Breaking Ground (15 page)

I wonder what
is
happening on that front, Julie thought as she finished her circuit of the trenches. Mike certainly had been distant, but then, as Rich said, he was obviously at work on the investigation. Julie knew the State Police were involved, too, but exactly who did what she didn't know. Anyway, maybe she'd call Mike in the morning. Meantime, she thought, after she'd let herself into
Swanson House and settled into her office, it would be a good idea to make a few more notes in the file so as not to forget the details of Birch Brook she had learned yesterday.

“Almost 7:30,” she said out loud when she looked at her watch. How could the time have gone so fast? Rich always called when he got back to Orono, so she would have to move fast to be home for his call. Locking up Swanson House and activating the security system didn't take long, nor did the short walk, and when she entered Harding House and went to the phone, she saw the blinking light that meant a message. She listened with a mix of pleasure and sadness to Rich's report on his trip and realized there was a note of something between anger and concern in his last comment: “I thought you were going to be home. Give me a call as soon as you get in. Love you.”

She was just about to pick up the phone to make the call when it rang. “Just went to the office,” she explained. “To take my mind off you and the week. I miss you already, Rich, and I'm so sorry about what I said. Don't back off—I don't want that at all.” He didn't respond directly, but they talked a bit more about what a nice week it had been, and then Rich reminded her to lock the house tightly. “You're not worried about me, are you?” she asked.

“I'm always worried when we're not together. And I know
you
worry about being there alone. Just be sure everything's locked.”

Later, in bed, Julie replayed the conversation. Rich was certainly right. She had locked and double-checked all the locks. Harding House was perfectly safe. So why couldn't she fall asleep?

Just because you feel like you haven't slept all night doesn't necessarily mean you haven't, Julie told herself around five o'clock Monday morning when she decided that getting up couldn't be worse than lying in bed. Surely she had slept. It was just that she couldn't remember it. What she could remember were the sounds of creaking steps, opening doors, and footfalls downstairs in the front parlor. No. To be precise, what Julie remembered was
thinking
she was hearing such sounds and then realizing they were the results of what she readily admitted was her active imagination.

The sun was already above the eastern horizon as she sat at the kitchen table to await the coffee she had set to brewing. Actually, she told herself, it hadn't been that bad, this first night in a week alone in Harding House without Rich. She had just gotten spoiled with him there for so long. Her memories of finding Worth's bloody body and the red stains on the floor under it were not as persistent as they once were, after all. She poured her first mug of fragrant coffee and walked into the parlor. It looked perfectly normal, even familiar with her white sofa covering the spot where Worth's body had lain. Rich had sanded the spot last week and refinished it to match the rest of the floor, even though he said the bloodstains were nonexistent. “Humor me,” Julie had implored him, and Rich being Rich had done so. She went back to the kitchen to refill her mug. Deciding that so much coffee would make a run impractical, she opted for breakfast instead. But a healthy one, she told herself as she boiled water for oatmeal.

Since Mary Ellen's funeral was at eleven, Julie had reasoned that opening the historical society at its usual hour and then closing again so soon wasn't sensible, so no one would be in until the
afternoon. That fact made working around the house this morning appealing, but Julie quickly found herself distracted and thinking about the folder in her office desk that contained her notes on the murder. At 9:30 she walked to Swanson House, punched in the secuity code, and let herself into the building with her key. Listlessly turning the pages of the folder, she found herself able to concentrate on the murder no better than she had been able to concentrate on finishing putting her books in the shelves at Harding House earlier. She had time to take a walk through town and end up at the church enough in advance of the ceremony to assure herself a good seat. After a loop around the Common and through the residential section behind the church, she found herself in front of the beautiful Gothic structure just as the hearse pulled up. She held back as the men from the funeral home carried the coffin into the side entrance. She felt as if she were at the theater ahead of the performance, watching the stage being readied and the actors assembling before the audience took their seats. She looked at her watch and saw it was 10:15, and decided on another transit of the Common so she wouldn't be first in the church.

“Warmed up?” a voice said from behind as Julie came onto the sidewalk at the lower end of the Common. She turned to see the police chief.

“Mike, sorry I didn't see you. I was early and thought I'd just take a walk. It's such a beautiful day.”

Mike didn't speak for a few seconds, and Julie had the impression he was taking a photo of her with his eyes. Was her black skirt and dark-blue blazer inappropriate for the funeral? Mike certainly was formally attired, but Julie thought she was, too. “Something wrong?” she asked and ran her hand through her hair, wondering if perhaps it had become untidy because of what had turned out to be a longer walk than she had planned.

“Wrong?” the policeman repeated. “Not that I know of. Your hair's always been light red, hasn't it?” He laughed and continued. “I know I'm a cop and should remember things, but I was just wondering if—”

“If I changed my hair color?” Julie completed his question. “No. This is natural. You think I should?”

He laughed again, uncomfortably. “Of course not. It's very nice.”

“Thanks,” Julie answered, looking at Mike questioningly. “What's up? I haven't talked to you since late last week.”

“Pretty busy,” he replied, moving quickly away from the conversation about Julie's hair that neither of them seemed to want to pursue. “Working on the case, of course.”

“How's it coming?”

“Making progress, though working with the State Police isn't my idea of fun. They've got a detective on this, but of course he doesn't know the scene here, so I end up having to tell him who's who.”

“So are they getting close to figuring it out?”

“It's moving along. And I guess we should be, too. Looks like the crowd's gathering.” He pointed to the church, where a dozen or so people were standing on the sidewalk.

“Mike, what's the deal with my hair?” Julie asked as they moved down the street toward the church.

“Nothing. Hey, you'd better get in and find a seat. I need to stay out here and help direct folks,” he added, turning away quickly before Julie could pursue the topic.

“Want to join us?” Dalton Scott asked as Julie fell in the people moving up the short flight of stairs. Nickie was beside him. “That would be great,” Julie replied. “I wasn't sure of the protocol.”

“Well, you could always join Howard in the family pew,” Dalton said, and pointed to the second row of pews where Howard and his wife were already seated.

“Is that really a family pew?” Julie whispered to Dalton after the three of them had settled into a pew halfway between the front and back of the rows of cream boxes. Dalton had opened the door to theirs to usher Nickie and Julie in before him.

“Only for the past century or so,” Dalton whispered back. “Of course you wouldn't know that if you looked—nothing as vulgar as signs or anything, but that second pew is the Townsends', and if you ended up there by mistake no one would say anything, but you would feel out of place pretty fast.”

“Is this one okay?” Julie asked, worried now that her ignorance of the complicated business of family pews was another aspect of Ryland's culture that would embarrass her.

“Well, it's not the Scott family's,” he replied, “but after the first few rows it's okay at a funeral for folks like us to take it. Until someone comes along and stares at us,” he added. Julie glanced up to see if indeed someone was, but then realized Dalton was kidding.

“Don't worry,” Nickie whispered in her other ear. “We're fine here.”

Relieved by Nickie's assurance, Julie began to take in the scene. She'd popped into the church a few times to check it out, and had attended a few events there, but felt today as if she were really seeing the church for the first time. It was so beautiful in its simple, understated, New England way, so very different from the Lutheran churches of her youth and the Catholic ones she accompanied Rich to. The walls, for example, were practically empty, whereas in the churches she had frequented the walls were often more full than the pews. Here was a plaque with numbers on it off to the left of the altar, and on the right, a small cloth banner embroidered with a cross. And the altar itself was more like the podium at a Rotary breakfast meeting, nothing ornate about it at all. The walls and ceiling were somewhere in color between cream and eggshell—bright, clean, hygienic, and terribly discreet.

“Of course we're white,” she amused herself by imagining the walls and ceiling as saying, “but it's not just any ordinary white that any ordinary church might be painted; this is a white as special and as understated as everything in this church.”

Caught up in the visual delights of the building, Julie was nearly unconscious of what was happening around her until Dalton and Nickie rose beside her. She jumped up to join them, then noticed that everyone else was already on their feet. She wondered how long she had been the lone sitter. A woman wearing a green stole had entered from somewhere and was now standing in front of the congregation, not at the podium but at floor level, in the middle of the central aisle. She bent down to speak to Steven and Elizabeth, alone in the front pew, and then stood up again to face the rest.

“Welcome to the House of the Lord,” the woman said. “We are here to thank Him for the life and good works of our beloved Mary Ellen Swanson,” she continued as she looked to the right where the coffin sat on a low stand. “This service of thanks will be as ecumenical as a Congo preacher like me can make it,” she added, and smiled as hearty laughs arose from the congregation. Although at first surprised at the levity—both the preacher's and those who replied with laughter—Julie quickly felt a sense of comfort she hadn't expected. When the minister said, “We'll begin with number thirty-seven,” gesturing to the small board off to side that contained three sets of numbers, thirty-seven being the first, Julie followed Dalton's lead and reached for the hymnal in the wooden pocket in front of her. She surprised herself by lustily joining the singing, grateful that the words came back so readily from her childhood churchgoing days.

The minister spoke briefly but very touchingly of Mary Ellen's life and her many contributions to Ryland, noting that only God could understand why the woman had been taken before she had
had the chance to see the fruits of her latest gift in the form of the new Swanson Center of the Ryland Historical Society. The reference made Julie uncomfortable as she recalled the location of Mary Ellen's death, and she was grateful when Nickie reached over to give her hand a gentle squeeze. Another hymn followed, and again Julie joined the hearty singing. When it ended, there was an awkward silence as the minister stood at the podium and looked expectantly toward Steven and Elizabeth. She finally broke the silence by saying, “Steven, I believe you'd like to say a few words.”

Steven rose slowly and walked awkwardly toward the step that led up to where the minister had moved to stand away from the podium. He paused, and then turned back and planted himself squarely in the middle of the aisle and looked down it toward the back door. Julie smiled at him, and she guessed that the others whom she couldn't see did the same, because gradually he made eye contact with people instead of the door. He cleared his throat and said, “I think I'll just stand down here. It won't take long.” Julie saw the minister nod her approval. I can't imagine doing that, Julie said to herself as she thought of Steven's task in talking about his mother a few feet from her coffin.

“Many of you knew my mother as well as I did,” he began, “especially in the last few years when I wasn't exactly a regular visitor to Ryland.” He laughed uncomfortably, but the response encouraged him to laugh again. “Well, Mom put it differently. She said I was practically a stranger here.” More laughter seemed to help him along. “But of course I grew up in Ryland, with Mom and Dad, and so I don't consider myself a stranger. Anyway, I want to thank all of you for coming today to honor Mom, and for being her friends for all those years. She was proud of Ryland and everything that's going on here, and happy to be a part of it. She was really excited about the new building to honor Dad, like Reverend Richardson said, and in a way I guess it will be a memorial to her
now, to all that she did for the town and the historical society and all.”

Julie wondered if Steven was making a suggestion. Maybe they should change the name to the Daniel and Mary Ellen Swanson Center. Maybe she should have thought of that earlier. Steven resumed his speech.

“Growing up here was great, and that was really because of Mom. And Dad, too, but it was really Mom who made my life here so much fun. So I want to say thanks to her for that, and say how very sad I am that she won't be a part of my life now.” Steven's voice caught, and he reached into his back pocket for a handkerchief that he used to dab at his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “That's really the best I can do, the most I can say: Thanks, Mom. For everything.” He glanced at the coffin and then practically collapsed into the pew beside Elizabeth.