The Halo Effect: A Novel

by Anne D. LeClaire

  “She would, you know,” Sophie continued.

  I closed my eyes at the truth of it, the sure and hard knowledge that Lucy would have embraced every moment of this day. Swimming in the cove. Long walks. The ease of cottage life and indolent August days. Picking berries. Eating outside on the painted table. Reading condensed stories from must-scented pages. And most of all of the three of us on holiday. Together. My heart was so heavy with sorrow it felt as if it were filled with knives.

  “It never goes away, does it?” she said. “The loss. The pain.”

  I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

  “I don’t know how we could ever think it would. I think that’s what’s so hard for people who haven’t lost a child to understand. As if it is even possible to forget. To go on like before.”

  From somewhere in the distance to our right came two voices, clearly drunken and raised in argument. A silvery shimmer of minnows curved through the water, circled our feet. At least I thought they were minnows, but my piscine knowledge was limited. My father wasn’t a hunter or fisherman. His only hobby had been puttering around our home, fixing sills, teaching me the value of caring for belongings. For family. And at this I had failed.

  “Do you know what someone once told me?” Sophie said. “‘Life goes on.’”

  “You’re kidding me. Someone actually said that to you? Who? That bitch Alicia?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But it doesn’t, you know?”

  “Doesn’t what?”

  “Necessarily go on.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I interviewed one man whose wife had committed suicide after their child was murdered.”

  “But you—you never thought of that.”

  “Actually, it did occur to me. I wanted to die. I wanted the pain to end. A broken heart still beats. Unless you stop it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.” She took a deep swallow of wine. “I never really could have, you know. Not only because it would be a sin. Perhaps the raw truth is I’m too much of a coward.”

  I thought of her facing interviewers, talking about the numbers of children lost every year, wanting to effect change, to weave even one positive thing out of Lucy’s death. I thought of her out in the world doing her work in our daughter’s name while I had retreated to my studio, to the false solace of alcohol. “That’s one thing you are not. You’re not a coward, Soph.” I took her hand. “I didn’t know. I should have known.”

  She leaned her shoulder against mine. “Did you ever think about it, Will? Suicide, I mean.”

  I thought of that day in July when I’d met Sophie at the beach and how I had stared out at the horizon and felt the seductive pull of knowing how easy it would be to walk into the water and keep walking. But even then I’d known I would never take that road. As I sat next to Sophie on the dock I thought that the surprise wasn’t that people commit suicide but that more didn’t.

  “No.”

  “Never?” Sophie persisted. “You didn’t ever think of it?”

  “Not really.” Murder. I’d thought of murder, of finding and killing the person who took Lucy. Slaying that person. Such a biblical word, slaying. Shakespearean.

  As if I had spoken, she said, “I read somewhere that suicide is rage and despair turned inward and that murder is the same turned outward.” She swirled her toes through the water, scattering the minnows. “Do you think that’s true?”

  “I don’t know.” But I did know. I remember the nights I had lain awake thinking that if I ever discovered who had murdered our daughter I could kill that person without hesitation or regret, and I remembered the weapon in the empty paint can in the garden shed. At some point I realized I would have to find a way to dispose of it. “I couldn’t have endured it if you died too.” My throat burned. “I couldn’t stand losing you too.”

  Both of us knew I was speaking now not of the past but of our future. The yodel of a loon reached us from somewhere in the distance. “Have I, Soph?” I finally dared to ask. “Have I lost you too?” My breath caught, held as I waited for her answer. With the easy effort of a teenager, she stood. Wordlessly, she took my hand, pulled me up beside her. As she led me up the grassy rise to the house, droplets of water from the cove dripped from our feet, marking our path in the August-browned grass as we progressed up the rise, past the Adirondack chairs and blue-painted table, across the wooden porch, through the living room, and up the narrow, age-stained stairs. Into the bedroom. Into her bed. It was only then that I fully let out a breath I hadn’t been aware of holding—a long sigh that was the only sound in the room. And then the creaking of springs as we turned to each other at last. We held each other like young lovers, but lovers whose bones held marrow-deep sorrow. We moved slowly as we explored, touched, tasted, as if not only our bodies but the air itself was fragile and a misstep would shatter all.

  I entered her, went deep, and knew that joy could be pain too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Ever since he recalled where he found the little toy figure doll, Father Gervase had been worrying over the information like an old woman fingering her beads.

  Now, as he had for the past three days, he finished breakfast and headed over to Will’s studio to deliver this information. Sometime in the night the oppressive heat had at last lifted, and this shift put him in an optimistic mood. He was hopeful that today he would find the artist and could tell him what he remembered about Lucy’s little toy and put the whole matter to rest, but when he again found the double doors closed and locked his disappointment was acute, as if he had appeared with a gift carefully wrapped and the recipient was nowhere in sight. After a moment of indecision, he left the harbor and continued over to Governors Street. The Lights’ drive was empty of cars, but still he climbed the wide steps to the porch and rang the bell, recalling as he did the day months before when he had first approached Will about painting the saints—it had been, let’s see? May? Yes. May. He remembered it clearly now, a spring day that in the fluid way of time seemed at once far distant and only days past. Well, one season had passed and another edging toward autumn. The priest realized he had reached that stage in life when time spun faster, months passing as if only days, years as weeks. Too fast. As fleeting as a child’s giggle eaten by wind. Reluctant to accept defeat, he rang the bell a second time.

  “He’s not home.”

  The man in the neighboring lawn shouted over to Father Gervase. The priest looked over and frowned. In spite of the watering ban still in effect that restricted residents to watering lawns on the odd-numbered sides of a street on odd-numbered days and even-numbered houses on the even days, the man was spraying his grass with a hose. He looked vaguely familiar, but Father Gervase was unable to place him, but then his memory, never strong in the matter of faces, had grown more unreliable in this area.

  “Do you happen to know when he’s due back?” he called.

  “Haven’t a clue.” The man barked a short laugh. “But then I’m not my brother’s keeper, am I, Father?”

  “Well—” The priest was considering how to respond—aren’t we all our brother’s keepers?—when he realized the man intended the remark to be some sort of jest. He was able to summon a weak smile. But the mystery of where Will Light was off to remained unsolved. Well, the artist had a perfect right to take time off. Perhaps a vacation. Perfectly his right. Still, the neighbor’s remark irked him. He remembered a time when neighbors cared about and watched out for each other. “All right then,” he said, but the man had already turned away, back to hosing the lawn.

  Back at the rectory, mindful of the need to stay hydrated—the last thing he needed was another fainting episode—he headed directly for the kitchen for a glass of water, where he found Mrs. Jessup busy wiping out the refrigerator shelves.

  “Good morning, Father,” she said, and she heaved her shoulder in the silent way she had of letting him know he was interrupting her day, an attitude, he now realized, she never adopted wit
h Father Burns and one that tended to make him feel like a tenant on her property.

  “Is there something I can get for you?”

  “No. No. I’ll just get a glass of water, and then I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Here. Let me get it.” She poured ice water from a pitcher into a tumbler.

  In spite of his promise to leave, he took the glass and sat, a bit concerned that the walk to the harbor and then over to Will Light’s house had left him spent. He resolved, in spite of his bad hip, to start up again with the daily walks he’d abandoned during the worst of the heat spell. Beads of condensation rolled down the sides of the tumbler and pooled on the table. Mrs. Jessup swiped them away with a wad of paper towels. His mother had employed a stack of worn tea towels for all such tasks. He refrained from mentioning the wastefulness of paper towels. As he watched her mop up the condensation, his thoughts returned to Will Light. Certainly Will wasn’t expected to punch in a time clock or report to him—it wasn’t as if the cardinal had hired him for a regular nine-to-five job—but the artist’s absence troubled him. Surely he hadn’t gone off and given up on the project. The idea of having to face the bishop with that news made him light-headed. And he felt, too, the disappointment at not being able to tell Will where and when he had found his daughter’s toy. Probably not important, but he couldn’t rid himself of the thought that it might possibly be significant and that he should tell someone.

  “Do you remember Lucy Light?” he found himself asking.

  “Lucy Light?” she said. “Oh, you mean the child who was murdered. Lord, yes. They never did find out who did it, did they?”

  “No.”

  “That poor, poor family. What a dreadful thing to happen. Absolutely dreadful. I can’t imagine it.”

  Father Gervase didn’t want to imagine it and in fact had deliberately tried, not always successfully, to keep any thoughts of Lucy Light’s last moments from forming in his mind.

  Father Gervase regretted bringing up the subject.

  “It is hard to believe though,” Mrs. Jessup continued. “I mean, this isn’t one of those places where that kind of thing happens.”

  “No.”

  “But why did you ask about the girl?”

  Unable to stop, he confided in her. “Well, here is the strangest thing. A while back, I found something in the chapel that belonged to the girl. As least, when her father saw it, he was certain it was hers.”

  “You found it here?” she said. This news caused her to pull a chair out from the table and plop down. “In our chapel?”

  “Yes. Beneath one of the pews.”

  “When was this, Father?”

  “Back in June. I was working on a homily and had gone there to write. I do that sometimes, and it was cold in there, you know how stone floors can retain the chill, and I remember wishing I had brought a sweater.”

  “What was it you found?”

  “A toy figure. Of Yoda. Then I happened to have it with me when I was visiting with her father. You know he’s painting the saints for the new cathedral?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And he thinks it’s hers?”

  Father Gervase nodded. “At the time I couldn’t remember how it came into my possession, and then several days ago, during the small ceremony for the Medeiros family, I was sitting in the chapel and it came back to me. Since then I’ve been looking for Will Light to tell him, but he’s nowhere to be found.”

  “But how did the toy—what did you say it was?”

  “A little figure of Yoda.” He recalled how the toy fit perfectly in the palm of his hand. “You know it? The little Jedi from the Star Wars movie.”

  “Well, how did it end up in the chapel? June, you say? And she was killed in—let’s see—the fall it was, wasn’t it? September? October?”

  “Yes. October.”

  She went straight to the core of the matter. “Well, you must go tell the police.”

  “The police?” His voice trailed off. The police? The whole thing was spinning out of his control. What on earth had possessed him to confide in Mrs. Jessup?

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  “Shall I go with you?”

  “With me?” he said, unable to keep the horror out of his voice. “No. No. There’s no need of that.”

  She picked up his empty glass, took a last swipe of the table with the paper towel, and rose. “You should go right now. While it is all clear in your memory.” She waited for him to get up.

  Feeling bullied into action—Mrs. Jessup was getting to be as bossy as Lena MacDougall—he left for the police station. Recognizing it as a delaying tactic, he detoured by the harbor in hopes that he would find Will, but the building was still closed tight. Behind him, the day boats headed out of the harbor. He sighed in resignation. Might as well get it over with. No doubt Mrs. Jessup would be waiting for his report.

  On the way up the steps, he met Michael Callahan exiting the station.

  “Father Gervase,” the officer said. “What brings you here? Someone stealing pennies from the alms box?”

  “Oh no. No,” the priest said before he realized that Michael, like Will Light’s neighbor earlier that morning, was joking. It pained him to think he was completely losing his sense of humor. “Nothing like that. In fact, it is probably nothing at all, but I thought I should tell someone.” Callahan held the door for him. A wave of cooled air bathed him as he entered the lobby. “It’s about Lucy Light.”

  The patrolman’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Lucy Light?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. You surprised me there, Father. Why don’t you take a seat, and I’ll notify the detective in charge of her case.”

  “It’s probably nothing,” he repeated, but Callahan had already disappeared down a hall. Before he could gather his thoughts, he found himself ushered through the metal gate that separated the lobby from the inner rooms and sitting across a desk from a tired-looking man who introduced himself as Detective Gordon.

  “Officer Callahan tells me you have some information about Lucy Light.”

  The feeling of foolishness increased, and he regretted not waiting until Will had returned from wherever he had gone. Let him decide what to do with this information. “Probably nothing,” he said for the third time in minutes. The officer waited in silence for him to continue. In spite of his dry mouth, the priest found himself babbling on about the toy and how he’d first found it and how when Will Light had seen it, he had been convinced it had belonged to his daughter.

  Gordon shifted forward in his seat. “And where is it now?”

  “Will has it. He took it from me.”

  “And exactly when did you find it?”

  “In June. The first week in June, I think it was.” Again Father Gervase was unable to stop the flow of words. “I had gone to the chapel to work on a sermon—one on confronting despair—and saw something under a pew and thought I was seeing a piece of trash. We’ve had problems with kids using the place. And that’s why we keep it locked. Hate to do that, of course. Hate to do that. The idea was to have it available day and night for anyone who might feel the need to sit in a place of prayer. But then we started finding trash in there—” He could not bring himself to mention the used condoms on the floor of the chapel, could barely stand to think of it himself. “And so it is now kept locked.”

  “I see. And how many people have keys?”

  “Well, I have one. And Father Burns. And Wayne Jervis. The part-time custodian. He comes in each Saturday to clean.”

  “So there are only the three keys?”

  “Well, there is one more. We keep it in the rectory office in case Father Burns and I are unavailable and someone wants to use the chapel. You just have to sign the register noting the time you take it and when you return it. We didn’t use to bother with that, but we found people would forget to return it, and we would have to have another made up. You know. Over at the hardware store.”

  “So actually a
nyone can have access to that key?”

  “Well, yes.” As the conversation—the interrogation—went on and on, Father Gervase couldn’t escape the sense of guilt, as if he had done something wrong, been negligible, which was ridiculous of course. “But as I said, you have to sign out for it.”

  “So you keep a register?”

  “Yes. In the rectory office.” He was back on solid ground. “A clipboard with spaces for the date, names, and times.”

  “I’ll need to take a look at that.”

  “At the register?” Should he refuse?

  “Yes.”

  Was this a matter of privacy for the parishioners? Would he be betraying them to turn over their names to the police? Should he check with someone first? A confusion of questions spun in his head.

  The detective waited. “Father?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Give me a minute to finish up here, and I’ll drive you over.”

  A second wave of doubt swept over the priest. Perhaps he should check with someone about giving the register to the police. But who? Bishop Kneeland? No. Best to just go ahead and get it over with.

  He was relieved to find Father Burns in the rectory office. When he explained the situation, the younger priest took over and Father Gervase was happy to turn the entire matter over to him.

  “No problem. I’ll just make a copy of the register pages you need,” the younger priest said. “How many weeks do you want to cover?”

  Gordon prodded Father Gervase to check his calendar and pin down the exact week of his sermon and when he had gone to the chapel.

  “Give me the register for the week before, too,” Gordon said. “Just to be sure.”

  “Right.” Father Burns unclipped the pages from the clipboard and carried them to the copying machine. As the machine whirred away, spitting out the two pages, Father Gervase again was struck with doubt about the wisdom of giving the names out. There were seven names.

  “Just these?” Gordon asked.