Liturgical Mysteries 02 The Baritone Wore Chiffon (21 page)

"Wow! Can you do another search for me?"

"Surely."

"Are there any entries for a bareback rider named Howes? A woman."

"Just a second." I waited for a moment, still trying to make sense of what I was hearing.

"There are many Howes listed but only one bareback rider. Belle Howes. Second wife of Seth B. Howes. Seth was just about the wealthiest circus owner in the business in the 1870's. Next to P.T. Barnum, that is. In the 1850s, the Howes Circus included 'the Celebrated and Original General Tom Thumb.' Seth sold the entire enterprise to James Bailey in 1870 who in turn united the show with P.T. Barnum in 1880. The Howes name was dropped when the circus became Barnum and Bailey’s 'Greatest Show on Earth.' Madam Howes came to America long before 1918 though. I show that she was a featured bareback rider in 1868. 'The Incomparable Madam Howes.' She was called 'Madam' because she was married, but she was probably around eighteen years old or so."

"Do you show Belle Howes' maiden name?" I asked.

"Why, yes I do."

"And it is…?"

"Kaszas."

•••

I met with Meg at the Slab for lunch and invited Nancy to come along, leaving Dave to mind the store. Business was picking up around town, now that the weather had turned, and the café had more than its usual customers. All around town shopkeepers were sprucing up their storefronts, moving displays out onto the sidewalks and cleaning the salt and mud splatters off their windows. Looking up into the hardwoods, I could make out just a hint of green. Another few days and the leaves would open, changing the look of St. Germaine completely. It would happen, seemingly, overnight and, although I preferred cold weather, it was always a pleasure to watch another spring break forth.

"A Reuben sandwich for me, Noylene," I said, sitting down and not bothering to look at the menu. "And a Coke." I had taken a booth in the back rather than our usual up-front table.

"Meg said to order her a club platter and a water. Nancy can order when she gets here."

"I'll get it started," said Noylene. "Oh, wait. Here they are now."

Nancy and Meg came in the door and walked back to the booth.

"This is pretty secretive," said Nancy. "We hardly ever use a booth." She turned to Noylene. "I'll have the Turkey Blue-Plate Special."

"Did you order for me?" asked Meg, sliding in.

"Club sandwich platter and a water," said Noylene.

"I'll have iced tea," said Nancy. Noylene noted it in her pad, nodded and walked back to the kitchen.

"Why the meeting?" Nancy said.

"I need to lay this all out. Meg is up on the England case," I said, "and you're up on the Peppermint case. And here's the thing." I looked at Meg, then at Nancy. "They're related."

"How can they be?" asked Meg.

"I don't know how, yet. I just know that they are. Here's what I know about the York case."

"Kris Toth, studying on a fellowship and with a position as a baritone in the Minster choir, was strangled after having been knocked unconscious. It turned out that Kris, although the proud owner of a pretty convincing beard and a good baritone voice, was a she. She was strangled in the treasury of the Minster with her own black panty-hose."

"The autopsy revealed that Kris Toth suffered from hirsutism. That is, excessive hair growth. The condition runs in families and, in her case, was caused by abnormally high levels of androgens. She could have controlled it with medication, but apparently chose not to."

"She was found dead in the middle of the Roman ruins, wearing a Victoria's Secret outfit underneath her choir robe and clutching a cross. This cross was thought to have been worn by Czar Nicholas II when he was assassinated. If the story were true it would be a valuable piece, but its value is miniscule when compared to the diamond – worth 1.3 million pounds, by the way – that was taken and replaced with a 32-carat cubic zirconium. The CZ had been set into the chalice using Dermabond, an adhesive similar to Superglue but with medical applications. We presumed that an accomplice killed her, but her only accomplice has already been apprehended. Alex Benwick, a Minster Policeman, had some bad gambling debts. When Kris offered him the opportunity to rid himself of the debts with very little risk, he took it. All he had to do was turn the cameras off, give Kris the key to the cabinet and stay out of the way for forty minutes. He did exactly that and, although he's still a suspect, he doesn't have the diamond, and I don't think he killed her."

I paused to make sure the two women were following everything. "Any questions so far?"

Nancy was taking notes as fast as she could. Meg just shook her head and I could tell by her intent gaze that she was still with me.

"Here's where it gets interesting," I said with a wolfish grin. "You remember that article that Pete put in the paper? St. Germaine Cop called to help in English murder investigation?"

They both nodded.

"It was picked up by the AP and appeared in several statewide papers. The next thing we knew, we had a new priest."

"Huh?" said Nancy. "What has that got to do with anything?"

"Bear with me. It gets complicated. I need to go back to the cabinet in the treasury of York Minster."

"There were several items in the cabinet, but two important ones. The first is, of course, the missing diamond. A woman named Mrs. Howes left it to the Minster in 1927. Her friend, Lily Forepaugh, delivered the diamond and informed the Minster that she was carrying out Mrs. Howes' last request. The diamond and the offer of a chalice to set it in were accepted gratefully, although no reason for the gift was ever given. The second important item is the cross that Kris was clutching in her hand. At the time, we couldn't figure out why she had taken the cross. It didn't make any sense."

"I'm jumping ahead now," I said. "Back to our interim priest."

"We've got it so far," said Megan. Nancy nodded her affirmation.

"Emil Barna was assigned by the bishop and very quickly if you recall."

"I remember it was a shock to all of us. We thought Father Tony would be our priest until we had a permanent replacement," Meg said.

"Father Barna appeared, seemingly out of the blue, and with him came his valet, Wenceslas Kaszas, the dwarf. I had a talk with Wenceslas. He's from an old circus family in Budapest, but the family stopped performing after World War I. The name of the circus was Der Kaszas Kaiserlicher Zirkus – the Kaszas Imperial Circus. They were very well known in Europe at the turn of the century."

"Wenceslas came over to America from Hungary about two years ago and took a job as Father Barna's manservant. And here's an interesting tidbit. Emil Barna, Wenceslas, Jelly, and Kris Toth are all Hungarian. Maybe second or third generation, but all from the same region. And Peppermint the Clown, a.k.a. Joseph Meyer? Hungarian, as well."

"Does that mean something?" asked Nancy.

"Glad you asked," I said, as Noylene returned with our food. "Hang on a second. We don't want this to get cold."

Noylene put our plates and drinks on the table and made an unobtrusive exit.

"OK," said Meg. "Continue please."

"We have to go back to 1918," I said, and took a bite of my Reuben. "Mnmphtn mpht…"

"Don't talk with your mouth full," said Nancy.

"Mmph," I mumbled, swallowing the corned beef and sauerkraut. "Sorry. 1918. The end of the Great War. The Kaszas Imperial Circus was engaged to play St. Petersburg. It was a command performance. But the train was rerouted instead to another city. After the performance, the Bolsheviks commandeer the train and wouldn't let it return to Budapest. The circus, without its wagons or other properties, went bankrupt, and the performers, those that make it out of Russia, found work with other troupes."

"Are you ready?" I asked with a smug smile. Meg and Nancy both nodded.

"The city the train was redirected to…the city where the Kaszas Imperial Circus gave its last performance…" I paused for effect. It was a theatrical moment.

"OK, already!" snapped Nancy.

"It was Yekaterinburg. July, 1918."

"It wasn't!" said Megan, the hushed amazement evident in her voice.

"It was!" I said, feeling self-satisfied by my tale.

"What?" asked Nancy. "What's the deal?"

"I can't believe it!" whispered Meg.

"I know it. It's incredible."

"C'mon!" said Nancy, her frustration evident. "Tell me what's going on!"

"But that means…" started Meg.

"Exactly!" I said.

"Aaaargh!" said Nancy through gritted teeth.

"Listen," I said to Meg. "Nancy's learning to speak Pirate."

"And very well too. She speaks it almost as well as you."

"Aaaargh!" I said, answering the charge in perfect Bucaneese, "me thinks it not so, me hearty." I turned my attention back to Nancy and switched to conventional English. "Here's the thing, Nancy. In July of 1918, Nicholas II, the Czar of Russia, and his entire family were assassinated by the Bolsheviks. They had been sent into exile to a city in the Ural mountains. That city was Yekaterinburg."

"Holy smokes!" said Nancy. "Nicholas and Alexandra? Anastasia?
That
Nicholas II?"

"The very same."

"Then the cross that was in Kris Toth's hand when she was killed must have something to do with all this. But what's the connection?"

I nodded and continued. "Mrs. Howes, who gave the diamond to the Minster…"

Nancy and Meg both looked at me now, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"…Was a bareback rider for the Howes-Cushing and later, The Barnum and Bailey Circus. She was the second wife of Seth Howes, the owner, but she came to the states long before 1918. Her stage name was Madam Howes. Her maiden name was Belle Kaszas."

Chapter 18

I walked out of the police station and into the cold night air, the wind playing with my collar like a cheap floozy at a piano bar. I lit up a stogie, hoping it would take the chill off. It did. I reviewed my facts.

There had been a murder. Canon Shannon Cannon had been killed by a poison collar meant for the bishop. The bishop wanted me to find out who did it and put the kibosh on the hit; or so said his personal trainer, Rocki Pilates, a woman with a lot to hide and not many clothes to hide it in. She had more angles than Pythagoras. And there were other players as well.

Lilith Hammerschmidt, professional leper, and her singing snake, Rolf. Lilith wanted the bishop to put his stamp on the diocesan merger, a merger that would guarantee Race Rankle, ex-priest, the money to fund his leper colony--a boondoggle if ever I heard one. But now Race was dead and so was Lilith's dream of becoming the head maid in a high-rise leper-condo that was permanently unclean.

Uncle Winky, a killer clown with an agenda. The bishop was bringing a resolution to the convention dissolving the Ministry of Clowns. But I knew something that Uncle Winky didn't. The bishop was a Closet-Clown. He'd mimed his way up and down Fourth Street for years hiding behind a beret, a black and white striped shirt and enough make-up to clog the drain in Tammy Faye's gold-plated sink.

And then there was Kit, Girl-Friday; cute in the way that a Pomeranian was cute when he wasn't treating your leg like he was a congressman and your leg was paying the taxes. She'd proved her worth, and I was going to keep her around.

With the merger quashed, the only problems left were the clowns. And I'd take care of that.

"Kit
!
" I called. "It's time to pay a visit to the circus."

•••

The next morning I borrowed Meg's Lexus and was on my way to Raleigh to talk to Kris Toth's mother. I could have taken my old pick-up, but after forty years, it was showing its age. Even though it was a three-hour drive, I was pretty sure I could make it there and back before choir rehearsal. I had a long rehearsal planned. We needed to practice for Maundy Thursday, the Good Friday service that the men were singing, and our Easter Morning service. As I drove down the mountains, I took pleasure in the scenery and contemplated which of the yearly services I enjoyed the most. I found the Maundy Thursday service to be very moving and it was one of my favorites, but Easter morning was probably first on my list, followed by Christmas Eve. Then Maundy Thursday. Definitely third, I thought.