An Unspeakable Mission (Olympia Brown Mysteries) Read online

  Praise for the

  Olympia Brown Mysteries

  “An Unspeakable Mission is an engaging and thought-provoking story of two dedicated and impassioned clerics struggling to find the truth when secrets and silence are the expected norms. And when 21st century religion gets involved with religious and cultural expectations of the past, the story doesn't always turn out as expected. I kept turning the pages to see what would happen next.”

  —Rev. Keith Kron, Director of the Transitions Office for the Unitarian Universalist Association

  “Judith Campbell does a superb job in the follow-up to her suspense/thriller, A Deadly Mission, as Olympia Brown is once again tangled up in the personal life of one of her students, an ugly secret too horrible to speak of, and a death that looks suspiciously like murder!”

  —Brenda Scott, Manchester Contemporary Literary Examiner, Examiner.com

  “Rev. Judith Campbell has done it again in An Unspeakable Mission, her second in the Olympia Brown mystery series. Using her experience as an ordained minister as well as a writer, Judith deftly weaves a compelling mystery about the death of an abusive alcoholic in a suspicious house fire, with the horrific subjects of incest and domestic violence. …a perfect balance between building suspense and giving voice to victims who can't speak for themselves, proving in the process that what often seems obvious ... isn't.”

  —Dawn Braash, avid reader and owner of Bunch of Grapes, the flagship bookstore of Martha's Vineyard where authors and readers find everything they are looking for.

  “There's method to the Machiavellian madness in A Deadly Mission, a fast-moving story of religious cults, college bureaucracy, and yes, murder. Author Judith Campbell accomplished her intention of making specific points about tolerance, the verities of academic life, and most pointedly, about the dangers of religious cults.”

  —C.K. Wolfson, Martha's Vineyard Times

  “Campbell feels strongly about the sanctity of the religious profession. … [A Deadly Mission] addresses the sensitive issues of religious hypocrisy, stereotypes and [religious] cults.”

  —Caroline Hughes, Cape Code Times

  “Having given herself a playful literary nickname, ‘The Sinister Minister,’ Campbell considers the mysteries to be ‘part and parcel’ of her ministry. Her plots expose religious hypocrisy and explode cultural stereotypes. While writing may offer her a literary pulpit, Campbell's stories are more than simple polemics. … fast paced, unpredictable, and suspense filled.”

  —Bonnie Jernigan, “Women in Transition,” South Shore Living

  An Unspeakable Mission

  An Olympia Brown Mystery

  by

  Judith Campbell

  Mainly Murder Press

  Wethersfield, CT

  An Unspeakable Mission

  Copyright © 2011 by Judith Campbell

  eBook ISBN 978-0-9827952-8-6

  Published in the United States of America

  Mainly Murder Press

  PO Box 290586

  Wethersfield, CT 06109-0586

  www.mainlymurderpress.com

  All rights reserved

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Mainly Murder Press

  Editor: Judith K. Ivie

  Cover Designer: Karen A. Phillips

  Author Photo by Alison Caron

  Digital Editions produced by BookNook.biz. Contact us: [email protected]

  eBook design by Rickhardt Capidamonte

  Acknowledgements

  The list could be endless, and if I keep writing enough books, I might have enough space to acknowledge you all; but for this time, I'd like to thank my colleagues and cohorts at Mainly Murder Press. (You know who you are!) I'm honored to be in such good and supportive company.

  I'd like to thank my clergy friends who honor and share my journey: Arlene Bodge, Rob Hensley, Keith Kron, Dan King, Tess Baumberger, Dick Fewkes, Ann Fox, Ken Read-Brown, Greta MacRae, and Michael Dadson from the U.K., Reverends all, irreverent when necessary, and people who minister unto me when this minister needs it. And thanks to Kay and Chuchie, the grammar grandmas who just won't quit.

  Thanks also to Ian and Liz, Leah and Anna, Colin and Laura, Melissa, Spencer, and Erica—family extraordinaire—and finally to Louise Rogers, a very special English Unitarian and BFF.

  My grateful thanks,

  Judith Campbell

  The Sinister Minister

  Dedication

  To the members of my writing groups here and in the U.K. and to my growing numbers of readers: you keep me motivated, and you keep me honest. To Chris, my professional Englishman: you keep me aggravated, and you keep me laughing in no specific rank or order. Thank you, all of you, for giving me what I need to keep on writing. This one's for you.

  An Unspeakable Mission

  Before the Fire

  One

  Terry O’Mara snapped back the handle of the aluminum ice tray and dumped the contents into the sink. He dropped three cubes into a cut glass tumbler, shook them down, and opened the cupboard where he kept the whiskey. The ice crackled as the pungent amber liquor swirled around them. Terry took a long swallow and topped up the glass before going into the living room to read the Sunday paper, smoke a couple of cigarettes, and find a game to watch on television. It was early for him to be home. He usually went to the eleven o'clock mass, but too many of his friends went to that one, and they might ask questions.

  Much as he hated that stupid bitch Margaret, she was his wife, and she should be home making Easter dinner. When that nosy Polack priest at St. Bartholomew's asked where she was, he said she'd gone to tend an ailing sister in upstate New York, but in truth, Terry had no idea where she was.

  After the second drink, Terry was out of cigarettes. He stumbled on his way back out to the kitchen to get another pack and refresh his drink. This time he carried the bottle back with him and set it on the floor beside his chair.

  By one in the afternoon Terry was sprawled and snoring in a drunken stupor, oblivious to the hockey players careening across the TV screen and equally oblivious to the thin finger of smoke curling up from the edge of the carpet and snaking toward the pages of the newspaper scattered around his feet.

  Two

  * * *

  Tuesday, January 31, 1860.

  Where to begin? At the end of last year, I was looking toward a new decade and wondering how my life might unfold. As a single woman possessed of a house, some land, and a modest inheritance from my father, I am beholden to no one. Teaching is the obvious choice, but I don't want the obvious. I am determined not to marry, because my holdings will by law become the property of my husband. To tell the truth, which I can only do in the privacy of these pages, I am considering entering the ministry. It will be no small task to convince the board of governors at Harvard to admit a woman to their hallowed halls. However, I have money enough to support a seminary education, and I am determined that I shall do it.

  I do not care to divulge my intentions to the members of my own church lest they attempt to discourage me. I shall approach the minister in the nearby town of Kingston and beg his advice and counsel. I have had opportunity to speak with him on more than one occa
sion, and he has impressed me most favorably with his sharp intelligence and gentle wit.

  More anon, LFW

  * * *

  The Reverend Doctor Olympia Brown closed the small brown, leather-bound volume and placed it on the table beside her. It had been a long day, and she was ready for a glass of wine.

  The six o'clock news was rattling on across the room, providing human sounds in the big empty house. Her gentleman friend, Frederick Watson, was back in England tending to family matters, and Miss Winslow, the resident house-ghost, had been conspicuously inconspicuous since the beginning of the New Year. Miss Leanna Faith Winslow was a Mayflower descendent and author of the diary Olympia had just set to one side. She was also a spectral busybody who never hesitated in expressing her opinions.

  Easter Sunday is a long day for ministers. Olympia was glad to be home at the end of it with nothing more to do than relax in baggy jeans and a beat-up sweatshirt, feed the cats and drink a glass of wine. When she was finished with all of that, she would think about her letter of resignation from Meriwether College.

  Alone in her spacious kitchen, she took an immoderate swallow of the vin de la semaine, a cool pale Chardonnay, and reluctantly poked the blinking playback button on the answering machine. Might as well get everything out of the way so I can totally relax.

  The first message was from Frederick, saying he was counting the days until he'd be on a plane heading back and checking to see if she had received the flowers. Olympia smiled and raised her glass in the direction of the arrangement of pale pink roses and yellow star lilies on the kitchen table.

  The second message was from her best friend and chaplain colleague, Father Jim Sawicki. He sounded distracted and out of breath and said to call him at the rectory the minute she got in. She looked up at the clock on the wall, shook her head, and walked into the sitting room. Surely a few minutes one way or the other isn't going to make a difference. But as Olympia started to ease back in her chair and reach for the old diary, a news flash on the television stayed her hand.

  “We have more on that tragic house fire on Barrett Street in Dorchester.”

  The bright-eyed TV street reporter was standing in front of a partially burned building, holding a microphone close to her beautifully made-up face.

  Olympia set down her glass and tucked a wisp of gray hair behind her ear.

  “Fire officials have now confirmed that the victim, a middle-aged male, was alone when the fire started. Police and the local priest are talking with neighbors, trying to locate the family. The arson squad is still on the scene and could be making a preliminary report as early as tomorrow, but as of right now, the fire is considered to be suspicious.”

  Olympia leaned forward and turned up the volume, straining to take in every word. Earlier in the semester she had befriended a freshman who lived on Barrett Street in Dorchester. Bridget Mary O’Mara had been date-raped and had come to Olympia for help. If the dead man was who she feared it might be, she knew exactly where to find the rest of the family and why Father Jim was so anxious that she call him. Barrett Street was in Father Jim's parish, and the O’Maras were a deeply troubled family residing there.

  Olympia turned her attention back to the TV screen.

  “The name of the deceased will not be released until we have a positive identification and authorities have located the next of kin. We'll bring you any further developments as we receive them.”

  The newscaster nodded and changed expressions. “And now, back to our studio and Roger St. John with tomorrow's weather. Roger, what are we in for?”

  “Partly cloudy, Karen, with possible showers in the after …”

  Olympia cursed under her breath as she clicked through the channels, frantically trying to catch more information on another station, but every single one of them had moved on to Sunday night sports. She muted the sound and sat staring at the flickering screen, trying to collect her gyrating thoughts. It had to be the O’Maras, but how had it come to this? What had she and Jim missed?

  At the time of the rape, the distraught student insisted that Olympia tell no one what happened. But in the weeks that followed, as the girl's desperate and convoluted story unfolded, Olympia came to understand that not only Bridget, but the girl's mother and sister, were living in a horrific situation. But not this.

  She knew then that the promise she had made to the Irish Catholic girl from Dorchester, and everything that she believed in as a minister and a mother, were going to be put to the test.

  Olympia shook her head in disbelief and pushed away the unfinished wine. She reached for the phone beside her chair and tapped in a familiar number.

  “St. Bartholomew's Rectory,” said a woman's voice.

  “Is Father Jim available? This is Rev. Olympia Brown speaking. I'm returning his call.”

  “Father Jim is out, Reverend Brown. There's been a terrible fire in the parish; the police have just been here; he's trying to locate the family. I'll have him call you when he gets back. What's the number?”

  “He has it,” said Olympia. “This wouldn't be the O’Mara family, would it?”

  “You know them?”

  “I do,” said Olympia.

  “Mother of God.”

  Olympia could hear the intake of a long, ragged breath. “Such a nice family, everybody loved them. Poor Margaret, that's the mother, and the two girls. It's a miracle they weren't home. Oh, sweet Jesus, I wasn't supposed to say that, it's just …”

  “Don't worry,” said Olympia, “I won't say anything. If you could just have Father Jim …”

  “I'll tell him.”

  Olympia was cut off as the woman on the other end of the line sobbed aloud and hung up the phone.

  Olympia squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples and then dialed a second number. After five rings she listened to a perky voice message telling her that Bridget and Susie were out and to please leave a message at the sound of the beep. But Bridget told me she'd be staying at the dorm this weekend.

  Now she understood why Jim was so anxious that she call him. Olympia looked down at her watch and prayed there would be enough time to reach Margaret and her daughters before the police did.

  Sitting alone in the empty house with nothing to do but wait for the call, Olympia heard a noise coming from the old clock across the room. The cats heard it, too. In tandem, they flattened their ears, and the fur on their backs began to lift into a sharp ridge along their arched backs. All three stared at the clock as the gold filigreed hands inched into the nine o'clock position.

  Last year she had found both the clock and the diary she'd just been reading in a secret “parson's cupboard” concealed in the wall next to the fireplace. The clock had never worked; but when the late Leanna Faith Winslow, author of the diary on the table beside her and resident house-ghost extraordinaire, was trying to get her attention, she often did it using the clock. What is she trying to tell me? Is it something to do with the fire or Jim?

  She tried to laugh at the absurdity of having a nosy house-ghost interfering with her personal and professional life, but at the moment laughing was not an option. If her growing suspicions were correct, and Bridget's father, Terrence O’Mara, was the victim of arson and his wife and daughters could not be found, this was serious, deadly serious.

  Olympia slumped back in her chair and recalled the day when Bridget Mary O’Mara, one of her freshmen at Meriwether College for Women, had crept into her office looking like a wounded animal.

  Three Weeks before the Fire

  Three

  Olympia had come into work early and was glowering at the shiny new computer on the desk in front of her. Thus far, she had managed to avoid the rapidly accelerating electro-techno-revolution, but with the turn of the new century there was no escape. She was trapped in a pre-menopausal time warp between nanoseconds and gigabytes.

  Last Christmas, her two sons, Malcolm and Randall, had pooled their meager resources and bought her a cell phone. Then they insisted that she make
the first call with them both in attendance. On the heels of that indignity, the Dean at Meriwether College decreed that as of January first of the new millennium, all record keeping and communications would henceforth be electronic.

  “Shit!” said the Reverend, Doctor, Professor Olympia Brown, but by late March, she was making progress and beginning to see the benefits of Cut, Paste, Copy To, and the most convenient of all commands, Delete. It was clear she would need a home computer in the not too distant future, but for now she would learn and make her mistakes on this one.

  She had locked the door so she could hunt and peck without interruption. Olympia had two momentous and potentially life-changing letters to write that morning. One was the first draft of her letter of resignation from the position of Professor of Humanities and College Chaplain, and the other was to the daughter she had given up for adoption thirty-four years ago when she was seventeen years old, terrified, and with no other options. Or so insisted her mother.

  She had given permission to be contacted the previous July but had no response until the past Christmas when she received a form letter from the Massachusetts Department of Records informing her that her daughter had been in contact and asked to review the file. That was a little over three months ago.