|
|
(back to page 4)
"A lot of folks don't think the parish can afford to run a school. And some of the CCD parents feel that their kids are treated as second class citizens."
"The what parents?"
"Many of the parents who don't enroll their kids in the Catholic school send them here once a week for religious instruction. CCD. It's like Sunday School, only on Wednesday nights. The schoolteachers say the CCD kids mess up their classrooms. It's an ongoing war in every parish I've ever been in."
Mo heard the staccato clicking of high heels and looked up to see a tall woman with raven hair enter the room. She was slender and stylish, probably early thirties.
"We've got a dead priest here," Repoz told her.
"So I see. Carol Nicks." She offered Mo her hand. "Dane County Coroner. We met a few months ago."
"I remember." Mo accepted the firm handshake.
Carol Nicks bent down next to the body. "He wasn't killed here," she said.
"What makes you say that?" Mo asked.
"Not enough blood," Chief Kohl said.
Sheriff Repoz looked at him as if he'd forgotten Kohl was in the room.
"That's right," Carol Nicks said.
"I'm taking a correspondence course," Kohl said, grinning. "And the deep slash indicates a crime of passion."
"We'd better get to work," Repoz said to Nicks. He turned to Mo. "Tell the others to hang around so we can talk to them."
"Okay."
As Mo stepped back into the church, she noticed Leona Dudley, looking alone and lost. Mo put an arm around the frail woman's shoulders and ushered her away from the sacristy door.
"Where's Father? What's happened?" Mrs. Dudley gripped Mo's arm with both hands.
"There's been an accident, Leona."
The older woman smelled of soap and talc. She wore a clean white apron over a shapeless light blue housedress. Her fuzzy pink slippers were damp from the dew on the grass. Tears trickled down her heavily powdered cheeks.
"Could we go over to the rectory for a few minutes?" Mo asked. "I could use a cup of coffee, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I can explain everything there."
"Does Father need anything?" She looked toward the sacristy.
"No. He's...No."
Mo piloted Leona Dudley back to the rectory and into the small kitchen, where a pot of coffee gave off its morning aroma and a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and English muffins sat getting cold on the counter.
"I always have Father's breakfast ready for him after Mass."
Mo pulled out one of the two chairs at the small Formica-topped table by the window, and Mrs. Dudley slid into it. The cushion gave a soft sigh. She grabbed Mo's hand and pulled her down into the second chair. "Tell me," she said, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "What's happened?"
"Father's had an accident."
Mrs. Dudley dug around in her apron pocket, dragged out an off-white handkerchief, and blew her nose. She began rocking back and forth almost imperceptibly.
Mo took a deep breath, reached out, and took Mrs. Dudley's hands in hers. "Father's dead."
Mrs. Dudley bowed her head, as if absorbing a blow.
"Is there somebody I can call for you?"
Mrs. Dudley shook herself. She turned her ruined face to Mo. "Twenty-seven years," she said. "That's longer than most marriages last, isn't it? Well..." She drew a deep breath and stood, smoothing her apron and dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. "I'd better start fixing the food."
Mo started to say that she didn't think they'd need any food just yet but stopped herself. "May I help?" she asked.
Mo was standing at the kitchen sink, peeling and coring an apple, when Lashandra Cooper tapped on the back door and entered the kitchen. Mrs. Dudley stood to Mo's right, rolling out a piecrust between two sheets of waxed paper on the counter.
"Coffee?" Mo asked.
"I can get it."
The detective fished a mug from the drying rack and filled it from the pot.
Mrs. Dudley took a handful of flour from the bin on the counter, lifted the sheet of waxed paper covering the piecrust, and sprinkled flour on the crust before replacing the waxed paper. She rubbed the rest of the flour on the rolling pin and then scratched at her nose, leaving a streak of white. She rolled out the crust until the sheet of waxed paper curled up on the rolling pin.
Mo put the peeled apple in the colander in the sink with several others, put down the peeler, and took Mrs. Dudley gently by the elbow.
(continued on the next page)
If you’re enjoying this excerpt and you’d like to sample other books, join our Online Book Clubs.
|
|
|
