I ended my inspection at the back door, which opened into a concrete well where a set of steep stairs led up to the churchyard. The stairwell was screened by a thick privet hedge, which made the back stairs precisely the sort of discreet entrance I would use if I were a prankster looking to smuggle ducks, snakes, skunks, or other unwanted livestock into the church. I double-and triple-checked the locks on that door.
And then, having found no stowaways and no security breaches, I took the stairs back up to the ground level and reported to Robyn.
“All secure,” I said as I handed over the key ring.
“Thanks,” she said. “But keep the key ring. Until the prankster is caught, we’ll be locking the church a lot more. Which shouldn’t inconvenience anyone with a legitimate reason to be here—we must have a million spare keys out there in various parishioners’ hands—no reason you shouldn’t have one set, in case you need to get into your office.”
“Not that I’m complaining, but shouldn’t Riddick be helping with all this checking out and locking up?” I asked.
“He’s home with his migraine,” she said.
“Again? He had one yesterday, didn’t he?”
“He seems to be having a lot of them lately.” She shook her head. “Frankly, I doubt if we’ll see much of him as long as we have so many people from other congregations coming and going. Intruders, as he calls them.”
“He’s very protective of the church,” I said.
“I’d call it possessive,” Robyn said. “And frankly, it’s been driving me crazy. Hard enough coming in as the new kid, dealing with people who want an older priest.”
“Not to mention a male priest,” I put in.
“Yes,” she said. “But I seem to have gotten off on a particularly wrong foot with Riddick, and nothing I’ve done seems to have made any difference. Well, at least the end is in sight.”
“‘End’?” I didn’t like the sound of this. “What do you mean, ‘end’?”
“He’s retiring,” she said. “Theoretically. It was supposed to be end of the year, but now he’s pushed it back to the end of January. And it’s his decision, not mine. Retiring and moving to someplace warmer. He asked me not to announce it until he could tell people himself—though I think with only a month to go it’s about time we said something to the congregation. I mean, people will want to throw him a good-bye party, won’t they?”
We both thought about that for a few moments.
“We’ll all feel bad if we don’t,” I said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Robyn shook her head sadly.
“So much for my New Year’s resolution to find a way for us to get along better,” she said. “I’ve been talking to Reverend Trask over at the Methodist Church. He has some wonderful wisdom on how to get along with difficult people.”
With Mrs. Dahlgren to deal with, no doubt he did. Reverend Trask must be a saint.
“I confess,” Robyn went on. “I resented Riddick at first—he had it within his power to make my arrival at Trinity so much easier, and instead he seemed to be putting up obstacles at every turn. But then I took a step away and looked at the situation. He’s served the parish for twenty years—all of them under Father Rufus. I’m sure my arrival can’t have been easy for him.”
No, I suspected it hadn’t—particularly since Dr. Rufus J. Womble had been a mild-mannered, easygoing sort, perfectly content to leave all the practical matters to Riddick’s marginally more capable hands. The three of them—Riddick, Father Rufus, and Trinity—had quietly moldered away until Father Rufus, while walking around the rectory, as usual, with his nose in a book, had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken both legs, prompting the bishop to decide that he was overdue for retirement. And along came Robyn, with her huge supply of enthusiasm and energy. Even those of us who adored her sometimes felt a little tired. How must it have been for Riddick?
“There’s so much I could have learned from him,” Robyn said.
“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes he’s the only one who can get that window in the kitchen to open when it gets stuck. And every year, the decorating committee nearly has a nervous breakdown until he figures out where the boxes of decorations have gotten to.”
“I was thinking more of the wisdom he must have learned from working with Father Rufus for so long,” Robyn said. “And his deep knowledge of the congregation. But yes, those things are useful. Although Randall Shiffley’s promised to find me a carpenter who can fix the window, and once we have that yard sale and clear out thirty years’ accumulation of pure junk, finding things around here won’t be nearly so difficult.”