The Oldest Sin (38 page)

In one quick movement, he grasped her upper arms,

looked her square in the eye, and said, “We’re going to call it a day, Adelle.”

“No!” She hit his chest, struggling to get away.

He held on. “What do you suggest we
do
? There’s nowhere to go. No place to hide. This is it, Adelle. It’s over.”

“But —”

“But what?” He crushed her against him, holding her tight until she stopped struggling and dropped the gun. It didn’t take long.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, burying her head in her hands. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I know,” he said, stroking her hair.

They held each other for nearly a minute. Then, still holding hands, they sank to their knees as the squad cars roared over the rise and sped straight for them.

Sophie couldn’t hear their words now, but she could see their faces twisted with pain. They looked like two sad statues, heads bowed, their hands pressed together in a gesture of supplication. Were they seeking their God’s forgiveness, or merely waiting for the inevitable? She would probably never know. Yet the irony was inescapable. The destructive doctrines of a destructive church had, in the end, destroyed the lives of two of its truest believers. For a moment Sophie almost felt sorry for them.

Then, as she knew it would, the moment passed.

“Are we comfy?” asked Bram.

“Reasonably,” said Sophie.

“Want me to duff your foot pillow again?”

“No, but a little more martoonie would be nice.” She held up her martini glass, feeling a mellow buzz settie into her aching muscles. Her ordeal in the graveyard two nights ago had left her bruised and sore.

Bram leaned around behind him and grabbed the pitcher.

“Are there any more olives?” Sophie held the glass on her stomach as he poured.

“We’ve cleaned out your parents’ stash.”

“They aren’t martoonie drinkers.”

“No, but they had all the liquid fixings.”

Sophie and Bram were lying in the middle of the hardwood floor in their empty apartment at the Maxfield, pillows tucked under their heads, another pillow propped carefully under Sophie’s injured ankle. It was Saturday evening. Outside, the light was fading slowly over downtown St. Paul.

After a busy day spent talking to housing inspectors and real-estate agents, Sophie and Bram made a spur-of-the-moment decision to spend the night at the Maxfield, sleeping in Sophie’s parents’ apartment. The evening’s agenda, however, wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to their future apartment.

“Where’s Ethel?” asked Sophie.

“I think she’s in the kitchen sniffing the mop boards.”

“You know, I realize I’m genuinely tired when Ethel seems to have more energy than I do.” She lifted her head and took a sip.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” said Bram, clasping his hands behind his head. “Maybe we should forget the furniture. Live … simply.”

“You mean uncomfortably.”

“I thought you said you were comfortable.”

“I said I was
reasonably
comfortable. I’d be
more
comfortable on a couch or a bed.”

“But… furniture would destroy the minimalist aesthetic I’m trying to achieve in my life right now.”

“Right. You should write the book. ‘The Pack-Rat Minimalist.’ You could sell it at garage sales. Junk stores. Flea markets.”

“Now you’re making fun of me.”

“No, dear,” she said, patting his hand. “I’m just drinking my martoonie and enjoying a quiet evening at home with my husband.”

“But it’s not our home yet. And I’m not entirely kidding. I like these high ceilings, the bare walls — the feeling of space. I look out the living-room windows and see downtown St. Paul stretching out before me — it makes me feel like I’m in a castle looking down on my kingdom.”

“Well, first, dear, I understand there are cures for megalomania these days, so don’t panic. We’ll get you some help. And second, this may be your castle, but without furniture, you’ll be living in it by yourself.”

He turned over on his side, resting his head on his hand. “I’d never want to live without you, Sophie.”

The sudden fierceness with which he said the words startled her. “Gee, I didn’t realize I had such power. As I think about it, if you don’t do all the laundry —
and
the dishes — from now on,
I’m
outta here.”

He grinned, touching her face with the tips of his fingers. “With all the money we’ll be saving on rent, we’ll get a maid. Don’t all castles have maids?”

“You think you’ve got an answer for everything, huh?”

“Not everything,” he said, lowering his eyes. “You know, I ran around that graveyard for ten frantic minutes the other night before I spotted you.”

“Thank God Adelle didn’t see
you
.”

“Oh, I never gave it a thought. A radio personality learns early in his career to live by stealth. Move in quick, and get out before the audience can find shotguns and form a posse.”

She laughed, reaching up and smoothing the hair away from his forehead. “I knew you’d come, you know.”

“I know.” He leaned down and kissed her cheeks and her eyes, and then her lips. “I’m just glad it’s over. Adelle Purdis will be put away for the rest of her natural life, and that’s okay by me.” Rolling over on his back again, he continued, “Come to think of it, you never did explain the precise significance of Ginger’s words the night she died. You just gave me the biblical-illiterate overview.”

“Are you sure you’re interested?”

Ethel lumbered out of the kitchen, her green tennis ball clamped between her teeth. Pausing next to one of the ornate metal floor vents, she dropped the ball on top of it and then watched to see what would happen. When it didn’t roll, she nudged it with her nose. These days Ethel lived for scientific investigation.

“I’m all ears,” said Bram, pouring himself another drink.

Sophie fortified herself with a sip of her own and then began, “In Genesis, we find the story of Abraham.”

“I know that.”

“Don’t interrupt. Now, when he gets to be a hundred years old, he and his wife, Sarah, have their first child. They name him Isaac. One day God decides to test just how loyal Abraham is. So He orders him to take his son and go to the land of Moriah. When he gets there, he’s supposed to offer the boy as a burnt offering.”

“You mean, a human sacrifice?” said Bram. “He was supposed to kill his own son? I don’t remember that part.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. But Abraham doesn’t tell his son what’s going to happen — at least not right away. After they place the wood on the altar and get everything all set up, Isaac asks his dad where the ram is, the one that’s going to be sacrificed. That’s when Abraham explains to him that he, Isaac, will be the offering. God has commanded it. So Abraham ties him up, places him on the wood, and then pulls out this big knife. But as he’s about to plunge it through his son’s chest, he hears God’s voice telling him to stop. Because Abraham was willing to obey, to sacrifice his only child, God says He believes now that Abraham truly fears Him. The upshot is, God says he will bless Abraham by making his descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

“Okay,” said Bram, patting Ethel’s stomach. She was lying on her back next to him now, all four paws thrust limply into the air. “So how did you put that together with Ginger’s last words?”

“Well,” said Sophie, pausing to collect her thoughts, “the night Ginger died she mumbled something about a ram. And then she said, ‘The fire and the wood.’ All of this pointed to an Old Testament sacrifice. The word
Moriah
was another tip-off. It suggested a specific sacrifice. The next thing she did was cry out for Isaac. Back then, we all thought she was referring to Isaac Knox, that she was sick and in pain and wanted a minister to come and pray over her. As the dean of students, Isaac was a logical choice. The problem was, we had no context in which to place her words. We didn’t have a clue that she’d just had an abortion. But now I betieve that in her feverish state, she was mixing up two different stories.”

“You mean hers, and the bibdcal story of Abraham and Isaac.”

“Exacdy. I think, in her mind, she’d conjured up the image of Abraham sacrificing his son, Isaac, because, in a very real sense, that’s just what
she’d
done. The emotion was genuine. She wanted her chdd back. Putting Hugh first, protecting him at all costs, doing what Isaac Knox probably convinced her was the only honorable thing to do, had been the wrong choice. You have to understand, most of her words were garbled. But when I read in my notes that she’d said, ‘I don’t care about the stars,’ it finally struck me what she meant. She didn’t care about God’s promise to Abraham if it meant losing her child. The parallel between the two stories is striking, except in her mind, she was making the opposite choice from the one Abraham had made. She wanted to put her child first — before obedience to the dictates of God’s ministry. Unfortunately, it was too late. I believe it was that struggle, that realization — that
agony
— which consumed her final hours.”

“How awful for her,” said Bram, stroking Ethel’s ear.

“Actually, there was one other comment Ginger made in her diary that I wondered about when I read it. She said that she called the man she loved ‘Lord.’ After I began to form the theory that Hugh might have been her lover, and not Isaac, it all fit. Hugh’s middle name was Abraham. There’s a verse somewhere in the New Testament — don’t ask me where anymore — that says Sarah, Abraham’s wife, called him
Lord.
Ginger probably fantasized about marrying Hugh. If she was a normal human being, she was no doubt impressed by his rank within the church. Calling him Lord probably occurred to her because of that verse. I think it’s also fair to say that she may have envisioned the two of them as modern-day versions of Abraham and Sarah. From the words she spoke the night she died, she certainly saw her child as Isaac. It all makes sense.”

“Poor kid,” said Bram. “But, as a guy, I’ve got to say I feel kind of sorry for Hugh. If your church hadn’t had all these do’s and don’ts associated with marriage — who you could marry, what age your potential partner had to be, how your future wife had to look — somebody might have simply told the poor schmuck the truth, and then he and Ginger could have tied the knot. In the end, all the cover-up got any of them was death and ruined lives.”

“Then, as well as now. By the way, since we’re on the subject, I should tell you I got a phone call from Lieutenant Riley before we drove over here tonight.”

“Where was I?”

“Cleaning the garage. I didn’t want to disturb you on the off chance you might actually be throwing something out. I knew we’d have a chance to talk about all this later.”

“So talk,” said Bram. “I’m all ears.”

“Well, Riley said that, after consulting an attorney, Adelle has now decided to cooperate. They’ve already interviewed her a couple of times. Her lawyer is negotiating some sort of plea bargain.”

“As long as she’s put away.”

“She will be.”

“Say, did Riley say where Adelle got the oleander flower?”

A frown formed on Sophie’s face. “Yes.”

“The hotel garden?”

“Afraid so. It was a convenient — and quiet — murder weapon. Adelle found out the make and model of Lavinia’s rental car, and then, the night she drove to that bar in northeast Minneapolis to meet with her, she slashed a tire before she went in. That way, she could drive by later and offer Lavinia a ride home.”

“So it was Adede who came by when Lavinia was on the phone with you.”

“That’s right. And when they got back to the hotel, Adelle suggested they have a nightcap together in Lavinia’s room. Surprise surprise. She even had a snack to offer, one she knew Lavinia couldn’t resist.”

“The cheese balls.”

“Exacdy. Thanks to that old codege recipe book I handed out at the reunion, she had the recipe right at her fingertips.”

“But,” said Bram, thinking it over, “what about the wake-up cad? Why did Adelle come back the next morning?”

“Simple. She promised Hugh that she’d be back by midnight. He was going out with friends that night himself. He told her he was being dropped back at the hotel around twelve-fifteen. She wanted to be in bed with the lights off by the time he got home. That way, she could Ue about what time she got back from the bar. Since she didn’t have time that night to search the room, she called down for the noon wake-up cad so that she could come back the next morning and finish the job. Her big mistake was picking up the morning newspaper. The police never could quite figure that out.”

“Neither could we. But, I mean, are you teldng me Hugh never suspected what she was up to?”

“I guess not. At least, not at first. He pretty much bought the rumor circulating around the hotel that Lavinia’s husband was responsible for her death. Then, when Isaac turned up dead with a suicide note that named him as Lavinia’s murderer, I guess Hugh finally smeded a rat. He knew Isaac was on the verge of readzing one of his greatest dreams — becoming the head of his own church. It simply wasn’t logical that he’d commit suicide. I suspect,” said Sophie, slipping her hand over Bram’s, “that right from the beginning Hugh wondered about Adelle’s involvement. I’ll bet he feels guilty that he didn’t do more to prevent a tragedy.”