Blessed Is the Busybody (16 page)

“You’ll be at Gelsey’s?”

“I will.” He kissed me. “Thanks for your help.”

I didn’t envy him this decision, but I thought I knew what he would choose tonight. Gelsey needed to be warned, and Ed was the only one who could do it, no matter what the personal consequences. I felt good, knowing I had helped him make a difficult choice. In fact, I felt, at least briefly, important.

After he left I cleaned off the table and started the dishwasher. Upstairs I got ready for bed and settled under a light blanket to read the first of a tall stack of library books about parenting teenagers. I was roused somewhat later from a psychologist-induced sleep by the telephone. I squinted at the clock across the room as I fumbled for the receiver. It was almost midnight, and Ed wasn’t in bed beside me.

I managed “hello” without difficulty. I was hoping to wing the rest.

Ed was on the other end. By the time I hung up I was fully awake, with no hope of sleep for the rest of the night.

Thanks at least partly to me, Ed had decided to talk to Gelsey. Unfortunately, he arrived at her house too late for conversation. The front door was ajar, and her tiny twin poodles were yapping uncontrollably on the front porch.

Inside, Gelsey was lying on her precious Persian silk rug, as dead as her daughter.

12

Gelsey had been shot. One bullet at close range to the side of her head. Funny how in times of stress you imagine things. When I heard where Gelsey had been found I had a vision of the ghostly dowager shaking her head over the damage to her beloved rug.
“There is not a single dry cleaner in Emerald Springs who can be trusted with this!”

I was ready for a sleeping pill or a good stiff drink. One is as unavailable in my house as the other.

I settled for opening a bottle of cheap Spanish wine, and I poured Ed a good-sized glass, too. I clinked mine with his, although he was clearly not in the mood for a toast after two hours of interrogation and a stern warning that he was under suspicion for the murder.

“To Gelsey,” I said sincerely. “Gadfly, philanthropist, friend to many, enemy to some. But a woman who made a difference and lived life on her own terms.”

“It’s two A.M.,” Ed said. “Why are you still articulate?”

I was unaccountably sad. After weeks of paying close attention to all the havoc Gelsey could wreak, now I remembered all the good things she had done. Charities that were better off, friends she had supported through difficulties, an entire library of books for our religious education program, because she had believed that a well-read child was a child who could change the world.

“I have enough adrenaline in my system to keep me awake until Easter.” I sipped the wine, but my throat felt numb.

“I’ll sleep for both of us, then.”

“You must feel awful.”

He tried a sip, made a face, and set down the glass.

“Do you want to tell me how the night played out?” I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to know, but I thought he needed to tell someone besides Roussos.

“After we talked I went over to the church. I got out my notes and looked them over. In the end it was something Jennifer said that convinced me I had to tell Gelsey.”

“What was that?”

“That she hoped her mother burned in hell, but not before Jennifer got her payback.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m sure she’d had a number of skilled therapists over the years. I tried to get her to talk about the feelings under all that rage, but that was useless. So I asked her if she intended to injure Gelsey. If she did, of course, that was something I could report.”

“And she said?”

“No, but she hoped somebody else would.”

I didn’t know what to say. A car with a booming bass cruised past our house. I recognized “Time of Your Life,” an old Green Day hit about turning points and not being able to avoid them. I suspected a heavenly messenger.

Ed touched his chin to his collarbone, to work out kinks in his neck. “At the time, I thought she was saying that someday, some way, she hoped Gelsey got what was coming to her. But looking at that phrase tonight, I wondered if the words were a threat. Maybe Jennifer knew someone else was after Gelsey. I don’t know, but it pushed me over the edge. I decided I had to see her. I debated whether I should call, but decided it would be better to drop by. I knew Gelsey always stayed up past midnight. She’s an insomniac. I wouldn’t be welcome at any time of day, but late was no worse than any other.”

“Did you go straight over?”

He twisted his head from one side to the other. “No. And that’s the problem. I knew I was going to tell her. But I wasn’t sure how to go about it. So I took a drive. Maybe a half hour of aimless wandering out in the country. Then, after I’d decided how best to approach her, I turned back to Emerald Estates and parked in front of her house.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted the rest of the details, but I thought he might need to repeat them. He told the story without prompting, but I’m sure he spared me the worst.

“Her poodles were on the front porch. I know she never lets them out without supervision, so this was a warning sign. And the door was ajar. I hoped she had just put the dogs outside for a moment and would be close by when I knocked. But I knocked and rang the bell, and nobody answered. That was odd enough. Then I heard a strange noise and I realized that somewhere inside a CD was stuck. You know the sound I mean? One syllable, over and over, like a jackhammer. Nobody lets that go on.”

“So you went inside?”

He looked away and spoke a little faster. “I called her name, pushed the door a little, and walked in. I kept calling as I walked through the entryway. Then I saw her on the rug.”

“What did you do?”

“Ran over to her, knelt, and put my fingers against her throat to see if she had a pulse. One of the dogs nipped my arm. Still protecting her, I guess, even though there was nothing to protect anymore. I fended him off, but he scratched my arm with his teeth.” He turned back and held it up to show me.

This is not a man who wants to be babied, but my maternal instincts gushed. “Ed, we’ve got to get something on that.”

“I washed it at the station. They had some ointment. I’ll go in for a tetanus booster tomorrow. Of course it didn’t help my case to have the dog attack me. Or to have Gelsey’s blood on my pants and shirt when the police arrived.”

“
You
called them?”

“I didn’t have a chance. The moment I shook off the dog and got up to find the phone, one of her neighbors appeared. She’d heard the dogs and gotten worried. She made the call, but we both knew it was too late for Gelsey.”

“How long do you think she had been dead?”

He looked away again. “One of the cops guessed about an hour.”

“And the gun?”

“Nowhere in sight. I’m sure they’ll tear the house apart.”

“What do they think? That you shot her, hid the gun, left the door open and the poodles yapping the whole time, then went back to kneel beside the body?”

“I don’t know everything they think. But they think it’s odd I was there so late.”

“Did anybody see you at church? January? Esther?” Sometimes Esther likes to practice the organ at night when nobody’s around, so she can pull out all the stops. Very
Phantom of the Opera.
If the windows are open we can hear her over here.

“No one was there. And since I knew I’d probably go see Gelsey, I drove to the church, so the car wasn’t parked where you could see it.”

“Maybe somebody saw it in the church lot.”

“Or out in the country while I was driving around. But it’s a gray sedan. Who’s going to notice?”

“They’ll find somebody who saw you to establish you weren’t in the house at the time of death. And why would the police suspect you anyway? Even if you were kneeling beside the body when the neighbor arrived.” I winced at that image.

He frowned and turned back to me, as if he needed proof it was really me asking such a stupid question. “Jennifer’s body was found on our porch, Ag. This is body number two I’m connected with. And they’ve already dug up a motive.”

“What, the problems at church? The fact that Gelsey doesn’t—didn’t—like you? If every minister killed every parishioner who disagreed with them, Christians would need some modern-day equivalent of the catacombs for protection. For heaven’s sake!”

“It’s more than that. She made an appointment to have her will changed. She was writing the church out of it. Since the Grim Reaper appeared before her lawyer came back from vacation, we stand to inherit more than a quarter of a million dollars for our endowment.”

I was stunned. A quarter of a million dollars? “How on earth did they find that out so quickly?”

“News travels fast in Emerald Springs. Just about the only thing that does. Her lawyer was notified, and he called the station while I was there.”

“I can’t believe Roussos thinks you killed her because the church was about to lose some money.”

He raised a brow. “Some?”

“Okay, a lot of money. So what?”

“So he’s scrambling for a motive and a suspect. I was there, scratched up and bloody. It was late at night. Not the usual time for a pastoral call. And I wouldn’t tell him why.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe this. “Jennifer’s dead, Gelsey’s dead, what is wrong with you? Who are you protecting?”

He rubbed his beard, as if that would help him stay conscious. “I just wanted some time to figure out what to say and how to say it. She was a major force in the community. I don’t want the good things she’s done diminished by vicious gossip. If he’ll promise to keep the information as private as possible, I’ll probably tell him the nuts and bolts tomorrow. But tonight I was just too heartsick to trust myself.”

I stared at the man who had been belittled and threatened by Gelsey Falowell and wondered if somewhere she was finally aware of the mistake she had made.

“I’ve got to get to bed.” He stood, rolling his head in a circle to ease the tension again.

“I’ll clean up. Go. I’ll be up when I think I can sleep.”

“Some ministers only have to worry about sermon topics and end of the year reports.”

“Think how bored you would be.”

He didn’t even smile.

When Deena’s alarm went off I dragged myself out of bed and made breakfast for the girls, who were spending the day in Cleveland at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with their religious education classes. I wasn’t sure what this field trip had to do with religion, but I was sure someone would work it in along the way.

Since I knew they would hear the news, I told them about Gelsey. To Deena’s credit, she did not sing a chorus of “Ding-Dong, the Witch Is Dead.” She seemed genuinely sorry, although she didn’t try to dig up any good memories of Gelsey, since there were none to be had. I’m afraid Gelsey only liked children in theory.

Ed came down about nine thirty. By then I had fielded half a dozen telephone calls. The membership of the Women’s Society was stunned. I pictured worker bees without their queen and understood what Gelsey’s death meant to them.

Ed decided to spend the day in his office since he’d been out of town all day yesterday and still needed to finish tomorrow’s sermon. He had only been at the church an hour when Sally Berrigan arrived.

Sally is a tall woman, square, masculine shoulders, a trim build, no-nonsense silver hair. I think of New York skyscrapers when Sally walks into the room. Inside the imposing facade a lot of wheeling and dealing is under way. At sixty-four Sally hasn’t even begun to slow down. Had she been elected as mayor instead of Brownie Kefauver, Emerald Springs would not be in an economic slump, and no one would be picketing Book Gems. She would simply not have allowed it.

Sally didn’t waste time sharing stories about the departed, although it looked as if she had shed tears that morning. “Ed’s in a meeting,” she told me. “So I thought I’d see what you think about this.”

I learned upon arriving in Emerald Springs that I was to become the unpaid assistant minister. Also the carrier of messages, the substitute sexton, the extra pair of hands in the church kitchen, and the woman most likely to plunk out hymns on the piano when Esther has the flu. As a bone-deep feminist every part of me knows I should be outraged, but secretly, I enjoy this. It’s just that kind of church and town.

Without asking I set a cup of coffee in front of her. This is the major food group at the bottom of Sally’s nutritional pyramid. “Think about what?”

“I was able to get Gelsey’s address book from the police. After they copied it, of course. I told them I would call her next of kin to let them know what had happened.”

Sally was the most likely person to make the calls. She and Gelsey had been close, and to my knowledge, there was no family in the area.

“I’m sure everyone is upset.” I sounded sincere, but all my systems were on alert. Had Gelsey’s family referred to her as Wanda Ray, or was that only a false name she had used on Jennifer’s birth certificate? How deep did the deception go?

“There is no ‘everyone,’ Aggie. Every single phone number was a sham. I got a deli, a library, and a nursing home. Two others were disconnected. Information has no listings for any of the names in the book. I checked addresses on the Internet. Some of the streets don’t even exist. Those that do have different numbering systems. The only address I could find that actually exists is a doggie day care center. That was supposed to be her sister’s house.”

Even knowing what I did, I was surprised. “Did you check names of residents at the nursing home? Did you check for staff at the other places?”

“By the time I got off the phone I knew the names of everybody who had ever walked through the doors.”

My mind was whirling. “What do you make of it?”

“I have no idea. She went to Boston regularly to see family. She came back with stories.”

“Photos?”

“No one our age takes photos of contemporaries. Why do we want more evidence we’re falling apart?”

I let the editorial pass. I found it interesting there was no physical evidence from Gelsey’s “family” visits. “Did any of these relatives visit her?”

“She always said she preferred to see them at home. That way she could visit her beloved Boston.”

“I wonder why she never moved back after her husband died.”

“I believe there was something in his will that made that difficult. But I always thought it mostly had to do with her place in the community here. Boston is so large, and even with her family connections it seems unlikely she would have had the status or influence she had here. We all looked up to her.” Her voice broke.