REVEREND RANDOLLPH AND THE AVENGING ANGEL: A crime novel

By Charles M. Smith

The biggest society wedding of the year is scheduled for Chicago’s prestigious Church of the Good Shepherd. The famous bride is movie star Lisa Julian; the groom, a prominent physician. The minister is none other than the Reverend ‘Con’ Randollph, former Rams’ quarterback, esteemed Episcopal priest—and amateur detective.

The lavish marriage ceremony will be the Reverend’s first formal wedding. But the groom isn’t the first lover in the beautiful Lisa’s colorful life. A whole list of jilted suitors have said yes to the glided wedding invitation’s RSVP... and now someone intends to make sure that ‘Till Death do us part’ comes just after the last whispered ‘I do’...

 

»Reverend Randollph capers are fast-paced and fun.«

~Chicago Sun-Times

 

Reverend Randollph And The Avenging Angel by Charles M. Smith (* 1919; † 1986) was first published in 1980; Apex is publishing a new edition of this classic of crime literature in its ENGLISH CRIME NOVELS series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Oct 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9783755422693

Book preview

CHARLES M. SMITH

REVEREND RANDOLLPH

AND THE

AVENGING ANGEL

A Novel

Apex-Verlag

Content

The Book

REVEREND RANDOLLPH AND THE AVENGING ANGEL

Chapter One 

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

The Book

The biggest society wedding of the year is scheduled for Chicago’s prestigious Church of the Good Shepherd. The famous bride is movie star Lisa Julian; the groom, a prominent physician. The minister is none other than the Reverend ‘Con’ Randollph, former Rams’ quarterback, esteemed Episcopal priest—and amateur detective.

The lavish marriage ceremony will be the Reverend’s first formal wedding. But the groom isn’t the first lover in the beautiful Lisa’s colorful life. A whole list of jilted suitors have said yes to the glided wedding invitation’s RSVP... and now someone intends to make sure that ‘Till Death do us part’ comes just after the last whispered ‘I do’...

»Reverend Randollph capers are fast-paced and fun.«

~Chicago Sun-Times

Reverend Randollph And The Avenging Angel by Charles M. Smith (* 1919; † 1986) was first published in 1980; Apex is publishing a new edition of this classic of crime literature in its ENGLISH CRIME NOVELS series.

REVEREND RANDOLLPH AND THE AVENGING ANGEL

This is for Harriet, Belinda, Julia, Gina,

Mary, Tami, and Veronica,

who have brought so much happiness

into our lives.

  Chapter One 

Murder, the prospective killer reflected, was a tricky business. Especially when you had a tight timetable. Fortunately, a wedding reception, this wedding reception anyway, would degenerate into a drunken bash. Nobody would notice much of anything. It was the hotel staff you had to fool, and you had to avoid, as far as possible, that little mistake at the wrong moment which could betray you. The prospective killer was philosophical about it. The decision was made, the plan carefully laid out. Every foreseeable contingency anticipated. You had to take your chances on the unforeseeable.

The killer thought: I could decide not to do it. I do not need to spend the rest of my life carrying the quilt for this crime I will soon commit. But a hatred as inexplicable as the dark side of the soul replied: You do have to do it. To recoil from this brutal act, to retreat now from your bloody plan, would mean that your life would never again be worth the living. You have to kill.

  Chapter Two

C. P. Randollph listened with growing exasperation to the man sitting next to him prattle about the Bible. His resolution not to get into an altercation over the nature of Holy Writ was visibly weakening when Samantha Stack interrupted the monologue.

»We’ll take a moment for a message of interest,« she said into the camera, leaving the source of Randollph’s irritation gulping back a chunk of pious rhetoric. »We’ll be right back.« She smiled sweetly at the frustrated speaker as if to say, You get another crack at it, buster.

The monitor ran a tape touting the profits and joys accruing to those who joined the United States Army. Sam Stack leaned toward Randollph and said, »I’ve got a friend who’s coming in to see you about getting married. She’s a member of your church, sort of.«

»We have any number of members who are members, sort of,« Randollph said.

»I’ll bet you do.« Sam surveyed her guests to see if they were ready to hare after more theological irrelevancies as soon as the cameras picked them up again. Satisfied, she turned again to Randollph. »But Lisa hasn’t lived in Chicago for ages, though her family’s still here.«

»Lisa who?« Randollph asked. The army band banged out a noble climax to some martial air.

»Tell you later,« Sam whispered. »We’re back,« she said to the camera. »Now, Pastor Wakefield, you were saying before we cut away...«

Pastor Wakefield needed to diet, Randollph noticed. The sisters of his off-brand congregation must stuff him with potatoes and gravy several times a week. He had two chins, going on three.

»I was saying that you either believe the Bible’s God’s inerrant word, the whole Bible, every bit of it«—he slapped his palm on a black Fabrikoid-covered book on his knee—»or you don’t believe any of it. Who needs a holey Bible? That’s spelled h-o-l-e-y.« He leaned back and shot the cameras a triumphant look. Pastor Wakefield, clearly, had been on television talk shows before.

Randollph, reminding himself that Christian charity is to be extended even to fools and ignoramuses, pitched in.

»I would point out to the pastor that he has stated a faith position which it is anyone’s privilege to embrace. It is not his privilege, however, to make it the test of my faith. That is sanctified ignorance masquerading as authority...«

»Now, just a minute,« Pastor Wakefield sputtered.

»And I further remind the pastor that the Bible is not a book, but a collection of books,« Randollph went on, ignoring the pastor’s frantic attempt to regain control of the conversation, »and that it includes many different types of literature—history, short stories, love poetry, letters, murder, sex, incest, almost anything you can think of. In fact, if you translated some of the steamier Old Testament stories into the vernacular of our day, they’d be classified as pornography. The pastor surely does not expect me to believe in a psalm the same way I believe in a gospel.«

The rabbi, who looked like a banker, smiled and nodded in agreement. The priest was grave and thoughtful, reflecting the composure of an institution which knew that these theological dust-ups are transitory but the church is eternal.

»Now that’s a...« Pastor Wakefield wound up to bum another high hard one across the doctrinal plate, but Sam Stack called time. She turned toward one of the cameras and said, »We’ve been discussing the topic Does the Bible Have Relevance for Life Today? with Rabbi Harvey Korfman, Father James Denton, the Reverend Mr. Jack Wakefield, and the Reverend Dr. C. P. Randollph. Thank you, reverend gentlemen.« Then, to the future audience which would be blessed and enlightened when the program was shown, »And be with us next week when we present another interesting and timely discussion with leaders of our community.« The panel of reverend gentlemen shook hands and departed to serve whatever god commanded their various allegiances. Randollph remained because he wanted to hear the rest of Sam Stack’s story about the wedding he presumably was to conduct.

»Somebody has to do these dumb public-service programs.« Sam sounded like an archbishop caught carrying out the garbage. »We take turns, and I got stuck with this bummer—which explains why, reverend doctor, you get a little free TV exposure. Because we’ve been keeping company—how’s that for a nice old-fashioned way of saying it?—I rope you in for any kind of show that needs a theologian. Is that nepotism? Every preacher in Chicago pesters us to get on the tube, you know. Whatever happened to Christian humility like they taught me in Presbyterian Sunday school?«

»I’m humbly grateful for your invitation to be on this program,« Randollph said, »though I doubt it will convert many heathens to godly ways. What about this wedding?«

Sam gathered up her script. »I’ll tell you about it on the way.«

»On the way where?«

»Didn’t I tell you? I’ve made an appointment for you with an employment agency?«

Randollph was startled. »No, you didn’t tell me.«

»Must have slipped my mind.«

Samantha looked smug, Randollph thought.

»But whatever for?« he asked her. »I’m already employed.«

»I know that, silly. This is to find someone to cook for you and look after you in that... that...«

»Try sumptuous,« Randollph said.

»Thanks, that sumptuous penthouse your filthy-rich church calls a parsonage.«

»You sound like a socialist, Samantha.«

»No, just envious. I’m going with you to the agency. You wouldn’t know how to pick a domestic if your life depended on it.«

»But I only need someone to fix my breakfast, and maybe

dinner two or three times a week,« Randollph protested. »Surely a grown man can...«

»Don’t argue,« Sam said, taking his arm. »Let’s go.«

The weary-looking man behind the desk sized up his visitors in little more than a glance. He wasn’t much interested in them, but years at the job had taught him that if he could get a quick psychological reading on new clients, it was easier to manipulate them. His professional eye rapidly gathered the information he needed. Man, fortyish (hints of gray in the dark hair); successful (self-assured, and fit-looking, suggesting membership in an expensive athletic club); not a banker or a lawyer (dressed with a little too much flair and color, hair a mite too long). Probably in advertising. Made a lot of money. Lived in Winnetka or Lake Forest in a house with three mortgages. Two children in private schools. Up to his belly button in debt. Maybe five years away from his first heart attack.

The wife, now. Probably a second or even a third wife (a real dish, flaming red hair, great legs, six or seven years younger than the guy). Nagging the poor sap to hire a live-in maid. Live-in maids were status symbols. She looked vaguely familiar.

»I’ll bet you’re here to find a maid.« The weary-looking man remembered to arrange his face in professional friendliness.

»No, I wish to employ a cook,« Randollph said.

The man struggled to retain his smile. »I got plenty of maids, I can give you a chauffeur in any size or color, but cooks, they’re hard to come by.« He gave the impression that the shortage of cooks was the result of a conspiracy against him. »But I got a few.« He pulled a file card from a tray on his desk and picked up a ball-point pen. »Your name?«

»C. P. Randollph. Randollph is spelled with two L’s.«

»Oh?« the man said, writing it down. »Don’t see it spelled that way often.«

»That is why I added an Randollph said.

He’s got to be in advertising, the man told himself. They’re all a little strange. »Your occupation?«

»Clergyman.«

The man brought his head up with a jerk and stared at Randollph.

»You’re kidding me!«

»He’s a minister, I’ll guarantee it.« Sam flashed a sympathetic smile at the man. The man shook his head as if it were a personal affront when people didn’t fit his stereotypes. »You don’t look like any preacher’s wife I ever saw,« he said.

»Oh, we’re not married.«

The man was completely bewildered.

Sam laughed. »You think we’re living in sin. It might be fun, but the dear dignified Christians at the Church of the Good Shepherd wouldn’t stand for their pastor installing a mistress in the parsonage.«

»Ah, about the cook...« Randollph asked.

The weary-looking man gave up. He was out of his depth and knew it. He reached into his drawer and brought out a small packet of cards.

»This is what I got in cooks,« he said. Then, gearing up to make the sale, he pulled a card from the pack. »Now, here’s one you might like. Know her personally. Good plain cook. Sixty, and very religious lady.

»Sounds fine to me,« Sam said.

»Excessive piety at breakfast is bad for the digestion,« Randollph said.

»Here’s a younger lady. Thirty-eight. Recently divorced. Misses cooking for a man, she says. Very nice-looking girl.«

»She won’t do.« Sam spoke with conviction.

»Why not?« Randollph asked. »She wants to cook for a man. She sounds like she has possibilities.«

»That’s why she won’t do, dear doctor,« Sam said, smiling sweetly. »Don’t you have any men cooks?«

St. Paul, Randollph reminded himself, suffered shipwreck, persecution, prison, and, probably, innumerable bad meals for the faith. Yet here he was, successor to apostles, saints and martyrs, trying to hire a cook to fix his breakfast.

»There’s Clarence Higbee,« the man said. »He’s kind of strange. Britisher. Been a butler, ship’s cook, hotel chef. I bet I’ve found him a dozen jobs. He quits when his employer doesn’t measure up to his standards.«

Randollph was dubious about a domestic to whose exacting canon he would have to conform. But Sam brightened immediately.

»He sounds ideal,« she said.

Randollph abandoned protest. »Will you arrange for me to meet with Mr. Higbee?«

»Right away, Reverend Randollph,« the man assured him. »Anytime you...«

Randollph interrupted him. »Among my idiosyncrasies is a profound distaste for being addressed as reverend.«

The man was surprised. »I call my pastor reverend. everybody does, and he likes it.« He reflected for a moment, then tacked on an explanatory footnote. »I’m a Baptist.«

»That’s nothing to be ashamed of,« Randollph said. »But since reverend is an adjective, not a title, I prefer to dispense with it.«

»Yeah,« the man said.

»You’ll send Mr. Higbee around to see me, then?« Randollph asked as he and Sam rose to go.

»I’ll do that, Reverend Randollph,« the man said. »Count on it.«

Back on Michigan Avenue, the city was dressing itself for spring. Girls in bright cotton blouses clustered below the fierce stone lions in front of the art institute. An occasional convertible with top down punctuated the traffic like a period between overlong sentences. Two portly pigeons planed down on a pedestrian island and went to work on a squashed banana.

»About that wedding,« Randollph said.

»She’s a sorority sister. Just about my best friend in college. I’m the maid of honor, or is it matron of honor for a divorced lady like me?«

»I’ll look it up. Small private wedding?«

»No, the works. She wants it in a church, heaven knows why, she probably hasn’t been inside a church for years.«

»You know,« Randollph said thoughtfully, »I’ve never conducted a big formal wedding. The penalty or blessing, I don’t know which, of never having been a pastor until this temporary job. My only experience with weddings is the few I’ve done for my students in the seminary chapel.«

»Time you learned. This one will get you a lot of publicity. The bride’s a pretty well-known movie and television actress. Lisa Julian.«

»Ah,« Randollph said.

»Now, what does that mean?«

Sam looked at him suspiciously, but decided to let it pass. »I’m very fond of her. She’s a swinger, not that it’s against her, but she’s—let’s see how I can phrase this so as not to offend the clergy—she’s freer with her favors than I’d want to be, and that’s an understatement. If she wears white for the wedding, it will be a misrepresentation of the facts.«

The film of Randollph’s memory was unreeling some scenes from his past he was grateful that Samantha couldn’t see.

»I, ah, have met Miss Julian,« he confessed.

Sam stopped abruptly, forcing a man hurrying along behind her to shift directions quickly, muttering, »Dumb broad.«

»You what?«

Randollph managed to look grave. »It was years ago. In my former profession I had frequent opportunities to associate with ladies in the films.«

»I’ll just bet you did!« Sam said. »I don’t want to hear about it. How close was your so-called association with Lisa?«

»I thought you didn’t want to hear about it.«

»I don’t. But tell me.«

»Our acquaintance was quite casual.« Randollph was grateful that the Almighty is always ready to forgive our sins, including lying a little for a good purpose.

»Hah!« Sam said. »With Lisa that could mean a dozen trips to the hay.«

Randollph decided it was time to guide the conversation into other channels.

»Tell me about some of the swinging times you had in college, and after,« he said.

Sam stopped abruptly again. »You’re just trying to change the subject. But, my dear Reverend Doctor Cesare Paul Randollph, even though I know you are a pastor qualified to hear guilt-ridden ladies confess their indiscretions, if you think I’m going to tell you about my past, lurid or not, think again, pal!«

»Just thought I’d ask, Samantha.« Randollph smiled genially at her. »Just thought I’d ask. Come on, I’ll buy lunch.«

The Kon Tiki Room of the Chicago Sheraton advertised all sorts of exotic rum concoctions reportedly originating in remote Pacific islands. Samantha Stack said, »I’ll have Wild Turkey on the rocks, please.« Randollph specified a martini with Bombay.

Sam pushed an ice cube around her glass with a swizzle stick. »The Julians all belong to Good Shepherd, or so Lisa said in her letter, but never attend. Oh, maybe on Easter. Lisa said she was glad the family church at least had a handsome nave that lent itself to a fancy wedding.«

»Good of her to speak well of the architecture,« Randollph said.

»Don’t be cynical, C.P. Anyway, in case you’re interested, it’s a family of doctors, except for Lisa, of course. And she’s marrying time.«

»The Julian Clinic,« Randollph said. »I seem to recall that the bishop goes there when he has a pain in the episcopal belly.«

»Could be. It caters to the society trade. Lisa’s twin brother is a doctor in the clinic. So is her half-brother, who is a couple of years younger. Tell me more about your so-called association with Lisa.«

»Ah, here’s the food,« Randollph exclaimed heartily. He quickly popped a hot shrimp into his mouth to preclude further conversation. Sam gave him a disgusted look and dug into baby spare ribs.

»Tell me more about the Julian family.«

Sam wiped her fingers on a napkin, leaving a red-orange smear of barbecue sauce. »Ask Lisa.«

»I’ll do that when she comes round to book the wedding. With that barbecue sauce on your upper lip, you look like a cannibal who has just disposed of a portion of succulent missionary. It’s quite becoming.«

  Chapter Three

The Church of the Good Shepherd is old, as Chicago institutions go. Though New England would look on it as a recent addition to the sacred scene, it predated the founding of the city by a number of years, beginning in a log hut as a mission to the Indians, who, according to all well-informed Christians of the time, would be benefited beyond measure by accepting baptism and selling their land cheap to the Christians. As the city grew, the leaders of the church perceived that the real mission to which God was calling them was not the Indians but the hog butchers and freight handlers (executive level), who were the nearest thing the raw young community had to a burgher class. Thus, when enough generations had passed to make possible a distinction between new Chicago money and old Chicago money, the Church of the Good Shepherd was graced with old-money families, not to mention healthy endowments. This gave it high status, supposedly in the eyes of God, and certainly in the social structure of the city.

But in this transitory world, all things change. Good Shepherd’s faithful no longer debarked from chauffeured Packards and Pierce Arrows to hear the word of the Lord in their gloomy old brick Romanesque building, which looked something like a penitentiary. The trustees, wanting only to make an extra buck for Jehovah, tore down the old church and replaced it with a hotel and office building. A church, complete with