The Christening Day Murder (8 page)

“I’ll let you know after I’ve given this a try.”

“You have someone to stay with up there?”

“I’m going to a convent in northern Pennsylvania.”

He gave me a strange look. “You aren’t thinking of going back, are you? We really need you in this world.”

As tough and ornery as he is, Arnold is the sweetest man I know. He’s become something of a father figure to me, and I sometimes think he thinks of me as his youngest daughter. “I’m here to stay,” I assured him.

“You need me,” he said, “you call collect.”

Jack came up on Saturday afternoon, and we fulfilled a fantasy of mine by turning our kiss at the door into an act of love in very little longer than it takes to say it. Later on we went down to the private beach on the Long Island Sound that I have a part ownership in, and we walked on the sand. It was cold and windy, and I remembered the first time we had walked here during the summer, when we had just met and I was just getting used to being Christine Bennett and not Sister Edward Frances. This time we walked holding each other, partly for warmth and partly for all those other reasons lovers have for staying close. It was a placid, comfortable afternoon, finishing with dinner out. Jack stayed over, keeping my bed warm and my excitement high.

In the morning we were both up early, and after a good breakfast, he left for Brooklyn and I set out for a convent in Pennsylvania and the beginning of a great adventure.

   There is a certain feel to a convent. When I was thirteen it was seductive, beckoning to me. When I was thirty and knew I was soon to leave, it was like a mother’s open arms,
there when I needed them but not stifling. They could not hold me anymore, but they would never reject me.

I arrived at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at three in the afternoon and was greeted by Sister Gracia. As Sisters of St. Joseph, they were dedicated to teaching, and ran a school for the lower grades on the convent property. Although wearing the habit had become optional, all the nuns I saw had adopted black suits with skirts at midcalf and a modified veil that exposed some hair above the forehead. The voluminous habit of decades ago was now part of their history. That afternoon most of the nuns were out walking or visiting. A few were in their “store” selling the nuns’ “products,” homemade preserves for which they were well known. There were no postulants or novices this year; it was an aging convent that would not endure much beyond the start of the twenty-first century.

Sister Gracia showed me to my room, a small, spare dormitory-style room with one window, a small closet, and the essential furniture in worn, but well cared for maple. Like all rooms in a convent, this one had no mirror.

First I made my bed with the sheets I had brought. I also had my own towel and soap, and when the bed was made, I found the communal bathroom down the hall and washed, brushing and pushing my hair into a semblance of shape by feel. Although it had grown a couple of inches since I had left St. Stephen’s, it still lacked a definite style. Style would come with time. I had found love and work and satisfaction in the months since I had taken up residence in Oakwood. I could live with unstyled hair.

When I had hung up my clothes, I went downstairs and offered myself at the kitchen. A nun in her mid-sixties turned away from the sink and smiled at me.

“You must be Christine Bennett. I’m Sister Concepta. You don’t have to do a thing, but if you want to, there are potatoes and carrots to peel.”

I sat at an old butcher block and worked, perversely enjoying the opportunity to do on a large scale what I disliked
doing at home on a very small scale. Sister Concepta seemed happy to have company. We talked about the convent and then about the Studsburg murder. The nuns had visited St. Mary Immaculate a few weeks ago when the county engineer had proclaimed it safe. They had gone in a bus and prayed inside. No one, of course, had imagined what lay buried in the basement.

Together we cooked the nuns’ dinner.

“We have some wonderful grapefruits a friend sent up from Florida,” she said. “And for dessert, some lovely ice cream. I hope you like vanilla fudge.”

“I like everything,” I said.

When the meat and vegetables were cooking and the tables set, Sister Concepta took me for a walk around the convent grounds. There were a couple of acres of farmland now planted with winter rye. The nuns prided themselves on being self-sufficient when it came to vegetables and berries. She showed me a small orchard of old apple trees, the blueberry bushes, the strawberry field covered with salt hay for the winter, and the raspberry canes. We looked in at the store, and I admired the hand-labeled jars arranged neatly on shelves. Finally we went together to evening prayers.

Although I had not left St. Stephen’s because of matters of faith, my faith was presently undergoing some questioning and some revision. Without consciously making a decision, I had stopped attending mass on a regular basis during the summer. And since the first time Jack and I had made love several weeks ago, I had not gone to confession. As each week passed, I became more confused about my need to confess what was clearly a sin in the eyes of the church, while, at the same time, I became more comfortable with my physical desires and my physical and emotional relationship with Jack. I knew that sex didn’t automatically mean we were destined for a lifetime relationship, but on the other hand, it meant, for me, a wholly exclusive relationship for as long as it lasted, and I hoped—I believed—that Jack felt the same.

As I entered a pew in the rear of the chapel, in this place that reminded me in spirit of the convent that I had loved so much and for so long, I felt a hope that I could reconcile both parts of my life. As I joined the nuns singing “Here I Am, Lord,” I experienced a closeness to my religious past that I had not felt in any of the churches I had attended since leaving St. Stephen’s.

I spent a very enjoyable dinner and evening with the nuns, who kindly asked me nothing about my life as a sister, and instead, perhaps because they were more interested, talked about the body buried in St. Mary Immaculate. They also routed me to the town where the Eberlings lived and agreed with Joseph’s estimate that it was no more than thirty miles from the convent to Studsburg.

I joined the nuns for morning prayers at five-thirty and then for breakfast. It was too early to leave, so I helped clean up the breakfast dishes and do some housework. At nine I got in the car and started off.

It wasn’t hard to find. The Eberlings had exchanged a big old Victorian for a modern, architect-designed home of the early sixties. Somehow I expect large, expensive houses to be in wealthy suburbs of big cities, but that isn’t always true. There were several houses of the same stature along the road, many with walls, gatehouses, and long private roads to compounds invisible from the road. The Eberlings’ house was one of those, although there was no gatehouse and I turned in to the drive without a security check. I had intentionally not announced my arrival to make sure the family would not dream up a reason not to be home.

The door was opened by a woman in a maid’s uniform.

“I’d like to see Mr. or Mrs. Eberling,” I said.

“And you are …?”

“Christine Bennett.”

That was apparently enough, because she asked me to wait, and left. She returned a few minutes later and asked me to follow her.

“Do I know you?” a handsome woman about seventy asked as I entered a beautiful little sitting room.

“You don’t, Mrs. Eberling. I got your name from some people who used to live in Studsburg.”

“Studsburg!” She smiled, sounding surprised. “Come in, dear. What was your name?”

“Christine Bennett. Chris.” I walked over to the sofa where she was sitting and offered my hand.

“Annie, take Miss Bennett’s coat, will you?”

I took it off and sat in a chair. Mrs. Eberling called for coffee, and Annie left with my coat.

“Who were the people you mentioned?”

“The Stiflers.”

“Stifler? I don’t remember anyone named Stifler. You’re sure they lived in Studsburg?”

“Their infant daughter was baptized on the Fourth of July thirty years ago, the day before the town was closed.”

“Yes, I did hear about that, but we weren’t invited. We were gone by then, of course. We commissioned this house a few months after the decision was made to flood the town, and we moved in a good month before the end. We came back that last evening for the fireworks, though. A lot of people who’d moved away did. And of course, J.J.—that’s my husband—kept the paper up till the end.”

“You mean the press was still operating the day the town closed?”

“Well, no. The businesses all had to close before that. The people who lived there were supposed to be out, too, but that girl was pregnant and the army let her stay till she gave birth. And then there was the christening, and everyone seemed to want to celebrate the Fourth one last time in Studsburg. We always made a big fuss about the holiday.”

“How did your husband publish if the press was closed?”

“Oh, he made some arrangement with another paper, I think. It was foolish of him and cost a lot of money, but he said he felt like the captain of a ship, and his paper would come out till the last day.”

“So he came back to Studsburg to gather news every day?”

“It was only a Tuesday and Friday paper, but yes, I suppose he did. Though now I think of it, I wonder where he worked from.” She looked thoughtful. “I think the priest may have given him a room in the rectory. That was one of the last buildings to go, you know.”

“Yes, I heard.”

“And would you mind telling me what your interest in all this is?”

“A body was found in the basement of the church in Studsburg last weekend,” I said.

“So I heard. Wasn’t that simply awful? Do they know who she was yet?”

“Not yet, no. I’m working on behalf of an interested party who’s trying to find out.” I neglected to say that I was the interested party.

“You mean you’re a private detective?”

“No, I’m not, Mrs. Eberling. I’ve just had some experience in investigating.” It’s amazing how truthful you can be when you’re trying to avoid telling the truth.

“And how did you think I might help you?”

“Well, we’re pretty sure that the woman isn’t anyone who lived in Studsburg, so we’re checking out people who worked in town but lived elsewhere. I understand you had a young woman as a housekeeper. I wonder if you could tell me about her.”

“Don’t answer that, Mother,” a woman’s voice said somewhere behind me.

I turned and saw an attractive woman, probably in her forties, coming into the room.

“You really don’t want to dredge all that misery up again,” Mrs. Eberling said.

“Keep quiet, Mother.” The woman turned to me. “Who exactly are you and what do you want here?”

“She knows people in Studsburg, Alicia,” Mrs. Eberling said. “It’s about that body they found in the Catholic church.”

“Well, let the Catholic church worry about it. It’s no business of ours.”

“I’m just asking for information,” I said as pleasantly as I could manage. “The Ritters were very cooperative when I called. They had a girl who worked for them, too.”

The daughter laughed harshly. “That stupid little Darlene. I remember her. She worked for us before she went to the Ritters.”

“Oh yes, I remember Darlene,” Mrs. Eberling said. “Rather a nice girl, except …” She trailed off.

“I was interested in the person who worked for you after Darlene left,” I said, beginning to understand the chronology.

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” the daughter said.

“Mrs. Eberling—”

“I think my daughter’s right, Miss Bennett. It was a long time ago, and my memory isn’t as sharp as it used to be.”

“Do you think I could talk to your husband?” I asked without much hope.

“J.J. died,” she said with a little smile.

And all the secrets with him, I thought. I got up, thanked her, and went back to the foyer, closely accompanied by the daughter.

“Leave my mother alone,” she said in a low voice. “I was only a teenager back in Studsburg, but I know that girl caused my family a lot of grief. We don’t need it raked up again. My parents were prominent citizens of Studsburg, and my father left a legacy that few men leave, a record of that town for almost twenty years.”

“What did your father do to make a living?” I asked. “I’m sure that newspaper didn’t do it.”

“My father didn’t have to make a living. It had been made for him a long time before. The
Herald
was a gift of love. It never once broke even, but it didn’t matter to him. That’s how people will remember him, as a generous benefactor. Is that understood?”

I said it was. “Where would I be able to find the
Herald?”
I asked.

“The library in Corning has the whole collection, but you’ll have to look at them on microfilm. They won’t let anyone but scholars touch the originals.”

That was good news, because Corning was on my way home.

“They’re all there,” she said, “right down to the last day. My father drove to Studsburg and handed them out to people as they were leaving. It was a commemorative issue, with photographs from the nineteenth century right through to the Fourth of July fireworks and the party they had that last afternoon.”

“The baptism,” I said.

“Yes, that’s what it was. It was a wonderful thing for him to do.”

“Thank you, Mrs.…”

“Whitney,” she said shortly.

“Thank you, Mrs. Whitney.” I buttoned my coat and went out to my car.

The first thing I did when I left was to find a bank and get some change and then find a pay phone. I am the last American without a credit card. Since I have virtually no financial history, and my own job pays very little, I have a long way to go to qualify for credit. So I pay as I go, and that means using lots of coins when I make a long-distance call from a pay phone. The person I called was Carol Stifler, and she was home.

“I’m upstate,” I told her, “and I want to find someone you may have known. Harry said the Ritters had a young housekeeper that last year in Studsburg. Her name was Darlene Jackson. Do you remember her?”