Duck the Halls(52)

“The vestry is very similar to what you Presbyterians would call the session,” I said. “Group of people elected from the congregation to help govern the church.”

“So he’s what we’d call an elder?” Vern asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Hello, Chief,” I added.

“Any idea what Mr. Vess was doing in the furnace room at three in the morning?” Chief Burke asked.

“None whatsoever,” I said. “We had a night watch staying here in the church—those people who were warming up in my car. They were keeping a lookout in case the prankster came back. But they were all in the social hall, as they told you, playing Parcheesi between patrols. You can ask them if Mr. Vess was with them—though I think they’d have mentioned it if one of their number never made it out of the church.”

The chief nodded.

“The only thing I can think of—” I began. And then I stopped myself, because what I had been about to say suddenly seemed foolish.

“Go on,” the chief said after a moment.

“Mr. Vess was kind of a gadfly,” I explained. “Particularly on church financial issues.”

“Useful to have a retired banker for that,” the chief said.

“Except he drove everyone crazy,” I said. “He was always going on about overspending, and trying to catch people being wasteful—or worse, dishonest. Mother said last year he was putting marked bills in the collection plate to see if the people adding up the offering were honest.”

“What could he have been trying to find out in the basement?”

“No idea,” I said. “Robyn—Reverend Smith—might know. Or my mother. She’s on the vestry with Mr. Vess.”

The chief turned to Vern.

“It would help if we knew whether Mr. Vess was killed in the furnace room or whether his body was moved there later,” he said.

“I’ll ask Dr. Langslow.” Vern headed down the stairs.

“So you think he hid in the church after the concert and then came out to do—whatever he came to do,” the chief said.

“No, he couldn’t possibly have been hiding in the church after the concert,” I said. “I locked up for Robyn while she was seeing people out, and I’d have found him.”

“He could have been hiding in a closet,” the chief said. “Or the men’s room.”

“The bathrooms are one-person and unisex,” I said. “And I checked them all. And all the closets. I remember one time Mr. Vess hid in the broom closet for hours so he could find out who was constantly leaving the lights on after choir practice. So I checked everywhere.”

“You were checking for Mr. Vess?” The chief looked confused and a little suspicious.

“No, I was looking for potential pranksters, but I remembered how easily he’d hidden in the closets, so I figured if he could hide in closets, so could they.”

“I suppose you checked all the doors,” the chief said. “Including that little door at the far end of the basement.”

“The door that would be just perfect for sneaking in with a small cage of skunks?” I said. “Absolutely.”

“Actually, this time it was rabbits,” he said. “And they’re fine,” he added hastily, seeing the look on my face. “A little frightened, but they were at the far end of the furnace room. The fire didn’t get that far.”

I nodded, and found I had to blink back tears. For the rescued rabbits, or Barliman Vess? I wasn’t sure.

“Only two of them,” the chief went on. “Not much of a prank compared to the others.”

“Maybe Mr. Vess interrupted the perpetrators while they were unloading the rabbits and they fled with most of them,” I said. “You could put out an APB. See if you can find anyone in possession of a suspicious number of rabbits. Just kidding,” I added, seeing that the chief didn’t seem to like my suggestion.

“Indeed,” he said. “Actually, since the rabbits turned out to be stolen from the fifth grade classroom at Caerphilly Elementary, which only had two to begin with, I don’t think we’ll be uncovering any hoards of contraband leporids.”

I decided to wait until he looked less stressed before making my other, more serious suggestion—that perhaps whoever had killed Vess had left the rabbits to make it seem as if Vess’s murder was connected to the other pranks. Although the odds were, the chief had already thought of it.

“By the way,” I said aloud. “I know no one was hiding in the church when I left, but I’m not sure it’s all that significant. I don’t think the locks have been rekeyed in twenty years, and both Robyn and Father Rufus have been pretty quick to give a key to anyone with a legitimate purpose. Including some of the people from other churches who were here at Trinity over the last few days. Like Lightfoot and Randall’s construction people.”