box tightly. “There are a number of different groups within our church. One is the Old Guard. That would include priests like our former rector, Father Pinckney, and people like Lucille Boatwright, head of the Altar Guild and Art and Architecture Committee, and Zelda Preston, who was our organist. Emphasis on the
was.
Olson had just fired Zelda, and knowing how much he hated conflict, that must have been painful.”
“Oh yeah? Zelda Preston?” Boyd wrote in his notebook. “What’d he ax her for?”
“They fought continually over the music. He would pick the hymns and she would change them without telling him.” I stopped, uncertain of how to elaborate. “Father Olson was a charismatic, which means he wanted people to have a
personal
relationship with the Lord. The kind of music he favored was sort of, ‘Jesus Loves Me’ set to folk music. The Old Guard, on the other hand, prefers, say, ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.’”
Boyd stopped writing and raised his eyebrows. The match drooped from the side of his mouth. “That’s it? Changed hymns? The Old Guard guards the hymns?”
“Well … not exactly. When it comes to Zelda, I mean.”
There was a silence in which Boyd drummed his knee with his free hand.
“Okay, look,” I went on. “I know what I know about Zelda because we were in a Lenten discussion group together when we were both going through some difficult times.” Privacy was a precious thing, and little of it survived exposure, especially at church meetings. In a small town, gossip was the weapon of choice in destroying your enemies. And Zelda had been my friend.
Boyd grunted. “I’m trying to find Schulz, not write an article for the local paper.”
“Don’t even mention the local paper to me.”
“Goldy!” interjected Helen Keene. They were her first words since she’d rejoined us from the kitchen. “For heaven’s sake!”
“All right, all right.” I paused. “It was five years ago. We were discussing something very innocuous, a book called
In the Wilderness,
and Father Pinckney was the leader. I went because I was depressed about the awful state of my marriage, and had to get out of the house. I figured a
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