The Body In the Belfry (3 page)
Read The Body In the Belfry Online
Authors: Katherine Hall Page
“Nothing, my dear, you have done more than enough. The only thing that could have happened that didn't was Cindy's presence in the car with them,” he said, sighing.
Faith had heard all these stories and new ones continued to circulate. They were all coming back to her now.
“Think, Tom. Even after eliminating one of the town's most respected members of the clergy who clearly harbored ill will toward her, we can certainly list countless others. It's not hard to come up with suspects, however unlikely. What keeps puzzling me is the timing. That's a bigger mystery.”
“You're right,” he agreed. “Who didn't want her to leave, absurd as that seems? Or had she done something recently to someone that was so monstrous he or she had to kill her and the fact that she was leaving is coincidental?”
Tom was an inveterate mystery reader and he was beginning to enjoy himself too, especially as Faith, slightly flushed from the brandy, was obviously more than all right.
“This is good, Tom; let's try to think of all the possible connections. How about someone who didn't want her to get marriedâan old flame, her future in-laws, or maybe some secret girlfriend of Dave's?”
Cindy was engaged to Dave Svenson, much to the town's surprise, although they had gone out together for years. The only logical explanation anyone had been able to come up with was that she had cast a spell on him.
It wasn't a wedding Faith looked forward to. She had already attended one function catered by the firm hired
for Cindy's reception and the pathetic attempt at “continental cuisine” in the form of Chicken Kiev with what Faith detected as Cheese Whiz in the center had convinced her that it wasn't a moment too soon for
Have Faith,
Benjamin permitting. She was continually astounded at what her neighbors ate. Locating her business in Aleford would amount to an act of mercy. She herself drew the line at boiled dinners. Furthermore, if they were going to want beans it would have to be
cassoulet.
for Cindy's reception and the pathetic attempt at “continental cuisine” in the form of Chicken Kiev with what Faith detected as Cheese Whiz in the center had convinced her that it wasn't a moment too soon for
Have Faith,
Benjamin permitting. She was continually astounded at what her neighbors ate. Locating her business in Aleford would amount to an act of mercy. She herself drew the line at boiled dinners. Furthermore, if they were going to want beans it would have to be
cassoulet.
“I've never heard of any other girlfriend. It's been my impression that Cindy and Dave have been going steady for a long time,” Tom mused.
Faith had been delighted to discover that Tom was quite interested in gossip, unusual for a minister. Her own father could never get even the most straightforward scandals right and was apt to let his mind wander, presumably to a higher plane, whenever she tried to impart or extract any information. Tom spent a great deal of time with the kids in the parish. He was worried about the kinds of choices they faced, and was also aware that a congregation needed young people to keep going. If Dave Svenson had had another girlfriend, particularly one passionate enough to wield a kitchen knife, Tom surely would have known about it.
“It's more the kind of thing Cindy would have done rather than have done unto,” he remarked.
“I'm not sure of the grammar, but that's what I've been thinking. If anyone was going to commit a murder in this town, it would have been Cindy, and I'm sure she would have thought she had a pardonable reason for it. That leaves us with an old boyfriend of Cindy'sâof which there are legionâor a new boyfriend?”
Cindy was notorious for regularly staging scenes with Dave that, Faith correctly assumed, then gave her the excuse to go off with someone else for a while. Often she didn't even bother with the scene.
“Let's see, it's hard to keep track, but it was about a month ago that she told me for the thousandth time that Dave took her for granted and needed to be taught a lesson. I believe that coincided with the Calthorpes' nephew's visit,” Tom recalled wryly.
“So maybe he fell desperately in love with her and decided if he couldn't have her, nobody would.”
“That would solve things nicely, Faith, but he is presumably in West Germany for the semester. At least the Calthorpes drove him to Logan and put him on a plane for there. Still I know you won't rule it out.”
“If it's not sex, then it's money,” she said, ignoring this last. “It has to be one or the other.”
“Why? There must be plenty of other reasons people kill other people. Anyway I thought that was why people got divorced.”
“Virtually the same thing. Murder, divorce. Gone is gone.” Faith waved one hand summarily in the air. “Now the money. Cindy was going to be rich, we know that.”
If Cindy Shepherd had lived to turn twenty-one, she would have come into a very tidy little fortune from her parents. Nobody had mentioned the exact figure, as Faith had discovered when once she had asked Tom just how tidy it was. She was always surprised how seldom anyone in New England ever mentioned actual dollar amounts and how much they appeared to think about them.
“She must have made a will. Maybe Pix knows.” Faith furrowed her brow. Their neighbor Pix's husband, Sam Miller, was a lawyer and had been known to let harmless but tasty tidbits of information fall from the table.
“Please, Faith,” Tom protested, “After all this mess with my mother's family I don't even want to hear the word
will
!”
will
!”
“I'm sorry, sweetheart, just thinking out loud.”
Tom's grandmother had died the previous spring and Marian, his mother, fully expected to claim the garnet brooch, wedding pearls, cameo, diamond lavaliere, and other mementos, which her mother had indicated were her birthright since she was a little girl. It had been a shock to discover that her mother had left her house and its contents to Marian's brother, who had moved in with his wife to take care of her seven years earlier. Even then Marian had assumed they would share and share alike as was the right thing to do. Months of wrangling and eventually a hefty lawyer's fee trying to prove undue influence had left her without so much as a jet hat pin.
Faith shook her head.
“No, I don't think it was money. If she had already inherited, then it would make sense. And anyway, given Cindy, sex is a more logical motive.” She held out her empty glass. “Un peu more brandy, s'il vous plait,” she said, slipping into Tom's eccentric French. (She had noticed that married people seemed to pick up each other's habits, although so far she didn't see Tom adopting any of hers.) “It helps one think so much more clearly. Except that we should be drinking Scotch and calling for Asta.”
Tom took her glass and looked down at her reprovingly, “Have your fun tonight, Nora Charles. I'll talk with you about all this until the cows come home, but if you have any idea of doing some sleuthing, with or without your Nick, forget it. I like you without roses stuck in your side.”
“Don't be silly, Tom. What can I do, after all? Maybe ask a few questions here and there. Do admit, this is pretty exciting. When is the last time they had a murder in Aleford anyway?”
“I have no idea. Although I did hear something about one of the Hales running amok in the thirties and killing
his wife's dog, then being prevented just in time by a neighbor from giving its mistress forty whacks as well.”
his wife's dog, then being prevented just in time by a neighbor from giving its mistress forty whacks as well.”
“So mine could be Aleford's first real murder!”
“I doubt it, Faith, and in any case it's not yours.”
“Ours then.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“You're just being cranky because you're hungry and so am I. Did we have any supper? I can't remember. Anyway, I'm starving.”
Faith was always starving, Tom thought happily. What a good idea it had been to marry someone who shared and satisfied his hungers so well.
He followed her into the large kitchen and sat at the big round table while she split some bread in half and liberally covered it with
chèvre
and toasted walnuts before running it under the broiler for a moment. The kitchen bore little resemblance to the room Tom had used infrequently during his brief bachelor days in the parsonage. Faith had kept the old glass-fronted cabinets, but everything else had been torn out. She had actually shuddered when she saw the electric stove, vintage to be sure, and the single sink next to a small drainboard, the only counter in the room. Now with her gleaming, glass-fronted refrigerator, Garland stove, rows of hanging pots and pans, miles of white formica counters with a marble insert for pastry making, and a black and white tile floor, Faith felt at home. The table stood by a bow window overlooking the garden. As a concession to the setting, Faith had covered the window seats and chair cushions with Souleiado Provençal fabric. “But no country, Tom, nothing with cows on it and not even one dried flower wreath, please,” she had stated emphatically.
chèvre
and toasted walnuts before running it under the broiler for a moment. The kitchen bore little resemblance to the room Tom had used infrequently during his brief bachelor days in the parsonage. Faith had kept the old glass-fronted cabinets, but everything else had been torn out. She had actually shuddered when she saw the electric stove, vintage to be sure, and the single sink next to a small drainboard, the only counter in the room. Now with her gleaming, glass-fronted refrigerator, Garland stove, rows of hanging pots and pans, miles of white formica counters with a marble insert for pastry making, and a black and white tile floor, Faith felt at home. The table stood by a bow window overlooking the garden. As a concession to the setting, Faith had covered the window seats and chair cushions with Souleiado Provençal fabric. “But no country, Tom, nothing with cows on it and not even one dried flower wreath, please,” she had stated emphatically.
In between crusty bites, Faith kept talking about Cindy.
“It has to be a disappointed lover because of the rose.
A poetic gesture, the final symbol of their blighted romance.”
A poetic gesture, the final symbol of their blighted romance.”
“If any romance was blighted, it was Cindy and Dave's. You know, Faith, I never could understand why those two were getting married.”
“Elementary, my dear Thomas. Because Cindy wanted it and Dave wanted her. Think about it, or rather, imagine yourself at twentyânot that long ago to be sureâand all those hormones and Cindy walks into your life. Those proverbial curves in the correct places, that long black hair with the blue highlights just like Wonder Woman's in the cartoons. It was sex. Frequent, prolonged, and poor Dave got hooked.”
“Keep talking, Faith. I find this not only mesmerizing but kind of a turn-on.”
“I'm not sure why Cindy wanted poor Dave, though. Maybe she wanted to get marriage out of the way and go on to bigger and better things, like affairs.” She saw Tom's look. “Bigger and better for Cindy that is, silly. And Dave is a good catch. Steady, dependable, bright, and handsome. You know, I wouldn't put it past her to have chosen him because she wanted a blond to contrast with her looks.”
“âPoor Dave' does sum it up. I tried to talk to him about Cindy several times, but he never seemed to want to. We were due to start the prenuptial pastoral counseling soon and I thought I might understand the whole relationship better then.”
“Yes, and probably you would have given Dave the courage to back out. Although short of having his parents fill his ears with wax at birth and tie him to the liberty pole in the middle of the common, I don't see how he was going to resist her call. But if you did, then Cindy would have killed you and Dave both. The invitations have gone out and she was not a girl to be spurned lightly.”
Tom finished the last morsel on his plate and stood up and stretched.
“It is pretty horrible, Faith. I've been thinking about her wedding service and now I have to write a funeral oration instead.”
“These theological dilemmas are bound to come up, Tom, but I have no doubt that you will rise to the occasion.” Faith smiled primly, secure in the knowledge that rising to that sort of occasion was something she would never have to do.
“It's certainly not one of the topics we wrestled with in Divinity School. Now what do you say to some sleep? Frequent and prolonged or whatever.”
“Good idea. I am exhausted. This has been a very busy day, if I may be permitted the greatest understatement of my life, so far anyway.”
“You may and it is,” Tom agreed.
Faith followed him upstairs and wondered briefly if he had found Cindy attractive. She had worn sex the way other girls wore makeup. Depending on the circumstances, it could be the full treatment or a hint of lipstick and powder. Whatever it was, though, it was always there, unsettling and devastatingly provocative. Faith started to ask, then changed her mind. It was one of those questions, like whether there really is life after death, that she didn't want answered for sure.
They looked in at Ben, marveled at that splendid accomplishment babies performâbreathingâand went to bed.
They were not prepared for an insistent ringing at six o'clock the next morning. Faith woke up and wondered groggily why Benjamin was making such an odd noise. She was at the side of his crib looking down at a peacefully sleeping child before she realized it was the doorbell.
She ran back into their bedroom, fully awake.
“Tom!” she cried, “wake up! Somebody's at the door!”
Tom was a very sound sleeper. She shook him.
“Tom! Somebody's ringing the bell!”
“What? Not again?” he mumbled.
“The doorbell! Someone is ringing our doorbell!”
“All right, all right.” He roused himself, got out of bed, and struggled into his robe. Faith followed him downstairs, hovering anxiously.
“Be sure to ask who it is, Tom,” she cautioned as she moved toward the poker by the fireplace.
“Faith, murderers usually don't ring the doorbell,” Tom said. Like Benjamin, he was a slow waker and apt to sound snappish. “But if you like, I'll ask.” Feeling slightly foolish, he addressed the solid oak door. “Who is it?”
“It's me, Dave. Dave Svenson.” Tom quickly opened the door. “I hope I didn't wake you folks, but I thought with the baby, you'd probably be up by now and anyway I was getting tired of waiting.”
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