Captain Noonan, the Bearded Holmes of the Sandersonville Police Department, was taking Sunday afternoon off. He could only take Sunday afternoons off when his wife, Lorlei, was out of town. She insisted every family ‘needed religion’ and Noonan had agreed. But he had agreed tongue-in-cheek, silently, to himself, because the family he believed “needed religion” was not his family but hers.
He did not say it in any distinguishable manner because he needed “peace and harmony” in his family, that family being composed of four people: he, Lorlei and the twins.
So he was pleasantly absorbing the sunshine on his front porch when he was approached by a man of god. He knew this individual to be a man of god because he was dressed like a man of god. He was Catholic and those men of god are hard to miss.
“Afternoon,” the Father said.
“Could be,” Noonan replied. It was never a good idea to agree to what a man – or woman – of god says. There was usually a request for a donation coming.
“Pleasant.”
“Please,” Noonan said politely. “Are you lost or is there a reason you are visiting me on a Sunday afternoon when all good men like you are in church?”
“Oh, I’m here on business,” the man of god said. “I don’t talk to the police in the police station. It raises too many eyebrows.”
“OK,” Noonan said. “What’s been stolen?”
“A pew.”
“A pew?” Noonan chuckled. “That’s one of those items that never shows up on a police blotter.”
“True,” he replied. “But one’s been stolen. Unscrewed from the floor of our church.”
“Which church?”
“Oh, I’m not here to file a complaint, captain. God works in mysterious ways. If someone wants a pew bad enough to steal it from a church,” he kind of shrugged his shoulders, “it’s not for me to question his or her motives. I’m just here to let you know it happened.”
“Was the pew special in any way? I mean, historical?”
“No. Just a pew.”
“When did the pew go missing?”
“Today. After services.”
“That’s pretty brazen. Stealing from a church,” Noonan said with a shudder.
“You are Catholic, so I assume the pew had kneeling blocks on the back of the pew.”
“Correct. But it was just the pew, nothing more. No one broke into the office and stole anything. Just the pew.”
“Did someone break into the church to steal the pew?”
“Not really. The church is never completely locked. The double doors in front are locked after the Sunday service but the backdoor to the sanctuary is open all the time. Once through that door you can just walk into the church. I’m assuming the pew went out that door since the double doors were still locked from the inside when we discovered the pew was gone.”
“Was anyone in the church when the pew was stolen?”
“The pew wasn’t stolen. It is just missing.”
“OK, missing. Was anyone in the church when it went missing?”
“No. We have a caretaker but she was on an errand. She was gone for about two hours. We assume that was the time frame when the pew was taken.”
“Does the caretaker take the same time off every week? I’m trying to figure out how someone would know the church was empty so they could spirit away the pew.”
“Not really. The caretaker has duties taking her away from the church but there is no set schedule.”
“So if someone was watching the church, they would be able to tell if she was going to be gone a long time as opposed to say, a trip to the post office.”
“Probably. The point here is the pew is missing. Why, I do not know. I’m just telling you in case there has been a rash of pew robberies.”
“None that I have heard of. But I’ll look into it.”
“You’re not a religious person are you?” That was the comment from an ecclesiastic specialty shop in Virginia Beach.
“Not even close,” Noonan replied.
“OK, let me give you run down on churches and temples. When it comes to seating, you can always find pews, we get them by the dozens. A church closes and what can be sold, is sold. If it can be recovered from the building, it will be sold. Pews are not something you can hang on a wall or put on a shelf so they are the last things to be sold. When we get pews, they are in the dozens. So, no, there is not much of a market for single pew. Occasionally we get one, but not lately if that’s your next question.”
“So a stand-alone pew does not really have a value?”
“Maybe $200 and you have to come and get it. The big bucks? Nope. Not unless St. George carved his name on it.”
“That’s doubtful in this case.”
“Well, then, in this case – and you’re really a cop?”
“I’m really a cop.”
“OK, what’s not happening is someone stealing the pew for sale. If they are only stealing one, it’s not for a church either. It’s doubtful it’s being stolen for firewood or a Christmas decoration. My bet, kids. College kids. Fraternity kids. It’s a prank. You’ll just have to live with it.”
“That’s kind of the way I figured it,” Noonan said. He hung up and called the man of god.
“I don’t any news for you,” Noonan told the man of god when he called the church back on Thursday afternoon. “Everyone seems to think stealing the pew was a prank.”
“Maybe,” said the man of god. “But the pew has come back.”
“Come back?” That took Noonan by surprise.
“Yes, someone returned it to the church.”
“Did they screw it back into the same spot?”
“Yes, they did. Funny thing, though, they took another pew.”
The Sandersonville Catholic Church, if that’s what the establishment was called, was a small structure which, like many on the Outer Banks, had been many things before it became a Catholic church.
“Believe it or not,” the man of god told Noonan, “this church started out as a warehouse for the notorious Archie Scarborough. This is where he hid his bootlegged liquor before sending it out for distribution.”
“Quite a character,” Noonan said nostalgically. “Gave the United States Coast Guard a real run for their money.”
“For two decades, all the way through Prohibition. Then, when liquor became legal, he sold the warehouse and bought a big house in Frisco. Left all his papers and diaries at North Carolina University. Quite the scoundrel. Kind of slapping us in the face with his misdeeds.”
Noonan shook his head sadly. “A scoundrel for sure. Probably died with the first dime he ever stole.”
“Maybe,” the man of god agreed. “But there’s a lot of eternity after your life on this earth.”
“I’d say A-men,” Noonan muttered, “but I haven’t see too many miscreants who were worried about the hereafter.”
“Everyone gets what’s coming to them. Now, you wanted to see the pews.”
“Returned and missing.”
The man of god took Noonan into the church itself. If it had been a warehouse, it had been made over into a church with both taste and design. Had he not been told it was once a warehouse, he would have believed it to have always been a church.”
“Speaking historically,” the man of god offered, “we were fortunate this had originally been a warehouse. It was built to withstand wind, rain, storm and raids by the Revenuers. It has a solid foundation and the vault area downstairs serves perfectly as our offices.”
“Is that where the caretaker lives?
“Yes, how did you know?”
“No space on this floor for a bedroom,” Noonan said as he pointed around.
“It also made it easier to come in and out without being seen.”
“You have a point there.”
“Now,” Noonan said as he pulled out a flashlight. “Which pew was stolen and replaced.”
“Missing and replaced.”
“Whatever.”
The interior of the church had three banks of pews. There was a central tier which would seat about 30 across. On both sides were shorter tiers which would seat about ten across. The missing, replaced pew was the third from the back of the church on the right-hand side if you were facing the pulpit. The missing pew was on the far side of the church, in the same position, third from the back if you were facing the pulpit.
Noonan spent the next hour and a half-hour slithering under pews and looking at the underside of the seats. He spent considerable time looking over the missing/returned pew noticing scratches where the wood pieces joined. He thought this was odd because it was clear, both visually and by tapping on the wood, that the pew was made of solid wood. There was no room for a secret chamber or hiding place for anything. The floorboard beneath the missing/returned pew were solid as were the floorboard beneath the now missing pew.
After he had satisfied himself with the main room to the church, Noonan and the man of god went into the basement. What the man of god had called a vault was anything but. It was just a large room with a reinforced ceiling with massive wooden door which were bolted to a side wall. The vault was now an office with a desk, several chairs and cot. There was a small living quarter on the far side of the basement with a small kitchenette. It had a bathroom with a shower along one of the walls. The rest of the basement was, well, just a basement. It was a large open space with old furniture in piles and some old desk.
Noonan did a walk-around the basement, shining his light into the dark corners and overhead into the beams which supported the main floor.
“Find anything?” the man of god asked.
“Not really.” “So you don’t know who’s been taking and replacing the pews?”
“Not who, but possibly why.”
“I’m a man of the world,” the man of god and then quickly added. “Both this one and the next.”
“Here’s what I think has happened. You have some treasure hunters out there who have found something of Archie Scarborough’s. Maybe a letter or notation in a diary in Archie’s papers at North Carolina University. Or maybe it was letter in their grandmother’s sewing kit, I don’t know. But it seemed to hint Archie had left some money in his warehouse. Both of the missing pews were in the same location from the front, third from the back. I’m guessing there is something in the writing hinting at ‘third from the back on the right.’ But it didn’t say if the ‘third from the back on the right’ was looking from the pulpit back or from the back of the church to the front.”
“But it makes no sense Archie Scarborough would have left any money here.” The man of god shook his head. “He sold the building so why would he leave a dime here?”
“He didn’t,” Noonan said. “It might have been a note to himself. Or maybe had nothing to do with the warehouse. It might have been some other building at some other time. Even if he had hidden something somewhere, here or wherever, he’s been gone 50 years so anything he hid would have been found long ago. If he had hidden anything in the first place.
“ I think your treasure hunters stole the pew after church service under the impression you would not notice it missing. As long as it was back by the next Sunday, you’d never be the wiser. Then they took it apart hoping to find some treasure inside.”
“Which is why it came back on Wednesday,” the man of god said understandingly. “So the other pew will be back before Sunday service.”
“That’s my guess. But they didn’t find anything so they are going to assume they did not look in the right place. The only place left for them to look is under the floor of the warehouse. Under the main floor. Up there,” Noonan shown his flashlight upwards at the bracing for the main floor of the church.
“But there is nothing up there,” the man of god almost wailed. “”You can see that just by looking up in the basement.”
“True,” Noonan said. “But your treasure hunters have not been in the basement. If you want to stop the treasure hunters from coming back, give everyone a tour of the basement this Sunday. Put a lot of lighting on the ceiling. Once the treasure hunters see no hidden nooks, crannies or boxes, they’ll leave you alone.”
“You think that’ll work?”
“Don’t know,” Noonan replied. “Give it a try.”
“Some priest left this for you. Said he didn’t want to see you. That you’d understand.”
“What is it?”
“Looks like a church program. It has some writing on it. Looks like ‘It came back. The tour was success. Expect no further disappearances.’ What’s it mean ‘disappearances.’”
“On odd case, Harriett. Seems someone was stealing pews and returning them.”
“Why would anyone want to steal a pew in the first place, much less replace it?”
“Greed, I suspect. But I don’t have a good answer for you. But I do have a Catholic joke for you.”
“Please! I have a Catholic daughter in law.”
“I know. Does she sleepwalk?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“If she did, she’d be a roamin’ Catholic.”
