e9c12ac8d703d9a536f23183edf8b22c

Marge immediately snatched it away from him and put it back.“Save your appetite, honey,” she said. “Dinner is on the stove.”

“So Dick really came through, huh?” asked Vesta.

“I’ll say he did.” He touched the top of his head. “I can almost feel the follicles producing new hairs as we speak. Who knew mayonnaise could do all that? It’s amazing.”

“Oh, Tex, you’re a doctor,” said his wife, who clearly felt she could no longer keep her tongue. “I can’t believe you would fall for such, such—such awful quackery!”

“It’s not quackery if it works,” Tex pointed out.

“You keep rubbing that mayo if it makes you feel good, Tex,” said Vesta. “No harm, no foul. Now in other news, I heard through the grapevine that Francis Reilly is thinking about retiring. Is it true?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” said Tex with a shrug, but then of course Tex never did hear anything. The man lived in his own world most of the time—a world of medicine, garden gnomes and, since today, mayonnaise.

“Marge?”

“All I know is that Marigold came into the library a couple of days ago, wanting to have a chat.”

“A chat? What about?”

“Well, turns out she’s sick and tired of Francis neglecting to take his responsibility, as she called it. So she gave him an ultimatum: either he retires and marries her and officially recognizes Angel as his daughter, or she’s leaving him.”

“Oh, my,” said Vesta. She took a seat at the kitchen table and smoothed the floral-pattern chintz covering, removing a few crumbs as she did.

“Yeah, so I asked if she thought she was getting through to him, and she said she didn’t know. That Francis had made her plenty of promises over the years, but this time she was prepared to go to the limit.”

“So she was actually thinking of leaving him?”

“That’s what she said. And she looked like she meant it.”

“Who’s leaving whom?” asked Tex, who’d surreptitiously opened the fridge again and was now sneaking out the same piece of Gouda, which was a particular favorite of his.

“Marigold is leaving Francis,” said Marge. “If he doesn’t retire and marry her.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I like Francis. He’s the best priest we’ve had in years.”

“He’s the only priest we’ve had in years,” Vesta pointed out. “And the only priest you’ve ever known, Tex.”

“I’ll certainly miss him,” said Marge.

“Me, too,” said Tex.

“Oh, nonsense,” said Vesta. “When do you ever go to church?”

“Well, on Christmas,” said Tex, “and, um…”

“Exactly. So don’t give me that crap that you’ll miss him. Besides, change is good. Lately Francis’s sermons have been very dreary. A young priest might bring zip into this parish, and make people start going to church again.”

“Well, let’s certainly hope so,” said Marge. “And let’s hope that people won’t be too upset when Francis reveals he’s going to marry his longtime housekeeper, and recognize her daughter as his.”

“Nobody will be shocked, because everybody already knows. And now I have about a hundred gallons of mayonnaise to clean up, cause I want to take that shower.” She pointed to her son-in-law. “And you better help me clean them up, buddy boy. Or else I’ll sneak into your room tonight and personally yank those precious new hairs out of your skull.”

Marge had to suppress a smile at this, but Tex did as he was told, and moments later they were cleaning the bathtub together.

“Do you really think this cure will make a difference, Vesta?” asked Tex as he washed the last remnants of mayonnaise down the drain.

“Oh, absolutely. You just keep rubbing that mayo, and a couple of days from now you’ll wake up with hair like Jason Momoa. Big bushy curly head of beautiful hair.”

The smile he gave her was a sight to behold. Like a kid on Christmas morning!

23

“Why didn’t you make him confess?!” I asked once we were out of the rectory and on our way back to the car. “You just had to play good cop, bad cop and you would have had him!”

“Confess what, Max?” asked Odelia.

“That he accidentally killed Angel, of course.” When she gave me an odd look, I continued, “Don’t you see? They had an argument—he told you so himself. Only things got out of hand and there was some pushing and shoving, and she accidentally hit her head and died, and now she’s probably buried in those woods somewhere.”

“What is he saying?” asked Chase as we all piled into the car.

“He believes that Father Reilly accidentally killed Angel. That when they had that fight yesterday he gave her a push and she hit her head and died.”

“Yeah, but she went out with her friends last night, so that scenario can’t have played out the way Max thinks,” Chase pointed out.

“Okay,” I said after a moment’s thought, “so after the party she decided she had more things to say. So she dropped by the rectory again and got Francis out of bed. She was drunk and belligerent and looking to lay into him some more. Only this time the fight was even worse, since she was inebriated and unrestrained, and she probably called him all kinds of names, and so Francis finally lost his temper and that’s when it happened.”