A Truth for a Truth (6 page)

She had punched the words like a boxer walloping a speed bag. She looked devastated and furious simultaneously. Her dark eyes were bloodshot, and as she twisted her shawl in her hands, I saw they were shaking.

I tried to sound reassuring. “We don’t know what happened.”

“He died!”

I stared at her. “Marie, Ed will be in his office tomorrow morning. Would you like me to make an appointment for you so the two of you can talk?”

For a moment she looked angry enough to slap me. Then she pulled the pashmina shawl she wore closer around her and leaned in my direction. “I’ve had enough of
ministers
, thank you. I have no intention of talking to another one. Not ever.”

I felt the air stir and realized she had taken off while I was trying to figure out what to say. I fixed my gaze on her and followed her path out the social hall door, hoping she got there without kicking a small child.

“Yikes.” I looked back at Geoff once Marie disappeared. “Even I can’t put my foot in things that fast.”

“Please forgive her. She’s taking Win’s death very hard. He was a great help after her husband died, and they stayed friends through the years. She was active in the church during his ministry, and she was here last week to hear him speak. I’m afraid she’s like a lot of people. She expects her minister to have superpowers, and superheroes aren’t supposed to die.”

“The autopsy may find traces of kryptonite.”

He smiled a piano keyboard smile, but it lightened his face and made him more attractive. “Don’t take it personally. Death brings out the best and the worst in people.”

“Win’s death seems to have ripened him for canonization.”

“Never that, but he was a good man and a good minister. I was on his board, and Marie was on committees. We could both tell you he had his hand on everything that happened here. He had more energy than any two people combined. He was a smart administrator and a powerful preacher. He was too big for us, you know. That’s why he moved on.”

I thought about that. Unfortunately, the ministry isn’t too different from other professions. In our denomination and in others, if a minister does well, he moves up to a larger church with a larger salary. The Consolidated Community Church of Emerald Springs is what’s known as a stepping-stone church. With the exception of Ed, who wants to stay in our quiet little burg, so he has plenty of time to study and write, Tri-C’s ministers probably hadn’t planned to stay in Emerald Springs any longer than they needed to make the next step.

With all his talents, Win should have moved up quickly, ending in one of the denomination’s larger and more prestigious churches. But from what I could tell, he hadn’t stayed anywhere long, and his moves had been mostly lateral ones. His final church before retirement hadn’t been much larger than ours.

“I’ll let Ed know he should call Marie, but to give her some time to heal first,” I said.

“That will be perfect.” He raised a long-fingered hand in farewell and headed off after her. Marie was older than Geoff by at least five years, but I wondered if the two had more in common than admiration for their former minister. I filed that question for my husband, although Ed’s nose for gossip is as clogged as his real one was today.

By the time I finished my rounds, Teddy was gone and people were drifting away, so I could escape as well. I found Yvonne in the reception area, holding a light jacket with tiny gold buttons down the front. She followed me to the corner outside Ed’s office for privacy.

“Mission accomplished,” I told her. “Although I didn’t have much I could add.”

Yvonne pushed her fists through the sleeves and settled the jacket at her waist before she answered. “You know, Win seemed fine the night he died. A little frail, but energetic and alert. I saw them last year at General Assembly, and he looked tired and old. Since then he changed medications, and Hildy told me he was eating well and exercising regularly. I was surprised when the doctor signed his death certificate so quickly, but apparently he had examined Win the week before and warned him about avoiding stress. Hildy said he told Win he was just one heart attack away from forever.”

Unitarian-Universalists have an annual convention, something Ed tries hard not to attend every year. But some of our members, like Yvonne, wouldn’t miss our General Assembly for the world. I suppose that’s one way congregants had stayed so closely in touch with the Dorchesters.

“You were at the Dorchesters’ party that night?” I asked.

“Right. I heard you were invited, too.”

Win and Hildy had thrown a small dinner party for old friends at their rental house the night Win died. In fact, they’d been in the midst of finishing the cleanup when he collapsed. Ed and I
had
been invited. A former minister socializing with former congregants is tricky. Protocol demanded that Win first clear the party with Ed, and he had, out of duty, invited us at the same time. But issuing the invitation had been good enough, and I was sure everyone was delighted when Ed explained we had a spring play of Teddy’s to attend instead.

So what if Teddy had only been a chipmunk with no lines except “chee, chee, chee”?

I couldn’t help myself. I tried to look innocent. “Who else came?”

She saw through me right away. “Do you think one of us murdered him?”

I held up my hands. “We don’t know he was murdered.”

Yvonne knew I would never suspect her of anything more dire than sneaking a cigarette, and she took her time buttoning up. “Esther and Dolly. Sally was there. Marie Grandower came with Geoff Adler—”

“Are they a couple?”

She shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think so. There’s an age difference, of course. Six or seven years. Besides, Geoff’s so driven, I doubt he has time for a woman. His wife left him years ago because she never saw him. She said he came home late one night and she nearly shot him because he looked unfamiliar. Marie’s husband died almost twenty years ago, I guess, and when she’s in town she shows up here and there with different men, but I think she enjoys the single life. No hint of anything serious.”

“When she’s in town?”

“Oh yes, she spends most of her time in Hilton Head. She’s usually only here in the summers, and I’ve heard she’s moving south permanently. Her house is up for sale.”

I prodded a little. “What about the Booths?”

“They were there, too. Ida was there.” She licked her lips in thought. “I think that might be it. Hildy had the entire party catered, and the food was wonderful. At the time I wondered what kind of investments Win must have made for their retirement. It has to have cost a pretty penny.”

“It was Win’s last meal. I guess he deserved the best.”

Yvonne looked sad. “I guess.”

“And no-nobody else was there?” The moment Yvonne walked out I was hoping to sneak into Ed’s study and write down the guest list, so I was mentally repeating it to myself and stuttering from the effort.

“Well, I did leave early. That always seems so rude, but I’d warned Hildy. I had a ticket to a concert at the college and couldn’t find anybody else to take it. I hate waste, so I went late.”

“I wonder if anybody else came along after you left. Maybe they just stopped by to say hello.”

She shrugged. “Sally could tell you, but that reminds me. When she called me the next morning to tell me Win was dead, Sally
did
say there’d been some kind of unpleasantness at the party’s end.”

If ears can really perk, mine were now thrust forward and as wide as a clamshell. “Unpleasantness?”

“That’s all she said. Let me see . . . She said something like ‘the whole thing is so awful, particularly after the unpleasantness at the party’s end.’ I asked her what she meant, and she said she had to leave for the airport, but she’d tell me when she got back.”

I had noticed that Sally Berrigan, one of the town and church’s driving forces, had not been present today. Now I knew why.

“Where’d she go?” I asked.

“Washington. She’s visiting our congressmen and senators to keep them on their toes.”

If anybody could do that, Sally Berrigan would be the one. There was talk she was planning to run for mayor again in the next election, after a sound defeat last time. Our little city would be a very different place if she won.

“She’s coming back soon?” I tried not to sound hopeful.

“This evening. You can ask her about it yourself.” Yvonne had long since finished with her buttons. She put her hand on my arm. “Aggie, this could be a very serious matter. Just because Win was one of Ed’s predecessors, you don’t have to get involved. You’ve already done enough, making that announcement—”

“Climbing over the bench, knocking my own husband out of the pulpit, halting the graveside service, practically arm wrestling Hildy,” I finished.

“Yes, well, some things are best left to the police, right?”

I drew a blank, but I nodded like a team player. Yes, I had a reputation as an amateur sleuth, but Yvonne was right. This time I really needed to stay away. Win was my husband’s colleague, and his wife was, for lack of a better way to put it, mine. My role now was to offer comfort, not to dig for clues. In all fairness to the police, they usually did come to the right conclusion, if later in the game. For once I needed to do only what was expected. Casseroles. Hand-holding. Prayer.

So what if I wanted to call Detective Roussos right this minute and mine our odd little friendship for every bit of information he was willing to part with?

“I’m planning to stay out of this,” I told Yvonne.

She looked at me strangely, eyes narrowed, head tilted.

“What?” I demanded.

“Are you capable?” she asked.

It was a question I hoped to find an answer to in the next few days. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear a yes or a no.

Either Ed had borrowed a chain saw and was busily carving up our bedroom furniture, or my husband was snoring with terrifying gusto. I chose not to discover which and left our bedroom door closed.

Teddy was downstairs in the play corner of our dining room, giving her two American Girl dolls and Moonpie, our silver tabby, Spanish lessons. Teddy’s fourth grade teacher is a native speaker, and Teddy shares all new vocabulary with Molly and Josefina—although if Josefina could actually talk, she would certainly add some of her own. Moonpie is a recent addition to the classroom, and not a willing one judging from the number of times Teddy steered him back to higher education.

Teddy, having gotten home a few minutes before I did, had warned me about Ed. Her money was on the chain saw.

“Do you and the girls want to help me make pizza dough?” I asked, as I walked past the classroom on my way to the kitchen. “You’ll have to change clothes if you do.”

“We’re very busy,” Teddy said. “When we finish our lesson, we’re going to write letters to the mayor.”

I didn’t ask about what. I could see the pedestrian mall would be providing my daughter and her huggable friends with hours of entertainment.

I would have been happy to skip dinner entirely. Teddy had eaten sandwiches at the reception, and after everything that had happened, I had no appetite. But I still had a teenage daughter and a husband who might regain consciousness at some point in the evening. Pizza seemed sensible.

I proofed my yeast in warmish water while I assembled ingredients. I had turned on the stand mixer and was adding whole wheat flour to a rapidly forming dough when Deena walked in. Like Teddy’s, Deena’s coloring is her father’s. Her hair is strawberry blonde and Teddy’s is a bit redder, but they clearly swim in the same gene pool. Same dark blue eyes and peachy complexions to go with the hair. Had I not been awake and aware at both births, I would wonder if we were related.

Today Deena was dressed in a long turquoise hoodie over leopard print leggings. The outfit was a present from my younger sister Sid, who also gave Teddy Josefina. I’m ashamed to say I’m hopeful Sid doesn’t marry and have children of her own until my girls no longer need clothing or toys. Vel, my older sister, is in the same unmarried, childless, gotta-shop state and she, too, will delight me by remaining that way a few more years.

“Pizza?” Deena asked, peering in the mixer bowl.

“Want to help me put one together?”

“I’m not hungry. Tara’s mother made sugar cookies, and we decorated them like Easter eggs. We ate all the broken pieces.”

I’m always encouraged when my fourteen-year-old daughter takes part in childhood rituals. These days Deena’s a confusing blend of adult and child, and I’m never sure which Deena I’m talking to.

“Think you might be hungry in about an hour?” Deena shrugged, which I took for a yes. I added more flour.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked when I turned off the mixer and the kitchen was quiet again.

I told her the basics of our afternoon, including Ed’s double dose of antihistamines. She’s my daughter, so she’s used to drama and took all this in stride.

“Do you think he’ll sleep through dinner?” she asked.

“I think it’s possible he’ll sleep through tomorrow, too.”

“Then I guess this is a good time to tell you something.”

Warning bells sounded. They were so loud I was afraid Deena could hear them ringing in my head. “Can’t be good if you don’t want your father to hear it.”

“It’s not like that.” She rolled her eyes.

“What’s it like, then?”

“It’s just, he might be hurt.”

“Uh-huh.” Now that I have children those are my two favorite words. Someday I’ll write a parenting manual called
Uh-huh
. I’ll make bestseller lists.

“You always say that!”

“Uh-huh.”

“I quit the debate team.”

The kitchen fell silent again as I considered this. Deena joined the middle school debate team last year, after listening to Ed talk endlessly and enthusiastically about his own years as a debater. A delighted Ed has been with Deena every step of the way. He even chaperoned trips to debates in nearby towns.