Wicked Business (Lizzy and Diesel 2)

“There’s a bell-ringing room,” Glo said. “Upstairs somewhere.”

“I’m game,” Morty said. “Let’s ring some bells.”

I looked up at the balcony and beyond. “I hate to be the voice of reason, but I’m sure the bell-ringing room is in the bell tower. There’s going to be a long staircase up, and once we ring the bells, that staircase will be crawling with people coming to investigate.”

“I know you can bend a spoon,” Diesel said to Morty. “How are you with heavy metal? Can you get the bells to ring?”

“Not my gig,” Morty said. “I’m strictly a bender. You need someone who could throw a Volkswagen.”

The sounds of footsteps and conversation drifted out from the side of the church and the tour group emerged. The docent spotted Morty and gave a gasp of surprise. She left the group and walked over to us.

“Is he all right?” she asked.

“He’s fine,” I said. “He just needed his medication.”

“That was a fright,” she said. “I’m surprised to see you back here.”

“The truth is, we’re fascinated by the bells,” I said. “We were hoping there was a way we could hear them ring.”

“They rang during practice yesterday,” she said, “but they won’t ring again until Sunday.”

“We’ll be gone by then,” I told her. “Isn’t there some way we could hear them today?”

“You can hear them electronically. We have an interactive display in the gift shop, and you can also hear them online if you go to the bellringers’ website.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll try the gift shop.”

“So happy to hear you’re feeling better,” she said to Morty. And she returned to her group.

We left the church and walked next door to the gift shop. The interactive display was next to shelves of miniature bells, books about the bells, and CDs. The display on the touch screen showed eight bells and gave a description of each one. I touched bell number one and it played a bell tone. The tone for number two was slightly different. There were several people browsing in the store. No one looked our way.

Diesel took the bell out of his pack and held it in front of the display. “Play all eight of the bells,” he said to me.

I played the bells on the screen, and we watched Duane’s bell.

“Anybody see anything?” I asked.

Everyone shook their heads no.

Diesel made the bell clang. Still nothing.

I had Glo’s drawing with me. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it. “The bells aren’t numbered consecutively,” I said. “The number three bell gets played first.”

I played the bells according to the napkin, Diesel clanged Duane’s bell, and we all held our breath as words appeared on the bell. The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. The history often of Tichy persuades when pure innocence prevails.

Glo pulled a pen out of her tote bag, copied the message onto the back of a gift shop brochure, and gave it to me.

“That was weird,” Morty said.

Not so much, I thought. Weird was my new normal.

CHAPTER TWELVE

We met Morty’s son in a South End parking lot and handed Morty over. The son seemed nice enough and genuinely relieved to have his dad back.

“No more stealing,” Diesel said to Morty.

“Hah,” Morty said. “You should talk about stealing.”