All Things

  all things

  a Rev. Alma Lee Mystery

  (book 1)

  by Amber Belldene

  Copyright © 2018 Amber Belldene

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9972211-6-9

  All things bright and beautiful,

  All creatures great and small,

  All things wise and wonderful:

  The Lord God made them all.

  - an English hymn by Cecil F. Alexander, 1848

  Chapter One

  It started at The Carlos Club, San Francisco’s one and only lesbian bar. That’s me over there in the corner—the Reverend Alma Lee, vicar, agitator, despiser of 90’s dance music—slamming my hip into the jukebox with all my weight behind it.

  “Everybody Dance Now” died its last thump of bass. Thank you, Jesus. Cheers and applause broke out in the crowded bar. I raised my hand to acknowledge the approval, then dropped two quarters in the slot and selected K-249. The coins clinked inside the machine, and the song began to play. Johnny Cash, “Ring of Fire.”

  I blew out a breath. Much more fitting for the solemn occasion—the death of a landmark, an icon—the closing party for the city’s one and only dyke bar.

  I stroked my hand over the flickering orange and red lights of the machine. Cindy had sold it on Craig's List for $400 to someone who'd agreed to pick it up tomorrow—before the landlord arrived to haul away whatever she’d left and sell it himself.

  At the end of the long, narrow room, Cindy waved her thick, tattooed arms at me. What now?

  For years, I’d coached my friend on how to keep her bar in the black. Craft cocktails, a fresh coat of paint, no more cracked vinyl booths—she had to cater to the gentrifying neighborhood. But Cindy considered changing anything about the dive selling out. Which meant when the landlord hiked up her rent, the price of her authenticity was eviction.

  “Alma, hey! Looking good.” Chelle, a regular at the dive, pushed between two clusters of women to reach me. She had the build of one of Wonder Woman's Amazon sisters. From my barely five feet, I had to look up miles to see her face. Along the way, I admired her tight white tank top, which showed off her flawless dark skin and featured a sequined rainbow with a unicorn beneath it.

  “Nice shirt.”

  “Thanks.” She bent to kiss my cheek. “Great party.”

  “What can I say?” I raised my voice to be heard over Johnny Cash and a hundred women drowning their sorrows in $2 well drinks. “I know how to throw a wake.”

  Chelle chuckled hoarsely. “I guess you would, the high priestess of Mission Street.”

  I’d landed the nickname when I helped organize a rally to defend a medical marijuana dispensary from losing its lease to a national bank branch. We’d won that battle, and I kind of liked the alias… As long as my bishop didn’t hear of it.

  Someone drew Chelle away. Behind her, leaning against the bar, a brunette beauty I’d never seen bobbed her head to “Ring of Fire” and drank something out of a highball glass through a straw. God, what a mouth—so wide, such red lips.

  She wore glasses with a slight horn-rim shape. From behind the lenses, she spotted me and held my stare.

  I raised my chin. She drew the straw from between her lips and smiled at me.

  Score.

  I bee lined for her.

  Cindy leapt out, her matronly bosom heaving in her purple tank top, damp with sweat. “Thank God, there you are.”

  Damn.

  I clenched my teeth. “Here I am.”

  “We’ve got a big problem.”

  I glanced over at Ms. Drinks-cocktails-with-straws. A chick with a salt-and-pepper buzz cut was chatting her up.

  I contained my sigh.

  Cindy and I’d been friends since high school, closer some years than others. After her landlord had taped an eviction notice to the door ninety days ago, she’d barely been able to pee without me holding her hand, which was frankly closer than I preferred. We’d organized rallies, press conferences, and fundraisers, but none of it was enough to keep her lease because she had the business sense of the houseplant drooping in her office.

  “What happened?”

  She combed her fingers through her purple bob, sweaty at the roots. “Somebody called the cops, and we’re way over the occupancy limit.”

  I glanced at the door. Two officers in blue stood just inside.

  “Right.” With one last winsome glance at my brunette, I veered in the opposite direction. Cindy only needed my help one more night.

  Six feet away, I saw one of the cops was Mario and faltered as if an invisible rubber band was pulling me back toward the sexy stranger. I took a deep breath and pushed through the resistance.

  “Hey, Mario.”

  At twenty-seven, the kid still had a round-cheeked baby face. He smiled, his brown eyes creasing. “Alma. Long time.”

  Thirteen months and eleven days since the night his big brother Cesar had dumped me at their mama’s fiftieth birthday party. But who was counting?

  “Hey, good to see you.” I shook his hand. “What are you doing here?”

  Mario’s trim, blond partner scanned the crowd, blue eyes bright with curiosity. But Mario surveyed me, probably looking for details to report to his brother. “Dispatch said somebody upstairs complained about the noise.”

  I glanced at the ceiling. I’d personally invited the tenants of both the Victorian’s flats, and I’d seen them all at the party.

  “As a matter of fact, everyone who lives upstairs is here. I'm guessing the landlord phoned in a complaint just to be a pill. This is the closing party, and he’s been harassing Cindy for months. The noise isn’t bothering him. He lives across town. We’re not even being that loud.”

  The Maximum Occupancy 88 sign hung on the wall right behind Mario’s head. Please don’t look.

  Mario scanned the room over my shoulder, the doughy features of his face not as stern as he meant them to be. His partner watched me through narrowed eyes, trying to figure out why Mario was giving me an inch.

  Finally, he shrugged. “All right. But keep it quiet, okay? And wrap things up on time.”

  I grinned. “You got it. I owe you one.”

  “Nah.” He waved his hand in the air, turning and calling over his shoulder. “We look out for each other.”

  Blondie tipped her head toward him as they walked out. I could practically hear him telling her, That’s my brother’s lesbian ex-girlfriend.

  The woman scratched her scalp beneath her tight ponytail.

  Yeah, honey. Cesar and me make me scratch my head too, but that’s all over now.

  I spun to look for my brunette. There she was, still at the bar, talking to a guy with a mop of thick curls.

  Please, Jesus, let him be her friend.

  As if she could feel me stare, she looked straight at me, then away with a coy smile.

  My heart pitter-pattered a quick beat. This would be fun.

  A microphone crackled. Cindy had climbed up to stand on the bar. She hadn’t bothered to dress for a special occasion, but wore her usual ratty jeans and Chucks, her prematurely gray hair died the same lavender as her tank top. “I want to thank everyone for coming tonight. It’s been a hell of a ride all these years.”

  People straightened and turned, whooping and cheering. Even as a half-pint, it was tricky to move between them unobtrusively when they stood still and facing her. I stopped next to the jukebox—I didn’t want her to notice me skulking my way to the brunette instead of listening, like that one distracting person glued to his phone screen during my sermon.

  Cindy called out names and thanked people who’d helped our campaign. She glowed, looking more like herself than she had in months. I blew out a breath. It was finally over, and she could move on.

>   Rubbing her palms together, she swayed atop the bar. How many rum and diet cokes had she drunk?

  She waved her arm over the crowd, the way I moved mine over bread and wine on Sunday mornings. “Seeing you all, I’ve been thinking I gave up too soon.”

  I froze. No, no, no. It wasn’t too soon. Not unless she planned to make major changes to her business model, tend bar and clean the bathrooms herself. And she had so much debt—

  “Hell, no, we won’t go.” The chant erupted from behind me.

  I covered my eyes with my palm. This was not the farewell speech we’d discussed.

  I shook my head, trying to get Cindy’s attention.

  She noticed and beamed at me. “And now I’d like to call up Alma Lee, who’s been busting her ass to save this place. Tell us what we do next, Alma. How do we keep the fight going?”

  “Alma!” People called my name, whistled loudly.

  Crap. With a tug, Cindy pulled me up onto the bar.

  The room grew silent, awaiting my instructions. I looked down at the crowd. How could I get this back under control without saying that the death of The Carlos Club was as much Cindy’s fault as it was a greedy landlord’s?

  Gripping the mic with both hands, I began. “I won’t lie. It sucks that we didn’t win this one. It sucks that after a long day, I won’t be able to take off my collar and skip across the street for a night cap.”

  “Leave on the collar, baby. It’s hot.”

  “Don’t be creepy, Pam. I’m not your fetish.” I wagged my finger. A riot of laughter gave me another few seconds to think.

  “This city is changing too damn fast. But it’s still our city. We won’t let anybody take it away from us. We’ll gather in the parks and on the street. We’ll hang out with our brothers at the Hawk. We’ll make new safe places. And you’re always welcome at St. Giles’.”

  “Morning Prayer every day at 8:30 a.m. Sunday services at 9,” my parishioner Tish called out. I saluted her.

  “Tonight, we say goodbye to The Carlos Club, but that isn’t the end of our story. Tomorrow is a new day, and it’s whatever we want to make it.”

  The crowd of slightly drunk women cheered. My preaching professor would have critiqued my pseudo-inspirational vagaries, but the audience at my feet didn’t seem to mind.

  Cindy blinked at me. She’d figure it out eventually. I gave her arm a quick squeeze and scanned the crowd for my brunette.

  Were those her shiny dark waves swishing their way towards the back patio? I vaulted off the bar and gave chase.

  The patio housed a few smokers and a pair of idle gas heaters. Cindy couldn’t afford to fill the propane tanks.

  My girl sat at a picnic table, her face lit up by the screen of her phone. Up close, she was a portrait of beautiful particulars: a thin scar bisected her right eyebrow and made its white way half an inch up her ivory forehead. Her ear was a pretty little spiral shell.

  “Hi.”

  She glanced up and smiled. A narrow gap divided her front teeth, and a fleck of her red lipstick clung to one. “Hi.”

  My mouth went dry.

  “Alma, right?” she asked.

  She remembered! Still, I played it cool, like I wasn’t doing an internal victory dance. “Yeah, that's right.”

  “Nice speech.”

  I raised a shoulder. “It was kind of lame.”

  “Sometimes lame is all they need.”

  “True.” One of my buddies from seminary might offer the same advice, which begged a question. “Do you do a lot of public speaking?”

  “You could say that.”

  Okay. So pillow lips was a bit cryptic. It suited her coy half-smile.

  She fingered a pendent on a silver chain. “I’m Naomi.” She dropped her pendant down the front of her blouse and extended her long, fair arm. Somehow, the gesture put distance between us, even as I slid my hot palm against her long, cool fingertips.

  “Alma.”

  She squeezed back. “Yeah, I know.”

  Wow, Alma, where is your game tonight? I grinned, refusing to flinch or otherwise show she’d flustered me.

  “How come I haven’t seen you here before?”

  “I’m new in town. Moved from the East Coast for a job last month, which might just make me one of the loathsome yuppies everybody in there is badmouthing.”

  I hoisted myself up on the picnic table, sitting above her seat on the bench at a right angle that hopefully downplayed my interest.

  “Believe me, there’s more to the story of the decline of The Carlos Club than merely gentrification.”

  “There’s a million versions of every story, aren’t there?” She stood, putting herself at my eye level.

  Was she going to leave already? Quick, ask a question to keep her here.

  “Do you work in tech?” Most of the yuppies did.

  “Nope.” Again, she fiddled with her pendant. “But I like this game.” She caught her lower lip under the tooth with the lipstick on it and narrowed her eyes. “You work at a church across the street, and you wear a collar. Giles isn’t a likely name for a Lutheran parish or some other protestant denomination. So that makes you… an Episcopal priest?”

  I pulled my gaze off that kissable mouth to see her brown eyes up close behind her glasses. “Wow, I’m impressed, Sherlock.”

  She winked. “Elementary, my dear Alma.”

  A funny feeling stirred in my belly, one I hadn’t felt in at least thirteen months and eleven days. “Maybe I could show you around town, help you get to know your new home?”

  “Maybe you could.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “What do you like to do in your free time?”

  “The usual stuff.” She ran her hand through her hair, dislodging the lock she'd just tucked.

  She wore a thick silver bracelet engraved with words. I lifted her hand, gently twisting her wrist so I could read the text. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.

  “That’s from the Song of Songs.”

  “Is it?” The pitch of her voice rose with sarcasm.

  I held up my palms. “No need to prickle. People quote the Bible all the time, thinking it’s Shakespeare or Martin Luther King.”

  She laughed from her belly as she withdrew her hand. “True.”

  “Did you move here to put the winter behind you?”

  She met my gaze, her irises flickering with deliberation. “That’s a long story. I’ll tell you another time.”

  “Promise?”

  “I don’t make promises to strangers.”

  “We aren’t strangers. You know everything about me.”

  “Hardly.” She laughed again. Hopefully she liked funny girls.

  “So tell me something about you.” I reached for her waist, and she let me draw her closer.

  “Hm. Well, my favorite flavor of ice cream is salted caramel.”

  “Mine too! Clearly we have a lot in common.” For obvious reasons, I left out the part about how I only ate soy or coconut frozen desserts. I'd learned it was wiser to save the I'm-a-vegan reveal for second dates.

  She poked my sternum. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “Nope. Just you."

  “Really?” She quirked a brow up over the frame of her glasses.

  I pulled her closer. “Can I kiss you?”

  A faint blush bloomed on Naomi’s cheekbones. “Okay. But just once.”

  With her lips millimeters from mine, shouting reached me from inside the bar. I ignored it.

  She stiffened under my hands and pulled away. “That’s my brother’s voice.”

  Reluctantly, I recognized the second shouter—Cindy. Irritation and duty warred in me. Responsibility won. “It sounds like they’re in the office. It’s this way.”

  I hadn’t needed to say it. She already had her hand on the door, just inside the back hallway, rank with the smell of stale beer and urine. I reached her as she swung it open, revealing the man with a pile of curls who’d been with her at
the bar. He stood nose to nose with Cindy, as close as I’d been to Naomi seconds earlier. Only, their fists were curled and their voices raised.

  “If you don’t close down tonight, I’ll have the cops here first thing tomorrow.”

  “Just you try. Alma knows them all—they’re on our side.” She waved at me as if she’d known I’d appear precisely at the crucial moment in her argument.

  I stepped forward. “Well, I wouldn’t say they’re on—”

  “I put everything into my plans for this place.” Red-faced, the man spun away from Cindy, flinging his fists down, his arms rigid at his sides.

  Naomi got hold of his wrist. “David, calm down. This isn’t the way to solve problems.”

  His voice cracked. “If my lease on this place falls through, I’ll lose everything.”

  “I know it feels that way.” She squeezed his shoulder. “But you’ll find another space.”

  He shook his head, deflated, the color draining from his face. “You don’t understand. This is everything…”

  Cindy rolled her eyes. “Will you two get the hell out of my office? I need to talk to Alma about our plans.”

  Naomi tugged her brother toward the door. I stepped aside at the threshold to let them through. She met my gaze and pulled a tight smile.

  “Can I call you?” I whispered.

  She jerked her head to the side. “Not a good idea. It was nice to meet you, though.”

  With a hand on the doorframe, I watched her lead her brother down the smelly hallway.

  A thud behind me made me turn. Cindy had dropped into her derelict desk chair, which somehow remained upright at a slant of at least nine degrees.

  She glowered at me. “Sleeping with the enemy?”

  If only…

  She rummaged on her untidy desk. “So, tell me if you think this will work. We go out there and ask the girls to show up bright and early tomorrow…” She found a semi-blank cocktail napkin and an ink pen, holding them up triumphantly.

  Right there, we already had a flaw in her plan. Ask a bar full of drunken women to come back first thing in the morning? This was Cindy’s problem, not an ounce of pragmatism in that purple head of hers.

  “Cin—”