Blessed Is the Busybody (5 page)

Ed and I like good wine, but we drink the cheap stuff. We like to pretend we’ve discovered secret stores of premium vintages, misbottled and sold for less than a sawbuck. It’s easier to imagine when we’ve had too many glasses, which rarely happens, since that’s expensive, too, in all sorts of ways.

Tonight I poured both of us a second glass and suspected that even Ed’s Temperance Society foremothers would understand. It had been that kind of day.

I rolled my glass back and forth in my hands and gazed at it as if I were performing some esoteric pagan rite. “You know when you took the girls over to the Frankels’ house?”

“Uh huh.” We were cozied up together on the living room sofa, and he was finishing a book for Sunday’s sermon. Judging from the small print and the twenty-word title, I hoped he planned to insert a vocabulary list and definitions in the order of service.

I stopped rolling and sipped before I went on. “Well, Lucy came to see what was going on.”

“Lucy has a police radio in her kitchen?”

“She didn’t need one today. The word was all over town.”

“And she talked you into going with her to search the house across the street.”

“Ed!” I knocked the book out of his hand. “Who told you?”

“Who didn’t? I fielded phone calls all afternoon. People wanted to know what you were doing.”

“Well, you could have asked me about it.”

“I was just waiting to see how long it would take you to tell me. So what did you find?”

I recapped briefly and ended with the bad news. “Unfortunately, we were caught red-handed.”

“Roussos?”

“The very one. He wasn’t happy. He claimed we probably destroyed evidence, but I don’t think the police would even have gone over if he hadn’t seen us. A dozen realtors could have trooped through before they got there. Now Roussos is that much further ahead.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Either Jennifer was killed in that house or at least she was there today before her body ended up on our doorstep.”

“Does Roussos think so?”

“You think he’d tell me?” I snuggled against him. “Every man I know keeps secrets. Like the one I’m married to. You never told me anything about that woman.”

“There wasn’t anything to tell.” Ed put his arm around me. “She came in for counseling. Nothing she said can be repeated.”

I debated whether to tell him about my conversation with Teddy and decided there was no point in keeping it a secret. “Teddy saw you fighting with Jennifer Marina in the church parking lot. She mimicked the whole conversation like a pro. It’s too bad vaudeville’s dead. We could have gotten our daughter a gig on the Orpheum circuit.”

He saw through me. “Jennifer Marina was a troubled woman. She asked my advice and I gave it. She didn’t like what she heard.”

I knew that was all I was going to get out of him. Jennifer might be dead, but Ed took his job seriously. Whatever secrets she’d had would die with her. I just hoped those same secrets hadn’t killed her.

I sat up straight, because a terrible thing had just occurred to me. “Ed, did she tell you something somebody else wants to know? Are you in any danger?”

“You’ve been watching
The Sopranos,
haven’t you?”

“No, really. Look, if someone killed her for something she knew—”

“We don’t know why she was killed.”

“But they put her here, on our doorstep. On
your
doorstep. Maybe it was a warning. Keep your mouth shut, or you’ll be next.”

“I’m not worried, Aggie, and you don’t need to worry, either. Nothing Jennifer told me would have gotten her killed. You’ll just have to trust me on that.” He picked up his book and found his page. In a moment he was immersed again.

I got up and checked all the locks on our doors, and for good measure all the downstairs windows, too.

4

Sunday is the most chaotic day of the week for a minister’s family, and sometimes I’m tempted to strike it from our calendar. Then at some point between the opening prelude of our morning service and Ed’s final words, my blood pressure drops, my blessings parade in Technicolor, and I’m ready to face another week.

Not today. Today, after yesterday’s events and a gush of last-minute crises, I needed that still, small moment of the soul more than usual. Instead, as the bombastic whoosh and toot of Tri-C’s ancient tracker organ filled the sanctuary, I found myself surveying our parishioners, one by one, for signs of guilt. Who looked tired this morning, as if he—or she—hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep? Who looked repentant, smug? Who, besides me, was unobtrusively searching the room?

Through the years of Ed’s ministry I’ve become the mistress of snap judgments. I know what trouble looks like, and I know the members with whom I can really be myself. I’m afraid my accuracy is somewhere in the ninetieth percentile. Today as I assessed the familiar faces, those dear to me
and
those like Gelsey Falowell whose fondest wish was to empty the parsonage, I could not, in good conscience, believe any of them to be a murderer.

Gelsey, Sally, and Yvonne sat together in the row just in front of me. Sally and Yvonne to soak up whatever comfort they could from Ed’s sermon, Gelsey to find more ammunition in her battle to rid the church of Ed’s presence.

No matter what I thought of Gelsey, I couldn’t believe any of these women would ever resort to violence. Every year Sally makes certain our church recognizes and shows its support for the United Nations. Yvonne is a pacifist and vegetarian who routinely splits her time between protests at Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Dayton and the fur department of the Beachwood Neiman Marcus.

And Gelsey, for all her behind-the-scenes maneuvering, is a pillar of Emerald Springs society who would die before jeopardizing her community standing. After all, it’s Gelsey’s sworn duty to show the rest of us how we should live.

I invented similar personality alibis for the other eighty or so parishioners listening raptly to my husband. Jack, who practiced the law and had too much invested in his future to break it. May and Simon Frankel, psychologists who teach conflict resolution through peer mediation at Emerald High.

The principal of our middle school, three of our best elementary school teachers, a juvenile court judge, our mailman, Emerald College staff and professors, the county agricultural agent, the president of the local food bank, two restaurant owners, two members of the city council. The list went on, each member, to my knowledge, a normal, responsible citizen who believes in discussion and the democratic way.

Not murder.

The music built and ended with a final crash. Esther, our organist, has played the old tracker organ for so many years she knows how to attack each key, stop, and pedal to get maximum volume. One Sunday a decade ago she tired of people chatting during her preludes. No one tries it now.

This morning Ed wore a black robe with a stole highlighting each of the major world religions. He looks particularly imposing in the pulpit. Ed is tall and broad-shouldered, and he strikes a fine balance between father figure and honored son. Thankfully he has no pretensions to be either, which adds a welcome note of modesty.

Usually there’s a buzz after the prelude, as if every thought suppressed during Esther’s fusillade must be expressed before settling down for the rest of the service. Today there was only an expectant hush. The woman sitting beside me dropped her key chain, and poor Sally slapped her hand over her heart in response.

Ed recited his opening words, and the board president stepped up to the dais. Tom Jeffrey is a math professor at Emerald College, middle-aged, nondescript, and a voice of logic and reason. He lit our chalice—symbolizing the light of truth. Then Ed stepped down and came to the front. The church is small enough that he doesn’t need a microphone. Ed likes intimacy when he has a particularly important message to deliver.

“Before I begin, I want to address the events of yesterday.” He swept the room with his gaze, as if trying to pull all of us together. “As many of you know, a woman was found dead on the porch of our parsonage. She was not a member of this church, and to my knowledge, she has never attended a service here. But she did come to my office several times to ask for guidance.”

He folded his hands at his waist. “I didn’t know Jennifer Marina well, and I certainly don’t know why anyone would want her dead. I do know she was very much alone in Emerald Springs, and because she was, I ask you to be her family today. Please offer what prayers you feel comfortable with during our prayer and meditation moments before the offertory. And please pray with me now.”

I closed my eyes, glad to have a chance, even briefly, to mourn the loss of the mysterious young woman. But the last thing I saw before I lowered my lashes was Gelsey staring furiously at my husband.

“I don’t know why Gelsey dislikes Ed so much,” May Frankel told me after the service. The Frankel girls, Hillary, six, and Maddie, eleven, had run ahead with my daughters to make sandwiches in the parsonage kitchen. May and I were walking slower, catching up on conversation.

I probed a little. “Sally says she’s been a help to your other ministers.”

May walks a perfect line between nurturing and confrontational. She’s a petite, sweet-faced blonde who settles for attractive. May is the friend I consult when I need a sounding board on church matters.

“Sally isn’t the best judge,” May said. “She’s intensely loyal. Gelsey tolerated our last minister, but only because he followed her orders.”

Tri-C’s last minister, a man at the tail end of a long, distinguished career, had warned Ed about Gelsey. He hoped, for Ed’s sake, that Gelsey decided to take over a charity or serve on the local hospital board. The more she did outside the church, the easier Ed’s job would be.

Unfortunately, Gelsey is very much at loose ends.

I decided not to pussyfoot around. “So Gelsey has a history of making trouble for the ministers?”

“She’s one of the major reasons we’ve had four over a fifteen-year time span.”

“It’s a small church. Most ministers want to move on to bigger and better things.”

“Particularly after a few years of going head-to-head with Gelsey.”

I didn’t smile, but in a crisis it’s always nice to know the misery has been shared.

We paused at the backdoor. Inside I heard the sound of dishes clanking and Teddy exhorting the others to better behavior. “The thing is, May, Ed doesn’t want to move up. He had a chance to do that, and he turned it down. He wants to do research. He wants to write.”

“And we’re lucky to have him. We know it. After training new seminary graduates or watching ministers serve out their final years, someone with Ed’s energy and experience is a real breath of fresh air.”

“Too bad Gelsey doesn’t think so.”

May took and squeezed my hand. “She has influence, but she can’t dictate. I hope it won’t come to a fight, but if it does, Ed will have support.”

I tried to put my uneasiness into words. “The thing is, it may come to a head sooner than you think. The death of that poor woman seems to have increased her anger. I have a feeling that for some reason, she blames Ed. As if he had any control over where the corpse was disposed of.”

“He did a lot today to diffuse gossip. Don’t borrow trouble. You’re bound to be upset about things right now. That’s natural. Try not to let your imagination work overtime.”

But my imagination was already flying free. And as it turned out, it was no competition for the events that transpired next.

Ed didn’t come home until dinnertime. I wasn’t worried, since I knew he had meetings after church and two people in the hospital to visit. By the time he dragged himself back to the parsonage, he was barely conscious. He flopped down at the kitchen table and rested his head in his hands.

I positioned myself behind him and massaged his neck. “Totaled?”

“Gar Johnson had another heart attack. They don’t think he’ll make it through the night.” Gar was in his nineties, had lived a productive life, and had children and grandchildren to rally around him.

I dug my fingers into muscles as elaborately knotted as one of my mother’s macrame wall hangings. “Are you going back to the hospital?”

“No, he’s in a coma. The family asked me to stop by again in the morning.”

“How about iced tea and a snack? Dinner won’t be ready for another hour.”

He covered my hand, but he didn’t look up. “Tell me again why I accepted the call to this church?”

“You wanted a small, peaceful congregation that would let you pursue your academic research. This one has been around long enough to have a sizeable endowment, and therefore they can afford to pay you a living—just barely—wage.”

“And you went along with it?”

I flopped down beside him and made him look at me. “This isn’t about Gar, is it? You knew he was dying. He’s been ready.”

“The board called a special meeting tonight to discuss terminating my contract.”

“You’re kidding!” I couldn’t believe the board had acted so quickly. After all, these were the same people who had taken weeks to decide whether to have the sanctuary carpet steam cleaned after the living manger scene went astray on Christmas Eve.

“Tonight.” He made a stab at a grin, but it failed. “When I’m absolutely at my best.”

“The board can’t terminate you, can they?”

“No; Tom says he’s trying to avoid a congregational meeting. He wants the people with complaints to air them now, to see if we can come to some sort of resolution before things get any worse.”

“People? Or Gelsey Falowell?”

“People led by Gelsey. A few major players she’s corralled to support her. She’s using Jennifer Marina as her excuse. She claims I had something to do with her murder.”

“They think you would kill the woman, hide her body, then sneak out of the house in the morning and drop it on your own front porch where your daughters could find it?”

“Logic has no place in this.”

I sat back. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to tell them what I can, which isn’t much more than I told them in the service. Then I’m going to hope they see reason.”

As I had for the last thirty-six hours, I wondered just what Jennifer had told my husband that he had to protect with such vigor.

Ed labored to his feet. “I’m going to take a shower and maybe a nap before dinner. Will you be all right without me?”

“I’m coming to the meeting.”

“You know that’s not a good idea.”

“But I want to know what they say!”

“I can tell you. But you shouldn’t be there. You’ll get angry, and you won’t stay quiet. If you come to my defense, that will only make things worse.”

I hate it when Ed is right. I fumed as I finished uninspired dinner preparations. This month we’re vegetarians. From experience, I know we’ll lapse. Bacon is the culprit, of course. In dreams I smell it sizzling in my kitchen.

The phone rang just as I finished chopping a pile of mushrooms, and I grabbed it before it could bother Ed. He was exhausted, and I wasn’t letting anyone through to him, not even the search committee for a major metropolitan church.

Well, maybe just that one call. . . .

The voice on the other end of the line wasn’t familiar. The man sounded older, with the raspy throat of a heavy smoker. And wonder of wonders, he wanted to talk to me.

I hung up afterwards, glad that one thing had turned out well that day. And when the family gathered around the table I told them all my good news.

“I have a job.”

Ed looked up from a mound of brown rice and vegetables. “Job?”

I preened a little. “I applied for a job at the new bookstore that’s opening down on Sparrow Street. Book Gems.”

“Emerald Springs with a real bookstore? Wow, what’s next? High-speed Internet?” Deena picked green peppers out of the stir-fry with awesome precision.

“I just did it on a whim,” I told Ed, “but the owner called this afternoon. I’ll be working part-time while the girls are in school. It’s perfect.”