Secrets of Eden (22 page)

Certainly the DNA swab he had given us, as well as his fingerprints, was damning as hell if we were trying to convict him of
adultery. His presence was all over the Haywards’ house, especially the master bedroom and bathroom and the kitchen. Unfortunately, this wasn’t seventeenth-century Boston. We needed more than adultery. And, still, nothing that we had linked him to the house that awful night.

GORDON AND MICHELLE
Brookner, the neighbors closest in proximity to the Haywards and the owners of the little pond where Alice had been baptized on the day she would die, had seen the pastor’s car visit the Hayward house a number of times the previous winter when they had come north to go skiing. The timing, they thought, had been February and March. They knew that Alice and George had what Michelle referred to as “a troubled marriage,” because of the winter months when George had been exiled to Lake Bomoseen. But they hadn’t known until Alice was dead that George was physically abusive, and they had been surprised. They had rather liked him. Thought he was an impressive young entrepreneur. They had liked both Alice and George. It also hadn’t crossed their minds that Stephen Drew might have been romantically involved with Alice; that, too, was a story they would hear first only after the Haywards were dead. “He was the minister. Why wouldn’t he have come by their house?” Michelle observed.

When Emmet returned to speak once again with Betsy Storrs, the church secretary who I wanted managing my life and, if possible, coordinating the food and decoration for every major family holiday that was my responsibility—especially Thanksgiving—she was uncharacteristically evasive when asked about the minister’s relationship with Alice Hayward. Had she ever seen Alice’s car at the parsonage? Yes, but she had seen lots of people’s cars at the parsonage. How often was Alice in Stephen’s office? Most frequently in the months immediately before
“George and Alice decided to take a marital breather,” and then only occasionally in the late winter and spring. The only times she could recall Alice there after George had returned were two instances in July when she and Stephen were discussing the significance and specifics of her desired baptism. Did she think that Stephen and Alice had been more than mere friends? “No friendship is mere, is it?” Well, then, did she believe that it had gone beyond the traditional bounds of a pastor’s relationship with one of his flock? Perhaps, but that was between two consenting adults, and she certainly couldn’t testify under oath that she had ever seen anything inappropriate; besides, “if there was something tawdry there, Stephen and Alice can answer for that when the time comes in heaven. And yes, I do think Alice is in heaven right now, and when Stephen dies—which I hope isn’t for a great many years—he will be, too.”

AND WHAT OF
the business associates George had had in his retail ventures over the years? What of the bank loan officers and store managers and waitresses and clerks who had known George? Altogether he had a small empire, with twenty full-or part-time employees in two shops and a restaurant, plus three staffers in his headquarters office on the floor above the toy store. Might one of those workers have had a bone to pick with the man? Likewise, what of Alice’s associates at the retail branch of the bank where she worked? Was it possible that there was a teller or customer-service rep who was a killer? Or might Alice have told them something that would illuminate in some way what had happened to her and her husband that July night?

In the end we interviewed nearly thirty women and men who were acquaintances of the Haywards and might have known something—anything—about why the two of them had come to such a tragic end.
When we were finished, we knew that Alice was a customer-service representative for a community bank who was more alone than anyone realized and that George was a businessman who was starting to grow tired of what he did. (Without his supervision, by the end of September the toy store and the rib joint had closed. The original clothing store was still in business, but it was unclear whether it would last even through the December holidays.) No one expressed a particular closeness to George, but no one seemed likely to want to kill him. At the same time, everyone was saddened by Alice’s death, but George had done such a first-rate job of isolating her from possible friends that no one at the bank seemed especially devastated by her murder, either. They were distressed, naturally, perhaps a little troubled by their proximity to murder, but they had moved on. And none of the people we spoke with seemed to have any motive for killing either of the Haywards or any information that was going to bring us nearer to indicting someone who might.

PAUL’S AND MY
wedding anniversary fell on a Saturday that autumn, and the two of us had dinner plans that evening. But the day began when all three of the men in my life brought me waffles in bed and cards that each of them had made. Lionel’s was a wobbly amoeba created from pink and red construction paper that in his mind was undoubtedly a heart. Marcus’s was a painting of Cupid that he had downloaded from the Web, printed, and pasted into the background of a photo of Paul and me in the backyard. (It actually looked to me like the little Roman was drawing back his bow to murder one of us, but I reminded myself that only I would see a killer in Cupid.) And Paul’s was a cute card from the drugstore, but the best part was the coupons for “romantic dinner for two” and “afternoon at the spa” that he typed up and folded inside it.

“I made the waffle batter, and Lionel picked out what would go in them,” Marcus informed me with great earnestness and pride, while behind him Paul raised his eyebrows and nodded a little warily. Clearly my breakfast didn’t need a warning from the surgeon general, but these might not be Food Network–quality waffles. I looked at the white, brown, and dark black flecks scattered along the grid.

“Coconut, chocolate, and burned coconut,” Paul offered helpfully. “But not badly burned.”

“And peanuts,” Marcus said.

“Walnuts,” Paul gently corrected him.

I pushed the pillows against the headboard and patted the mattress so my little boys knew to join me on either side of the bed, which they did in an instant. Outside, the sun was up, and there was the reassuring thump I heard many autumn Saturdays, the sound of our neighbor Rudy, an architect, tossing wood into the shed that later that day he would stack with mathematical precision. I poured a little maple syrup—which I discovered Paul had warmed in the microwave—onto the waffles and took a bite. Then I smiled at my boys and at Paul, and I don’t think I thought for a moment the rest of that weekend about all of the disappointing marriages and broken families there are in this world, and the myriad ways love seems to go bad.

WHEN WE INTERVIEWED
Ginny O’Brien the second time, journalists and bloggers already were convicting Stephen Drew. Consequently, Ginny was more forthcoming than she had been initially. It seemed less important to protect the confidences that Alice had offered, since they were no longer secrets shared between friends. And, of course, we knew more, and so we knew which questions to ask.

E
MMET
W
ALKER
: Alice told you that she and the reverend had an intimate relationship?

V
IRGINIA
“G
INNY
” O’ B
RIEN
: Yes.

W
ALKER
: They were sleeping together?

O’ B
RIEN
: Yes.

W
ALKER
: When did she tell you this?

O’ B
RIEN
: Last winter.

W
ALKER
: Can you be more precise?

O’ B
RIEN
: It was before Christmas. I don’t know how long she and Stephen had had a relationship then, but she first told me about it a few weeks before Christmas. She was all giddy, and so I got all giddy. George was just too dangerous. I understand what she had first seen in him—Lord, I know what lots of people had first seen in him—but underneath it all he was just plain despicable. Horrible. I would have been so happy if she had just left him and married Stephen. Stephen’s not perfect, but everyone would have been better off, and she’d still be alive today. Can’t you just see her as a pastor’s wife?

W
ALKER
: I never met her, ma’am.

O’ B
RIEN
: Of course.

W
ALKER
: Did Alice come right out and say that she and the reverend were having intercourse, or did she simply imply it?

O’ B
RIEN
: She said it. They were having sex. But I’m sure she only told me.

W
ALKER
: And this started before she got the temporary relief-from-abuse order?

O’ B
RIEN
: Long before. Like two or three months before. I don’t know this for a fact, but I always assumed it was Stephen who had talked her into getting the restraining order. She wasn’t listening to me, so she must have been listening to him.

W
ALKER
: How long did the affair continue?

O’ B
RIEN
: Until sometime late in the spring. She got the restraining order, and George left. I was sure that she would start divorce proceedings and soon enough she and Stephen would be living happily ever after.

W
ALKER
: Why didn’t that happen?

O’ B
RIEN
: Stephen.

W
ALKER
: What do you mean, “Stephen”?

O’ B
RIEN
: He didn’t want to get married.

W
ALKER
: Did Alice tell you that she and Stephen had actually discussed marriage?

O’ B
RIEN
: Not exactly. It never went that far. She just had the sense that…

W
ALKER
: That what?

O’ B
RIEN
: That she wasn’t good enough for him. Isn’t that sad? Isn’t that ridiculous and sad?

W
ALKER
: Yes, it is.

O’ B
RIEN
: Of course, Stephen probably didn’t help matters in that regard: He’s a little…I don’t know…aristocratic. At least he thinks he is. And he never seemed to want to move the relationship along. Maybe he felt guilty.

W
ALKER
: Guilty because he was having an affair with a married woman?

O’ B
RIEN
: And a parishioner. I mean, one of his sermons this spring was really interesting and—given what I knew about Alice and him—pretty darn revealing.

W
ALKER
: What did he say?

O’ B
RIEN
: He went on and on about how awful he was. He even used that word: awful. He said he was the worst of the sinners. I mean, we all knew he wasn’t. This was pulpit stuff, I figured, to make a point that God loved even him.

W
ALKER
: That was the point in the end?

O’B
RIEN
: I think so. I just remember that it made some people in the congregation love him even more.

W
ALKER
: But not you.

O’ B
RIEN
: Oh, I like Stephen. I just thought in that sermon he was a bit of a hypocrite. So what if you’re sleeping with Alice Hayward? She shouldn’t have been with a monster like George. Just announce to the world that you two are in love and be done with it. Marry her! Move on! Instead they broke up soon after that sermon. Well, they stopped sleeping together. It’s not as if they were ever really a public item. It’s not like there was something to “break up.”

W
ALKER
: Who initiated it?

O’ B
RIEN
: The breakup? I think it just faded. George wanted to come back, and he vowed he had changed. He’d probably done such a job on her head over the years that she really didn’t believe she
deserved anyone better than him. And maybe Stephen really did think he was a sinner to be sleeping with Alice and that’s why he didn’t pursue something more. And Alice certainly wasn’t going to press him. She didn’t have that kind of confidence.

W
ALKER
: She didn’t have the confidence to press Stephen for a commitment?

O’ B
RIEN
: That’s right.

W
ALKER
: Where would they rendezvous?

O’ B
RIEN
: You mean for sex?

W
ALKER
: Yes.

O’ B
RIEN
: At her house.

W
ALKER
: Not the parsonage.

O’ B
RIEN
: I don’t think so. It was too close to the church. It’s in the middle of town. And anyone could drop by.

W
ALKER
: Did Alice ever mention anywhere else?

O’ B
RIEN
: Once when Katie was with a school trip to Montreal—an overnight for French class—they went to the hotel on the waterfront in Burlington. It was all very clandestine. She checked in, just in case he was recognized by some Burlington pastor or something. Sometimes his photo was in the Baptist newsletter. But he insisted on paying for it. They had a good time. Ordered room service and never left the hotel room.

Sure enough, on the second Thursday in March, Alice Hayward had stayed for a night at the Hilton in downtown Burlington. Her room was on the top floor, and it faced Lake Champlain. Had a lovely
sunset over the Adirondacks. And the charges had been paid for with Stephen Drew’s MasterCard.

TINA COUSINO, KATIE
Hayward’s best friend, was a very cool customer. Emmet said he had no idea that eyelids could hold the weight of so much shadow and liner or that there were parents in this world who would allow their sixteen-year-old daughters to wear so much mascara. The result was a pair of eyes that belonged, he said, to a clown that either wanted to look very scary or happened to be very sleepy. Her hair had been dyed the color of root beer and fell in a single flat wave halfway down her back. She had dozens of bracelets on each arm between her wrist and her elbow, some made of silver and some made of rubber and some made of tin. She had a sickle moon of metal studs running along the helix of each ear. Most of her answers were monosyllabic, but eventually Emmet was able to get what he needed. According to Tina, Katie knew well that her father had abused her mother and she didn’t have especially fond feelings toward the man. But she also didn’t talk about her parents all that much. From the few times she had, Tina had gotten the impression that Katie viewed her father as far more pathetic than terrifying. Katie was aware of the contrition that followed his bouts of violence and had even seen some of her father’s poetry. One night she had made fun of it with Tina. But she had never given her friend the impression that her mother was capable of sleeping with someone other than George, and the idea that Alice Hayward had been involved with Stephen Drew came as a complete shock to Tina. Among her longer responses? She found it “totally weird, totally disturbing” that her friend’s parents had died while she and Katie had been thirty-nine miles away at a Fray concert in Albany. She knew the mileage, she volunteered, because the next day when she heard what
had happened, she’d gone to MapQuest. The distance, she said, seemed to matter.