Read Set Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries) for Free Online

there was no need, as there had been for Christmas and Easter services two decades ago, to bring in folding chairs and place them in the outer aisles.
    Indeed, there were some Sundays––the summer ones among them––when the early arriving Nina even wondered if she would be the only parishioner in the congregation.
    This never happened of course.
    The Barkleys, Benjamen and Darleen, always arrived early too, sometimes even before the minister.
    Then came dribs and drabs, as Frank would have put it.
    Mudge—Mudge had a last name, but it seemed so prosaic, whatever it was—Mudge, past ninety now, wobbling in and down the stairs that led into the sanctuary from the downtown-side door, helped along as she always was by one or two of the other ladies of the church who took turns giving her a ride.
    The Miller family, all three pre-school children between them, all three stuffed there in the pew and being molested every second or so by first their father, then their mother, who saw Sunday mornings as the opportunity to show first hand to the children what the true wages of sin actually were, these being naturally the human condition of being imprisoned in an eight foot space on a gorgeous seaside summer morning and forced to sit in constant, motionless, silent prayer.
    “Be quiet!”
    “Sit still!”
    “Stop that!”
    “But he––”
    “I don’t want to hear it!”
    “But she––”
    “No!”
    Why not, Nina wondered, just bring them on time? Why bring them early?
    She did not say ‘Why bring them at all?’ even to herself, for she knew that would have been blasphemous.
    Of course you had to bring them.
    “Get out from under that pew!”
    “But I––”
    “Get out from there!”
    Or, maybe not.
    At least they were three pews in front of Nina, except that once the children actually got under the pews and became mobile, they might turn up anywhere.
    Jana Darnell, seventy three now—her birthday had been announced from the pulpit last week, so Jana’s age was fresh in Nina’s mind—radiant and beautiful as she must have been at seventeen, with the same sparkle in her eyes and the same straight bearing and the same immaculate and striking red scarf.
    Leana Douglas; Florence Robinson; Earl and Nora Springer—
    ––dribs and drabs, dribs and drabs—
    After a time the piano began to play, Nina rejoicing that it was, this morning, as it usually was:   one of the old ones.
    “Blessed Assurance.”
    Da da da deee deee…
    As the blue robed choir filtered in and the pulpit crew—which she always enjoyed calling them, although they probably would not have appreciated it—prepared   to do their respective duties, announcement reading, scripture lesson, song leading, etc.—she prepared herself mentally for the first stages of the service.
    Be prayerful, listen carefully, check your wallet to be sure there’s something to put in the collection plate, and try not to laugh at anything when you were the only one laughing.
    There would be other things to laugh at later on, of course, but they were rigidly controlled episodes of group laughter, and it was just as bad to remain silent within them as it was to guffaw outside of them.
    “Good morning!”
    From a beaming Reverend Daniels.
    “Good morning!”
    From a Summer Sparse but Always Eager in the Will of the Lord congregation.
    And now—begin.
    She listened carefully to the announcements, especially the one she knew without having to hear it, the one pointing out that this Sunday, First Sunday, was Fellowship Sunday, which meant Potluck Lunch.
    There were several ‘ships’ that had to be dealt with in church life, two of the most important being ‘Fellowship,’ and ‘Stewardship.’
    Stewardship meant giving more money than you were used to giving.
    Fellowship meant eating.
    It was much more popular.
    And Nina had, as she always did, prepared for it.
    Tucked away on a vast drain board down below in the equally vast kitchen—for people in 1902 when the