“You’d have to be pretty loud out here for us to hear you,” I said. “Just lock up when you leave. How’s the smell removal going?”
“Slowly. If I ever catch the wretches who did that to our lovely church—” She broke off and set her jaw, as if forcibly restraining language no self-respecting Baptist matron would know, much less use in public.
“I tell you one thing,” she said. “This duck thing has confounded my theory of the crime.”
“I find myself wondering if your theory was also the chief’s,” I said. “But I know better than to ask. What is your theory?”
“That the pranks have something to do with the choir,” she said.
I nodded agreement. Should I tell her about what I’d overheard? No, the chief would probably be annoyed if I tried to involve Minerva, and I wasn’t at all sure a proper Baptist matron would approve of Rose Noire’s premonitions. Besides, she was already keeping a close eye on Lightfoot.
“But I haven’t seen any choir events scheduled in the Catholic church,” she went on. “So there goes that theory.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “What if St. Byblig’s wasn’t the intended target?”
She raised one eyebrow and cocked her head.
“You’re keeping the New Life building locked up pretty tight, right?”
“Tight as a tick,” she said.
“And I suspect Trinity wasn’t left standing wide open last night.”
“No,” she said. “I was one of the last to leave—I was helping make sure we’d left everything at least as clean as we found it. And your pastor was there to lock the door behind us, and when I told her she should go home and get some rest, she said she would as soon as she made sure everything was secure.”
“That fits,” I said. “Imagine you’re the prankster, and you drive your truck full of ducks up to your intended target and you can’t get in. Are you just going to give up and take them back where you stole them? Or are you going to look around for someplace else to cause trouble?”
“Ye-es,” she said slowly. “But why the Catholics?”
“St. Byblig’s isn’t far from Trinity or New Life,” I said.
“The Methodists are closer,” she said.
“Yes, but the Methodist church faces the town square,” I said. “Not exactly the place I’d pick to unload several hundred contraband ducks. Way too public and visible.”
“No,” she said, with a note of excitement in her voice. “But a church at the edge of town, whose parking lot is completely hidden from the road by trees…”
“Exactly.”
“And besides,” she said. “St. Byblig’s has a loading dock.”
“It does?”
“No idea why, but it’s quite useful,” she said. “That’s why they’re the central distribution point for the county food bank—it’s so easy to load and unload. I’ve put a loading dock down as a feature we’d like at New Life next time we do a little expansion and remodeling. It would make handling the choir equipment a lot easier.”
“So once they got into St. Byblig’s, they could just drive up to the loading dock, herd the ducks out, and drive off,” I said. “Maybe it was the target after all, because of the loading dock.”
“Very interesting.” She looked preoccupied.
“I should be heading out,” I said. “If I stay much longer, someone will force me to sew, and I’d hate to ruin any of that beautiful fabric. But if you happen to talk to Henry, remind him that I have some information for him. About the case,” I added.
“Will do,” she said. “Thanks again for the use of the room.”
I headed back to the foyer. But before I left the long hallway, I heard the library door open. Minerva stepped out into the hallway, closed the door after her, and raised her cell phone to her ear.
The chief had probably already thought of everything we’d been discussing. And maybe he hadn’t called me back because he knew what I had to say—I might not be the only one who had overheard Ronnie and Caleb. But just in case he hadn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to have Minerva remind him to call me.
Chapter 18
Lunch was pleasant, if a little chaotic. Unfortunately one of the interesting facts Grandfather had told the boys about ducks was that having no teeth, they swallowed bits of grit to help grind up their food. I could tell the boys were eager to experiment with this, but fortunately our gravel driveway was currently covered with snow. Perhaps they’d forget by the time the weather warmed up.