Her strokes did not flow so much as hesitate every now and again, so that the congregation, singing along, appeared to pause with her and then speed up again.
Clara gave her a nudge, and Helen fixed her gaze on the hymnal held open in Clara’s plump hands. “ ‘Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom . . .’ ” Helen sang along, wincing as her friend’s tremulous falsetto rang painfully in her ear.
“ ‘ . . . the night is dark, and I am far from home . . .’ ”
Maddy stumbled on a wrong note, and Helen’s voice flagged with the rest of the congregation until the girl found her way once more.
“ ‘ . . . the distant scene, one step enough for me. Ahh-men.’ ”
The congregation drew out the last word, the organ winding down, and Fister resumed his sermon, adroitly turning talk of truth and light into the subject of donations.
Right on cue, a pair of men rose from their seats in the foremost pew, going forward to the dais to collect two gilded plates from the minister. The choir stood as well, and formed two neat rows beside the pulpit. While they harmonized to yet another inspirational piece, the men went about the collection.
Madeline hunched over the keys, her face slick beneath the lights. Her fingers stuttered and stammered, though she covered up her mistakes well enough for most not to have noticed. After all, they were used to Emma MacGregor, who was hardly a virtuoso where the pump organ was concerned. Emma made errors often, though no one was ever unkind enough to remark upon them. Helen found it amazing that a woman whose fingers were constantly swollen with arthritis could still play as well as she did and on so many Sunday mornings.
When the song concluded, Helen saw Madeline rise to her feet and dash through the door that led to Fister’s office.
She glanced around her, but no one else seemed startled by the girl’s departure. In fact, she doubted if anyone noticed, as the choir dispersed to their seats and the pair passing the plates continued to move about.
Was she truly ill? Helen wondered, her eyes shifting to Fister, standing in his robes at the pulpit, his sober face focused on the pages of the open Bible.
Did the child need help?
Madeline was seventeen, she reminded herself, hardly a baby. Should the girl want assistance, she’d no doubt ask for it. Though her decision left her feeling uncomfortable, she stayed put until the service ended and Dr. Fister closed his Bible and stepped off the dais, leading an exodus from the church.
Helen remained inside, moving against the departing crush, edging her way up the aisle, past the pulpit, and through the door where Madeline had made her escape earlier.
“Maddy?” she said as she looked across the cramped room: at the old wooden desk where Earnest Fister no doubt sat to compose his various lessons, and at the overstuffed couch and end tables topped with mismatched lamps. Then her eyes went to the stained-glass window. The sun penetrated the colored panes, touching the plain pine planks below with a prismlike rainbow.
She stared at the depiction of the Virgin and baby Jesus, and thought suddenly of the day when the window had been put in. There’d been a lengthy renovation of the chapel, something Gerald Grone had done his part to finance. New floorboards had replaced rotting ones, electrical outlets were repaired, sturdy shingles covered a once-leaky roof, and fresh exterior paint lent brightness to a façade that over the years had cracked and peeled.
DONATED BY GERALD AND EDA GRONE, the bronzed plaque beneath the window read, and Helen shook her head, wondering what Gerald and Eda would think of Milton’s deal with Wet ’n’ Woolly. She doubted their reaction would be anything but sad.
A small noise cut into her consciousness, and she turned around, thinking she heard a voice. Had someone called out?
The door to the attached bathroom stood slightly ajar. Helen could see no light on inside, but again heard the sound. It was rather like a low moan, a stifled cry.
Without further pause, she hurried to the door and pushed it wide.
Madeline lay curled on the floor in a fetal position. Her dark hair stuck to skin damp with sweat. Her thin arms hugged her knees. Her body convulsed, and a frightened groan passed through her lips, though the girl fought to smother it. She pressed her wrist to her mouth and bit down on it like a gag.
“Oh my,” Helen murmured, “oh my.”
The girl moaned again, and Helen quickly set aside her purse and knelt beside her. She brushed back the stringy hair exposing Maddy’s frightened eyes, her delicate features screwed up with pain.
“Good Lord, what’s wrong?”
Maddy’s eyes welled with tears. At Helen’s touch on her feverish brow, the tears broke loose. “I . . .” she tried to get out, but another spasm shook her. She squeezed her eyes shut again until it passed. “The baby,” she uttered between sobs so tremulous Helen wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
“The baby,” Maddy breathed. “Something’s wrong.”
Helen stiffened.
“Please, help me.”
“Hold on, dear, hold on,” Helen told her quite firmly, slipping her purse beneath the girl’s head. Then she rose to her feet, hurrying toward the door and through the chapel as fast as her legs would carry her.
Chapter 15
THE CHAPEL WAS close to empty. But a dozen people still lingered inside, chatting as they waited to pass through the vestibule doors. Earnest Fister stood outside on the steps, bidding his parishioners good-bye.
To Helen’s relief, she saw Fanny and Amos Melville bringing up the rear of the line. Since they’d greeted at the door this morning, they apparently waited until everyone was gone before retrieving the chrysanthemums they’d brought to decorate the pulpit.
Before Helen even called out, Fanny turned and saw her coming. A potted mum in her arms, she elbowed Amos, and they started walking, meeting Helen halfway up the aisle.
“You’re white as a ghost,” Fanny said, peering over her spectacles. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Maddy,” Helen said, her heart thumping. She held onto a pew and paused, catching her breath. “She’s in bad shape.”
“What happened?” Amos set down the pot of mums he carried. “Did she have another dizzy spell?”
Helen shook her head. “It’s more than that,” she told them, as Fanny put down her mums as well. “Please, hurry, Doc,” she urged, leading the pair toward Fister’s office. “I think she’s losing the baby.”
“Baby?” Doc stopped in his tracks.
Fanny’s eyebrows went up but she said nothing, merely prodded Amos on.
Madeline lay as before on the bathroom floor, holding her knees to her chest, moaning and trembling.
“Let’s take a look at you,” Doc Melville said, and quickly got down on a knee beside her. He fished out a penlight from inside his jacket and peered into Maddy’s eyes. Then he put the light away and pressed his fingers to her wrist.
Helen kneaded her hands together as Doc shook his head.
“Bear with me, Maddy, all right?” he said, and tugged at the waist of her skirt, baring her abdomen. Pressing his palm to her belly, his expression froze in concentration as he skillfully probed.
He sighed as he set her waistband to rights and turned to his wife. “We’ve got to get her to my office,” he said, his voice calm but urgent. “She’s got to be moved, and posthaste.”
“Can you help her, Amos?” Fanny asked.
“I can help ease her pain, but what’s happening now is less up to me than to God,” he said, grunting as he hooked an arm under Madeline’s knees and another beneath her spine.
“Why, Amos, you can’t carry her,” Fanny scolded, but Doc struggled to his feet, huffing and puffing, his face red with strain as he shuffled through the door and past them.
Helen followed him into the chapel, with Fanny not far behind. They were halfway up the center aisle when Earnest Fister came in through t
he vestibule doors.
He froze when he saw Maddy in Doc’s arms. He looked at Helen but didn’t speak, not even to question. Instead, he stepped up to Amos and took the girl from him, cradling her against his chest.
While Doc got the door, Fister hurried out of the church and down the stone steps. He avoided the clusters of people still lingering on the grounds, talking and laughing amongst themselves. Instead, the pastor cut around the side yard, taking a footpath through a wooded lot and emerging at the street on its other side.
Helen could hardly keep up with him any more than Amos or Fanny.
The minister had already let himself into Doc’s office by the time Helen and the Melvilles arrived.
As Fanny went about flipping on the lights, Amos headed back to the examining room where Fister had settled his daughter upon a cushioned table. Helen peered at them from the doorway, hearing the pastor ask if he could stay.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Doc answered, and looked up at Helen. At his nod, she touched the pastor’s arm and steered him away.
She took him to the waiting area and made him sit. By then, Fister’s face had gone ashen. His eyes looked petrified.
Her heart went out to him, and she took his hand, patting it. “She’ll be just fine, I’m sure,” she told him, summoning up a brave smile for his benefit. “Doc will take good care of her.”
Fister pulled away and stood, his white robe rustling about his agitated figure as he began to pace the room, rubbing his hands together as though trying to warm them. “She looked so broken,” he said, and paused with his back to her. “I’ve never felt so scared,” he added in a whisper, drawing his palms to his face. “Never.”
Helen went to his side, touching his shoulder. “Amos is the best there is. You’ve nothing to worry about.”
“Don’t I?” He turned. His dark eyes bore into hers, his stare so piercing she found it hard not to flinch. “She’ll lose the baby, won’t she?” he asked bluntly, taking Helen aback.
“So she was pregnant?” Helen asked.
Fister nodded.
“You knew about it?” She wondered how it had pained him to keep such a secret.
“Yes,” he said, anguish flooding his voice.
“She told you?”
“No,” he said, and his broad shoulders slumped. “But I suspected from the way she was acting, and I did know of the affair . . .” He faltered, his head dropping to his chest. “She told me she was seeing someone older. She thought it was serious.” His gaze met Helen’s. “It wasn’t, not for him,” Fister said, and his hands curled into fists. “I put an end to it and, God help me, I’m glad I did. I should have called the sheriff, but Maddy begged me not to. I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me for what I did regardless.” His cheeks reddened. “I’ve never felt such hatred before, such anger. I couldn’t just stand around and let it go on.”
“She’s young, Earnest. Give her time. The two of you will work this out . . .”
He shook his head. “She’s been growing apart from me for a long time now. I didn’t want it to happen. But no matter what I did . . . how hard I tried . . .” He threw up his hands, letting out a slow breath. “If her mother had been here, perhaps Maddy wouldn’t have sought out someone so wrong for her.”
“Earnest,” Helen said gently, to stop him from beating himself up. “This isn’t your fault. Maddy’s a very independent girl. Surely she realized the consequences of her relationship. There wasn’t anything you could have done to stop her if her mind was made up.”
“But I’m a minister of God,” he said, sliding into a vinyl-covered seat near the wall. “I should have been a better teacher.”
Helen sat down beside him. It unnerved her to see the usually stoic man so torn apart. She had thought of him as stronger somehow because of his height and the shoulders that seemed doubly wide beneath his robes. Inside, though, he was as human as the rest of them, she mused. Even those up on pedestals could easily fall. “I’m sorry to say that no one’s exempt from the trials of raising a teenager, not even the clergy.”
He leaned his brow upon his hands, pressed together as if in prayer. “Perhaps you’re right,” he whispered.
“Of course I am.”
He rose from the chair and crossed the room to stare out the window. He laced his fingers together and tucked down his chin, standing in silence.
Helen knew how much he must hurt, how this affair of Maddy’s had turned his world upside down.
She sat there quietly, checking her watch now and again, though it was half an hour at least before Doc appeared in the hallway. His white hair askance on his brow, he peeled latex gloves from his hands and walked toward them.
Helen stood.
Fister turned at his footsteps. “Madeline?” he said, dark eyes hopeful. “How is she?”
“She’s exhausted. Fanny’s with her.”
“Can I see her?”
Doc nodded. “Let her rest for an hour, then I’ll drive you both home.”
Fister brushed past Helen and disappeared through the doorway.
“Did she miscarry?” Helen asked.
Doc rubbed at his jaw, nodding wearily. “There wasn’t much I could do, except try to make it as easy for her as possible.”
“How far along was she?”
“No more than three months.”
“Maybe it was for the best,” Helen murmured, hating the words even as she said them. She glanced up. “She was so young. She’ll have children someday when she’s ready.”
Doc looked down the hall and then at Helen. “The pastor, how is he?”
“He knew,” Helen said. “But I don’t think anyone else does.”
“It’s a private matter,” Doc said, and frowned. “The girl doesn’t deserve to be the fodder of local gossip.”
“I won’t say a word.”
“And neither will Fanny,” Amos said. When Helen lifted an eyebrow, he scowled. “She’s been a doctor’s wife for fifty-odd years. She’s learned to keep a secret by now.”
So apparently had Maddy, Helen thought, recalling Fister’s words about his daughter’s affair, a relationship he’d broken up, though apparently not soon enough.
And though it was none of her business, Helen couldn’t help but wonder who Maddy’s illicit lover was.
Chapter 16
FELICITY TIMMONS WENT home from the chapel after Sunday service and traded her silk dress for a floral-print duster and dirt-stained tennis shoes. She pinned a straw hat to her cropped gray hair, then left the dim of her house for the bright of outdoors.
She’d neglected to clean her gardening tools these past few days. What with Milton’s death and then his funeral, she’d fallen off her regular routine and thought it high time she got right back on.
Around to the patio she went to retrieve the trowels she’d used to plant her marigolds the other afternoon. Taking the tiny shovels by their green handles, she brought them over to the spigot where she rinsed each of them off, picking at the most stubborn bits of dried earth with her closely clipped fingernails. That accomplished, she used an old towel to dry them before storing them away until the next time.
Whistling cheerily, she went to fetch the shovel she’d leaned up against the lattice late last Thursday night.
Ah, last Thursday.
The tune faded from her lips. Her feet seemed suddenly stuck to the sod.
It was the last she’d seen Milton Grone alive.
She looked over at the fence he’d built and a shiver ran through her.
For there stood Shotsie in the unkempt yard at the spot where they’d found her husband. She had her hands on her hips, but Felicity couldn’t see her face, what with her standing in the shadows of an overgrown oak.
Should I speak up? she wondered. Should I say hello, out of politeness if nothing else. But her mouth felt so dry
she couldn’t get a word out. She lifted a hand, but Shotsie turned her back and went inside.
A trickle of sweat slid from her brow to the slope of her nose, and Felicity brushed absently at it.Where was her spine? Good God, she’d survived being dumped at the altar and moving halfway across the globe, and here she was falling apart at the mere sight of that woman.
Felicity straightened her shoulders.
All right, she told herself, what was done was done, and I won’t feel guilty for it.
Putting both Milton and Shotsie out of her mind, she dusted off her hands and sighed. She felt suddenly angry at herself for letting Milton Grone affect her so, even in death, when she should be delighting in the fact he could bother her no longer.
She could enjoy her gardening again; truly revel in the pleasures of getting her hands brown with dirt. She could plant as many bushes near the fence as she saw fit without worrying about them being “accidentally” sprayed with herbicide. The roses she’d planted near the road out front could safely bloom without fear of being flattened by Milton’s pickup. Even her old tabby, Kitty, could roam about without concern at being the target of Milt and his bloody shotgun.
Humming now, Felicity went in pursuit of the shovel.
As she rounded the house, she reveled in the warmth of the sun that sliced through the trees. Whistling a nameless tune, she headed toward where she’d left it leaning against the lattice of the porch.
She walked back and forth past the stoop, once then twice.
The whistle died on her lips and she hesitated, rubbing her chin.
The shovel wasn’t there.
Where in the blazes could it have gone? It had hardly gotten up and walked away. It had to be around somewhere.
She scrutinized the lattice beneath the porch and then walked around the house itself, looking beneath bushes and behind trellises, but saw no sign of it.
“Crum,” she said, throwing up her hands, knowing that somehow, some way, her shovel had vanished.
To Helen Back: A River Road Mystery Page 8
