Body In The Belfry ff-1

by Katherine Hall Page

  “She's been pretty tense lately," he continued, "And talking a lot about not judging people harshly. I thought she meant me, because of how I felt about Cindy. I know it is horrible, but I was almost glad she was dead. But maybe Mom was talking about somebody else."

  “Did she have any visitors lately? Especially anyonewho didn't come normally ? " Faith asked, addressing the question to Jenny. Rob wouldn't have known who had been there that week.

  “Jenny and I have been all over that." He smiled for a moment and Jenny managed a faint replica in turn. "Mom always had a lot of visitors. This house is like the Grand Central Station of Aleford. You know that. Her quilting group met here on Wednesday and it was their turn for the Bridge Club Thursday night. This doesn't include all the people dropping in and out.”

  Faith knew it was true. She had been in the habit of dropping in herself when she was up that way, to see Patricia, walk in the garden and likely as not leave with some flowers or a jar of jam. On paper Patricia would have sounded too good to be true. In real life you thanked God she was.

  Faith offered to take Jenny for the next few days, but as she suspected the kids wanted to stay together and with their father.

  “You know we don't have much family. Dad was an only child and now there 's no one left in Mom's family, so we have to stick together," Rob said matter-of-factly, then added in a voice a little less controlled, "Dad has been pretty bad and he doesn't want to see anybody but us. We don't want to leave him.”

  Faith had only met Rob a few times before and although she had been slightly amused at the refined punk image he had adopted in defense against the preppiness of Williams, she didn't have much impression of him. Now she felt that he was going to keep things under control here. The numbness of grief would come later, but first there was anger and a lot to do.

  With Jenny it was different. She looked completely devastated and Faith noticed that she was almost unable to speak. When Rob walked downstairs alone with Faith, she was glad to hear that Doctor Kane had given Jenny a tranquilizer the night before and had been checking in on them throughout the day. Jenny was going to try to sleep a little now—it was the best escape Faith could think of for her.

  “If you need anything at all, Rob, please call—or just come over. For a meal, or talk, whatever helps.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Fairchild, we will; although, it won 't be for a meal unless we bring the food. If I could get all this stuff in the freezer, we 'd have enough for a year or two. Plus the Minuteman Café phoned this morning and offered to bring a hot meal whenever we wanted. And of course none of us can eat a thing.”

  They went into the study. Robert and Tom were sitting before the fire. Robert looked a little better and Rob went over to his father and put his arms around him.

  They left father and son soon after and went out to the car. As they were getting in they heard an insistent tapping on the upstairs window. It was Jenny. She was struggling to lift the heavy sash. Faith called up to her, then, realizing she couldn't be heard, went back in the house and up the stairs. Jenny was standing in the doorway of her room, her arms filled with a quilt—Patricia's last quilt.

  “Mom wanted to give this to you. It's not finished. She was going to add another row of these quilted feathers ... " Jenny could barely say the words.

  Faith held her closely. "Oh, Jenny, it would be one of my greatest treasures, but I think you ought to keep it." Jenny interrupted her as fiercely as her shaky voice would allow, "No, Mom wanted you to have it ! "

  “Then I will take it with great thanks. It is very beautiful, like your mother, but I am going to leave it with you to keep for me—just for now." Faith took Jenny's hand and led her back into her room, tucked her into bed, and spread the quilt over her—the deep blues and purples with flashes of red were like jewels inthe sun and she hoped it would blanket Jenny with a little of the warmth and comfort of that other irreplaceable warmth. She closed the door softly and let herself out without disturbing Robert and Rob, noting as she did so what an easy house it was to slip in and out of unnoticed.

  On the way back to the parsonage Faith told Tom what Jenny had done.

  “Of course you know what this means?”

  Tom knew exactly. " It means she was listening."

  “ Got it in one, sweetie. And it means she probably heard the whole conversation on the deck, not just the part about the quilt.”

  They swung into the driveway next to their house, a maneuver that had to be done decisively with one sharp turn of the wheel, since the drive itself was about the width of a footpath and bordered on one side by the Miller 's arborvitae hedge and on the other side by their own protected-by-the-Historical-Society stone wall. Faith and Tom had each dislodged a stone or two, which they hastily and guiltily replaced. So far the arborvitae stood untouched.

  Having safely reached the garage, Tom stopped the car and felt free to say what had been on his mind since the turn from Main Street.

  “ And yours may not have been the only conversation she overheard.”

  They entered the house, paid Samantha for babysitting after hearing what a perfect doll Benjamin had been, and then collapsed in front of their own hearth—a cold one, which Tom quickly filled with a roaring fire. He leaned back in the big wing chair and Faith sat on the floor, her head resting against his knees. He put his hand on her hair and absentmindedly twisted the strands between his fingers. Benjamin was on the floor next to Faith and Tom thought they must look like a scene straight out of Norman Rockwell—which was the whole point. What was going on beneath the surface of tranquil Aleford bore absolutely no resemblance to the picture on top. In one case, the discrepancy was deadly.

  Patricia's funeral would be on Monday. Robert had left all the arrangements to Tom, as he was in no shape to plan anything at the moment. Tom thought he would go back to the house after church the next day and speak to each of them briefly with some suggestions. The children in particular might want something read. He already knew what Patricia had wanted ; Aleford would have to listen to Wordsworth again, this time for real.

  Faith told him about her talk with Rob and Tom was glad to hear he was taking charge of his father and sister. Then she stood up and stretched before bending down to scoop up Benjamin in her arms.

  She turned to face Tom. “ Now it's time to really talk and we need something to eat, so let's move into the kitchen.”

  Tom was completely exhausted and had planned to spend the evening as close to the position he presently occupied as possible, with perhaps a brief foray into the kitchen for some kind of sustenance, preferably something that took less than three minutes to prepare.

  Faith looked at him sympathetically. "I know, I know—you're very tired, but we'll rest when the whole thing is over. Now we have work to do.”

  She put Benjamin in his beloved swing, wound it up, and made a mental note once more to nominate the inventor for the Nobel Peace Prize. Benj smiled up at her and began to move sedately to and fro.

  When he was born, Faith swore she would make all his baby food and never buy the jars ; but after she discovered how much it was costing her to purée pears out of season she succumbed and only made applesauce andvegetables. She reached for a jar of apricots now and quickly made some cereal and warm milk which she handed to Tom. A shadow crossed Benjamin 's face when the swing was stopped, but as soon as he saw his little Peter Rabbit dish, he began to wave his hands in greedy anticipation. "Ah, my little gourmand, my petit chou," cooed Tom. He loved to feed his son. It was so direct and satisfying.

  Faith meanwhile was bustling around, putting together a rich béarnaise sauce for the steaks and layering potatoes for a hasty Pommes Anna. " We need rich food, Tom, and a good Côtes-du-Rhône.”

  Tom could see Faith meant business.

  An hour later Benjamin was asleep in the swing and Tom and Faith were savoring the last mouthfuls of Jack Savenor 's steaks and what Faith had done with them.

  Tom noticed that a yellow legal pad had materia
lized by Faith 's side and she was starting to make a list. Tom didn't know whether it was the wine, food, or what, but he had begun to think that Faith was right. Between the two of them, they had a great deal of knowledge about the town and the case. Maybe if they went at it in a systematic way, they'd hit on something everyone else had missed.

  Patricia's death had changed everything. It wasn't amateur sleuthing any more. It was his—and he unwillingly conceded, their—responsibility to try to find the killer.

  “Now I know this sounds a lot like a novel—you know, the heroine sits in her bedroom in some drafty country house, writes down a list of suspects, realizes that the only one that makes sense is the very man she's in love with, then wakes up the next morning to find out the butler did it, of course."

  “But," interrupted Tom, "the man you're in love with is sitting here and nobody in Aleford has butlers, so we'll just have to go on with the list."

  “Exactly," said Faith, "There must he something to it, since you keep reading about it all the time and even Dunne carries that notebook."

  “Let's start by treating the two murders as one," Tom suggested. " We'll list all the possible suspects and see who was where at the time of each and what motives exist."

  “And what about the break-in? I think we have to assume that the murderer was looking for something in the tin box."

  “Good point, and since it occurred while we were all in church, we should be able to remember where everyone was."

  “Two things are wrong with that theory, Tom, although we have to try it. One, the murderer may not have been acting alone, and two, it's very hard to recall if someone was in church or not, particularly if he or she attends regularly. We're so used to seeing someone there, that we assume they were."

  “And three, my love, the person who broke into the house may not be the murderer, but merely one of Cindy's pigeons."

  “Tom, if we're this confused before we even start, we'll never get anywhere. Let's stick to the two deaths and go on from there.”

  Accordingly, Faith folded the paper in three lengthwise columns and wrote, "Suspects,”

  “Murder 1," and "Murder 2" at the top of each column. Somehow it wouldn't have bothered her to write "Cindy's Murder," but it would to write "Patricia's." If she started to think about Patricia, she knew she would never be able to write anything.

  By the end of an hour they had exhausted the possibilities and the paper looked a little sparse :

  Suspects Murder 1 Murder 2

  Dave Svenson At RR tracks; seen by Phelan At the scene

  Motives: Cindy was driving him crazy with her cruel behavior and what amounted to sexual blackmail. Despite his denial, was she blackmailing him about something else? Was he more drug involved than he admitted and she had further proof ? They thought they knew Dave and it seemed unlikely, but he had already surprised them. Patricia knew he had killed Cindy and maybe even why, so he had to kill her, too. As for means, he could have done both easily ; although, as MacIsaac had revealed, whoever killed Cindy must have been lucky or had some rudimentary medical knowledge to get the knife exactly where it was.

  Sam Miller Unverifiable alibi Airtight alibi

  Motives: Cindy was definitely blackmailing him and would no doubt keep escalating with further demands and humiliations. He hated her, but enough to kill her? Patricia had discovered something that definitely linked him to the murder, so he had to kill her too.

  His alibi for Murder 1 was pretty slim. His car was seen near the center at 11:30 the day Cindy was killed and she was next to him. No one saw her get out at the light as he claimed. He was seen later at D 'Angelo 's Sandwich Shop in Bedford, but this was at 12:30, plenty of time to get up to the belfry with Cindy, kill her, and get down again. But where was his car ? No one had seen it parked in the center (no one being Millicent McKinley and Eleanor Whipple, both of whose houses commanded a bird 's-eye, or in Millicent 's case, an eagle 's-eye view of the approach to the belfry). And there was no way even a Porsche could drive up that hill.

  Sam did have a strong alibi for Murder 2. He was in court at the time in full view of judge and jury. Faith suggested that the poison could have been put into the empty teapot the night or morning before, but Tom reminded her that Patricia always scalded it with boiling water before she made the tea and the poison would have been rinsed out. Still, they made a note to ask MacIsaac or Dunne if enough could have remained.

  Virtually anyone in town had the means to kill Cindy. Easy enough to slip a knife from the kitchen drawer and Sam might also have known just where to place it. His hobby was medicine and he not only read the Harvard Medical School Healthletter from cover to cover each month, but had rows of medical texts in his study. Faith once asked him why he hadn't become a doctor and was surprised at the simplicity of the answer.

  “I can't stand the sight of blood," Sam had replied. No blood with poison, and Cindy's wound had been remarkably neat.

  Piz Miller No alibi for Murder 1 or Murder 2

  Pix reported that she was shopping at the mall at the time of Cindy's death. She had been buying shoes and the saleswoman had remembered her, but not the exact time, other than that it was after lunch and before break. When Patricia was killed, Pix had been doing housework, always a solitary and unverifiable occupation. It was only noticeable when one didn't do it.

  Motives: She discovered what Cindy was doing and killed to protect her husband 's reputation and their marriage. Again she killed Patricia to prevent her from linking the Millers to the original crime.

  Oswald Pearson No alibi for Murder 1 or Murder 2 Pearson claimed he was in and out of his office both days working on stories. Faith remembered passing him on her way to the belfry, so he was in the area.

  Motives: Cindy was definitely blackmailing him, but with his mother's death, it had lost most of its force. Unless there was more to it than he revealed. Again, she was leaving town soon and would be out of his thinning hair presumably for good. The only motive for killing Patricia was if she had known he killed Cindy.

  Millicent Revere McKinley (this was Faith's contribution). No alibi for either day, or any other day.

  She was certainly in close vicinity of the belfry on the day of Cindy's murder and had easy access to the roses, as did anyone strolling by her fente, but Millicent no doubt had them counted. Any murderer would certainly bring one along rather than risk the wrath of Millicent before even getting to kill Cindy. Faith made a note to check the roses in the Svenson 's and Miller's gardens. And since Millicent didn't attend the Fairchilds' church, her absence would not have been noted. She could have broken into the Moores' house.

  Motives: She was crazed by the use to which Cindy was putting the belfry, Dave apparently not being the only one to enjoy its timbered pleasures, and then she had to kill Patricia to prevent her from revealing what Millicent had done ? Tom grudgingly agreed to include her in the list, but felt it was a pretty weak reed.

  Robert Moore. Faith wrote this and looked at Tom. " It doesn't seem possible that he would kill Patricia, but maybe he killed Cindy and someone else killed Patricia?”

  Tom disagreed. "I think the same person killed both of them, and I know Robert doesn 't have alibis for either time. Few people would—it was lunch time, hard to prove you were someplace as opposed to being in your office with your secretary or whatever. And we don't know the extent of his money worries. I'm not saying I consider him a strong suspect." Tom ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of fatigue and irritation. "Holy merde, Faith, I can 't seriously consider any of these people as suspects, they're my friends, not to mention parishioners, except for Millicent.”

  Faith said skeptically, "I'm not so sure I would actually call her a friend either. But as for Robert, we have to put everything down. We do know he wasn 't terribly grieved over Cindy 's death. Patricia inherited everything and now it goes to him. Maybe he has a secret life. A cozy mistress on Beacon Hill?

  “ You know, Tom," she continued, "1 'm convinced th
at Jenny knows something. Of course she would be reacting this way simply on account of her mother's death, but I can't help but feel that there is something more. Something she overheard maybe and then there was that strange remark Patricia made about family. Family, now what does that remind me of ? Something Rob said." Faith shook her head impatiently.

  “Don 't worry, you'll remember," assured Tom. "Now, for the life of me, I can't think of anyone else to put on the list."

  “ Well, there are the quilters, bridge club members, and friends, but I don 't see how any of them would have benefited from either or both deaths. Sam seems to have been the only prey for Cindy in town. At least that we know of to date.

  “Pix is a member of the Bridge Club and I'll ask her for the names. Casually, Tom," she emphasized, seeing Tom 's expression, "Believe me, I am not risking life and limb, or your peace of mind by going around asking a lot of questions. The words are `low profile.' “

  She wrinkled her forehead. " I wonder if there could be anything in what Trishia said ? You know, some girl who lost her boyfriend to Cindy going berserk and stalking her. But then how would Patricia fit in ? Still, maybe I should talk to Scott again." She smiled wickedly. "With Trishia and anyone else you might want to have along to keep an eye on me."

  “That's a pretty loose definition of `low profile,' but as it happens I think it's not a bad idea. And since it's our only idea, I think we can follow it up. Scott called the Svensons, incidentally, and has talked to the lawyer."

  “ I knew he would come through." Faith felt somewhat vindicated.

  Benjamin was snoring softly in his swing ; lying in lopsided comfort. Faith reached across the table and took Tom's nice warm hand.

  “I really can't think of any other suspects. Well, there's us, MacIsaac, and Dunne, but we can't get too crazy. Besides, if Cindy had had something on Dunne, he would have been more likely to tan her hide than kill her, and the same goes for Charley."