Page 52 of Dead to Rites

He looked up, and even though his expression stayed mostly serious, I could see the way the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Of course I have a system. It’s just indecipherable to most people.”

“Good thing you’re the sole proprietor, then.”

A chuckle, and then he went over to a small table wedged in the back that held an electric teapot and a stack of teabags in a little basket. “Any preference?” he asked.

“Something mild,” I said. “I already had two cups of coffee this morning, and if I have anything too caffeinated, I’m going to be bouncing off the walls.”

Now he smiled again, and then extracted two bags of green tea, plopped them into a pair of mismatched mugs, and poured hot water over each.

“I found out a few things,” I told him as he came back over to the table where I was waiting and handed me one of the mugs. “Meg Lindley was seeing Father Frank to talk about something for around eight months, and I can tell Diane is trying to keep me away from her.” I paused there and lifted the mug to my lips so I could blow on the liquid inside and cool it a little, since it was still too hot to drink. “Jude, I really think the killer must be connected to the Lindleys somehow.”

He was quiet for a minute. I was watching him carefully, but I didn’t see any disbelief in his face, only a kind of sadness.

Then he spoke.

“Frank married Meg Lindley’s son to Diane almost forty years ago. It was the first marriage he performed at Sacred Heart, according to what he told me about his time there. He buried Meg’s husband, and he baptized Wes. He knew that family for basically his entire priesthood.”

A very long time, much longer than I’d been alive. Who knew what kinds of tangled loyalties and affections had grown during all those decades together?

“Meg’s husband,” I said then. “Do you know much about him?”

I thought maybe that was sort of a long shot, since it sounded as if he’d been gone a long time. But, even though he hadn’t talked about his past much, Jude also seemed like someone who had deep roots in the community.

“Donald Lindley,” Jude said. “He passed away about ten years ago from a heart attack. He was a decent man, from what I knew of him. Quiet. Retired plumber.” He stopped to remove the bag from his mug of green tea and set it on a saucer already waiting on the tabletop. This seemed to be the place where he came to sit down and relax, although I got the feeling he rarely entertained company back here. “He was Hal Pruitt’s best friend. They fished together almost every weekend until Donald got too frail.”

In my mind’s eye, I saw Hal sitting resolutely in his pew at Father Frank’s funeral, staying in place while everyone else got up to receive communion. Was he angry with God for taking away his friend too soon, or was there some other reason why he’d stayed in his seat during the service?

And I thought of Nell Whitaker and her agonizing little thefts. Enough here to pay the water bill, enough there to put some gas in the car or maybe some food in the pantry. Nothing close to murder, of course, but still, it only served to remind me of all the secrets people kept from one another.

I didn’t mention any of that to Jude, obviously. Nell had spoken to me in confidence, and even though no confessional seal was preventing me from blabbing her secrets all over town if I’d wanted to, I knew I would never do anything like that.

Anyway, I knew her embezzling had nothing to do with Father Frank’s murder.

“Do you think Hal knows anything?” I asked, and Jude shrugged.

“Hard to say, since we don’t even know who’s involved or exactly what happened.”

I sipped my tea. “I keep getting the feeling that whatever Meg told Frank, it was something she’d held onto for a long time and wanted to let go of at last. And someone in the family figured out she was going to talk about it, and they acted.”

Jude frowned. One finger tapped against the side of his mug as he appeared to mull over my theory. Then he said, “If you’re right, then Meg is being protected by someone who cares about her, about the family. Maybe they decided that getting rid of Father Frank was the only way to keep the truth from getting out and harming Meg and the family.”

“That’s awful,” I said, because it was.

“I know.” His hands went still on the mug, and his hazel eyes met mine directly. “And that’s why you have to be careful. People who do terrible things out of love don’t necessarily stop if they think the danger still exists.”

I wondered what kind of terrible things he’d seen during his years as a priest. Because I had only a vague idea of how old most priests were when they were ordained, I didn’t know how long Jude had been a member of the clergy. Maybe as long as a decade before he decided to get out, for whatever reason.

That was long enough to have seen a few things.

Before I could respond, he said, “How would you like a home-cooked meal?”

I looked at him, nonplussed. Was he asking me out on a date, or was he simply proposing to feed me dinner because he somehow knew I’d been mainly subsisting on takeout for the past two weeks?

“Tomorrow night,” he clarified.

Dinner on a Saturday night sounded like a date to me. Except….

“I have to work,” I said.