The Christmas Night Murder (7 page)

“Did Julia have a sister?”

“She had a brother. Foster is now nearly thirty.”

I hoped my shock didn't show. Angela had told a convincing story about Julia being an only child, about her mother losing a son and not being able to have another. Was nothing that Julia Farragut had said the truth?

“Where is Foster living now?” I asked.

Mrs. Farragut's lips moved into a half smile. “I'm sorry. I've said about all I can, more than I intended. I don't know how you found me, but you'll have to work a lot harder to find Foster. I have no intention of giving him up to you.”

“What about your son?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Has your son remarried?” I asked. I felt there might have been an event in his life that precipitated the move.

Mrs. Farragut stood. “I think it's time for you to leave, my dear. I hope you find your priest. I suggest you do what the police do and see if he took a train out of Riverview after leaving his car. He's probably playing games with you. Wherever he is, he deserves to be punished.”

I got up and put my coat on. “Why didn't your family press charges against him if you were so convinced he'd done something terrible to Julia?”

“The victim died,” she said tautly. “There was no witness and no case.”

“Thank you for your time.”

“Be careful on the front walk. It may be slippery.” She shut the door.

What stayed with me was her scent. Far from being overpowering, its delicacy was haunting. For me it had special significance. While I had let my hair grow and had it styled when it was long enough, bought myself simple but fashionable clothes, and become a thoroughly secular person in the year and a half since I left the convent, I had never used perfume. More than clothes or jewelry or hairstyle, perfume seemed too confusing to allow me to make a selection. On several occasions I had sniffed some in cosmetics departments and brought home samples on cardboard or in tiny test vials, but I had never actually put any on my skin. Unlike a ring or a necklace, which I could remove easily, there seemed a permanence to perfume that kept me from trying it. What if I hated having it there and could not wash it off effectively? What if Jack hated it? What if it gave me a headache or made me ill?

Now, at the age of thirty-one, I was entranced by the scent of a woman more than twice my age. Although there was nothing distinctively old about Mrs. Farragut, it seemed odd to me that of all the scents I had experienced on other people, this one would make such an impression.

I drove into town, where I stopped at a coffee shop and found a telephone with a small, local directory hanging from a chain. The only Farragut listed was the one I had just visited. What I needed was a larger directory for the county or area, but there was none around. I decided to try something that had worked for me before, so I turned the car around and drove back to Riverview. The Catholic church was easy to find and I went to the rectory where the pastor was just on his way out. He glanced at his watch and
agreed to hear my question. It didn't take long for him to give me an answer.

“I can tell you without looking at the records. Walter Farragut left Riverview without so much as a fare-thee-well. I can tell you I was surprised—I was hurt, if you want me to be honest—because Walter had been generous, had served on committees, had always been someone we could count on.”

“You knew they were moving, didn't you, Father Grimes?”

“Everyone in Riverview knew they were moving. The house was up for sale for a long time. It was a weak market and they wanted a lot of money for it. But when the sale was made, Walter picked up and left. Only his mother came to me to have her records sent to her new parish.”

“Father Grimes, I'm a friend of Father Hudson McCormick.”

“Oh, good heavens, I know who you mean. Is there any word? Have they found him yet?”

“Not that I've heard since this morning. I feel somehow the Farragut family is the key to his disappearance.”

“You may be right. That was a terrible ordeal they went through.”

“Did you know Julia, Father?”

“Quite well. I came here before her confirmation and I knew her until her death.” He set his lips and shook his head. “She and I talked about her entering St. Stephen's. I was all for it.”

“And her family?”

“I believe they were, too, except for her mother. I think her mother would have liked her to stay home.”

“Did you know her mother had problems?”

“I knew. I visited her at the hospital on several occasions. I never dreamed her life would end the way it did, or that her daughter's would.”

I took a chance and asked a question that had been nagging at me. “Was anything going on in that family that might have contributed to the suicides of the two women?”

He looked at me for a long moment. He was a man in his fifties or sixties, balding, his face lined as though he carried the worries of his parish in his own soul.

“I wish I could answer that,” he said, and I knew I had reached the end. Either he didn't know anything, or the privacy of the confessional prevented him from answering.

“Thank you,” I said. I drove back to St. Stephen's.

I found some leftovers in the kitchen and made myself lunch. While I was eating, Angela stuck her head in.

“Jack's on the phone. I'll transfer the call.”

“Thanks, Angela.” The phone rang briefly and I picked it up.

“Get anything?” he asked.

“The runaround.” I told him what I had and hadn't learned.

“The state police have nothing more on Father McCormick. The local police in Riverview have been through the vehicle and lifted prints. They'll do what they can with them, but I wouldn't hold out much hope. In cold weather people wear gloves for warmth, and it's been pretty cold. They've also been through the contents of the car. It sure looks like he intended to complete this trip. He had Christmas gifts for a lot of people with
Sister
in front of their names, and there's even one for you. The suitcases are full of his clothes, the clerical kind and pretty casual stuff. And there are envelopes of snapshots that I assume he was going to show around. There sure isn't any indication that he was planning a detour.”

“I'm not surprised,” I said.

“It looks like we've both drawn blanks. If someone's holding him for ransom, they're not too anxious to deal or we'd have heard from them by now. So it doesn't look good, Chris.”

“I know. I've been sitting here trying to think where to go next. Is there any chance you can find out where Walter or Foster Farragut lives through the DMV?” They were sure to own cars and I couldn't think of any other way of locating them unless their old neighbors on Hawthorne Street knew where they had gone, and I felt that if they hadn't let their pastor know, they might not have let anyone else know.

“I'll give it a try. I think one of the guys here in Oakwood
will do me a favor. Otherwise, I'll call Brooklyn and see who's working today.”

“I'm scared, Jack. I'm scared for Hudson.”

“I know, honey. I'll get on it right away.”

I washed my dishes slowly, pushing myself to think of some other direction to move in. After what I had learned this morning, I no longer felt that talking to the nuns would be fruitful. If Julia had lied to Angela, who had been especially friendly toward her, what likelihood was there of learning anything useful from anyone else? Still, there was one I ought to talk to.

I left the mother house and walked to the villa. It was afternoon and many of the nuns there would be taking a nap, but I would try anyway. I had to find Hudson soon or it was all over.

One nun in the villa that I was particularly fond of was visiting family, and I would miss her. Two nuns were sitting on a sofa reading magazines. I asked for Sister Mary Teresa and they pointed me toward her room.

The names of the nuns were on the doors on white cards lettered by hand in an italic print, a talent I recalled one of the younger nuns had. When I found Sister Mary Teresa's room, I stood at the door and listened. There was no sound. I tapped lightly with my fingernail but got no response. Very quietly I turned the doorknob and looked inside.

The room was empty. I pulled the door closed again, stopped to chat with the nuns who were reading, and went back outside. It was too cold for anyone to be sitting in the sun, but I checked the patio anyway. The snow had been cleared, but no one was there. I backtracked and went down to the path to the chapel.

Even in the cold, even with the trees bare and the beautiful grounds covered with snow, I had no difficulty remembering the day in August when I had walked from the Mother House in my wedding dress, accompanied by the nuns of St. Stephen's, on a morning so bright and so beautiful that I could not have imagined anything more perfect. The chapel, a small structure in the traditional shape of a cross, had been decorated with white flowers so that it looked light and airy. Joseph led the nuns, carrying the crucifix. She was followed by two sisters carrying candles.
Then the rest of the Franciscan sisters followed down the aisle. When I entered, I had a fleeting sense of sadness that my parents had not lived for this happy occasion. Then I turned and saw Arnold Gold.

The people I met in the first weeks after I left St. Stephen's have become both friends and family to me. First there was Melanie Gross, then Jack, and a little later Arnold Gold. I could see Mel and Hal from the back of the chapel, Harriet Gold sitting beside Jack's parents, and here, to take me to my future husband, was Arnold, this tough old lawyer who had choked up when I asked him to give me away, this tireless advocate who never turned away a person in trouble, never asked if they could pay for his services, this wonderfully bighearted man who had once told me he had grown up hating cops but who had taken Jack into his family circle, saying, “I can always use another son-in-law.” On my wedding day he looked improbably exquisite, his lanky frame in a well-tailored suit, his hair absolutely silver and almost in place, a man who was as close as anyone would ever come to being my father. We hugged and waited for our musical cue as I wiped away a tear and he squeezed my hand.

My friend from high school, Maddie Clark, who was my matron of honor, gave me a quick smile and started down the aisle on the arm of Jack's brother. I took a deep breath and grinned up at Arnold. Then the music changed and we started our walk.

On this cold, end-of-December day, I sat in the last row of pews, looking at the masses of red poinsettias and remembering the white roses of August, the moment, how I felt when I saw Jack at the far end of the white carpet, how Arnold and I kissed, my veil held high to accommodate, how I turned to Jack and we exchanged a smile. I had never felt more sure or less nervous than I felt at that moment. In some magical way I knew that we were meant for each other, that I was the last of his women as he was the first and the last of my men. I had an immensely powerful desire to be with him and make him happy, a feeling that persists to this day.

The altar was bare as we stood before it. To the right were three candles and we walked over to them and each
of us lit one. Then together we lit the one in the middle, symbolizing our union. After that there were the readings we had chosen, and then the marriage ceremony. This was followed by the offertory.

Halfway down the length of the chapel there was a lateral aisle and in it, on the right, a table with the offerings and a magnificent altar cloth that had been commissioned by Jack's mother as a gift for the convent and made by Sister Gracia, who worked on it for months. Four nuns carried the cloth down the aisle, unfolded it, and laid it on the altar, the embroidery evoking gasps. Two of them then returned with the bread and wine so the mass could continue.

My wedding dress was the greatest extravagance of my life. I had gone shopping with Melanie Gross and her mother, Marilyn Margulies, determined to wear a street-length white dress or suit. But the moment I saw myself in yards of white lace and
peau de soie
, I changed my mind, with the agreement and encouragement of Mel and her mother. They showered me with compliments, delicious adjectives describing my physical attributes, how they would all be enhanced by a gown that flowed, a bodice that revealed, a train that lingered. I remember laughing at first, then realizing how much I had missed in not having a mother after my fifteenth year.

Except for me the chapel was empty, conducive to thought. What I wanted to do was get inside the house at 211 Hawthorne Street. Although it had surely been redecorated, I felt that just being there would inspire me, would evoke ideas, open new avenues. I wanted to see the room that poor Julia had lived in; I wanted to see where she had killed herself. Poor child, I thought, sitting in my pew. She wanted to join her mother. I wondered where the rest of the family had been that Christmas Night, why they had left her alone so long that she had been able to do that terrible thing.

There was a sound, almost a groan, and a figure in a brown habit rose from a pew near the front of the chapel. I had not been alone after all. Someone had been kneeling the whole time I had sat there, praying silently. The figure turned and I recognized Sister Mary Teresa.

I waited till she had acknowledged me and then passed
me before standing and following her outside. “I was looking for you,” I said. “Would you like to have a cup of tea with me?”

She seemed almost dazed, as though kneeling for so long had affected her equilibrium or made her drowsy. “That would be nice. Sister Edward, isn't it?”

“Chris,” I said. “I was Sister Edward when I was at St. Stephen's.” I had taken the names of my parents, Edward and Frances.

“Oh, of course, of course. Silly of me. My head must be somewhere else.”

We turned toward the Mother House. I kept my pace painfully slow to match hers. She walked as though she had to think about the process, this foot, then that foot. Joseph was right; she had deteriorated greatly since I had left.

“Wonderful weather,” I said blandly.

“Good weather for Christmas, yes. Snow before and sun after. I like winter. I just don't like the cold.”

“Winter's nice,” I agreed, ignoring her contradiction.

“Where are you living now, Sister Edward?”

“In a small town called Oakwood. My aunt had a house there.”

“You used to have a cousin there, didn't you? Some little fella you always visited?”

I marveled at her mind, its strengths and its lapses. “You have a good memory. He's not so little, but I used to visit him regularly. He's in a home for retarded adults. He's very happy there.”

“Do they take him to mass?”

“Every Sunday. Sometimes I take him, and then we go somewhere for lunch. He enjoys that.”

“Very important to take him to mass.”

We had arrived at the Mother House. I held the door open for her and we went inside.

“Want a cup of tea?” she said.

“Good idea. I'll make it for us. Let me take your coat.”

“I like to keep it on. Takes me awhile to warm up.”

I picked up our mugs and we went back to the kitchen, where two nuns were preparing dinner. They had a kettle on the stove and the water came to a boil quickly. Sister Mary Teresa sat at a table away from them and I got a teapot
and some tea together. The cooks were noisy, talking and banging things around, and I didn't want any distractions, especially with someone whose memory was so fragile. When the tea had steeped, I asked her if she'd rather go back to the community room, where it would be quieter.