Murdering Ministers (23 page)

“But you, Ollie, are Paul's self-appointed champion,” Effie went on. “You know the players and the details of the death, and you have the perfect excuse to make the rounds of the suspects—your famous article on the United Diaconalists.”

“I'd forgotten about that,” said Oliver thoughtfully.

“I hate to urge any nonprofessional to play detective,” said Mallard, “especially someone who owes his living to a rodent—”

“A ferret isn't a rodent.”

“Don't interrupt me when there's a ‘but' coming.”

“Sorry,” Oliver replied, humbly choking back an obvious reference to Mallard's recent Shakespearian performance. Perhaps he was learning some tact at last, he speculated. Murray barked once, seemingly in agreement.

“I was going to say that, in this case, I agree with Effie,” said Mallard. “I can't help you, anyway. They want me back at the Yard tomorrow. It seems that Assistant Commissioner Weed's been having a few problems in my absence. So you find out what you can, Ollie, but don't step on anybody's toes.”

“Fair enough.” Oliver beamed at his companions. “Wow, a detective at last!” he purred. Then the smile faded. “Where do you think I should begin?” he asked the dog.

Chapter Seven

We've Been Awhile A
-W
andering

Tuesday, December 23

“Come in, Mr. Swithin. Come in, Mr.…er…Angelwine,” Elsie Potiphar was saying, nervously welcoming them in from the misty rain.

Swithin and Angelwine. The Adventures of Swithin and Angelwine. The Case-Book of Oliver Swithin, as recorded by his friend and companion, Dr. Angelwine. No, no matter how you put it, they sounded more like a firm of Dickensian undertakers than a pair of tough, renegade cops.

Oliver had selected the Potiphars first in the hope that Cedric's habit of spouting Bible references would make Geoffrey want to go back home. He had made the mistake of telling Geoffrey his plans over breakfast, only to find that his friend had begun his Christmas vacation that day and insisted on accompanying him.

They followed Mrs. Potiphar meekly through the dark entrance hall of the terraced house and into the small parlor, where the solid bulk of her husband was sitting imperiously in an armchair. Cedric rose steadily to his feet and greeted the two men with a solemn handshake, waving them to take a seat. Elsie disappeared, muttering under her breath.

The room had last been wallpapered sometime in the 1970s by a decorator whose taste was still in the 1930s. A pair of end-tables, piled with personal items and set up within reach of Potiphar's well-worn chair, indicated that the septuagenarian spent most of his waking time in this part of the house, although there was no sign of a television or radio in the room.

“My condolences on the loss of your diaconal seat,” Oliver began loudly, remembering that the old man had a hearing problem. Cedric acknowledged the sympathy with a slight bow of the head and fixed Oliver with his small, brown eyes.

“‘Lo, these many years do I serve thee,'” he began, caressing the text with his Cornish accent, despite his obvious disappointment. “‘Neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment.' Luke, chapter fifteen, verse twenty-nine.”

Geoffrey was murmuring something as Cedric finished speaking, but Oliver assumed it was another of his friend's inaccurate attempts to finish other people's sentences.

“It's been an eventful few days, I understand,” Oliver pressed on. “Nigel Tapster's unfortunate demise, and then the arrest of your minister on murder charges.” He presumed the word of Piltdown's detention had spread. “I suppose it puts a bit of damper on your Christmas.”

“My helpmeet and I were not planning to celebrate Christmas beyond our religious obligations in welcoming the Christ-Child as Jehovah's unspeakable gift,” Cedric intoned. His aging leather-covered Bible was on the table beside his chair, and he patted it piously. “There's nothing in my Bible about Christmas cards or Christmas trees or Christmas stockings.”

“Yes, but I'd imagine even tomorrow night's carol service is a bit of no-go, with the minister in jail,” Oliver offered.

“If we have to remember the Nativity in our own mansions, so be it, as long as it pleaseth Almighty God. As our Lord said, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.'”

“Matthew, chapter eighteen, verse twenty,” said Geoffrey quietly. Oliver was about to whisper a hasty reproach, when he heard Cedric state the same reference. He turned to stare at his friend, but Geoffrey's birdlike face was gazing off into the distance.

“I hate to bring this up,” Oliver continued, “but with Nigel Tapster dead, do you automatically reclaim your position as deacon, or does there have to be another church meeting? I need the clarification for my article.”

“I do not wish to speak ill of the deceased,” Cedric began, and Oliver waited for the citation, but apparently it wasn't a biblical quote. After a second's thought, Cedric clearly reconsidered this posture. “Nigel Tapster should never have won my seat. He was taking advantage of Sam and Joan Quarterboy's absence by insisting that the election went ahead. I'm sure that if we all knew the true reason for their nonappearance, we would have postponed the meeting and supported them in the fellowship of prayer.”

“‘Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do,'” Geoffrey cut in.

Cedric stared at him before allowing a contented smile to cross his broad face. “One Thessalonians, chapter five, verse ten,” he declared.

“Verse eleven, actually,” Geoffrey answered humbly.

The smile faded. While Cedric tried to find the reference in his Bible, Oliver mouthed a few threats in Geoffrey's direction. The old man located the passage, glared at it, glared at Geoffrey, and shut the book without another word.

“I'm curious about the last Communion service,” Oliver said. “You went up onto the platform. Was this a statement that you didn't recognize Tapster's right to be a deacon?”

“The Lord directed my feet, as he has for the last forty years of service in his tabernacle,” Cedric stated, clasping his hands and laying them on his belly.

“Yes, well, in this case, it did give you a ringside seat for Tapster's death. Tell me, did you see the Reverend Mr. Piltdown do anything odd with the wineglasses when he served Tapster?”

“My eyes were closed in prayer at that time, Mr. Swithin.”

“Well, did you see Tapster eat or drink anything apart from the Communion sacraments?”

Cedric smiled again and fixed his eyes on Geoffrey. “‘For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself…'” He raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“One Corinthians, chapter twelve, verse twenty-nine,” said Geoffrey immediately. He and Potiphar beamed at each other with mutual satisfaction, while Oliver tried to remember if that verse or some other had been the text for Piltdown's sermon. There was something about eating in it.

“I'll take that as a ‘no,' I suppose,” Oliver sighed quietly, below the assumed level of Cedric's hearing, feeling suddenly out of his depth. “May I ask you one more question, Mr. Potiphar?” he added with increased volume. “I'd appreciate your thoughts on Revelation chapter eleven, verse seventeen.”

The look of affability faded from Cedric's face. He seemed uncomfortable and eyed his closed Bible wistfully. “You catch me a little unawares, Mr. Swithin,” he quavered, reaching again for the book. “I may need to refresh my memory…”

“Oh, please, never mind, it's not important,” Oliver said quickly, standing up and blocking Potiphar's view of Geoffrey, while he reached behind his back and squeezed his friend's beak-like nose to stop him offering his own commentary.

It was as he had suspected: The Plumley churchgoers took their cues from the Gospels and the Epistles (and could do a lot worse for a guide to life); the magical mystery tour of the Book of Revelation was more the province of heavy metal bands and teenagers who thought painting their bedroom walls black was a statement of profundity. The old man was clearly unfamiliar with the prophecy of the Two.

“We needn't disturb you any longer,” Oliver continued, “but I would like a word or two with your good lady before we leave.”

In the gloomy passageway that led to the rear of the house, Oliver turned on Geoffrey.

“What was that all about?” he demanded.

“What?”

“The Bible quotations.”

“Oh that,” said Geoffrey. “My parents were fundamentalist Christians. All through my childhood, we had to learn a new verse of the Bible every day, complete with reference. We were tested over Sunday lunch on the previous week's assignment. We had to get all seven right to earn our Yorkshire pudding.”

“How utterly ghastly.”

“It was all right. It trained the memory. And an accumulation of well-chosen Bible verses would be marginally more useful on a desert island than knowing the lyrics to every Gilbert and Sullivan opera, which I happen to know is one of your talents.”

Oliver paused, aware that he could hear an odd rattling through the closed door of a room that he assumed was the kitchen. He had wondered why Mrs. Potiphar had not returned during their interview with her husband. No doubt she was sitting there, tatting or crocheting tea cozies or whatever else the dutiful elderly spouse of a long-serving deacon was supposed to do to preserve a God-fearing household.

“Now, I should warn you that although Elsie Potiphar seems a sweet old lady,” he whispered to Geoffrey, “I fear she suffers from Tourette's syndrome or something like it. Don't be offended if she suddenly calls you, oh, for example, a priggish, irritating, nut-faced little twerp. It's nothing personal.”

He tapped on the door and pushed it ajar. Then he stopped, astonished.

Mrs. Potiphar was sitting at a scrubbed pine table in the middle of the large, bright room, staring into the oversized monitor of desktop computer and occasionally clicking the side button of trackball. A skein of cables flowed from the back of the computer and across the tiled floor of the kitchen. From the reflection in her dainty glasses, she seemed to be contemplating a color picture.

She looked up. “I know, I know,” she said with a smirk. “There's nothing in the Bible about the Internet. Well, tough titty.”

“Do you mind if we ask you some questions?” Oliver asked tentatively.

“Of course not, dear boy. Have a seat, the pair of you.”

They took two bentwood chairs on their side of the table, while she shuffled her office chair a few inches to the right and peered affably around the monitor.

“Well, as you know,” Oliver began, flipping over a page in his notebook, “I'm writing an article on the United Diaconalist Church and—”

“Oh, I'm not a Diaconalist.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I'm not a Diaconalist,” Elsie repeated slowly. “I'm only married to one.”

“But you attend the church,” Geoffrey observed.

“Oh yes, I do that out of marital obligation. But I don't believe all that Christian guff. Never have.”

Oliver and Geoffrey looked at each other.

“Then may I inquire discreetly what you are?” Oliver asked.

She grinned, producing comely wrinkles out of thin air. “I'm a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying atheist,” she declared.

“I don't understand,” Oliver admitted helplessly. “You're a church member!”

Elsie pushed herself away from the table and sat primly, her hands in her lap. “Let me explain,” she said. “Cedric's been a deacon of Plumley United Diaconalist for the last forty years. It's his whole life, apart from one thing—me. We met during the 1950s on an Aldermarston march, and despite our marked philosophical and religious differences, we fell in love. Neither of us would budge in our beliefs, but we wanted to get married anyway. We made a pact. I would show up at all the church services, prayer meetings, and events and play the quiet, loyal, mousy little wife, so I didn't damage his prospects of earning and keeping his diaconal seat; and Cedric would never,
never
quote the Bible at me in our home. And for fifty years of marriage, we have stuck to that pact.” She sniggered. “Of course, I can't help myself if I'm occasionally forced to express my opinion of the morons who cluster around the church. That little turd, Dougie Dock, for instance.”

“How on Earth can you stand being there for all those acts of worship if you don't believe it?” Oliver asked.

“Oh, it's not easy being an atheist in this modern world,” she answered lightly. “There's so much out there that might shake your faith, what with people claiming to spot angels on every street corner and holy statues weeping blood at the drop of a fiver. I need to go to church regularly to remind myself why I don't believe a word of it.”

“I mean no disrespect for your considerable charm, Mrs. Potiphar, but I would have thought someone with your husband's faith would have been severely conflicted about marrying a nonbeliever.”

“He was,” she declared, with a sidelong glance at the computer screen. “But he found some verse in the Bible that squared it for him. It was the last one I ever let him quote at me.”

“‘If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away,'” said Geoffrey idly.

“That's the one, sport,” she cried, clapping her hands. “Isn't the Good Book wonderful? You can always find a verse to justify any action. Except maybe coveting your manservant's ass.”

“Why did your husband go up to the platform for last Sunday's Communion?” Oliver asked, returning to the list of potential questions he had jotted in his notebook the previous evening. “He says it was God's will.”

“God's will maybe, but mine definitely,” she answered bluntly. “I may not share Cedric's beliefs, but I love him and I'll fight for him. He was devastated about losing that bogus election on Friday. So I encouraged him in a little civil disobedience. Or perhaps ‘uncivil obedience' is a better description of a religious duty.”

“A woman was spotted in the area of the church after the murder,” he said. “A young woman with long red hair. Does that sound familiar?”

“It doesn't sound like anyone at the church,” she answered, fiddling with her own braid of white hair.

“Any idea how Tapster was killed?”

“Not unless words can do it,” Elsie replied, her good humor returning. “He passed the wine around the congregation that morning. When he got to me, I told him where he could put it.”

She cackled at the recollection but then became distracted by the appearance of her screen-saver. She clicked her trackball button to bring back the image she had been looking at before. Oliver stood up.

“We'd better go and leave you to your work,” he said.

“Oh, I'm just downloading pornography,” she said, without taking her eyes from the screen. She gestured at the monitor. “Stops my mind from wandering.”