It took two hours and countless phone calls to devise a workable solution, and in the end we only managed it because the Methodist and Lutheran ministers offered to hold an ecumenical service at the Methodist church, freeing up a time slot at the Lutheran church for one of the masses for the refugees from St. Byblig’s. Also, in a novel idea, the Caerphilly Bowl-o-Rama, which didn’t normally open till one on Sunday, offered the use of its space until that time and we relocated all the St. Byblig’s Sunday school classes there. Father Donnelly made a quick call to his archdiocese, where a sleepy monsignor gave the chancery’s approval to our revised plans.
“The Bowl-o-Rama,” Father Donnelly said. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“‘Wherever two or more of you are gathered in His name,’” Robyn quoted.
“Yes,” Father Donnelly said. “But thank the Lord for the Lutherans and Methodists. I’m not sure how the chancery would have reacted if I’d asked to hold the mass in a bowling alley.”
I decided not to point out that it could come to that, if Caerphilly’s reigning prankster continued unchecked. From the look on his face, I suspected that thought had already occurred to him.
“Perhaps I should ask now, just in case,” he murmured, picking up the telephone again.
“Let’s get the e-mails and telephone trees going,” Robyn said.
Since it was Sunday morning and most of the clergy were conducting services and not apt to be near their computers any time soon, I printed out two dozen copies of the schedule (version seven) and drove around to the various churches to hand deliver them. At the Methodist church, Mrs. Dahlgren, the secretary, give me a particularly poisonous look. I couldn’t pretend not to know why so I just ignored it. And the portapotties didn’t look that bad. Randall’s crew had set them up right behind the life-sized Nativity scene on the grass in front of the church—which would, with the figures removed, be the venue for the live-action Nativity on Christmas Eve. Someone—probably at Mother’s direction—had screened the portapotties as much as possible with a lot of very leafy fake palm trees. They’d even painted the white portapotties with faux doors and windows and rooftop terraces, so they looked remarkably like the little dioramas of Bethlehem I remembered building in my childhood Sunday school classes, even down to a light dusting of snow to soften everything.
Mrs. Dahlgren may have been vexed, but a great many of the congregation—particularly the children—were charmed with the dramatic addition to their Nativity scene. As I left, I could see Reverend Trask beaming as he and Reverend Larsen supervised a joint task force of Methodist and Lutheran children who were dusting the snow off all the human figures in the scene. He waved back at me cheerfully and gave me a double thumbs-up. So there, Mrs. Dahlgren.
As I drove around, I found it was gnawing at me that I still hadn’t managed to tell the chief about overhearing Caleb and Ronnie. I wasn’t sure whether to be irritated at the chief for not calling me, or with myself, for not persisting. I finally pulled over and called again. And once again I reached only his voice mail.
“This is Meg Langslow,” I said. “Just wanted to remind you that I may have some information on who’s pulling these pranks.”
At the First Presbyterian Church a service was letting out. I ran into Randall Shiffley and learned that progress had been made in solving the mystery of who owned the ducks.
Chapter 15
“We’re pretty sure the ducks belong to my cousin Quincy,” Randall explained. “He’s been in the hospital, recovering from heart surgery. He’s a bachelor, so there’d be no one at his farm to notice someone loading up the ducks. We’ve all been taking turns going over to look after them, but we haven’t had anyone sleeping there, so the place was wide open for the duck thief. Looks like they even used his big truck to do the hauling.”
I almost asked if his nephew Caleb was one of the ones who’d been helping with the duck care, but thought better of it. I’d let the chief sort that one out.
“I gather he has a lot of ducks?” I asked instead. “So whoever was doing the feeding wouldn’t necessarily miss the borrowed ones immediately?”
“Does he ever!” Randall exclaimed. “Man, but I hope he gets well before my next turn to go over there. Do you have any idea how much poop eight or nine hundred ducks can produce?”
“Yes, I saw St. Byblig’s,” I said.
“Maybe I should go apologize to old Barliman Vess,” Randall says. “He keeps filing complaints about Quincy with the health department and the police and any other agency he can think of.”