“Poor man,” I said aloud. She was clearly someone who had been missed.

The kitchen was also small, with no breakfast area, so Mr. Vess probably had to eat in the dining room. It was neat and functional, but not very personal. Maybe it was sexist of me, but I couldn’t help thinking that a woman would have had more decorations in her kitchen. More individual touches.

Upstairs were two bedrooms and a small bath. One bedroom was clearly Mr. Vess’s. The bed was covered with an old-fashioned white chenille spread. The bedside table to the left held a lamp, a vintage fifties electric alarm clock, a small water carafe with a top that doubled as a glass, three library books, and a pair of reading glasses. The right bedside table held only a lamp identical to the left one.

The other bedroom was fitted up as a study. A comfortable-looking reading chair stood by the front window, and the table beside it and the floor around it contained more books. At the other side of the room was a small mahogany secretary with a sleek modern laptop perched incongruously on its writing surface. A wooden file cabinet sat nearby.

I couldn’t resist scanning the books first. They were a mix of well-worn literature, apparently from Vess’s own library, and brand-new spy thrillers in plastic library covers. Then I made a beeline for the desk.

Not surprisingly, most of the papers had to do either with Mr. Vess’s investments—which were not unimpressive—or his work with the Trinity vestry. Fat files of paperwork from the search for the new rector. Notebooks full of financial reports going back fifteen years. More fat files of memos Vess had sent to the vestry about various issues, like the cost savings to be gained from installing lower wattage lightbulbs in the hallways and the shockingly extravagant use of toilet paper in the ladies’ toilets.

I wondered if Vess had built his comfortable home through lightbulb and toilet-paper economies. I hadn’t noticed any dimness in his lights, and I checked his bathroom and found that he had used fairly cushy double-ply toilet paper.

His desk file drawer contained what I assumed were his active projects—a series of files, each in its own neatly labeled hanging folder. LIGHTING USAGE SURVEY—that must be his project of hiding in the closet to see who was leaving lights on. COSTS/DAMAGES FROM CHRISTMAS INCURSIONS—good grief; he had already started a file with his complaints about our church-swapping activities. RECTOR PERSONNEL EVALUATION NOTES—I glanced through that to see that it was a laundry list of petty or imaginary transgressions by Robyn. He also had files on all the vestry members—including Mother. I had to leaf through that one. The gist of it was that he found Mother extravagant and much too insistent on having her own way, so he wasn’t completely incompetent at judging character.