Read Liturgical Mysteries 01 The Alto Wore Tweed for Free Online Page B

slip into the tumblers. After a moment’s work, the key turned stiffly in the lock and the door swung open. She was right. It was empty.
    She pointed to the vacant shelves. “There should be three cases at least. Twenty-four or twenty-five bottles.”
    “Do we always use two bottles per service?” I asked.
    “We usually have a magnum, so we just need one. But The Slab didn’t have any magnums.”
    “Jeez,” I said, mumbling to myself. “Jeez, the wine—.”
    Meg was chatting with some other choir members and finishing up her coffee. I got her attention.
    “I think it was the communion wine. Let’s go back to t loft.” All four of us, Meg, Nancy, Georgia and I, headed out the kitchen door, back into the church and made our way up into the loft.
    I instructed the troops. “We’re looking for a wine bottle. A big one. Megan, you and Georgia look up around the chairs over by the window. Nancy, let’s you and I look down here by the rail. If you find it, don’t touch it.”
    “Hayden, we already cleaned this place from top to bottom.” Meg offered.
    “We didn’t know what we were looking for.”
    I figured that if the bottle was up here, Willie probably would have hidden it for later consumption. I had a hard time believing that even Willie would have finished an entire magnum bottle in the two hours he was out of sight. He probably had stashed it somewhere.

    • • •

    Nancy was the first to sing out. “Hey boss. There’s a loaded 9mm Glock here under the organ bench.”
    “Don’t worry about it. It’s mine.”
    I looked up at Meg in time to see her roll her eyes and drop her head into her hands. But she was always overreacting.
    Georgia was next. “Hey, there’s an empty flask in the hymnal rack over here.”
    “Nah. That’s Marjorie’s. Keep looking.” Marjorie was known to take a snort or two during services.
    I myself was looking in the organ pipe case on the opposite side of the loft. It had a swing-out door for tuning the instrument and anything hidden inside would be fairly accessible yet easily hidden. I thought for sure that’s where I’d find the bottle. I saved this little hiding place for myself, of course, so I could find the bottle in front of everyone and impress Meg with my deductive prowess.
    It didn’t work. Nancy called out “Got it!” and my plan for self-glorification was toast.
    She had found the offending bottle in the bell tower. Actually there was a small room, which was usually kept locked, directly off the loft. It was this room that held the ladder that led directly up another flight and a half to the church bell. The rest of the stuff in the room was junk. There was an old sound system consisting of some old amps and an 8-track, old 1940 hymnals and 1928 prayer books, some shelves, old paint cans. The usual stuff. I had assumed the door was still locked. It wasn’t, and of course Willie had the key. The bottle was placed just as nicely as you please on one of the shelves. There was a corkscrew, obviously purloined from the kitchen, lying next to the bottle and his half-smoked cigar placed neatly on the shelf, the inch long ash hanging over the edge of the discolored wooden board. Next to the cigar was a green matchbook that was embossed with “Pine Valley Christmas Tree Farm” in bright red letters. I opened it and noticed that there were three matches gone. We were lucky that Willie smoked cheap cigars. An expensive brand would have kept burning and probably ignited the entire church. As it was, Willie’s twenty-five cent cigars had to be puffed on pretty heavily to remain lit. When he set it down to pour his drink and didn’t pick it back up, the cigar—luckily—had burned out. The cork to the wine bottle was halfway out or, if my suspicions were correct, halfway back.
    “Oh man,” I said, suddenly remembering everything I had forgotten to bring with me. “Nancy, did you bring any gloves? Mine are in the truck.”
    “Right here, boss,” she said,