new boat of his. I wisht he never got it. How we’re going to pay for it, I’ll never know. Him with just his pension. I told him to take one of them nerve pills the doctor gave him. That usually settles him down.”
I handed her the envelope. “Perhaps he shouldn’t bother with the meeting tomorrow night,” I said. “I’m sure Father Donald will understand if he can’t make it.”
“Well, I think this treasuring stuff is all too much for him. His nerves can’t take it. Going to resign at the end of this term, so he says. He only done it because his family’s always been the treasurers at St. Grimbald’s.” She opened a kitchen drawer already stuffed full of receipts, envelopes and various ledgers. I could see several bankbooks on top. “I’ll just put this into his treasurer’s drawer. He’ll see to it when he’s up later.” She crammed the envelope in and pushed the drawer shut. I headed home for lunch and a much-needed cup of my own Special Blend coffee, black with no sugar.
Early Monday afternoon, while I was in the midst of a particularly difficult chapter that just wouldn’t write itself, I got a frantic phone call from Father Donald. It took me several minutes to make out what he was saying. He was even less coherent than usual, if that were possible.
“My dear Charles. It’s just awful, well more than awful, a tragedy. Poor Edith, what a loss, although Boris will be back for next Sunday, but a loss in the broadest possible sense, perhaps ‘broad’ isn’t a good choice of words, Edith is such a lady, I mean was such a lady, oh dear, I can hardly believe she’s left us.”
I wondered if she’d finally got the message and resigned. Organ one; Edith nothing.
“Left us?’ I managed to insert.
“Yes, gone, passed, asleep, away, finished, ended, kaput, no more… dead!”
“Edith’s dead?”
“It’s just awful. An overdose, although they’re not saying that, not that they’re saying anything, at least, not to me, but I can read between the lines, well, not read, but listen…uh, where was I?”
“You mean she committed suicide?”
“No, no!” His voice was horrified. “She wouldn’t do that, I mean, her playing wasn’t that bad, at least, nobody complained, not to me, anyway. You didn’t hear anything, did you? People upset perhaps?”
I saw a quagmire of non-sequitors opening before us and quickly reined in Father Donald’s thoughts. “You said an overdose?”
“Yes… that’s what they told Benjamin. And he told them she never took anything stronger than echinacea, although I suppose you could overdose on echinacea, at least I’m sure if you took enough of them, although I’ve never heard of it happening, but people keep taking these plants and herbs and things when there are perfectly good drugs on the market, well, not drugs, but you know, medicine, real medicine, and anyway, Benjamin said she was perfectly fine when she left for church…”
I jumped in as he paused for breath. “When did she die?”
“Probably yesterday afternoon, although it might have been later, she was having an afternoon nap though, so I suppose technically that would make it in the afternoon, although I often nap much later myself, especially if I have an afternoon service. Benjamin said she was terribly sleepy when she got in from church, went to lie down and never got up again. He let her sleep and didn’t realize she was dead until this morning. I’m so upset. I’m going to need your help with the meeting this evening. Could you come over?”
I was on my way in minutes, not so much to help Father Donald but to get some coherent information from Dorothy.
If they say that a clean office is the sign of a sick mind, then Father Donald’s mind was in outstandingly good health. I cleared a pile of old bulletins off the nearest chair, pushed aside a litter of used Lenten folders on the desk and put down the cup of tea that Dorothy had handed me as I came through. She looked grimmer than usual and indicated with a shake of her head that she didn’t want to talk about it. Not that I blamed her. It would only set him off again.
Father Donald was standing in front of the filing cabinets, doing deep knee bends as he pulled and pushed the two top drawers rhythmically in and out. I wondered if the author of Flex-er-Cise had anything like this in mind when he penned his little volume. I doubted it.
Before we could begin our work, the doorbell rang and Dorothy appeared with Sergeant Bernie Bickerton of the local RCMP detachment. “The sergeant wants a word with you, Donald.” I started to get up.
“No, no,” said Father Donald. “Stay, Charles. This won’t take a minute. Yes, Sergeant, what can I do for you, not that I can do anything, of course, but I suppose I must be able to do something, or you wouldn’t be here.”
I saw the familiar dazed look in Sergeant Bickerton’s eyes. “Er, umm. Yes, well, the thing is, we want to corroborate that Mrs. Edith Francis was at the service yesterday morning at St. Grimbald’s?”
“Why yes, and a lovely job she did, too, especially her rendition of ‘Sweet Hour of Prayer’, most unusual, but quite touching.” Father Donald pulled up his shoulders to his ears and dropped them rapidly three times. Then he rotated them clockwise and anti-clockwise.
Sergeant Bickerton stared, fascinated. “Got a crick in your neck, Father?” he asked.
“No, no. It’s my flex-er-cises. You should try them.” Father Donald shifted to his neck rolls.
Sergeant Bickerton nodded. “Yes, well, very interesting. Now, was Mrs. Francis also at the coffee hour following the service?”
“Indeed she was. Never missed it, well almost never, although she did forgo once or twice when Mr. Francis arrived early to pick her up, but otherwise, always there. She will be sadly missed.”
Sergeant Bickerton gamely plowed on. I could see why he was a sergeant. “And did you happen to notice what she ate or drank?”
“Well, there were some of Carol Morgan’s butter tarts. I’m sure she would have had some of those, except, now that I think of it, I don’t think they were there when she came down, not that they’d all been eaten up, although they often are, right off the bat, everyone wants one, the most delicious butter tarts anywhere, well, perhaps not anywhere, but certainly at St. Grimbald’s, in fact, I often tell Carol she should start a butter tart business, although not a business, more of a home kitchen thing…” He trailed off, unconsciously licking his lips in remembrance of butter tarts past. “Although,” he rallied, “they were gone because Dorothy had taken them back to the kitchen.”
“She didn’t offer them to Mrs. Francis?”
“Good grief, no! Dorothy wouldn’t give Edith anything! They were mortal enemies, well not mortal any more, more like immortal I guess, what with Edith being gone and all. But they never got on, never since Dorothy discovered that it was Edith who told the regional president of the A.C.W. that Dorothy…Oh! Shoot! It’s a secret. Dorothy said she’d have my…well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be pleasant, if I told anyone. Can’t say a thing, not a thing, silence of the confessional and all that, not that she confessed, at least not to me, but then she wouldn’t, would she, confess that is. ‘Vengeance is mine’ is Dorothy’s personal motto. No, no, I can’t say another word.” With this, he made the motion of locking his mouth shut, turning the key and throwing it away.
“So
