Well, isn’t he just a little statistically speaking black cloud raining all over my private-dick parade.
But facts are facts, no matter how much I don’t want to face them and my down-to-earth future husband might be on to something here. I was so sure that our principal had been murdered last night in the cemetery and according to my sister, I was wrong about that, so I guess Sister M & M might not have been kidnapped, either, and admitting that to myself has got my tummy more knotted up than the Boy Scout handbook. (No joke.)
What about my shopping spree?
All my BE PREPARED plans?
How about my idea to stuff our running-away jar so full of blackmail or reward greenbacks that if Gert Klement convinces Louise to send Birdie and me to our “homes” that we’ll be able to run away in style to live in California and . . .
Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute.
Who’s in charge around here?!
I put my foot down and tell Charlie, “You could be right that something else happened to Sister Margaret Mary besides Mister McGinty or anybody else kidnapping her, but then what about the Saint Christopher medal Birdie found in the leaf pile with their initials on it? How does that figure into all this?”
Charlie shrugs—he really loves to shrug—and says, “Ya got me.”
You better believe I do, my match made in Heaven. Until death do us part, I want to say, but I’m not sure how he’d take that, so instead I clear my throat and tell him more businesslike, “As president of The Mutual Admiration Society, I hereby declare that we’ll keep investigating Sister’s disappearance like she has been kidnapped until we find evidence that proves she wasn’t.”
“Roger that, Tessie,” Birdie says, and when Charlie pulls open one of the church’s doors, he must be on board, too, because when he ushers the Finley sisters into St. Kate’s, he bows his head and tells me, “Your wish is my command,” and ya know what? If I didn’t have serious detecting and confessing to do, I would very much like to pucker up and take him up on that offer.
18
DARING
There are times when I step inside our church that I can’t help but fall down to my knees. Not in prayer, of course. I am not impressed with most of the malarkey the nuns and priests try to peddle us. You’d have to be as dumb as Birdie to fall for most of those tall tales the employees of God tell us during catechism class and Sunday sermons.
Take Noah and the Ark. All you have to do is spend an afternoon at the Washington Park Zoo to know how much animals poop and are at each other tooth and nail. Noah and his family would have to jump overboard because they couldn’t stand the smell on that boat for forty days and nights and those wild animals would devour each other the second they had a chance, including the dove that showed up with the olive branch in its beak, it wouldn’t have escaped the snarling jaws of death, either.
FACT: The Almighty could’ve saved Daddy from drowning or bestowed upon me a swimming miracle, so our on-again, off-again relationship spends a lot of time in the off position.
PROOF: I only pray because I need to keep all my bases covered and I only go to church to keep Louise from heckling me. But my soul? I think it must really like the beautiful interior decoration job that was done on St. Kate’s, because like it or not, the place can make me feel like I’m having one of those holy times. Like the ones I have every so often when I’m at the cemetery pond and everything feels right with my world again for a minute or two.
The church smells of incense and floor polish this morning the way it always does, which is nice, but it’s the way the sun is passing through the stained glass that’s my favorite part. Especially the way it’s slanting into the window that belongs to St. Joan of Arc. I admire that she was a fighter, but I can’t help but wonder if being a French slut like Suzie LaPelt is why that kid really got turned into French toast, because I’m 100% positive Louise and the other gals in the parish wouldn’t mind throwing Daddy’s barmaid into a bonfire, either.
The rest of St. Kate’s is also easy on the eyes. Very la-di-da luxurious. The main altar that’s watched over by Jesus hanging on the cross is dripping with gold, there’s a fancy carved wooden stand made out of some kind of special blessed wood where the priests try to scare us into being better Catholics, and the Communion railing is made of real marbles. The main altar is where the Tabernacle sits—the rumpus room for the white wafers the priests pass out that are the “alleged” body of Jesus. (Even though we’re warned not to, I’ve chewed up a Communion wafer and it was boneless.)