Body In The Belfry ff-1

by Katherine Hall Page

  It was Oswald Pearson and as he ushered him into the living room, Tom gave an imperceptible nod to Faith. The last thing he felt like was being interviewed by the press on the day 's twists and turns. But Oswald was a loyal parishioner, so he dredged up a welcoming smile. "Nice to see you. We were just going to start a fire. Would you like to join us?”

  Faith knew what she was supposed to say and chimed in, " How about a glass of wine or some coffee ? “

  However, Oswald was not paying a social call. He turned to Tom and seemed a bit embarrassed by the hospitality.

  “ Actually, I had wanted a few words with Reverend Fairchild in private." He cleared his throat. It occurred to Faith that now she knew what "harumph" sounded like. Not that she could spell it.

  “I'm here on a personal matter," Oswald explained.

  Faith looked at Tom bleakly. Don 't tell me Cindy was harumphing him too, she transmitted silently and excused herself to go play patty-cake with Benjamin or whatever.

  Tom was mystified. Oswald seemed a well-balanced sort. A little smarmy and self-important for Tom 's taste, but maybe that was the tabloid influence.

  After gazing intently at Tom's bookshelves, Oswald got straight to the point.

  “You probably don 't know this—not many people do, especially in Aleford—but I'm gay." He paused to gauge Tom's reaction, was apparently reassured, and continued. " I've known ever since I was in college and I'm not here to talk about my decision. I 'm comfortable with it, but I feel it is my own private business. I've never felt the need to be active in gay rights, but I 'mcertainly not ashamed of being a homosexual. It's like the color of my hair or eyes—a part of me and I'm much more interested in having people judge me on my newspaper than on my sexual preferences.”

  Tom thought he knew where this was going. "Oswald, did Cindy know about this?”

  Oswald looked very tired and the Liberty paisley bow tie under his blue pinstriped collar seemed to wilt.

  “She saw me in Boston one afternoon and decided to follow me, just for the hell of it, I guess. Well, she struck pay dirt. I was on my way to meet a friend at a bar on Tremont Street. It 's pretty well known as a gay bar. She waited until I came out with my friend, then snapped a picture. He grabbed the camera and tore out the film. She just smirked. `I don 't need evidence, though, do I, Mr. Pearson ? You'd find it awfully hard to lie to your mother, wouldn 't you ?' I wanted to kill her on the spot, but we went to a luncheonette and she told me what she wanted."

  “Money 1" Tom guessed.

  Oswald laughed, a quick burst of laughter that sounded more like a dog barking. “ This might be hard to believe, but we're talking about Cindy Shepherd here and she was beyond the scope of the ordinary imagination. She wanted publicity. She wanted to be sure that anything she did—sneeze, cross the street, fart—would be in the paper, and with a picture.”

  Tom had always been pleased with the amount of coverage the paper had devoted to the Young People 's activities. Now that turned to ashes in his mouth. He remembered all the pictures of Cindy. She must have been crazy.

  “She had me where she wanted me. My mother would have found a gay son quite unacceptable. Even without a photograph, just the suggestion would have been enough to make serious trouble.”

  And, Tom recalled, Mother had covered the paper 's losses for years, had, in fact, bought the thing for her son.

  “But your mother died last summer. Surely you don't think the police would suspect you ? " Tom was beginning to wonder what the point of all this revelation was.

  “After Mother died, I told Cindy the deal was off, but she wasn 't very happy about it. She informed me that she was glad I didn 't mind my fellow townspeople knowing and she was sure that I could keep on coaching the youth soccer league.”

  Tom leaned forward and exploded. "She was diabolical, Oswald. I wish I had known what you were going through ! "

  “ I wish I had told you. It never occurred to me that my position in the town would be affected—what people thought of me. So I renewed the contract. I figured she was getting married and after that she'd find bigger fish.

  “But it's like she's reaching from the grave. The police asked me to take a look at some photos they're trying to identify. I'm sure you've heard about them. Anyway, they thought because of the newspaper, I might know more people around here than most. Those cameras of hers. I only knew one person—me. It's from the rear and I'm walking next to my friend into that bar. She must have finished her previous roll of film with that first photo. I could take the chance that they won't be able to make a positive identification, although they must have tracked down the location by now. I thought maybe they were trying to trap me into saying something, but nothing has happened. I'm a nervous wreck. Well, I have been since she died. I don't know what to do now. Would there be any point in going to the police ? And how would people here react if they knew ? Please, Reverend, help me decide what to do ! “

  Thirty minutes later, Tom poked his head in the kitchen.

  “Darling, I'll explain when I get back, but I have to go to the police station for a while."

  “ Tom ! This is getting ridiculous."

  “ I know, Faith, believe me, I know." He rolled his eyes upward in supplication or confusion and left, but not before Faith grabbed him for a hasty kiss and whispered in his ear, "Whatever you do, don 't eat any more of those submarine sandwiches. I'll have dinner no matter how late it is.”

  It wasn't too late, and over a mustardy salade lyonnaise, followed by a smoked trout soufflé, Tom filled Faith in, Oswald having decided to let this part of his life be revealed, albeit in as subtle a way as possible.

  “In other words," said Faith, "we tell people like Pix, not people like Millicent."

  “Precisely. He had to tell the police, of course, and it 's bound to get out, so far better to have it originate with him. Somehow, I don't think people are going to care very much. Charley and Dunne didn't bat an eye and after questioning him for a while, just told him to go home and if he had to leave town to let them know."

  “ There are so many suspects at the moment, if we count all the guys in the pictures, it's almost an embarrassment of riches. Well, Oswald makes more sense than Sam, although both are ludicrous."

  “I'm not sure I see how he makes more sense and I don 't want to. My brain is so foggy now, I need a beacon to find my way upstairs."

  “ Follow me, Tom. Anyway, we can talk about this on the way to the Moores' tomorrow."

  “Swell," he said and flicked off the kitchen light.

  The next morning as they drove north through Newburyport and Salisbury to the Moores' house perched on the coast with virtually one room in Maine and one in New Hampshire, Faith thought she would always remember this fall as one of the most beautiful and horrible ones of her life.

  The town of Aleford was completely panicked. Sam's interrogation had stirred even more indignation than Dave's. Sam had been a Town Meeting member practically since he came of voting age and he had been talking recently of running for selectman. Wives eyed their husbands furtively. If Sam had fallen, what about Dick or Harry? Perfectly innocent men looked full of guilty secrets. But no one except possibly Millicent believed Sam had killed Cindy and that meant there was a murderer among them.

  In the car Faith had told Tom about her conversation with Jenny and he had laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. It was a moment of great comic relief.

  “Of course she was always sniffing around me, Faith, particularly when I first came to town. I know she wanted a parson to add to her list, sort of like the Mile High club or whatever it is where two people somehow manage to copulate in one of those airplane toilets where I have trouble just getting myself in to pee. Anyway, I was firmly avuncular and more lately positively nasty to her."

  “Sure, sure," chided Faith. She could imagine Tom's idea of nastiness. " You probably told her she couldn't have the weenie roast when she wanted it or something like that."

  “ A very apt
choice of activity, I may say," said Tom, "but actually you're pretty much on the mark. I was challenging her quite openly at the recent meetings. You know I've always wanted other kids to take charge andnot let Cindy run the show. Last month I said something about a new president and she was very upset. I guess it hadn't occurred to her that once she was married, she wouldn't be the president or in Young People's anymore. Of course there would have been plenty to do in the couples group, but Cindy never liked to let go of anything."

  “Exactly. She always had to be in control. Look at Sam and Dave, and now Oswald. And the way she ran things in town—all those pancake breakfasts. You know she didn't give a damn about any of it, it was just to be in charge. Maybe it was losing her parents at such an early age—she was afraid to let things out of her hearty little grip. You know, love, maybe she did have some deep-rooted psychological problems and we've been a tad insensitive.”

  Tom and Faith looked at each other.

  “ Naaaaah," they said simultaneously.

  “But that explains the hints about a man of the cloth. She was really more angry at me than I supposed. Probably she thought I should make her some kind of president for life."

  “I shudder to think what she had up her sleeve. Some kind of whisper campaign complete with scarlet letters addressed to the parsonage. But eliminating Dave, Sam, Oswald, and you leaves me without a suspect again."

  “Don't worry. I'm sure you'll come up with a new theory soon. Theory, Faith, no more sleuthing, unless you take me too. You know, like ' You must never go down to the end of the town, if you don't go down with me.' "

  “I promise, James James.”

  They had felt pretty optimistic, almost normal, for a few minutes, then concern about Sam and the Miller family occupied their conversation.

  Faith hoped John Dunne was dissatisfied with Sam as a suspect. Sam had been allowed to go home, but was summoned back bright and early that morning for more. The ticket to Puerto Rico in his pocket had in fact been for a client, just as he had asserted when they found it. Still he did not deny that he had been with Cindy until eleven-thirty Friday morning, when she had suddenly demanded to be driven back to Aleford, and casually jumped out of the car when he stopped for the light in the center. Her last words to him had been, "So long, sucker." Faith privately agreed with Jenny that Cindy was definitely not normal. She seemed to be possessed by Mae West, Mata Hari, and Scarlett O'Hara all at the same time.

  They were almost to the Moores' house. Faith was looking out the window. Tom had a tape of "Prairie Home Companion" on and Garrison Keillor's hypnotic voice made her feel suspended and sleepy—and safe. A beautiful fall. That was the ironic part. All this was happening in one of the most beautiful falls to hit New England in a lifetime. The air was balmy; sometimes Faith even thought she could smell an ocean breeze and tropical flowers in downtown Aleford. Each morning started in gentle darkness and gave way to brilliant sunshine. The leaves did not seem to want to fall from the trees and when they did, they arranged themselves into exquisite bright mosaics of yellow, orange, and red on the lush green grass. It really was too much, Faith thought. Like Keillor 's voice it lulled one into a feeling of safety and security. It made it too easy to forget what was really happening.

  There was some banjo music on now. Faith had missed the hootenanny era, but Tom loved bluegrass and she was trying to educate herself for his sake. It was quite an effort. She found it hard to listen to most music. Despite her mother's rigorous training at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, as soon as Faith heard the openingbars, be they Scarlatti or Scruggs, her mind started to wander.

  Soon after, they turned off the main road onto the first of many little roads that would eventually land them on the Moores' peninsula.

  Patricia had steaming bowls of chowder waiting for them. Robert was anxious to get out on the water before the tide turned, so they sat down to eat right away. After the house in Aleford, the camp was always a surprise.

  This was Robert's house. He had discovered the spit of land jutting out just south of Kittery while sailing one day and had fallen in love with it. They used to camp on it when the children were young. At that time, the only structures were a dock and boathouse. Then five years ago they had built a magnificent contemporary house. The architect had been a client of Robert's and Robert had liked him immediately. When he saw the man's work, he knew this was whom he wanted to build his house. This house contained, rather than the hodgepodge of generations that furnished the Aleford house, Robert's collection of twentieth-century photographs; sleek, sublimely comfortable Italian furniture; and some of the beautiful Amish-type quilts Patricia had started making lately. The huge glass windows brought the pines and granite rocks into the house and at times it was hard to tell if you were inside or out.

  They were eating on the deck. Patricia ladled the soup into chunky pottery bowls with which they could pleasantly warm their hands. This was followed by a big salad and more sourdough bread, which was Faith's contribution. Jenny had made a blueberry cobbler with blueberries frozen the past summer to finish the meal. It was perfect. Faith would have been content to sit and bask in the sun all afternoon, but Robert was plainly eager to get going.

  “Come on, come on," he complained, "We're going to lose the wind and the tide will be turning before we're started."

  “ Good, Daddy," said Jenny. " Then we can clam ! “

  He turned to her in mock disgust. " Some sailor.”

  Jenny was going to watch Benjamin and at the last minute Patricia decided to stay behind and work on her latest quilt. Faith suspected she wasn't as ardent a sailor as Robert and only went to keep him company.

  The three of them set out and before long the house was a pinprick in the midst of the dark green line of pines stretching far up the coast.

  Robert let out a sigh of pure animal pleasure. "Sometimes when I 'm out here I wish I never had to go back to shore.”

  Clearly he was in a pensive mood. Tom said something noncommittal about wishing things like that himself sometimes. Faith knew his technique well enough by now. He would draw Robert out, unraveling the thread of his discontent, then help him knit it all back up into a more wearable garment. He really was a very good minister. She let their voices play about her and closed her eyes.

  Presently she heard Robert say, " I've been pretty stretched to the limit, Tom, what with the two houses to keep up and Robby 's tuition. And the wedding was going to set me back a good deal. I won't pretend that the money isn 't damn handy.”

  Faith kept her eyes closed. She had the feeling that if she showed signs of being awake, Robert would stop talking. They were tearing across the water now at a terrific clip. Robert 's voice picked up and the words came faster.

  “It sounds horrible, especially now, but I've always hated her. Maybe I resented her coming into the family when she was a child, but I like to think that if it had been a different child, I would have loved it. From thebeginning she did nothing but cause trouble. When Jenny was born, I actually feared she might harm the baby. She was about seven years old then. She knew what she was doing. We had a nurse at first and she left the room for a moment when Cindy was there playing. When she came back a few minutes later, Cindy had taken Jenny from the crib and was balancing her on the windowsill. She said she wanted to see if she could fly like baby Superman, but that was just Cindy covering up. Obviously she resented having another girl around, try as we did to avoid playing favorites. Patricia really has been a saint.

  “Cindy never bothered Rob much. Well, he was a little boy to her and she was only interested in older boys. He wasn't any kind of threat to her, although she used to tease him cruelly. I had to speak sternly to her on several occasions and she would look very sorry, then start in on him again when my back was turned. You didn't know him when he was Jenny's age, but he was a bit chubby and Cindy drove him crazy. She had all sorts of names for him. You can imagine.”

  Tom could and, remembering a similar phase in his own adolescenc
e, wondered why Rob hadn't killed Cindy then.

  Robert had made some minute adjustments to the sail and was back at the tiller. The Moores had an assortment of boats—the inevitable Boston Whaler ; rowboats, canoes, and dinghies for the kids to mess around with ; Robby 's boat, a Snipe, his pride and joy, which he raced, with his father as crew ; then this old Dark Harbor sloop lovingly restored and cared for by Robert. Cindy had not been interested in boats, or in New Hampshire much.

  “ I was glad that Cindy didn't like to come here. She never wanted to rough it, which was all right with us. She didn 't have to and she seemed happy to go to camps with less primitive accommodations instead. Maybe we were two families : the Moores and the Moores plus Cindy. We certainly didn't intend it to be that way in the beginning. Patricia 's mother was still alive when we took Cindy and she warned us not to expect her to be like Rob. `She's been badly spoiled from the start,' she said, `Just do your Christian duty and run for the cellar when trouble comes, because she's going to bring you plenty.' Her grandmother was the only one Cindy minded and I think she was afraid of her."

  “It's too bad she couldn 't have taken her then. Maybe that 's what Cindy needed—the old-fashioned `spare the rod and spoil the child approach.' Not that I think it's right," Tom said.

  “ She didn 't want her. She knew she didn 't have too many years left and I think she wanted to have some peace and quiet. She liked her little house on the corner by the river. We would have been happy to have her in the big house—she had been born there and raised her children there, but she said she wanted a change and her own place. A remarkable woman. Patricia 's a lot like her—they look soft, but underneath there's that native bedrock. Besides, Patricia wanted Cindy very much. We had been married for a long time before Rob came along and Patricia always wanted lots of children. We hadn't seen a lot of Cindy. They lived in California, you know. Patricia was terribly upset about losing her sister and she had just had a miscarriage, but here was a ready-made daughter and she was excited about having her. I have to admit I was too, at first. But it didn't last, especially for me.”