Murder in the Parish Read online

  CHAPTER 2

  Father Douglas reveled in his piece of pecan pie for probably a little longer than intended, but it was one of his favorite parts of the fete. He would eat his sweet of choice slowly and walk the long tables of goodies, wondering who he would vote for, were he a judge. He was much too tender hearted to be a judge, as he always thought he might feel guilty for whoever lost out on a prize.

  He was just finishing up the last bite when he saw the chauffeured car at the front entrance. From his spot under the tent, he watched as the early fair attendees gathered around the entrance, knowing who was inside the vehicle. It must really be something to be a local celebrity, Father Douglas thought. Must be atrocious.

  The mayor stepped out of the car first, waving politely and smiling, followed by his wife. He turned to help her from the car, which seemed a gentlemanly thing to do. After the mayor’s wife, emerged a child from the car, who held onto her mother’s hand and did not let go. The pride of her parents, obvious to any onlooker, the child was adorned in the most frightfully detailed outfit and had ringlets of light colored hair falling just-so around her face. At only five years of age, the girl was the focus of everyone’s attention whenever she went somewhere…and was the focus of Cecilia’s attention today. Cecilia came up behind Father Douglas without him knowing about it and startled him.

  “They’re here, Father! Let’s GO! We don’t want them waiting…oh heavens why wasn’t I informed five minutes ago when they were on route…” She hustled up to the arbor and plastered on a big smile, Father Douglas close behind her. He gave the mayor and his wife a warm smile and waved cheerfully at their daughter.

  To Father Douglas’s amazement, Cecilia nimbly bent down onto one knee and handed the girl a small gift bag. The girl took it and curtsied.

  “Say thank you, Daniela,” her mother reminded.

  “Thank you,” Daniela said softly, to which Cecilia squealed with delight.

  “Oh she is so polite!! Okay, right this way if you please…”

  And with that, she was off, introducing them to every single thing there was to see, as if they hadn’t seen it all the year before. Father Douglas trailed along behind them as he had been instructed to do the entire week. Not a day went by that his housekeeper did not remind him of his duties; he was to follow them and assist Cecilia if she needed anything at all. The royal family, Father Douglas called them in his mind, and for all her complaining about how snobbish they were, Cecilia sure did love to entertain them.

  “What would you like to do first, dear?” she asked the young girl. Daniela looked up to her mother, waiting for help in answering.

  The mayor’s wife let go of her daughter’s hand and stooped down a bit. “Go ahead, you may choose. Anything you like.” Her mother smiled at her, and Father Douglas knew that all was right with the world. A mother loved her child and that’s all that mattered, anywhere, as far as he was concerned. The girl looked around for a full minute, taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells of the fair, but ultimately chose nothing and simply looked back at her mother.

  “There IS a lot to do here, isn’t there?” Her mother reassured her and squatted down onto the ground next to her. “Would you like to ride the carousel first?”

  Daniela nodded her head wildly in excitement, and Cecilia stretched out her hand.

  “Do you mind if Ms. Robinson takes you?” the mayor asked. Daniela skipped over to Ms. Robinson, who gleefully walked the little girl to the carousel. She must have felt very proud, because the person who takes the tickets recognized her right away and waved her on without having to pay. This excited her very much and Father Douglas could hear her from where he was standing as she told the girl they were going to ride for free.

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. and Mrs. Lawson…” Father Douglas motioned with his outstretched arm that they should follow him. “I have very strict instructions on how to entertain you while they are busy.”

  Everyone laughed and Father Douglas walked them slowly toward the café for some refreshment, his hands folded restfully in front of him. Each of them enjoyed a piece of pecan pie, except for Father Douglas who had already had his fill, yet promised to take one home at the end of the day, and they chatted while the carousel music played in the background.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Mrs. Lawson told her husband. “I’d like to go check on Daniela now, she’s probably about done. I’ll join you in a few minutes”. She disappeared into the crowd.

  “She’ll be hard pressed to get your daughter off of that carousel, sir.” Father Douglas motioned toward the ride. “You see? Cecilia has already paid for another go on it.”

  “No doubt!!” the mayor retorted. “Well she’ll just have to wait, then. The fresh air will do them all some good. You and I, however, will have no such thing because I’m pretty sure we’re breathing in straight sugar under here.”

  A short while later, Father Douglas peered out from under the tent and saw Cecilia taking Daniela from the carousel to the magician’s table, but he saw no sign of her mother. The two men threw away their plates and forks and went to join the mayor’s family. Cecilia, as soon as Father Douglas and the mayor walked up behind her, covered her mouth with her hand and let out a small gasp.

  “Where is Clifford?” she demanded to the man sitting behind the magician’s table.

  “Well ma’am, if you’d like to choose a card, I can certainly answer that question for you.” The gentleman leaned across the table toward Daniela, and said cheerfully, “Or if you would like to choose a card?”

  “—no the cards can wait, Daniela,” she said softly, pushing the girl’s outstretched hand away. “I just can’t believe it’s you. Really though, where is Clifford?”

  “He was feeling a bit under the weather today,” the man said. “He sends his deepest apologies. We thought I could slip in for him and it would be no big deal.

  “What’s the fuss?” the mayor interjected.

  “Mr. Lawson, I would like to introduce you to Louis Ashton. …after all these years, honestly. I thought you were missing in action all these years?!”

  Louis slung the cards between his hands like an expert, while Daniela watched in amazement as the grown-ups continued their story swapping. The cards flew from on hand to the other, almost as if they were attached. Occasionally, while they chatted, he would purposefully drop one so that Daniela and the rest of the crowd could see that he was playing with an actual set of cards. Every few words, he would spin one up into the air and catch it in an interesting way.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Cecilia ranted. “I’d always been told that you would never return, and yet here you sit, like it’s not a huge deal at all. Amazing. After all these years.”

  “You said that, already,” he smiled.

  She made a face that Father Douglas had seen a few times before, as though she were trying to hide her grief and her sorrow for the sake of someone else…likely for the sake of Daniela. Father Douglas looked around at the small crowd of children that had now gathered near the magic table. Each one just as amazed as the next. Eventually, Daniela tugged on the corner of Cecilia’s blouse.

  “Can we go find my mother now?” she asked.

  “Yes of course, dear.” Cecilia looked back over her shoulder a few times as they walked away, and Father Douglas was certain he’d seen Louis wink at her.

  As the small group traveled back toward the food tent, Father Douglas noted that Mrs. Lawson was still nowhere to be found. Surely she would come back toward this area? He thought. Perhaps she’s ill?

  “Dad, where’s mom?” Daniela finally asked, looking around. At this point, the lot of them were looking around for her but there was no sign of her.

  The mayor looked around, as if he was just realizing his wife’s absence for the first time, and the first tinge of worry began to creep across his face. “I’m sure she’s probably at the funnel cake stand, or perhaps the far tent checking out the Aboriginal artifacts.” The truth was, he didn’
t know where his wife was, but didn’t want to alarm his daughter. “Why don’t you show us around some more, Father? I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

  “Of course, right this way.” Now three pairs of eyes were darting across the horizon looking for Mrs. Lawson. Father Douglas checked his watch, noting that she had only left the bakery tent twenty minutes earlier. Perhaps she had a bit of food poisoning or wasn’t feeling well? He could send Cecilia into the women’s restrooms to check… “Yes, yes, caramel popcorn! Would you like some of that Cecilia and Daniela?” The both of them looked worried, but obliged his distraction.

  After a few minutes of searching, while pretending to enjoy the fete for the sake of Daniela, Father Douglas sent the mayor and his daughter to get some water and chat with the people in the visitor’s tent, and sent Cecilia back toward the front of the fair to look for Mrs. Lawson. This would mean she’d have to walk right past the magician’s table again, but hopefully she wouldn’t get too distracted with her reunion and stay focused on the task at hand. When Father Douglas passed back by the visitor’s tent five minutes later, he saw Daniela and the mayor, the girl looked visibly upset.

  “She’s anxious,” her father said.

  “And reasonably so,” Father Douglas offered, kneeling down and taking her hand. “But remember, we pray and we trust, okay? The grown-ups are on the case.” She nodded and looked over the crowd. Father Douglas grabbed some napkins from the table nearby. “These will have to serve as tissues for now,” he smiled.

  He was certain something had gone wrong, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. The two men discussed, as quietly as possible, that Mr. Lawson didn’t want to Daniela to find her mother sick or injured at the fete. They would go back to the café tent and wait indefinitely, until Father Douglas or a police officer showed up with some news. Father Douglas agreed to have one of the nuns or the female passers-by check the women’s restrooms, and keep an eye out in the event Mrs. Lawson had fallen sick somewhere out of the ordinary.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sister Marie-Joseph returned from the park’s washroom with the news that it was indeed empty. Father Douglas took the moments after she left to quickly call Detective Inspector Sullivan to organize a discreet search of the park. Inspector Sullivan was in the middle of buying a new toy for his son at one of the craft tents on the other side of the fair, but it didn’t take him long to come trudging through the crowd with two officers flanking him on either side.

  “On it, Father. We’ll move quietly to avoid causing a fuss, just tell me where you’ve checked.”

  “All along this path here, Tom. Back to the food tent, and in the women’s restrooms. I haven’t ventured much further than that, only because she said she was going to find her daughter right before she left my sight. I’m trying not to be too worried, but a mother doesn’t just say she’s going to find her child…and then not do that.”

  “No, you’re definitely right. Okay so you haven’t checked outside the perimeter at all, and not really past the magic table going in that direction, right?” Tom Sullivan pointed his strong arm toward the front gate.

  “Correct.”

  “Alright, boys. Let’s get to it. She’s well-known so she shouldn’t be hard to spot if she’s walking around.”

  The men moved swiftly through the crowd, smiling and nodding at people casually so that no one’s curiosity was piqued. It wouldn’t be long before everyone would know what was happening, and maintaining a calm and undisrupted atmosphere was often the key to catching a perpetrator.

  It was much easier to spot some mischief going on in a crowd of people acting normally, than in a crowd of people who were clamoring around trying to spot a murderer. And, as Tom had discovered was often the case, a killer didn’t usually want more than one victim. This felt like a kidnapping or murder where Mrs. Lawson was the only intended victim, and Tom Sullivan wanted to keep it that way. On he went, smiling and nodding, through the crowd.

  In the meantime, Cecilia was making her way back to the magic table, only to find Louis in the middle of one of his most intricate and intriguing performances. The children and parents loved him, and his presence was intoxicating, a very charming performer.

  Cecilia couldn’t help but smile at the fellow, still handsome even after so many years of war. His gorgeous head of white hair suited him well, and she checked her appearance in the funhouse mirror next to the stand, hoping she looked presentable enough for such a long-awaited reunion conversation.

  She remembered all of their time spent together like it was yesterday, and wiped at the tears that had crept into the corners of her eyes. The dances, the dinner at the Lismore restaurant before he left for Afghanistan and their last kiss before he boarded his flight to Sydney. When he was finished, and everyone had clapped and begun to dissipate, she adjusted her hair and went up to his table, inquiring on whether or not he had seen the mayor’s wife.

  “I sure haven’t,” he answered sincerely. “But I wasn’t really looking for her, so she could have passed by this way”

  A few minutes later, Constable Rainer phoned Inspector Sullivan that Mrs. Lawson’s body had been found, but that she was as they had all had feared.

  “I’ll be right there,” Tom said into the phone, shaking his head where Father Douglas could see him. Father Douglas was crushed, that poor little girl. Tom hung up the phone and reassured Father Douglas that he would go and check the body to make sure it wasn’t someone else, before he took the news to the mayor.

  “And we need to get some nuns over here to assist with, and comfort Daniela, in case it really is her that has been found.”

  Father Douglas went with him to check the body, which he immediately regretted. Even with all his knowledge and faith that there is something beyond death…that death is not to be feared because it happens to us all…the sheer finality of seeing someone who was alive only an hour earlier was still too much for his tender heart.

  The mayor’s wife was definitely dead. Her body was still on the ground when they arrived, and it looked as though she had been slapped across the face with such blunt force that it caused her head to be swung awkwardly to the side. The Inspector phoned Dr. Vijay Kumar, the Pottsville medical examiner, and asked him to bring his vehicle to the back of park.

  “There’s hardly anyone back here, and I’d like to keep it that way,” Inspector Sullivan said to his friend. “I think the few people meandering about can be easily kept at bay by my men. Do you want to head over to the family? Maybe take Daniela a treat or something? Who knows when she’ll eat next with everything that’s happened?”

  “You have a good heart, Tom. Yes, I’ll serve in any way I can.”

  CHAPTER 4

  By the time Father Douglas reached Daniela, the mayor was already upset. Clearly, it had sunk in just how dire the situation might turn out to be, however it was up to Father Douglas to not let anything slip until Tom Sullivan came and spoke to the mayor, so he smiled as if he knew nothing and took Daniela to get a snack.

  Something healthy, he thought, so they went for some pulled pork at the cart not far from the food tent. That way, he could keep an eye out for Tom. About ten minutes later, after Father Douglas and Daniela had just about finished their food and water, Tom walked carefully through the crowd.

  Father Douglas was always so amazed at his maturity. Here was a man with a family of his own, and people he loved and cared for, walking casually through a crowd to tell a man his wife has just died. Not even died, she had been murdered.

  With all the emotions that Father Douglas felt at that moment, fear for the young girl who had just lost her mother, uncertainty about how the mayor would feel about losing his wife, he just couldn’t imagine walking through a crowd of people without bringing attention to himself. Not a single person looked at Tom as he walked, focused and calm, toward the food tent. It took a special kind of man to do that job.

  Father Douglas watched his friend take the mayor calmly back toward the back of th
e park, in a way that did not draw the looks of onlookers. The mayor looked visibly shaken up, but not many people noticed. From his seat, Father Douglas could both talk to Daniela, and also see the men as they approached the crime scene far off in the distance. It was far enough away that no one would strain to see back there if they didn’t have to. When Inspector Sullivan arrived on the scene with the mayor, Mr. Lawson took one look at his wife’s broken neck and looked away, breaking down into short sobs.

  Moments later, Father Douglas received a text from the inspector. “Dr. Vijay said her neck is broken, it was twisted until it broke. Mayor won’t look at it.”

  Father Douglas knew better than to ask a million questions of his friend while he worked, but Inspector Sullivan also relied heavily on a few fellow townsfolk to help him solve crimes, so he knew he had a duty to dig in deeper if he could and be more eyes and ears for the police force. Not long after they threw away their trash, Father Douglas received a phone call from Tom stating that he should take the girl to the parking lot where her father was waiting on her.

  “I don’t want to speculate over the phone, as you know, so this is all off the record…but it looks as though she was viciously attacked. The attacker used brute force on her neck, and would likely be someone who is well-versed in the art of killing someone swiftly.”

  Father Douglas, naturally, repeated none of it to Daniela, and cheerfully walked her to the parking, holding her hand a little tighter than normal as his heart was breaking for her. The girl, he could tell, sensed that something is very wrong. Father Douglas reminded her that God loved her no matter what, and when she got to her father, she leapt into his arms and began crying.

  There were only two people Father Douglas could think of that were well versed in the art of killing, and both of those people regularly performed magic tricks for children. No one else came to mind other than the old one-two punch of Louis filling in for Clifton. There was something about the late fill in that didn’t sit right this morning, and Father Douglas always relied on the Spirit to put matters on his heart when it was important. He made a beeline for the magic table to follow his hunch.