Duck the Halls(74)

“The chief already knows that he was not well liked at Trinity,” I said. “I couldn’t stand him myself. But I didn’t wish him ill—just elsewhere.”

“Same with me and Lightfoot,” she said.

“Speaking of the chief, is he very busy?” I asked.

“I don’t actually know,” she said. “He’s over at your church—checking out whether Horace is finished and we can release it.”

“Great!” I said. “That’s actually what I wanted to ask him about.” Well, one of the things. “I’ll head over there now.”

“Don’t push him about it,” she said. “He knows you need the church back but he’s cranky as all get-out. See you later?”

“Thanks for the warning,” I said.

There were two police cruisers and several other cars in the Trinity parking lot. Vern Shiffley was on duty at the door.

“I dropped by to see if you had any word on when we get the church back,” I called out when Vern opened the door.

Before Vern could answer, the chief appeared in the vestibule.

“Meg,” he said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Vern held the door open, and I stepped inside. The chief led the way down the hall and into my temporary office.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said. “Horace and I have been using your office while we’ve been working here.”

“My temporary office,” I said. “And you’re welcome to it.”

The chief was sitting at my temporary desk, and he had added a folding chair for his interview subjects.

“I won’t keep you long,” he said. “I just have a few questions.”

“And I have something to tell you,” I said.

“Yes?” He picked up his notebook and pen.

“I have no idea if this has anything to do with his murder, and you probably know this already, but it could be significant that Barliman Vess kept files on stuff.”

From the look on the chief’s face, I could tell he found this revelation underwhelming.

“I’m not sure I see the relevance,” he said. “I myself keep a modest filing system—financial records, family information, professional development materials. I should think everyone does.”

“Barliman kept files on problems,” I said. “And the people he thought were causing them.”

A pause.

“Are you suggesting these were blackmail files?”

I hadn’t been but it was an interesting thought.

“More like harassment files, I hope,” I said aloud. “He was a would-be whistleblower cursed with a shortage of major smoking guns. If he didn’t like how something worked around the church, he’d start keeping a dossier on the situation. And sending memos to the vestry.”

“Yes,” the chief said. “I believe your mother refers to them as ‘Barligrams.’ And it wasn’t just the church. He maintained an active correspondence with the mayor, the health department, animal control—pretty much every agency in town. I have a folder full of them myself. Everyone in the town and county government got their share of Barligrams.”

“So you don’t think the files are significant?”

“I didn’t say that.” He leaned back, rubbed his forehead as if noticing the start of a headache, and looked at me for a few moments. “I understand you went out to Mr. Vess’s house. Did you notice anything interesting in his files?”

“I didn’t go out there to read his files!” I protested. “I fed his cat.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

“And completely resisted the temptation to snoop around?”

I gave up.

“No,” I said. “But it’s not as if I read all the files. The only thing unusual I noticed was that one of his files was missing.” I explained about the empty hanging folder marked THORNEFIELD INVESTIGATION.

“I might know what happened to that folder,” the chief said. “Apparently a few days ago Mr. Vess reported the basement of Trinity Episcopal as a hazard to our new fire chief—who, as you probably know, doubles as the new county fire marshal.”

“Because of all the stuff from Mrs. Thornefield’s estate?”

The chief nodded.

“The jerk. It was Vess’s idea to put it all there.”

“That would seem consistent with Mr. Vess’s modus operandi,” the chief said. “I’ll check with Chief Featherstone to see if the missing file happens to be in his office.”

“So what’s happening with the church basement?” I said. “Please tell me Chief Featherstone isn’t going to close the church down.” If he did, Robyn would expect me to come up with yet another iteration of the schedule, and I wasn’t sure there were enough rooms left in the county.