A Truth for a Truth (2 page)

“First, Unitarians aren’t big on divine retribution,” I told her, though the fine points of theology are usually not part of our conversational repertoire. “So I’m not reading anything into the way Win died. But if I did believe in a God who points fingers and yells ‘Zap,’ I’d think he had it in for me. For the last week Hildy has told me every single detail of Win’s final moments, over and over, including everything else in the garbage can.”

“You have to learn not to listen so well.”

“That’s not the half of it. When she finishes, and I’m trying to rid my mind of those images, I get these impromptu whispered conferences about how I can become a better minister’s wife.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. One of the things I love most about Luce is her complete lack of interest in joining our church. She’s a nominal member of a Reform synagogue, but she thinks organized religion is an oxymoron. To Lucy, Aggie Sloan-Wilcox is just an unexpected bargain she happened upon one day in a long checkout line at Kroger.

She went back to work, plastering hummus with a vengeance. “
Better
minister’s wife? Exactly what are your shortcomings?”

“Too numerous to mention.”

“Try me.”

I layered and sliced as I weeded the casual indictments—clutter on the kitchen counters and matted leaves in the flowerbeds—from the more serious.

I began as graciously as I could. “First, you have to understand Hildy really does believe she’s helping.”

“Helping whom?”

“She’s hard to dislike.”

“I’m having no problem so far.”

“You haven’t even met her.”

“For which I’m properly grateful.”

I looked up. “Hildy and Win moved to Emerald Springs a month ago and rented a house for the next year to see if they wanted to spend retirement here. You
might
have met her if you’d been around more, Luce. Not off traveling to who knows where.”

Lucy didn’t look up. All I could see was a mop of red curls falling over high cheekbones and a long, graceful neck. “I told you
where
. I was in California. San Francisco, then Monterey.”

“Where” was really unimportant. Lucy had been missing for almost ten days. I had my suspicions about “whom” she’d been with, but Lucy would tell me in her own good time if she and Kirkor Roussos, Emerald Springs’s hottest police detective, were now an item.

And did I ever want to know!

“Well, it seems I’m not doing enough to enhance Ed’s career,” I said instead. “I’ve kind of, well, you know, made a name for myself in our fair city.”

“I’m guessing she’s not worried about you flipping houses.” Lucy looked up. “Not that there’s much to worry about along those lines.”

In theory Lucy and I are still in business, but we recently completed picture-perfect renovations on a house that we haven’t been able to sell again. Any profit we’ve made on our flipping venture is draining away on those mortgage payments, due to a miserable economy. We’re more or less in a holding pattern now. I
hold
the want ads looking for new employment opportunities. She
holds
copies of our bank statements and moans.

I shook my head. “Not the houses, no.”

“Well, I suppose tracking down murderers is a bit outside the usual wifely duties,” she said.

Of course Lucy had nailed the other thing I’m known for in Emerald Springs. For some reason little ol’ minister’s wife me is a homicide magnet.

I slapped a piece of bread in place with a satisfying squish, then I hacked away mercilessly until I realized I was creating enough bread crumbs to track Hansel and Gretel to India. I stopped, blew a strand of hair off my face, and tried to keep my tone cheerful.

“There
are
no usual duties. I’m married to a man who chose to become a minister. I haven’t signed any contracts, pledged any oaths, taken any vows. Nobody’s paying me. This is the twenty-first century. Minister’s partners come in all genders, sizes, and persuasions. I can do whatever I want, be the person I really am.”

“So, you’ve explained this to her?”

I scrunched up my nose in answer, because she had me there. Okay, I’m a wuss. Despite everything, I can’t drum up any animosity for Hildy. How do you tell a well-meaning do-gooder to find another project, without mortally offending her? And now that her husband is lying in a casket, and she’s coping with the new reality of widowhood, I’m even less apt to confront her.

I took the next hummus-laden slice. “Hildy thinks she’s helping me. She thinks encouraging me to find my inner Hildy is her legacy. She was a minister’s wife for more than forty years, five of them here, although that was fifteen years ago. ‘Minister’s wife’ is how she thinks of herself, the first thing on her personal identity list—probably the second and third, too. In all the years of their marriage, she never took a job. She was sure she had a calling to help Win.”

“Win what?”

I knew she was being purposely obtuse. “Help her
husband
.
Win
is her husband.”

“With a name like Godwin, settling on Win shows a certain lack of conceit. He could have gone by God.”

“Win
was
God to a lot of people.” In fact Ed had privately expressed concern that Win might spend his retirement trying to prove he was
still
the only
real
minister of our church. It does happen.

Lucy finished, using up her tub of hummus and loaf of bread in the same instant. She’s the only person besides my sister Vel who could pull this off. Under the wild corkscrew curls, behind the gleaming jade eyes, is a realtor who can figure exactly how much money a potential buyer should spend on a house, and a friend who can assess how much advice to give before a friendship starts to wobble.

She pushed her final slice toward me and sat back. “So Hildy doesn’t think finding murderers should be your job?”

Unfortunately, there is something to be said for Hildy’s concerns. The last time I nailed a killer, I did so in our sanctuary, in the very spot where Win’s coffin will lie in state this morning. Some members are just the least bit upset by this.

“My curiosity certainly seems to be uppermost in her mind,” I admitted. “Followed closely by my outspoken children, my refusal to chair and cater the annual pledge dinner—”

“Aggie—”

But I was on a roll now. “My lack of interest in the social action committee’s petition to turn downtown into a pedestrian mall, and my insistence that the church board honor their promise to put a new floor in this kitchen!”

“Cheer up. Once the memorial service is over—”

How I wished that were true, but I waved away the rest of her sentence. “Hildy’s planning to settle in Emerald Springs. She says this is where she was happiest. Even though her daughters and grandkids live in San Diego.”

“Maybe she tries to overhaul
their
lives, too.”

“I talked to her oldest daughter last night. I pointed out how much Hildy will need her family now. I even reminded her how difficult our winters can be.”

“And you didn’t mention that your own mother lives in Emerald Springs, difficult winters and all?”

“I felt it was inappropriate to burden her with my family history.”

“Right . . . And?”

“She said her father’s life insurance and pension are so generous that her mother has plenty of money for airplane tickets and warm clothing, and she and her sister feel Hildy needs to live wherever she’ll be happiest.”

“Did she also make it clear she will make
certain
her mother won’t be happy in southern California?”

“Pretty much.” I cut the last sandwich and carefully placed it on my artfully arranged stack, just as Ed staggered in from outside.

The last week has been difficult for my husband. Spring is never his healthiest time of year. Ed has always had seasonal allergies, but they’ve grown worse as he’s grown older. Two years ago we realized it was no coincidence that Easter week was always the apex of the season, no matter when it fell. From there it was simple to track the problem to Easter lilies.

Strong fragrances have always made Ed sneeze, but the spicy scent of pots and pots of lilies in the front of the church was actually triggering asthma attacks. Luckily the flower committee agreed that baskets of tulips and daffodils would serve just as well to herald the coming of spring, and for the past two years, he’s made it through his Easter sermon without wheezing and blowing his nose.

Both of which he was doing now. In earnest.

“Ed?” I gestured him to the chair beside Lucy, and he fell into it like David collapsing after his skirmish with Goliath.

“Lilies.” He gasped the word.

“Where?” My eyes widened. “No! In the church?”

He nodded, eyes streaming so forcefully he had to grab a paper napkin. Junie, my mother, doesn’t cry this hard during reruns of
Terms of Endearment
.

“But they know you’re allergic to them.”

“Not Hildy.”

“What, she’s decorating the memorial service with lilies?”

He nodded. “Win’s favorite. She said . . . she wanted the flowers to be an Easter . . . gift to the church. Two birds, one stone. Her treat.”

Lucy and I looked at each other. Today was Tuesday. Easter was this weekend. Hildy’s a practical woman. Whatever flowers she chose for the memorial service would still be in good condition by Easter morning. And in typical Hildy style, she had simply acted on her own, most likely canceling the flower committee’s order for the holiday service, and substituting hers as a gift to the congregation. Since she always knows best, she wouldn’t have consulted a soul. Hildy would be certain she had done a good deed for everyone.

Not.

Ed was as pale as, well, a lily. “You’ve never seen . . . so many in one place. It’s a . . . lily blizzard.”

I could imagine this. An overabundance of flowers fit with the rest of today’s event. Despite every caution, Hildy had ignored Ed and planned a service for Win that was worthy of a king.

Ed is a “less is more” kind of minister. His eulogies are powerful. He knows how to draw the essence from a life and talk about the things that mattered most. He doesn’t make saints out of sinners, or use the service to tell cautionary tales to the living. He doesn’t ramble or tell pointless stories. His readings and music are chosen with the greatest care. He asks the family of the departed to limit speakers to two or three of the most important. His services last an hour, and not a moment is wasted. Best of all, people are both moved
and
conscious when it’s over.

Hildy’s thoughts on the matter are quite different. Last week when she grew tired of Ed’s counsel, she marshaled forces. A committee of the congregation’s old guard—those who thought the church should be frozen in time to preserve Win’s ministry—arrived at our doorstep. Ed was encouraged to let Hildy have her way in all things. Since he knows when to fight and when to retreat, we now have an interminable service to look forward to, with representatives from every major committee of the church. The choir will sing every anthem they’ve performed since Christmas. Anybody who has a memory of Win they want to share, will only have to raise a hand to be recognized. Even those who never met him.

Afterwards Hildy may take her show on the road. Win served a total of ten churches during his ministry, and Hildy has been in touch with each of them, discussing memorial services throughout the remainder of this year and into the next.

At least Hildy will be spending time on the road and won’t be constantly available to remind me that a good minister’s wife never draws attention to herself.

Ed finished his explanation. “She says lilies were Win’s favorite . . . flowers!” The last word came with a sneeze like none I’d ever heard. Luckily he’d turned his head away from the sandwiches.

I got up to whisk the platter to a faraway counter. “What are you going to do?”

Ed glanced at his watch and sneezed again. “I have a new prescription. I took one an hour ago. I’m going to take . . . another.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Lucy asked, before I could. “I doubled up on an antihistamine once and slept for twenty-four hours.”

“I . . . don’t have a choice.”

I considered suggesting that Ed turn the service over to Teddy. Teddy is our eight-year-old daughter, and she’s continually fascinated by all things ministerial. I thought she would do a credible job. Both she and her sister look like their father. Same dark blue eyes and pale reddish hair. Maybe nobody would notice.

In the end I decided not to joke. Ed was in a fix, and besides, Teddy was already helping today, chosen as the representative from our religious education program. She was the only child in the whole congregation who actually wanted to attend the service.

“Take the second pill about ten minutes before the service starts,” I said. “The drowsiness will probably kick in about the time you’re done. I’ll drive you to the cemetery and prop you up.”

Ed headed upstairs, and Lucy headed home. I headed to the downstairs bathroom to comb my hair and make sure I didn’t have anything edible clinging to my green dress.

No one would mistake either of my daughters for me. I’m the only brunette in the family, the only member with hair that’s not bone straight, the only one with more or less hazel eyes, and certainly the only one with a curvaceous figure, although our oldest daughter, Deena, will probably give me a run for my money before long. There’s nothing remarkable about me, and nothing to pity. I’m just a normal mother of two who happens to be in the wrong place at the right time far too often. I’m sure there are mothers all over the world who find murderers in their spare time.

Still, I was supremely glad that for once the memorial service I was about to attend had nothing to do with me. Win had died a perfectly natural death, which is sad enough. I didn’t have to search for clues. I didn’t have to defend myself against bad guys. I could just be a member of the congregation and the comforter of the bereaved.