Julia Spencer-Fleming - All Mortal Flesh

No time to download any more. He would have to hope he had gotten what he needed. He removed the disk, hit the CANCEL button, and directed the computer to shut itself off.

Sanctuary. What better place than a church?

Clare knew she was in trouble when attendance at the 7:30 A.M. Wednesday Eucharist doubled. Admittedly, only fourteen people showed up, but that was seven more than the usual group: one businessman on his way to work in Saratoga, one young mother who couldn’t make it on Sundays, and five retirees who had never warmed up to the modernized 1979 version of the Book of Common Prayer.

Clare didn’t even recognize some of the people in the pews. That worried her. On the other hand, Elizabeth de Groot wasn’t among them. Praise God.

Nathan Andernach, who was assisting her, finished the intercessions and glanced at her. She stepped forward. “Ye who do earnestly repent you of your sins,” she said, “and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking henceforth in His holy ways; Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; and make your humble confession to Almighty God, devoutly kneeling.”

The three people she didn’t know remained awkwardly standing for an extra beat as everyone else knelt. Clare waited for a moment to begin the General Confession.

“Almighty God,” she said, and the others’ voices chimed in, “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness…” For all that Clare preferred the simpler constructions and the more gender-neutral language of the modern Eucharist, she had always thought the Confession fell flat. “We are truly sorry and we humbly repent” sounded like an apology to a meter maid. The old Confession was written by men who knew what it felt like to have done bad things: “We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable.”

Indeed.

She pronounced absolution, focusing hard on the words to block out the voice in the back of her head that suggested she was hardly fit to be forgiving anyone’s sins. She gratefully lost herself in the ritual of the holy Eucharist: washing her hands and girding herself with a blessing; the white linen and the red book. Here, she never felt the sting of unworthiness. This was God’s miracle, not hers.

Andernach, whose thin chest concealed a bell-like baritone, led them in their communion hymn. It was low-pitched and easy to sing, the tune a melancholy French carol from the seventeenth century. Clare, at the altar, did not sing but stood, head bowed, and listened to the grimly mystical text.

“Let all mortal flesh keep silence,

And with fear and trembling stand;

Ponder nothing earthly-minded,

For with blessing in his hand

Christ our God to earth descendeth,

Our full homage to demand.”

Ten people came up to receive communion. Three did not. She and Nathan wrapped the service up quickly. She hadn’t told him yet that Elizabeth de Groot expected to take over his liturgical functions. Nathan had the fussy precision of a lifelong bachelor, but he was dedicated to his work at St. Alban’s, and she suspected it was one of the anchors of his life.

She greeted people beside the narthex door, sheltered somewhat from the cold that billowed in whenever the great outer doors were opened. Her young mother and businessman dashed by with a hurried hello as always, but the retirees clustered around her, eyes shining with interest, to ask how she was. The new people hung at the edges, clearly dying to hear some juicy revelation but too bashful or well-mannered to come right out and ask her if her affair with the chief of police caused him to shoot his wife. Clare stuck resolutely to the weather and the upcoming spaghetti dinner fund-raiser, which, she realized, was probably going to be very well attended this month.

Eventually, the retirees and the curiosity-seekers trickled out. A man about her own age had been dawdling along the south aisle, looking at the stained glass windows. He wore a heavy-duty parka over a coat and brightly striped shirt, and his loosely knotted tie had a picture of Snoopy on it. Not a lawyer, that was for sure.

“Great place you have here,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“When was it built?”

“Right around the Civil War. You’ll notice that the dedication names on that window you’re looking at have several death dates in the 1860s.”

“Who’s the Roman soldier with the halo?”

“That’s St. Alban, our patron. He was a centurion stationed in Britannia when he became a Christian. Legend has it, when the priest who converted him was sentenced to death, Alban switched clothes with him and died in his place.”

“So. A soldier disguised as a priest.” He looked at her. “I hear that describes you.”

“Ex-soldier. I used to fly helicopters, but that was a long time ago.” She smiled easily. “You doing a story on the church?”

He grinned. “Am I that obvious?” He held out his hand. “Ben Beagle, from the Post-Star. ”

“Well, you have this slightly rumpled, Front Page kind of look going on.” She shook his hand, all the while thinking, Crap! What do I say? What do I do? She didn’t think that a word in the right ear, as Mrs. Marshall suggested, was going to do much good. On the other hand, looking at the reporter’s cheerful, intelligent face, she knew she couldn’t threaten him with a suit for slander. Or libel. Whatever.

Then his name registered. There couldn’t be more than one Ben Beagle. “You do investigative stuff for the Post-Star, right? Didn’t you win an award?”

He nodded, his cheeks pinkening. “Believe me, most of the day-to-day stuff is much less sexy. A few weeks ago the biggest story I had was a part-time farmer who lost a pig to somebody who decided to help himself to a Christmas ham right there in the sty.”

She blinked. Every once in a while, she got a visceral reminder of exactly how rural her parish was. “I see your point. I guess Woodward and Bernstein didn’t get to investigate many hog butcherings.”

He laughed. “No.” He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and flipped it open. “I’m working on something much more significant this week. The death of Linda Van Alstyne. You’ve heard that she was killed.” It was not a question.

“A terrible tragedy.” How had he known? She didn’t think the murder victim’s identity had been released to the press yet.

Beagle was evidently a mind reader, because he tilted his head toward the other side of the church, where a woman sat hard against the stone of the north wall. “I was contacted by Debbie Wolecski, Mrs. Van Alstyne’s sister.”

Clare had crashed a helo once. She had walked away from it-barely-but she had never forgotten the anxious accumulation of problems, blossoming into the realization that she was screwed. She had that same feeling now.

“I don’t know if I can help you,” she said. “I only met Mrs. Van Alstyne a couple of times.”

“But you do know her husband.”

She decided to brazen it out. “Of course. Russ and I are good friends. We have lunch together almost every Wednesday at the Kreemy Kakes Diner, barring urgent police business or pastoral emergencies.”

“According to Mrs. Van Alstyne’s sister, you two were more than just good friends.”

Clare forced a small smile. “We live in a small town, and there are always people who are going to find it impossible to believe a man and a woman can be friends.” Lacking pockets in her alb, she slid her hands inside her sleeves and clenched her forearms. Her flesh was icy. “The chief of police and I have a lot of professional interests in common. We’re both trying to serve the well-being of the people of Millers Kill.”