Right Hand of Evil (30 page)

But what will Father MacNeill say?" Marge Engstrom waited for her words to have their expected effect on her daughter. But when Sandy announced that she didn't care what Father MacNeill said, she was too tired to go to church that morning, Marge's brow creased in frustration. "I don't know what's gotten into you, Sandra Anne," she declared, using her daughter's full name, which she only did when seriously annoyed. "You know perfectly well that after last night-"

"After last night, why would it matter if any of us go?" Sandy protested. "Father MacNeill's already mad at us, isn't he? I don't see how me going to church is going to make any difference!"

"He's not angry at
us,"
Marge explained with a note of exaggerated patience that only made Sandy want to dig her heels in and stick to her position. "It wasn't your father who swayed the meeting last night-it was Ted Conway. But if we don't go to church this morning, Father MacNeill might very well assume that we've taken a position against him."

"Well, haven't we?" Sandy demanded.

Marge pursed her lips. "As mayor, your father didn't vote last night, and though you may not have noticed, neither did I. Your father wants to maintain a position of neutrality, for the good of the entire community."

"You mean he wants to be reelected," Sandy said, and saw by her mother's wince that she was right.

Marge Engstrom recovered quickly. "Your father is a very good mayor, and part of the reason he's a good mayor is that he maintains bridges to every part of our community. If you look at the votes two years ago-"

Sandy rolled her eyes. "I read Dad's campaign brochure, Mom. I even wrote part of it, remember? And I'm still not going to church!"

Marge eyed Sandy carefully, wondering yet again if perhaps it had been a mistake to let her spend the night at the Conways'. It was a thought that had occurred to her when Sandy came home looking like death warmed over. Her face had been sallow, and her eyes so dark that Marge didn't think she could have slept at all. What on earth had she and Kim Conway been up to?

"Nothing," Sandy had insisted. "All we did was watch a couple of horror movies and go to bed."

"Well, no wonder you look so terrible," Marge had replied. "I swear, I don't know why they let them make those terrible movies. All that blood and violence! Why can't you and your friends watch nice movies? I'll bet you didn't sleep a wink. Not a single wink."

By yesterday afternoon, after Sandy had a long nap, she'd seemed fine. But this morning she looked pale again.

The argument over church had been going on for half an hour. Now, with only fifteen minutes left before mass, Marge gave up. "Well, I guess I can't force you," she told Sandy, making one last effort, "but you're the one who'll have to answer to your father. He'll be very disappointed in you. It's very important to him that the family be together on Sunday morning."

It's important for us to be
seen together,
Sandy silently corrected, certain her mother knew as well as she did that if her father really wanted them all to be together, he wouldn't go off to play golf every Sunday morning, and meet them at church just in time for them to walk down the aisle together. Did he really think he was fooling anybody? "Maybe I'll go later," she offered, but knew she wouldn't.

The moment she woke up that morning, she knew she couldn't sit through one of Father MacNeill's masses today. Just the thought of it made her feel almost as sick as she'd been yesterday morning at Kim's. But now that she'd gotten out of church, she was starting to feel better. Maybe, after her mother left, she'd just go back to bed for another hour.

When Marge Engstrom stepped out into the bright fall morning a few minutes later, she decided that if Sandy didn't want to go to church, it was her daughter's loss, not her own. Besides, Sandy didn't look well, and perhaps just this once it really would be better for her to lie down for a while. Surely Phil-and God-would forgive her this once!

Marge set out toward St. Ignatius briskly, nodding to everyone she met. Birds were chirping, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and by the time she was across the street from St. Ignatius, even her concern about Sandy had all but vanished. Then she saw the activity in the graveyard, and stopped short.

Had someone died?

But no-surely she would have heard about it!

Marge hurried her step. "What's happened?" she asked Corinne Beckwith, who was standing just inside the cemetery gate, whispering to Sister Clarence.

"It's terrible." Corinne glanced around to be certain no one else was listening, though Marge suspected that whatever Corinne was about to reveal had already been repeated-in strictest confidence-to everyone Corinne had talked to already. "Ray told me this in the strictest confidence, so you have to promise not to breathe a word to anyone. Not anyone!" Then, without waiting for the demanded promise to be tendered, she plunged on. "Someone opened up George Conway's coffin last night, and cut off his right hand. Can you imagine such a thing? Just cut it off! What kind of person would do such a thing! Well, of course it's the fault of those Conways. Everything was fine until they came to town. Now the church has been vandalized, and people's pets are being slaughtered, and…"

But Marge had stopped listening, her attention drawn to the cat that was pinned to the tree with the broken crucifix. For some reason, what kept running through her mind over and over like a stuck record were the words Jake Cumberland had spoken at the meeting last night:
"The work of the Devil! I'm tellin' you, this is the work of the Devil!"

For the first time in years, Marge Engstrom didn't wait for Phil to arrive before going into the church. With all the tales she'd heard since she was a little girl, all the whisperings about the things that had supposedly gone on in the Conway house spinning anew through her head, she dipped her fingers in the font, made her genuflection, and slipped into her regular pew. When her husband sat down at her side a few minutes later, she slid her hand into his. "There's going to be trouble," she whispered. "I can feel it."

Then she began to pray. But this morning, her prayers went far beyond her regular pleadings for her husband and daughter.

This morning she prayed for the souls of every single person in St. Albans.

Father MacNeill dressed for mass with deliberation. Slipping first into the finely woven linen alb-pressed perfectly wrinkle-free by his housekeeper, Sister Margaret Michael-he fastened the cincture around his waist, then added a stole. Finally he put on the chasuble, then gazed at himself in the mirror. Beyond the closed door of the vestry he could hear the murmuring of the crowd gathering in the sanctuary, but instead of the usual soft, almost chanting rhythms of prayer, this morning he heard the excited buzz of gossip winging through the church.

Of course, he had no one to blame but himself-he should never have called the police, at least not until he'd investigated the vandalism in the cemetery himself. It might even have been all right if they'd sent someone other than Ray Beckwith; he should have realized that Ray would be unable to hold anything back from Corinne, and everyone in St. Albans knew that if you wanted a piece of news spread as rapidly as possible, you simply told Corinne Beckwith, first swearing her to absolute secrecy and making her promise not to mention it in the newspaper.

And he was certain where they would place the blame: after Ted Conway's performance last night, he had gained the support of much of the town-even of the St. Ignatius congregation. So it was hardly likely blame would fall where Father MacNeill was already certain it belonged. No, much more likely they would turn their wrath on Jake Cumberland. Poor, ignorant Jake, who had stood at the back of Town Hall last night, denouncing Ted Conway as a tool of the Devil.

And why wouldn't they turn on him? After the accusation he'd made, wouldn't it be logical to assume he'd also desecrated the corpse of the man he'd always held responsible for the death of his own mother?

"Best them Conways don't come back here ever again,"
Jake had told him not too many weeks ago, when Cora Conway lay dying at the Willows.
"They come here, they'll have me to deal with. And I know what to do, too. Don't think I don't!"

Father MacNeill had known Jake was speaking of the voodoo crafts he'd learned from his mother so many years ago. He hadn't bothered to argue-the priest had always understood that one man's faith is another man's superstition, and that trying to destroy Jake's belief in his mother's religion would be as useless as trying to destroy his own faith in the living Christ.

As the church bell tolled the hour, Father MacNeill smoothed the chasuble one last time, picked up his breviary, opened the vestry door, and stepped into the sanctuary. For a moment the murmuring went on uninterrupted, but as first one person and then another realized their priest now stood before them, the tenor of the buzzing changed, and finally died away.

Father MacNeill scanned the congregation. The church was crowded this morning, though he suspected that had more to do with the news of the desecration in the cemetery than it did with his own powers to preach.

Even Corinne Beckwith, whom he was certain accompanied her husband to church only to keep Ray happy, was paying attention this morning. Father MacNeill wondered if she had her tape recorder going, or would be content taking notes with a pen and paper. But like nearly everyone else in the sanctuary, she obviously was expecting him to say something, to explain to them what had happened last night. How, though, could he point an accusing finger until he was certain he knew the culprit's identity?

As he was still trying to decide what, if anything, to say, the door at the back of the church opened and he saw three figures silhouetted against the brilliant morning light. They stepped forward, the door closed, and for a moment they were lost in the shadows of the vestibule.

Then Janet Conway, holding the hand of her little daughter, Molly, stepped forward, dipped her fingers in the font, and dropped into a quick genuflection. Straightening, she searched the church for an empty pew.

A moment later Kim repeated the ritual her mother had just performed.

Then Ted Conway stepped forward, slipping his arms almost protectively around his wife and older daughter.

Father MacNeill found himself holding his breath as he waited to see if Jared Conway would also appear in the church. The seconds crept by, as heads turned to see at whom their priest was staring. When Jared didn't appear, Father MacNeill finally let out his breath and waited to see what the Conways would do.

Phil Engstrom rose from his seat in the first pew, as if to leave. His wife was beside him, though Father MacNeill didn't see Sandy. The mayor's gaze locked on Father MacNeill's, and the priest saw that even the mayor had finally rejoined the ranks of the righteous, abandoning his support of the Conways. Then Phil turned and looked directly at Ted Conway, and as the two men's eyes met, the priest saw something change. Phil Engstrom appeared uncertain for a moment, and then his face cleared and he smiled at Conway. "There's plenty of room here, Ted," he declared. "Come and sit with us."

Stunned by the change in the town's mayor, Father MacNeill watched as the Conways made their way down the aisle, every eye in the church tracking them. Only as they edged into the Engstroms' pew did anyone speak.

"If there's room in this church for them, then there isn't for me," Ellie Roberts declared. Rising from her seat, her right arm in a sling, she stepped out into the aisle and, limping heavily, left the church.

Father MacNeill waited. No one else left.

Then he turned his back to the congregation and began celebrating the mass in the old tradition: facing the altar and intoning the words in the ancient language of the Church. The Latin phrases rolled from his tongue in fulsome cadences, and when he finally turned to face the congregation, every one of them had closed their eyes as he recited the final benediction.

Every one of them, except for one.

Ted Conway's eyes were wide open.

And they were blazing with undisguised hatred.

Janet glanced at the clock on the wall of the big reception room in the parish hall. Its hands seemed not to have moved since the last time she'd looked. The mass had ended an hour ago, but Ted insisted they stay for the hospitality hour. Every minute had seemed like an hour as she stood with Marge Engstrom, pretending she didn't notice how few people approached them, or see the hostile clutches of parishioners whispering to each other while pretending not to glance her way. Worst of all were those who spoke to Marge but ignored Janet and her family completely, acting as if they simply weren't there. And everywhere she looked, Ellie Roberts was there, whispering to one group after another. All the goodwill Janet had felt after the town meeting had evaporated; if the meeting were to be held again tonight, she was sure there wouldn't be a single person in the room who would vote with them. "It's like they think we had something to do with what happened last night," she said as Ted and Phil finally came over to join them.

Shortly after mass was over, the Conways heard about the desecration of their uncle's tomb, and the grisly object pinned to the tree. Though Kim refused even to look at the cat's hide, Janet and Ted identified it as Muffin's. Tears had streaked Kim's face when she learned the fate of her pet, but she wiped them away, refusing to expose her pain to a town that had suddenly turned so hostile.

Ted shook his head. "It's not that so much as Ellie Roberts-she's telling everyone that Jared made her walk in front of that car."

"But that's stupid!" Kim burst out, breaking out of her grief over her pet to defend her brother. "I saw Jared, and he wasn't anywhere near Mrs. Roberts!" As almost everyone in the room turned to stare at her, she flushed with embarrassment. "Can't we go home, Daddy?" she begged. "Please?"

For a moment Janet thought Ted was going to argue with Kim, but instead he nodded. "Sure. I don't think we're going to be able to bring any of these people around right now, anyway." Saying goodbye to Phil and Marge Engstrom, they stepped out into the bright sunlight.