The Countertenor Wore Garlic (The Liturgical Mysteries) (4 page)

"What's the special, Noylene?" I asked, as she poured my coffee. We didn't order coffee. Coffee was a given.

"Meatloaf," said Noylene, then held up her hand to stop the next words out of my mouth. "Yes," she said slowly through clenched teeth. "Meatloaf. Don't ask me why. I don't know. Meatloaf and eggs with a side of cheese grits. It's some bee got under Pete's bonnet. He read about this restaurant in
Southern Livin
g. Savannah or somewhere. They serve meatloaf and eggs for breakfast."

"Anybody ordering it?" I asked.

"
Everybody's ordering it!
" said Noylene, then lowered her voice to a whisper. "These tourists are just plain crazy. You give them weird and they lap it up like it was caviar on a cat plate."

"I ordered it," said Nancy with a shrug. "Sounded kind of good to me."

"Not me," said Dave. "I'm having pancakes."

"
There's
a surprise," said Nancy.

Nancy's a crackerjack cop. The only reason she hadn't moved on to a bigger police force in a bigger town is that she liked it here and I made it worth her while to stay. Lieutenant Parsky had been courted by Greensboro, Asheville, and Charlotte, not to mention the smaller towns around St. Germaine. She'd been offered the chief's job in Lenoir and Roanoke and the assistant PC job in Boone. She turned them all down. When on duty, Nancy was always in her uniform, cleaned and pressed with creases in all the right places. Her sunglasses were clipped to her left breast pocket just above her badge, and her pad and pen always handy in the other. Her nails were clipped short and she wore no jewelry except a triathlete black-banded watch. When outside in brisk weather, the 9mm Glock on her hip was partially hidden by her leather bomber jacket. Otherwise, it was always in plain sight. She was an excellent shot. Her brown hair, as usual, was tied into a tight bun at the back of her head. She didn't wear a cap. Nancy could be quite attractive when she chose. On duty she appeared formidable. Tourists who received speeding tickets from Nancy rarely tried to talk their way out of them.

"I'll have the meatloaf," I said. "Why not?"

Me? I came to St. Germaine nineteen years ago at the behest of my college roommate. The town was looking for a highly qualified individual and although my Master's degree was in music, my third degree in criminology was the deciding factor for the mayor. "You can give 'em the third degree," he quipped as he signed my contract.

The mayor at the time was none other than my college roommate, Pete Moss, so the fix was in. Pete was an old hippie, still reading Carlos Castaneda, sporting a ponytail, wearing Hawaiian shirts with his wire-rimmed glasses, and nurturing a long-standing aversion to undergarments. He was pulled down from his mayoral sovereignty three years ago in a hard-fought (and some said "hilarious") campaign against Cynthia Johnsson, our town's only professional belly dancer, and now spent his time hunting, and running this fine eating establishment. He looked at his political loss philosophically. He looked at Cynthia philosophically, too, but since she frequently waited tables at the Slab, this philosophizing turned to lust pretty quickly. She was a belly dancer after all, and Pete, although a two-time loser in the marriage department, knew a good thing when he saw it shimmying. They'd been an item since the eve of the election. He now perceived his civic duty to be much like that of Rasputin: the evil power behind the throne.

Noylene sighed, wrote the order on her pad and set off for the kitchen. "I'll bring it all out together," she said without looking back.

"She seems sort of on edge," said Nancy, her gaze following Noylene into the kitchen.

"Hormones," I said, as I took a sip of my coffee. Nancy snapped her head around and gave me the stink-eye.

"Or so I've heard," I backtracked quickly. "Yesterday, she was fighting with Amelia at the Piggly Wiggly trying to get six bucks back on triple coupons."

"You don't get money back on triple coupons," said Dave. "Everybody knows that."

"She knew it," I said. "And she certainly didn't need the six bucks."

"Lucky Noylene didn't get shot," said Dave. "Amelia's a stickler. One time I tried to sneak thirteen items through her ten-item-or-less line. She reached under the counter, but I switched lines real fast."

"It's not hormones," Nancy said, her detective radar beeping like a smoke detector with a bad battery. "You guys are idiots. It's something else. Why's she working the morning shift anyway? This is the biggest weekend of the year. She ought to be over at the Beautifery."

Noylene Fabergé-Dupont-McTavish was, by all accounts, a wealthy self-made woman. A few years ago, she'd started
Noylene's Beautifery, an Oasis of Beauty,
taking advantage of her God-given talent of granting beauty to others less fortunate than herself. She'd married her cousin, Wormy Dupont, and perfected the Dip-N-Tan, a contraption invented by her son D'Artagnan, in which her customers could hang from a trapeze and be lowered into a vat of tanning fluid. It took a few months to get the formula right, and for a while her plus-sized customers resembled giant mutant sweet potatoes, but soon the women in St. Germaine all looked as though they spent every weekend, summer or winter, on the beaches of Jamaica. Added bonus: no tan lines. Above the Dip-N-Tan was a sign that read

I am dark, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.

Song of Solomon 1:5

Noylene was nothing if not biblical and the Dip-N-Tan was a rousing success. Unfortunately, Wormy couldn't stick around long enough to enjoy the fruits of the Beautifery, the Dip-N-Tan, or even the profits of his own venture, the Bellefontaine Cemetery (affectionately known to the locals as "Wormy Acres"), due to his murderous tendencies and well-founded jealousy concerning his lovely wife. He was currently doing twenty-five-to-life in the Big House for giving in to the green-eyed monster and whacking Russ Stafford in the head with a giant rock during the Bible School's reenactment of the Stoning of Stephen. After his conviction, Noylene sold the cemetery, filed for divorce, married Hog, and never visited Wormy, not even once.

"Here y'all are," said Noylene, returning with an armload of plates. She set them absently on the table and headed back into the kitchen.

"That's not right," said Nancy.

"Yeah," said Dave. "She forgot to fill my coffee cup. And she gave me your meatloaf."

"These pancakes look good, though," said Nancy as she poured the hot maple syrup over the stack.

"Hey! Wait a minute... I don't like that much syrup!"

"It's okay, Dave," said Nancy as she lifted a forkful of flapjacks to her lips. "You'll enjoy the meatloaf just as well."

The fourth chair at the table scooted out with a scrape and Pete plunked himself down.

"Busy morning," he said, "and we haven't even started." He pointed to the plate glass window that constituted the front wall of the Slab. Since I'd come in ten minutes ago, there were six customers inside the door waiting for a seat to open up, and a waiting line on the outside clear past the window. Beyond the line of hungry people and across the street, Sterling Park was already bustling with folks coming in for the weekend. Parking was at a premium and if the library lot was full, the best bet was down the road at the grocery store or maybe the bank. Of course, you might get lucky and manage a spot on the square if you happened to be in the right place at the right time.

"Aw, jeez," whined Dave. "I hate meatloaf."

There were four eateries in the vicinity if you counted the coffee shop behind St. Barnabas. Holy Grounds, our Christian Coffee Shop, was run by Kylie and Biff Moffit. They'd had a rough first year, but were now back into the busy season and looking profitable. The coffee was good and they sold an assortment of muffins and other baked goods to go with it. The Ginger Cat was diagonally across the square. It was an upscale, snooty luncheonette owned and run by Annie Cooke, but she didn't open for breakfast. The Bear and Brew around the corner served pizza and beer, but not until eleven. It was no wonder the Slab did a brisk business.

"I have a delivery for you in the back," Pete said to me. "Kent Murphee brought it by early this morning."

"Kent Murphee?" said Nancy between bites of Dave's pancake breakfast. "The coroner? What is it?"

"Two big boxes of dead baby squirrels. I've got them in the walk-in freezer for you."

"You're kidding," said Dave, who'd been poking around his meatloaf before finally deciding the cheese grits and eggs were edible even though they'd been touching the edge of the gravy. "What for? A Halloween prank?"

"Probably the lunch special," said Nancy. "Squirrel head gumbo."

"I love squirrel head gumbo," said Pete. "Grew up on it. 'Course they say now you're not supposed to eat the brains. Some of the squirrels have that crazy cow thing going on."

"Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease," said Nancy. "East Tennessee just had another outbreak."

"Yeah, that's it," said Pete. "Mad squirrel."

"They're for Archimedes," I said. "I supplement his diet. Mice in the summer, baby squirrels in the winter. Don't want him to go hungry."

"Do owls like meatloaf?" asked Dave, pushing the piece of meat to the edge of his plate. "I'd rather eat squirrel brains than meatloaf."

Noylene walked up to the table, whisked up Dave's plate and put a fresh platter of pancakes down in front of him. "We could hear you whining all the way back in the kitchen. Here y'all are. Eat up."

"Noylene, I love you," said Dave happily.

"Welcome to the club, Noylene," said Nancy. "Dave loves anyone who will feed him."

Noylene patted him on the head like a puppy, then turned her attention to me. "Hey, I've got a question. Are those your baby squirrels in the back?"

"Yep."

"I'm only asking 'cause I could sure use a handful of 'em for a stew I'm cooking up. There's nothing better than a few tender sugar-babies to flavor the stock."

"Nope. Sorry, Noylene. They're for Archimedes."

"How's that old fella doing, by the way?" asked Nancy. "I need to come by and see him."

"He's just fine."

Archimedes is a mostly tame, mature barn owl. He is predominantly white and has a wingspan of about two feet, which allows him ample space to float through the main living space of the house without obstruction. He’s been part of the family for the past six years, coming and going as he pleases, thanks to an electric window in the kitchen. Baxter ignores him for the most part since he has no interest in meals-on-wings. I feed Archimedes quite regularly, but that doesn't stop him from hunting on his own. In warmer weather, we'll see him in the top of a big oak next to the house, pulling pieces off an unwary rabbit, a field-mouse, or even the occasional snake. During the winter, the owl spends a great deal of time during the day perched on the head of my full-sized stuffed buffalo, preferring the warmth of the house to the naked wind in the trees. Most nights, winter or summer, he's up and away.

"Hmm," said Noylene. "Too bad. Hog had his teeth set for some squirrel." She exhaled heavily from between pursed lips. "Well, I've got to head on to the Beautifery. We've got appointments all day starting at ten. I've got to go open up."

"What's wrong, Noylene?" I asked. "You feeling all right? You look plumb worn out."

Noylene's shoulders slumped. "I jes' can't get any sleep. Lil' Rahab's got the croup and I haven't been to bed since Methuselah was a boy."

"What'd Dr. Dougherty say?" asked Nancy.

"She's got him on some medicine. It helps his cough some, but he don't sleep more than an hour at a time. I gotta hold him or he's not happy."

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"Hog's got him," she said. "This morning I just had to get out of the house. He's bringing Rahab up to the Beautifery. I got a room set up in the back. The girls and I take turns walking him."

"By the way," I said, "did you go back to the Piggly Wiggly with some more coupons?"

Noylene smirked. "Nah. I jes' wanted to rattle Amelia's cage. I've been waitin' for months for Roger to screw that ad up. Amelia and me... well, we go way back. About twenty years ago, on the day before Thanksgiving, she up and stole the last turkey in Watauga County right out of my grocery cart when I left it for a minute to get a can of cranberry sauce and some pecans.
Right out of my cart!
"