The Soprano Wore Falsettos (10 page)

“I listened to the MIDI recording,” I said. “It was just about six minutes long before it was cut off. So, if she started at noon, or close to it, she was killed six minutes later. We didn’t find her until 12:20.”

“Right,” said Nancy. “I haven’t heard from Kent, but we’re presuming that she was killed by blunt force trauma — a handbell to the head. I interviewed most of the choir last night. Plus a couple of members of the vestry, Beverly Greene, and Father George. No one saw anything unusual. Everyone says they left the choir loft after the benediction, put their robes up, and went straight to the parish hall. All eight of them. I haven’t gotten to talk with the soloist. She wasn’t available, but I’ll catch up with her this morning.”

“Renee Tatton,” I said.

“Yep.”

“How about motive?” I asked Nancy. “Did you come up with anything?”

“She wasn’t well liked. No one I talked to had anything good to say.”

“No one?”

“Nope. Mighty peculiar. She was, by all accounts, singularly unpopular.”

“We need to talk to Benny Dawkins,” I said. “He had a disagreement with her. I heard something about a lawsuit.”

“I’ll check it out,” said Nancy.

“There’s something else. Lucille Murdock, the lady who is making the decision about how St. Barnabas will spend the sixteen million dollars, was Agnes Day’s home health care patient.”

“That’s quite a coincidence,” said Dave.

“Yes, quite,” I said.

“Another thing,” said Nancy. “Did you happen to watch
America’s Funniest Videos
last night?”

“Is that show still on?” asked Pete.

“Syndication,” I said. “I didn’t watch it.”

“Me neither,” said Dave. Pete shook his head.

“Last night they played a video of the Passaglio wedding.”

“Really? Was it funny?” asked Pete.

“It was freakin’ HILARIOUS!” said Nancy, laughing at the thought of it.

“What’s it got to do with the murder?” I asked.

“You’ve got to see it,” Nancy said. “I’ll see if I can get a copy of the tape. It was sent in by a videographer in Boone. I got his name.”

“Yeah,” I said, impatience creeping into my voice. “But what does it have to do with…”

“Agnes Day,” interrupted Nancy, “was the organist.”

Chapter 9

Pedro and I made our way to Ramelle’s, an all-you-can-eat buffet on the next block. We were greeted by the Maitre d’Porcelet and shown to our table.

“
So, who’s the brains?” Pedro asked, looking at me over a huge platter of fried squab and probable equine parts. Ramelle’s was known for their vast quantities of food, most of it unidentifiable once it hit the grease.

“
The boys gave me a name. Miss Bulimia Forsythe. Know her?”

“
I’ve heard of her,” said Pedro, slurping down what might be a lung, or perhaps a forelock. “Soprano, right?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Skinny? Red hair?”

“
Really skinny,” I said.

“
I don’t know how she does it. I’ve seen her in here putting down enough to choke a Sumo wrestler on Fat Tuesday.”

“
It’s a puzzler, all right,” I said.

• • •

I met Annette for lunch at The Ginger Cat. She was waiting for me at a table in the back and waved at me as I came in. Annette Passaglio was a long-time member of St. Barnabas and had been on the vestry a couple of times since I had been organist. She was the closest thing St. Germaine had to a socialite, if our town could claim to even have such a class of folks. Her husband, Francis, was an orthodontist, but Annette was from old money, and I always had the feeling that she merely tolerated his profession, believing that it was beneath the societal position to which she aspired. She’d rather that he had been a surgeon or an investment banker or, better yet, a congressman, and she wouldn’t have minded funding any one of those dreams, had Francis shown even the smallest amount of ambition.

I made my way past the other diners and sat down across from Annette.

“It’s nice to see you, Hayden,” said Annette, holding out her hand palm down, as if to be kissed. It was the second hand that I’d had offered to me in the last two days, but this time, I reached across the table and shook it, hoping I’d made the correct decision.

“It’s nice to see you, too.” I said. “Have you ordered yet?”

“No,” she said, with a pitying look. “I thought I’d wait for my dining partner.” It took me two beats to comprehend the unspoken rebuke at my faux pas. I smiled in self-defense. Oops.

“Ah, well…ahem,” I stammered, clearing my throat and noticing that she’d already placed her menu down on the table. “What would you like?”

“I’ll have the duckling and wild rice,” she said, ordering the only entrée on the menu with a price tag of twenty bucks. “And raspberry tea. Iced.”

Meg had given me some etiquette tips for my lunch meeting with Annette, and one of the things she prepped me on was ordering. It was my job and mine alone. Cynthia walked over to our table with two glasses of ice water and set them down warily. Then she stood back and looked at them for a moment before reaching across the table and moving my glass a quarter inch to the right. She’d obviously encountered Annette as a customer before.

“Are you ready to order?” she asked. “Or would you like more time?”

I think we’re ready,” I said. Annette just smiled.

“Mrs. Passaglio will have the duckling and wild rice. And raspberry tea. Iced.”

“And for the gentleman?” said Cynthia.

“I’d like the wild rice as well. But I don’t care for baby ducks. May I have piglet with mine?”

Cynthia made a snorting sound as she tried to stifle her laugh. It was not a lady-like snort. “I’m sorry, sir. We’re out of piglet.”

“Then I shall have a sandwich. Sprouts and mushrooms, I guess. Maybe some other fungi, if there’s some lying around the kitchen. You choose. Hey! What about the feet from the duckling? Can you put those on there, too? Maybe a little Grey Poupon?”

“No feet,” said Cynthia. “We put those in the soup, but I’ll check on the availability of fungi. They may be out of season.”

“They’re never out of season in my shower.”

“That’s more information than I need,” laughed Cynthia, heading toward the kitchen.

The cold smile never left Annette’s face.

• • •

I had seen the wedding video an hour earlier at the station. Nancy had gone down to Boone and gotten a copy from Todd Whitlock, Watauga County’s foremost wedding videographer. The whole thing had been very entertaining, and I smiled in spite of myself as I remembered it.

As wedding videos went, the beginning was pretty typical. Nancy fast-forwarded to the homily and handed me the program that went with the video. Father George was one of the two ministers involved in the service, the other being someone I didn’t recognize and who the program identified as Rev. Caleb Latimer, minister of St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church in Greenville. I assumed that this was the groom’s minister.

Misty Passaglio’s wedding was the social event of last winter. Even though a February wedding in St. Germaine was rare, Misty’s fiancée, Jerry, who worked for the State Department, had been assigned to the American Embassy in Italy beginning in April. It was a job of which Annette approved, and although it would have been preferable for Misty to have her wedding in June, or even late May, Annette thought that a winter wedding might be distinctive enough to offset the seasonal awkwardness. I had been invited, of course, but in reality, only as “the help.” Once Annette found out I wouldn’t play for the wedding, both Meg and I were quickly relegated to inconsequential status, and since I make it a policy not to be present at any weddings that I am not paid to attend, we both skipped it entirely.

I had heard that, although Misty wanted to be married in St. Barnabas, Annette had decided that the church was just too small for the number of guests that would be attending. There were any number of churches available, but Annette had chosen Covenant United Methodist Church in Boone. The sanctuary was white and crisp, they had a piano as well as a pipe organ, and, most importantly, it could seat about twice the number of people as could attend if the wedding were held in St. Barnabas.

I turned my attention back to the tape. Rev. Latimer had just finished his homily as Nancy and I watched intently.

“Here it comes,” she said. “This is just great!” Nancy hated Annette.

According to the program, it was time for the vows and, after they had been recited, the soloist would sing
O Promise Me,
not my favorite, but then, it wasn’t my wedding. The videographer was in the back balcony with a good telephoto lens. He panned back for a wider shot. The soloist, who was sitting in the first pew, walked up to the piano and stood in the crook, waiting for his cue. The piano wasn’t on the dais, but placed on the floor of the sanctuary, nestled into a niche constructed for just that purpose. The organ console, on the other hand, was up on the platform, the entrance on the same level as the minister’s overstuffed furniture, and separated from the congregation by a raised panel that mimicked the choir railing stretching across the front of the church.

It might have all gone smoothly if the organist, who was also the pianist, had left the music for the soloist on the piano when they rehearsed. She did not. Although the camera had zoomed in on the wedding couple — they were now facing each other — to their left, clearly visible in the shot, the organist was frantically sorting through sheets of music. The soloist waited patiently, knowing that they still had time, but noticing that his accompanist was not yet seated at the piano. He finally glanced over his shoulder and saw what the rest of us were privy to: Agnes Day rooting through a pile of music sitting on the console of the organ. Finally, she apparently found what she was looking for, disappeared out a door into the sacristy and appeared a minute later through a side door that put her at the piano. The videographer, meanwhile, had widened his shot again, his microphone up at the front, picking up the vows of the betrothed.

“Will you, Jerry, have Misty to be your wedded wife? To have and to hold…”

The congregation, as is always the case in a religious service when something out of the ordinary happens, had turned its attention to Agnes Day. She had turned out to be much more entertaining than the wedding. The videographer, for whatever reason, kept his shot wide enough to include her unintentional antics.

Agnes Day sat down at the piano, as the minister, having gotten the correct answers from Jerry, now switched his traditional interrogation to the bride.

“Misty, will you have Jerry to be your wedded husband, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honor him and keep him…”

Agnes Day sat down at the piano, opened her music, looked at it blankly for a moment and then closed it again to a few titters. It was obvious to everyone that she had brought down the wrong song. The crowd wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to the bride and groom, entranced, rather, by the drama that was taking place at the piano. The soloist smiled politely, rolled his eyes slightly and took a deep breath as Agnes Day got up from the piano bench to fetch the correct music. He looked nervous. Time was running out. He would have to sing as soon as they finished their vows.

“Jerry,” Father George said, “repeat after me. In the presence of God and before these witnesses…”

Jerry started repeating at the same time Mrs. Agnes Day did something extraordinary. Instead of going back out the door and around to the back entrance to the choir loft, she walked up the steps and leaned over the railing to pick up her whole stack of music. Perhaps she was thinking that it would be quicker to get all the music down to the piano and sort through it there. Perhaps she was thinking that it was almost time to play, an extra minute or two, an absolute
eternity
in wedding time, would be intolerable and this course of action would be quicker. Whatever she was thinking, I’m pretty sure she changed her mind when she over-balanced and tumbled head first into the organ pit.

“…as long as we both shall live,” finished Jerry.

Nancy laughed. “No, no. Wait…just wait…” she said. “It gets better.”

Anyone who has ever fallen in public knows, in that awful moment, that there are two things you can do. You can either fall, make a fool of yourself, and get it over with, or you can somehow catch yourself, try to save your self-respect, and maybe maintain a shred of dignity. At least that’s what goes through our brain in that split second of terror we experience as we begin to topple. In reality, the second option almost never exists. And it didn’t for Agnes Day.

“In the presence of God and before these witnesses,” said Misty. “I, Misty, take you Jerry, to be my husband…”

Although we couldn’t see it, I was pretty sure that Agnes Day held onto her music, at least part of the way down. It’s what an organist would do, I thought, although she probably dropped it before her hands hit the pedal board. I don’t know why the pedal stops were on, but they were, and they made quite a racket.