Church Lady P.I. Part # 2 Ginnette

CHURCH LADY P.I, - Part #2

Ginnette 

REMEMBER: This is a mystery and it must be read in order, including the  Introduction, then Part 1, Part 2, etc. due to the fact clues are everywhere. (L-L)

As Ginnette, Sarah and I strolled down the church aisle towards the door, Sarah explained to her mother that I was going to help her find Velveteen. Ginnette looked at me suddenly and asked with some amazement, “You are?”

I told her that I didn’t mind helping to find Velveteen and didn’t think it would take long because I am a professional Investigator.

She repeated herself with the same amazement, “You are?”

This reaction I’m used to. I’m a grey-haired, dowdy Christian lady. Not exactly the Philip Marlowe or Thomas Magnum type and few people have heard of Miss Marple these days.

So after Ginnette glanced me over, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “You know, there’s really no need to go through all that trouble”.

I looked down at Sarah who was starting to get a bit of a panicked look in her eyes.

I looked back up at Ginnette and continued, “Oh, it’s really no bother. I’m sure it won’t take longer than a few minutes”.

All three of us had arrived in the foyer and Ginnette turned to me purposefully. She began to explain in a tone you would use on a rather stupid child, (probably a tone Sarah was used to), “You don’t seem to understand Miss, uh, May was it?“

“No. Mai is my first name. It’s actually Miss Breeze. Mai Breeze.“

“How charming” she responded condescendingly. Then she continued,

“What I mean is, Sarah loses that silly rabbit all the time.” (I heard Sarah mutter “Bunny. Not rabbit.”) while Ginnette proceeded in her bored tone,

“She loses it, complains and sulks for a couple days, then it either turns up again or I go buy her another one. They are only $5.00 at Harker’s Dry Goods down town. So you really needn’t bother.”

Then she dismissed the issue with a casual wave of her hand and I knew the topic was closed as far as she was concerned. But from the defeated look on Sarah’s face I knew it was far from closed for her.

I watched the two of them get into their jackets and then head for the door and the Minister with his out stretched hand. Just as Ginnette took the Reverend’s hand, I said rather loudly from where I stood planted, “You don’t mind if I keep looking, do you?”

Ginnette, Sarah and the Minister all quickly turned to me and stood frozen for a moment as I observed their reactions.

Ginnette finally shrugged her shoulders and said in a throw away fashion, “You can do as you wish.” And was about to saunter out the door with her daughter when I rushed over, grabbed Sarah’s hand and led her quickly downstairs as I called over my shoulder, “Good! I just need Sarah to help me for a few minutes downstairs. We’ll be right back.”

As soon as we got downstairs, we both instinctively looked up the stairwell to see if we were being followed.

Then Sarah turned to me and said in a excited whisper, “You’re going to help me. You’re really going to help me.”

“Yes. Of course, Dear. But your mother’s waiting so we have to be quick about this.”

And I immediately got to work doing my “Private Eye Thing”.

I had Sarah retrace her steps, as I interjected questions to clarify things and finally got her to give me a detailed description of the missing bunny. Just then her mother called her from the top of the stairs and I told her to go and not keep her mother waiting. Again that sad, defeated look took over her face.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep looking. And, I’m coming back for the evening service, so if I don’t find it now, I’ll find it then. She gave a big sigh and started to run up the stairs to her mother. After about 3 steps she stopped abruptly and turned back to look at me.

“She.” she said.

“I beg your pardon?“ I asked.

“ Velveteen is a ‘she’, not an ‘it’.”

“Oh." I replied, finally allowing myself a smile.

Sarah turned and hurried back up the stairs.

There were still a few people milling around the church basement, so I asked them about Sarah’s bunny, and poked around for a little while longer, but came up empty handed.
I must admit I didn’t look very hard at that time. I had the feeling that there was more going on underneath than merely a child’s missing toy. And also, I didn’t want to be found snooping around uninvited through a church I didn’t belong to and had never attended, in a town I had never visited. That’s how one can end up at the police station on the wrong side of the bars. I thought I would take the afternoon to think things through and come back for the evening service and decide what to do then.

About 20 minutes after Sarah had left with her mother, I wandered upstairs to leave. I was expecting to find the foyer deserted but was surprised to see the Minister of the church still standing at the door. He reminded me of the guards at Buckingham Palace. All he needed was a tall, black furry hat and red coat to make the image complete. If he was still waiting there to shake my hand, I figured he was one of the most dedicated and determined Pastors I had ever met.

I took a glance around the foyer to see if anyone else was there, but it was just him and me. As I walked over to the door he watched me, but didn’t say anything.

I decided to break the silence,

“If you’ve been standing here all this time just to shake my hand, I’m flattered.”

He didn’t respond at all to my little joke. He just held out his hand, I shook it, then he told me to have a nice afternoon, that he hoped to see me again soon and immediately shut the door behind me when I stepped outside.

I stood there on the steps of the church, blinking in the afternoon sunlight, as one thought repeated itself over and over in my head: “Weird. Weird. Weird.”

Every moment since entering that church had been a “weird” one, but I couldn’t exactly place my finger on what was wrong.  I suppose that’s what makes something “weird”.

I did know one thing for sure, wild horses couldn’t keep me from coming back. No matter how many wild horses they had.

LINK to Part # 3 "Second Service"





　

Copyright 2015 "The characters and events in this story are not meant to represent any persons living or dead and are entirely a product of the imagination of the writer." LR

CHURCH LADY P.I. Part #1 Sarah

CHURCH LADY P.I. - PART #1

Sarah

REMEMBER: This is a mystery and it must be read in order, including the  Introduction, then Part 1, Part 2, etc. due to the fact clues are everywhere. (L-L)

Drawing by me of Church Lady, PI. LLR

I should start by saying that as long as I can remember I have been attending church. In fact, my first memory is in a church. My big brother was being baptized and I got loose from my mother’s grasp and headed to join him for his “bath” in the baptismal water. So, it should come as no surprise that when I found that I had to travel to a small town for a few weeks on a personal errand, when Sunday rolled around, I found myself in the lobby of the nearest Bible-Believing Church.

The building was of a medium size and as I entered into the crowded lobby of mingling Christians, I was met by an Usher who welcomed me, handed me a bulletin and pointed me toward the door into the main sanctuary. As I arrived at that door, I was handed off to another Usher who asked if I would like to have help finding a seat. It was all very slick and extremely familiar to me. I’ve been in so many different churches in my tenure in the “Body of Christ” that I can instantly tell a church that has a good administrative team. All the staff were in their assigned places and knew their assigned duties. Very impressive indeed.

I knew that I would not be meeting the Minister at this time because this close to the “Main Event” (the church service) he and his team would have taken themselves away somewhere quiet and private to pray before they stepped in front of their congregation and guided them through the worship service.

I peeked into the Sanctuary and came to the conclusion that I could fit in a quick trip to the washroom to “powder my nose” and tidy my appearance and still have time to find a good seat before the service started.

I smiled and “Good Morning”-ed my way to the washroom where I took care of “business”, fixed my hair, pulled up my south-travelling pantie-hose and made sure I had extra Kleenex tissues on hand. (I’m not called “The Church Crier” without cause! It seems to be the one place I feel I can let my emotions out for a while. )

From inside the washroom I heard the congregation begin singing and knew that was my cue to get myself into a seat. I was hurrying out of the bathroom and up the stairs out of the basement, when I came across a little girl sitting on the bottom step with tears silently rolling down her cheeks. Since I had just made my tissues handy, I stopped to offer her some.

She took them from my hand and look up into my face with such a forlorn look that I just couldn't rush past. So I asked, "Do you mind if I just sit here next to you for a minute before going in with all those strangers?”

She nodded her consent, and we sat side by side on the bottom step in silence for a couple minutes.

Finally, I introduced myself and she told me her name was Sarah. I asked her why she was crying, which only brought forth a new flood of tears. Through her nose blowing, mumbling and crying, I was able to piece together why she was upset. She had lost her “best friend in the whole wide world.”, a stuffed bunny answering to the name, “Velveteen”.


I told her that I was a Private Investigator and “found things” for a living. She looked up at me with a look somewhere between hope and scepticism. Her sceptical look was what started sounding warning bells off in my head for the first time. It is a strange emotion to see in so young a child. But I continued to engage her trust by saying, “If you let me sit next to you during the Church service so I‘m not alone, then I will help you find your bunny after it’s over.”

A frown creased her forehead so I continued, “I’m pretty good at finding lost things. In fact, it’s what I’m best at.”

I was waiting for her look of acceptance but it still didn’t come. This was definitely no ordinary child or situation.

Finally she broke her silence and asked me, “How much?”

“How much what?” I asked her back.

“How much money do I have to give you for you to find Velveteen?”

She said it so business-like, as if she was negotiating a merger, that I had to actually fight my urge to chuckle. She was so innocent and sweet and small, but she was behaving like she should be sitting behind a big oak desk with a big cigar sticking out of her mouth. But I knew enough to wipe the "isn't-she-cute" look off my face. Often what we adults interpret as adorable, is deadly serious to a child and absolutely NO laughing matter from their point of view!

I told her that due to the serious nature of her problem, I would do it for free.

“I simply can’t stand to see best friends torn apart” was my explanation.

Once she led me to our seats near the back of a quite full Sanctuary, I asked her where the rest of her family was. She pointed at the lady sitting at the piano. The pianist was her mother and the only family she had.

It was a typical Church service. The worship music was lively, but the sermon was only mildly interesting. However, I must confess I might have found it slightly boring because my new tiny friend sitting next to me was taking up a great deal of my brain‘s attention. And of course, I’ve actually heard thousands of sermons in my lifetime and sometimes they can seem to blend into one another. As I look back in my mind, the only thing that stood out about that particular sermon was that a couple of Bible verses were misquoted. They were put on the screen for everyone to read, but the verses’ location in the Bible were inaccurate. I didn’t think much of it at the time and just chalked it up to human error.

But as the sermon continued, my mind wandered all around the room and around the facts. The deductive reasoning that makes me such a good Private Investigator, also caused my attention to switch to other things while in the sanctuary. I observed, made deductions and drew conclusions. It’s what I do. I could no more stop thinking that way than I could stop from burping after drinking a glass of Ginger ale.

The mistakes about the Bible on the over head screen brought me to the realization that, besides myself and four other people, nobody else sitting there that day had brought a Bible to church with them. And that is a very strange thing for a church that actually makes a point of advertising that they are a “Fundamentalist, Bible Orientated Church".

I also noticed there seemed to be a big difference in the way people had dressed for the service. A few peoples’ attire just screamed money, while the majority of the people there seemed to be dressed according to meagre means. The poorer families were clean and orderly in appearance, but a lot of their clothes didn’t seem to fit properly. As if they had been bought for someone else, or they had gotten them at the local Thrift Shop. But it wasn’t only that. According to their fashions, there didn’t seem to be anyone who fit into a middle class category. There were the poor and rich and nobody in-between. But I’ve never exactly been a “slave to fashion”, so I figured there might be another reason for this vast difference and I just hadn’t comprehended it.

But there is one thing I do know and that’s how to interpret human behavior. And because of that, I couldn’t keep my eyes from two men who were both fidgeting fiercely, even though they were sitting at opposite ends of the church. I actually found their constant movements quite distracting.

Then, as I continued to scan the members of the congregation, I caught sight of something sparkly out of the corner of my eye. There was a woman near to my right side who had several diamond rings on her fingers. In fact, they were on almost EVERY finger except for her thumbs. I immediately assumed they were cubic zirconium or rhinestones because if they had truly been diamonds she would have needed a body guard detail 24/7 just to watch over them.

With the final prayer said, the final hymn sung and the final doxology pronounced, the Minister dismissed us and raced toward the front door of the church to take up the usual “Ministers’ Position". This is something almost all reverends do in order to say “good-bye” to everyone leaving because they were unable to say “hello” to everyone arriving.

I took Sarah by the hand (or rather she took me) and we went up the aisle to see her mother who had been playing the piano during the service and was now gathering up her music.

I introduced myself and the young mother eyed me suspiciously before introducing herself back. From the expression on her face the thought rushed through my mind, “like mother; like daughter”. I felt I was seeing a younger and older version of the same suspicious nature. We shook hands and she said, “Nice to meet you. I’m Sarah’s mother, Ginnette. Has she been making a nuisance of herself with you?”

The way she said this statement irked me. Her tone seemed sweet, but she made sure to proclaimed her authority over Sarah by emphasizing the word, “mother” and then criticized her daughter by referring to her as a “nuisance“, all in less than 5 seconds. I had been in this church for only 90 minutes and already the strange occurrences were stacking up extremely fast. And the vibes were all wrong.

LINK to Next Part # 2 "Ginnette"






Copyright 2015 "The characters and events in this story are not meant to represent any persons living or dead and are entirely a product of the imagination of the writer." LR