Read Online Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines by Mark Schweizer - Free Book Online

take your time.”
    Crystal was as frozen as the other two corpses. Nancy, kneeling next to the body, pulled her shoulder length hair away from her face, one side, then the other, then looked up at me and nodded. A missing earring. She let the hair drop back to her shoulders.
    “I’m okay now,” said Helen, coming back into the room. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m usually fine around dead people.”
    Nancy and I gave her a look we reserved for lunatics.
    “What I mean is,” said Helen with a nervous laugh, “that, you know, when I have to go to a funeral or something, the dead body doesn’t bother me. I’m happy to stand and chat all day!”
    Nancy and I exchanged glances.
    Helen fluttered her hands, then bleated nervously, “No, not with the dead person. I know that the dead person can’t chat or even hear what I’m saying, but what I mean is that I’m happy to talk to other people hanging around the dead person, but not the dead person because that would be a ghost and I don’t believe in ghos … ”
    “I get it,” I said, interrupting, then stepped back. Nancy stood and moved aside as well.
    I said, “How do you know Crystal Latimore?”
    Now that I was out of the way, Helen stared down at the body. “She goes to our church. You know, Mountain Grace Fellowship at Price Park.”
    “Do you know if she’s married?” I asked.
    “I don’t think so,” said Helen, still staring. “At least, if she is, I’ve never met her husband. Of course, he might just not come to church.”
    “Kids?” I asked.
    Helen shook her head. “No, but they might be grown and live somewhere else. She’s in her forties I guess.”
    “Forty-five, according to her license,” said Nancy. She took out her phone. “I’ll call Dave and have him send the ambulance over here when they’re done at Oak Street.”
    “I knew it!” said Helen, her face lighting up with a certain excitement.
    “Helen,” I said, “you are now going home and we’re locking this house up. You’re not saying anything about this to anyone, because we have to notify the next of kin. It would be very unchristian of you to spread this news before we’ve done so. You understand?”
    Helen visage became somber immediately. “I understand, Hayden. May I tell Jeff at least?”
    “Yes, but you give him the same warning. We have to try to get hold of Crystal’s family.”
    “Poor Crystal,” Helen said, then turned and walked out of the bedroom.
    “She’ll be on the phone the second she hits her front door,” said Nancy.

Chapter 8
     
    The ambulance showed up and took the bodies of both women over to the morgue. I called Kent Murphee, told him what was going on and made an appointment to meet him the next afternoon. By the time I returned home, it was well after dark, and I was beat.
    Baxter spent most of his days outside roaming the two hundred acres we called home and was waiting for me when I drove up. He gave a few barks at the old pickup truck, welcoming barks since he’d known this truck since he was a pup-in-arms, and since this old 1962 Chevy truck makes a very specific sound coming down the hill to the cabin. I greeted him fondly, opened the back door of the house, and he bounced in ahead of me. He slid to a stop on the kitchen tile, then looked at me in expectation. I gave him some dog chow and his shaggy head disappeared into the bowl.
    I looked into the living room for the other member of our household and spotted him right away, sitting quietly on the mantle just beneath the giant elk head mount. Archimedes. Baxter was a pet, but Archimedes wasn’t. It’s hard to keep an owl as a pet unless you lock it in a cage. Archimedes came and went as he pleased through an electric window in the kitchen, but spent most of the winter in the house, perched on the mantle or on the head of the stuffed buffalo. He might have been part of the decor until he leapt into the air and glided silently through the house. He was a wild creature,