Julia Spencer-Fleming - All Mortal Flesh

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Clare normally walked the Garrettsons to the church door to bid them goodbye. This morning, she shook their hands, abandoned them where they sat, and was in Lois’s office before they had gotten their coats on.

“Lois, what was the name of the family that wanted me to pray for their lamb?”

Lois was never flustered by Clare’s more unusual outbursts. “The Campbells. Abigail Campbell is the mom.”

“Can you get me their number? Is she likely to be at home?”

Lois was already flipping through her personal copy of the parish directory, hand-annotated with all sorts of facts not readily available to the general public. “She works at Sheehan Realty in Glens Falls.”

Clare grabbed the Glens Falls phone book off the shelf.

Elizabeth de Groot was by now standing in the doorway of her minuscule office. “What’s going on? Did I hear you say someone wanted prayers for a lamb?”

“A memorial service, really,” Lois said.

The new deacon’s winged eyebrows knitted together in a delicate frown. “Is this metaphorical?”

“I assure you, it’s quite flesh-and-blood.” Clare trapped the number beneath a finger and gestured to Lois for the phone.

“I have to point out it’s probably chops and stew meat by now,” the secretary said. “Maybe a couple of little legs for roasting.”

A bland voice answered the phone. “Sheehan Realty.”

“Could I speak to Abigail Campbell, please?”

“May I say who’s calling?”

“Her priest.”

There was a pause. Then: “Oh! Of course. Please hold.”

Clare looked up to see de Groot nervously glancing back and forth between her and Lois. Then the Muzak cut off and she was live.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Abigail? Clare Fergusson here.”

“Oh, Reverend Fergusson.” The woman on the other end of the line sounded embarrassed. “I’m sorry I left you that message last week. It’s just that the kids were so upset, and I was, too, of course, and we were trying to come up with something to make us all feel better, you know, and not so violated -”

“I have a question that’s going to sound a little odd,” Clare said.

“-but we had a sweet do-it-yourself service and we donated his body, as it were, to the food kitchen, so he didn’t die in vain-”

“Abigail?”

“-and frankly right now I think that having you do anything, you know, official will just open up the wounds again.”

This time Clare waited a moment to make sure she had run down. When she was sure there was nothing else, she said, “No service, then?”

“No service. Maybe we could do something else to remember him.”

“Abigail, do you have someone plow your driveway?”

This time, there was a definite pause. “Ye-e-es,” Abigail said. “I’m divorced. It’s one of those jobs I’m willing to pay someone to do.”

“Who does your plowing?”

A longer pause. “A young man named Quinn Tracey. I sold his family their house a few years back. Why?”

As soon as she got off the phone with Abigail Campbell-Clare agreed to insert the lamb’s name in the weekly prayers for the dead-she whipped through the pages of the phone book, looking for the number of the Glens Falls newspaper.

“Who are you calling now?” Elizabeth asked.

“A reporter from the Post-Star. The one who’s writing about the Linda Van Alstyne-Audrey Keane screwup.”

The deacon looked at Lois, who shrugged. Clare found the number, stabbed it in, and, getting an automated directory, punched in the first three letters of her party’s last name.

“Hi! Ben Beagle here!” The reporter sounded much too bright and cheery, as if he’d already been up five hours, run four miles, and filed the first story of the day.

“Hi. This is Clare Fergusson.”

“Ah! What can I do for you, Reverend?” He didn’t sound anything less than happy to hear from her. She really ought to read today’s paper. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she imagined. Then he went on, “I have to warn you, the Post-Star only prints retractions when a subject has clear and convincing proof that we used false information in a story.”

Maybe it was worse than she imagined.

“Actually, I’m not calling about the, um, Van Alstyne business. I had a question about the story you mentioned to me yesterday morning.” Was it really only yesterday morning? It felt like a year had passed.

“Shoot.”

“The guy whose hog had been killed-what actually happened to the hog?”

“It’d been sliced up. Throat slit, cut open from stem to stern, hacked up a bit around the hams.”

“Did you see it? Did he report it to the police?”

“Yeah, he filed a report. I didn’t see the pig in situ, but he had taken pictures to show to the cops. A full-grown pig’s worth three, four hundred bucks, according to him.”

“Can you tell me who it was? The farmer?”

“He isn’t a real farmer. He’s a pediatrician down in Clifton Park. He has a big old place, raises chickens and a couple pigs every year.” In the background, she could hear paper rustling. “His name’s Irving Underkirk. Why so interested?”

“A parishioner of mine had a lamb killed last week. It sounded similar to what you described.”

“You think someone’s out there running a do-it-yourself butcher shop?”

Clare made a noncommittal noise. “Do you have a number where I could reach him?”

“I’ve got his home and work.” Beagle rattled off the numbers. Clare jotted them down in the margin of the phone book.

“ThanksMr.BeagleIappreciatethis,” Clare said. “ ’Bye.”

“Wait-” she heard, but the receiver was already in the cradle.

She immediately dialed the pediatrician’s office number.

“Clare,” Elizabeth said. “Help me out here. I’m not quite seeing how tracking down dead animals fits in with your pastoral duties.”

“She’s tackling animal welfare and snow removal at the same time,” Lois said. “I think that’s very efficient, don’t you?”

Elizabeth sidled away from the secretary.

“Clifton Park Pediatric Services,” the phone said in Clare’s ear.

“I’d like to speak to Dr. Underkirk, please.”

“Do you have an emergency?”

“No, it’s, um-” Clare had forgotten that it was impossible to actually pick up a phone and speak with a physician. “It’s not an emergency.”

“Well, then, I’m afraid-”

“Could you put me through to his nurse?”

“We have a triage nurse you can speak to.”

“It’s not a medical issue at all.” Clare breathed in. It didn’t do any good to tear the head off the hapless receptionist. “I’m looking into a series of animal killings. I understand the doctor lost a pig-”

“Oh, Lord, yes. We all heard about the pig.”

“I need to ask him a question related to the”-animal cruelty? Vandalism?-“incident,” Clare decided. “If you can put me through to his nurse, she could relay the question for me.”

“Well, that’s a pig of a different color, isn’t it. He’ll definitely want to hear about this. Hang on, you may be on hold for a while.”

Muzak again. Clare clapped her hand over the receiver and said, “Lois, would you get on the other line and call Harlene Lendrum at the police station? Ask her if there’ve been any other reports of animals being killed. Try to get the names and numbers if there have been any.”

“This just doesn’t strike me as being the church’s business,” Elizabeth said.

“Business? Mankind is our business,” Lois quoted, picking up her notepad and swiveling off her chair. “Mind if I use your phone, Deacon?”

Elizabeth made a wilting gesture toward her tiny office. Lois disappeared inside.