Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

Turin.”
    “Ah,” said Prue cheerily. “Who’s in that?”
    Father Paddy seemed to ponder for a moment, then explained: “It’s not actually an opera, my child. It’s a … well, a shroud. The cloth that Christ was buried in. At least, that’s what they think it is. Quite fascinating, really, and all the rage in ecclesiastical circles.”
    “How marvelous,” said Prue.
    Father Paddy leaned closer, as if to disclose confidential information. “Hotter than the Tut and Tiffany exhibits combined. You should write about it in your column.”
    Prue retrieved her Elsa Peretti pen from her Bottega bag and made a brief notation in a tiny Florentine notebook. “So,” she chirped when everything was in place again, “I’d say you deserve a little vacation … after all that awful business with the … militants trying to sing at St. Ignatius.”
    Father Paddy nodded grimly. “The Gay Chorus. Yes. That was most unfortunate. Dreadful. The Archbishop, bless his heart, had his back against the wall. In a manner of speaking.”
    Prue shook her head sympathetically. “Some people just don’t know where to stop, I’m afraid.”
    Another nod, even graver.
    “They can hire a hall,” Prue added.
    “Of course they can. We’re liberals, you and I. It isn’t that we aren’t in favor of … well, human rights and that sort of thing. We are. We feel. We care. We reach out and touch those in need of our caring. But a chorus of admitted homosexuals singing in a church? Well, please … I haven’t lived this long not to know tacky when I see it!” Prue’s driver dropped her off at the conservatory in Golden Gate Park shortly before noon.
    His instructions were to return in two hours.
    If her efforts proved fruitless, they could mount the search from another corner of the park, systematically combing every acre of the terrain until the dog was found. Or not found. Prue was braced for the latter, but she knew she would never forgive herself if she didn’t at least try.
    She had lost Vuitton in the tree ferns, so that was where her search began, there amidst the lush and lacy extravagance of those otherworldly plants.
    Momentarily moved by the beauty of her surroundings, she stopped and jotted a reminder in her notebook: “If W calls, ask to be shot in the tree ferns.” She expected to be included in the magazine’s summer spread. And why be photographed at home, looking stiff and matronly like the rest, when they could shoot her here, framed in exotica, wild and free as a white-plumed cockatiel?
    She set off along an asphalt path that wound through the tree ferns then dramatically ascended to a densely wooded ridge lined with eucalyptus trees.
    “Vuitton,” she called. “Vuitton.”
    An aging hippie woman, dressed in Birkenstocks and a fringed poncho, passed Prue on the pathway and frowned at her.
    But Prue was lost in the singlemindedness of her search.
    “Vuitton … Vuiiiiimtton …”

Chain Reaction
    I T WAS NOON WHEN EMMA BROUGHT IN THE MAI TAIS WITH the morning mail. Frannie Halcyon was still propped up in bed, her peach satin sleep mask askew across her forehead, like the goggles on an aviator who had died in a dogfight.
    “Mornin’, Miss Frannie.”
    “Set it on the dresser, please, Emma dear.”
    “Yes’m.”
    “Miss Singleton didn’t call back, did she?”
    “No’m.”
    “What about Miss Moonmeadow?”
    Emma scowled. “No’m.”
    “You needn’t look at me like that. I am fully aware of your feelings about Miss Moonmeadow.”
    Emma fluffed her mistress’ quilt almost violently. “Mr. Edgar would turn over in his grave if he knew you was seeing that witch woman.”
    Frannie sighed wearily and removed the sleep mask. “Emma, she is a psychic. Please don’t call her a witch woman. It distresses me so.”
    “She takin’ yo’ money. I know that.”
    “She keeps me in touch …”
    “Oh Lord, Miss Frannie …”
    “She keeps me in touch with my only child, Emma, and I don’t want to hear another word about it. Is that understood, Emma?”
    Emma pouted, unrepentant, then skulked to the window and jerked open the Roman shades. She kept her back turned to her mistress.
    “Don’t you see?” Frannie asked in a gentler tone. “Miss DeDe was all I had left. Miss Moonmeadow gives me hope that … that Miss DeDe is still alive.”
    Emma walked for the door, rigid as a poker. “It was them kinda folks that killed her.”
    The mail offered little in the way of refreshment: a bill from