A Truth for a Truth (16 page)

I knocked, and eventually the heavy wood door swung open, revealing a marble tiled foyer. If the Booths ever need more income, the foyer is large enough to double as a roller rink.

Fern was behind the door, and she stepped into view to glare at me.

“Did you call to let us know you were coming?”

“I’m sorry, but your telephone was out of order when I tried to reach you.”

“There was a problem on the line in the afternoon. It’s working now.”

I hadn’t tried a second time, since I wanted a few minutes of face-to-face conversation with both Fern and Samuel, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell her that.

“I’m sorry,” I said with the smile that has never impressed her, “I must have come at a bad time.”

“I suppose it’s as good a time as any.” She stepped aside to let me in.

From what I’ve been told, once upon a time minister’s wives were expected to make calls on parishioners with their husbands. Church members routinely brought out their best china, tiny tea sandwiches, freshly baked delicacies, and chitchat. Times have definitely changed. These days the significant other of a minister is as apt to be a man as a woman. We are sometimes the same sex as our partners. We often work at time-consuming jobs, and some of us have nothing to do with church or attend a different denomination’s.

But even with all the changes, basic hospitality on both sides is still a norm. I was surprised to find so little of it tonight.

“We were watching PBS,” Fern said, as if I had purposely gauged my visit to interfere.

“I’ll be glad to tell you why I’m here and leave,” I offered.

Even Fern has limits to rudeness. “No, come in and say hello to Samuel. Would you like coffee?” She sounded marginally more welcoming, although I knew if I said yes to the coffee, I would regret it.

I thanked her and refused, and after another minute of walking through stultifyingly formal rooms, we ended up in the only one that hinted at real comfort. The family room, where Samuel stood to greet me, was paneled in cherry, with dark plaid furniture and a brick fireplace that took up most of one wall.

I shook Samuel’s hand. Like Fern, he was dressed informally, which in her case meant she wasn’t wearing pantyhose and in his, no tie.

Samuel gestured me to a place on the sofa. I lowered myself to the edge and folded my hands.

“We’re having a lovely spring, aren’t we?” Samuel asked.

I’d hardly noticed, considering everything else that had been going on, but I nodded. “On the way over I saw crocus.”

“Spring’s my favorite time.” He nodded seriously, as if he’d been giving this hours of thought. I wondered if he’d been forced to consult Fern, or if he’d made this discovery on his own.

We chatted aimlessly for several minutes. Yes, my family was fine. No, I was no longer actively rehabilitating houses, not until the real estate market perked up again. I asked them about their granddaughter, Shirley, who is the spitting image of her grandmother in every way, including Fern’s bad temper. Luckily their daughter-in-law Mabyn is a good influence, and if Shirley is lucky, nurture may thwart nature.

When the conversation lagged, which it did almost immediately, I explained why I had come.

“Hildy and I spent the day calling church members,” I concluded. “We didn’t want you to be left out. I know you were friends with both Win and Hildy.”

“Of course not,” Samuel said. “Thank you for making the extra effort.”

“Our phone is working now,” Fern repeated, as if to hammer home the point.

“As a matter of fact, it’s not,” Samuel said. “I tried it a moment ago. Dead again.”

Fern harrumphed, as if Samuel had stolen all her ammunition. I was glad I wasn’t going to be around for pillow talk.

“I know Hildy will appreciate her old friends being there,” I said, trying to feel my way into a discussion of the people who were at the party the night Win died. “I hope when Ed and I revisit former churches, we have as many people who remember us as they do.”

“Yes, well, Win was an inspirational speaker and an artful administrator,” Samuel said.

“His sermons always made the congregation think,” Fern said. “No theological gobbledygook. Good rational, logical subjects. Nothing we had to stretch to believe.”

Personally I thought people should stretch on Sunday morning, but this was definitely not the time to say so. Discussing Win’s sermons did bring something else to mind.

“Do you happen to have any of his old sermons?” I asked. “I’m sure you know I’m putting together the church history? Win didn’t have copies with him of any of the sermons he gave during his years here. And there’s not one in the archives. At least none I can find.”

“I’m not one to keep old papers around,” Fern said.

“I don’t think we have anything like that,” Samuel agreed. “His sermons were excellent, but I kept them here.” He touched two fingers to his forehead.

“They must have been memorable.” I smiled.

“It was, perhaps, his greatest gift.”

I decided to broaden my approach. “I’ve heard he was an excellent counselor, too.”

Samuel’s expression changed. One moment he had been affable and smiling. Now he looked almost stricken. The change didn’t last. But even when he smiled again, I thought his eyes looked haunted.

Of course, try to measure
that
. It had all happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure what I’d seen. I just wondered what nerve I had hit and why.

“Win was good at everything,” Fern said. “One had to be in those days. It was expected. Seminaries were much more difficult to get into, and they only graduated the best.”

I couldn’t imagine how to reply. Ed had graduated at the top of his class at Harvard, but Fern’s message was clear.

Samuel seemed to pull himself together again. “Win did have a brilliant gift for administration. I was board president while he was our minister, you know, and I’ve only rarely seen someone that capable of organization and management. The church ran like a perfectly calibrated clock.”

I thought he was laying this on awfully thick, like too much icing on a crumbling cake to lay on another simile, too. I wondered if he hoped I wouldn’t notice that something was out of whack.

“I know this whole thing must be a terrible shock for their friends here,” I said. “It’s a shock for those of us who hardly knew Win. And right after the party to celebrate their return.”

“I, for one, think the police have just made an error,” Samuel said. “Nobody could possibly have wanted to murder Win. And Hildy least of all. I hope she demands more tests. It must be a mistake.”

“They’re certain it was murder,” I said. “I’m afraid that’s no longer in doubt.”

“Well, no matter what happened, we will certainly be there tomorrow.” Fern’s voice had chilled to arctic temperatures. “Is there anything else we should know?”

I know a dismissal when I hear one. I got to my feet, and she was on hers in a nanosecond. “Nothing else,” I said. “Hildy just wanted to be sure you knew tomorrow’s schedule.”

Samuel had lumbered to his feet in the meantime, but Fern held out a hand to stop him from walking me to the door. “I’ll escort Aggie, Samuel. You finish our show.”

I wanted to volunteer to find my own way out so they could both finish it, but I was afraid I might wander the house for days, stumbling from one room of ponderous antiques and reproductions to another, looking for an exit.

I said good-bye to Samuel, then I followed a silent Fern through the house. I was sure she made two wrong turns, but we got to the door in record time.

I wasn’t sure what to say. Not thank you for seeing me. That sounded pathetic. After all, I was the one who’d given up a valuable evening with my family to let them know about the service.

“Have a good evening, Fern,” I said instead, falling back on a cliché, which is the sole reason for having them available. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Just a minute.” She didn’t open the door; in fact, she stood in front of it, barring it with her body. “I hope you don’t intend to investigate Win’s death, Agate. I know that’s something of a hobby of yours.”

Scrapbooking is a hobby. Whittling is a hobby. Finding murderers, and putting my own life in danger? That isn’t a hobby, that’s an unhealthy obsession. I was surprised she couldn’t see the difference.

“I think I’m already involved,” I said carefully. “Win was Ed’s predecessor, and Hildy is being questioned as a suspect in the murder.”

“Have you no idea how bad this will look to the residents of Emerald Springs? This murder is already much too close to home. How do you think
your
involvement will look to the community? The entire episode is a blot on our reputation!”

“Um, don’t you think it will be a bigger blot if the wife of your former minister is arrested and tried for a murder she didn’t commit?”

“What I think is that you should stay out of this. The church needs a lower profile in this sordid affair, not a higher one.”

I considered, then I shook my head. “It’s strange, Fern. When I got here tonight, I started thinking about all the differences in expectations of minister’s wives fifty or maybe even fifteen years ago and now. In those days I would have been expected to agree with you and stay out of everybody’s way. But times have changed.”

She snorted. “What you’re really saying is that dedicated minister’s wives like Hildy Dorchester have come and gone. Well, it’s too bad, if that’s true.”

I couldn’t believe she’d used Hildy as an example. I waited until she’d opened the door before I answered.

“Hildy Dorchester herself may come and go, if I don’t try to find out who murdered Win. She might even go upriver, as they say, for a murder she didn’t commit. Surely that’s not what you’re after?”

She didn’t answer, and I didn’t push it. I just nodded and walked carefully down the driveway to my van, making certain not to flatten even one blade of grass.

Just in case.

On Thursday, after the solemnity of Win’s graveside service, Geoff Adler’s house on Lake Parsons was a welcome sight. The lake lies about forty-five minutes outside of Emerald Springs, and in high summer looks like a Jet Ski version of a bumper car ride. But in spring, the lake is inviting, particularly the farthest reaches where the depth is too shallow to encourage supercharged activity. Geoff’s property takes up a fair amount of shoreline there, and the house, a rambling old structure with brown wood siding and wide porches along every side, was set back from the water with an expansive lawn as buffer. A long dock stretched into the lake anchored by an octagonal gazebo on shore. Two Jet Skis and something like a fourteen-foot powerboat were docked there.

“How do you like that dock? Pretty nice setup,” I told Ed.

“He told me about the boat. He built it himself, and it has some kind of low-impact electric motor. Very quiet and environmentally friendly.”

“In partnership with the Jet Skis? The yin and yang of water sports.” Super detective that I am, I figured this attested to two very different sides to our host. A quiet, meditative side that yearned for peace, and a rip-roaring side that wanted action and adventure.

The house itself was meant to be appreciated by a large family, with jigsaw puzzles on the round porch table and kites on the lawn. Did Geoff have a family side, too? As we drove up to the house I wondered this out loud.

“Geoff’s great-grandfather built the place, and it’s always belonged to the family,” Ed said. “Geoff told me he grew up here, so even though it’s too big for one person, he can’t make himself sell it.”

“Maybe he’ll get married again and have a family to fill it.”

“Any number of women would volunteer, I’m sure.”

I imagined that was true. Geoff wasn’t bad to look at. He was smart and thoughtful, and from everything I knew, the Emerald Eagle drugstore chain was thriving, despite an economy unfriendly to small businesses. I wondered if Lucy knew Geoff. I wondered if Lucy no longer needed my matchmaking abilities, and if not, why didn’t she just tell me?

A young man with an orange armband and a matching pennant waved us along a grassy path to an open area where we could leave the van. Considering what a short time he’d had to plan, Geoff had gone to a lot of trouble.

The graveside service had been brief and moving. Under the circumstances, brief was particularly good. I think most of us were holding our breaths, afraid something else would happen to postpone Win’s final rest. But Ed turned off his iPhone for the duration of the service, and nobody dove into the open grave. I did catch sight of a woman, watching from a distance, who might have been Marie Grandower. But if it was Marie, she didn’t disturb the service. Maybe she planned to wait and say her final, private good-byes after everybody else left for the reception.

Most people had carpooled to the lake, and about ten cars had already parked. We were probably the last to arrive, since the moment he turned on his phone again, Ed received an emergency call from Norma Beet, who couldn’t convince the church mimeograph machine to print out Sunday’s order of service. Ed’s solution sounded like mechanical voodoo to me. Unplug. Wait thirty seconds. Plug. Wait thirty more seconds. Press Start. Then hold down . . . I lost interest before they sacrificed a goat, but whatever they did got it working again, even though the lengthy solution made us late.

We crossed the grass and climbed the steps to the front porch, where several people with plates heaped with fried chicken and other traditional picnic fare were already seating themselves. Esther, the forbearing church organist, greeted us and sent us inside where food was being served.

Most of those in attendance were church members. I recognized a few community leaders and noticed a few strangers, who might have attended when Win was minister and had since gone on to other churches or solitary Sundays with the
New York Times
.