The Body in the Gazebo (24 page)

Charles repeated what Violet had told him to do and left the room. She walked slowly about. It was her favorite place in the house and she’d often thought she’d like to meet the man who collected all these weapons, bagged the game. A real man. Not like Charles, or Theo. But Charles was going to do just fine. Charles with all that Winthrop money and position. Nobody was going to snigger at Violet Hammond behind her back again. She knew what people said about her. It was coming to a happy ending a bit sooner than she planned—so long as Charles did exactly as he was told. And he would. Tonight, tomorrow, and in the future. After all, a wife couldn’t testify against her husband, could she?

She picked up the stiletto letter opener on the desk with her handkerchief and climbed out the window. It didn’t take long to get to the gazebo.

Theo was unconscious. There was almost no pulse, such a slight flutter that she almost missed it. She shuddered in repulsion—his face already resembled a death mask—but quickly pulled herself together and took his gold watch and his signet ring. They would have to keep the bootleggers—she knew what Charles had been up to—happy for now. If Charles’s father got even a whiff of scandal regarding his son, he’d cut him off for good. And that wouldn’t do at all.

Someone was coming—walking rapidly down the path. She heard Rowe call Theo’s name.

Theo wouldn’t be answering.

She plunged the stiletto into Theo’s chest and slipped out the door into the woods to wait.

It was perfect. She heard the Professor’s anguished cry and Charles’s arrival with the others. When she went back into the gazebo, slipping in with several others, she saw that Arnold had pulled the knife from Theo’s chest and was standing over him. She screamed—and kept on screaming.

Everything was going to be fine.

“M
y family has always been devoted to music, particularly the piano,” Faith said. “I’d love to hear your daughter play. What kind of piano do you have?”

Violet rose to the bait.

“We have two, of course. A Steinway grand in the living room and a Baldwin in her music room. When she began to show her talents, we converted one of the bedrooms into a studio for her. It’s soundproof, otherwise you could hear the music from here.”

“What a shame I can’t. It would be such a treat.”

Would overweening pride overwhelm Violet’s judgment? It was the only way Faith could think of to get the woman to untie her.

“Oh no you don’t, Miss Smarty-pants. When I get word that the money has been transferred, perhaps Marguerite will give us a brief concert. For now, you’ll be staying right where you are.”

Pride did not go before a fall. They sat in silence for a while and then Violet burst out, “Now are you going to make that call or aren’t you? My patience is wearing thin.”

Faith was about to say no again when she realized that each time Violet had voiced the demand, she’d insisted Faith make the call. Why couldn’t Violet make it herself, or even darling daughter Marguerite? Surely they had the number and they could hold the phone up to Faith so she could speak to prove she was actually here—and in extremis. Maybe, no probably, the phones were landlines and not portable. Violet would have to untie her and she wouldn’t want to risk it.

So, Faith had to make the call using her cell. Violet was isolated from the world, but not completely. She’d assumed whoever came would have one.

It was a glimmer.

“All right. Bring me your phone,” Faith said, feigning defeat.

“Don’t you have your own? It’s a long distance call. I don’t see why I should have to pay for it.”

The illogic was breathtaking—and breath giving.

“My phone is in my purse, which must be somewhere on the floor.” They must have taken it from Faith’s shoulder when she was knocked out. She hated to think of what it rested on. “The phone is in the outside pocket.” She’d placed it there so she could call Hope easily.

Violet got up. She may not have been as athletic in her youth as Babs Jessup, but she still had excellent posture and didn’t seem to require a cane or walker to get about.

“Is this it?” Violet asked dubiously. She held up the iPhone. Clearly cells in all their incarnations were a novelty.

“Yes. I have Ursula on something called ‘speed dial’ so I could get in touch with her once I made contact with you. Just run your finger across the screen and the number will ring. Hold it to my face and I’ll tell her what’s going on.”

Please, Hope, catch on. Please . . .

“Are you there yet?” As always, her sister got right to the point.

Faith interrupted quickly. She couldn’t have asked for a better opening.

“Yes, I’m here with Violet, Mrs. Winthrop, that is. And Ursula, I’m afraid things haven’t gone well. For us, I mean. Mrs. Winthrop and her daughter, Marguerite, had the misfortune to lose a great deal of money with Bernard Madoff. They are demanding a trade. In return for my safety, they want you to immediately transfer a hundred thousand dollars into their bank account.”

Faith could almost see the stunned look on Hope’s face as she rapidly processed the bizarre call.

“I see. Have they harmed you in any way?”

“No, Ursula, but they will if the money isn’t in their account within twenty-four hours. At the moment I’m tied up in their kitchen. Actually, a lovely room with French doors leading to a back patio. The house itself is quite grand, although being on the ground floor, I can’t say what the upstairs is like.”

“Give me that thing.” Violet was almost snarling. “You’d think you were going to move in! Now listen to me, Ursula Rowe, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so you’d better start getting the money together if you want to see your precious friend alive.”

There was a pause. “She wants to talk to you again.” Violet held the phone up.

“Keep the phone on. I’m setting all the wheels in motion. Good-bye.”

Hope must have assumed she was on speakerphone. Bless her. She could be counted on to think of everything.

“She’s getting everything started. Just leave the phone on the table and she’ll call back for your account information.”

“All written down in this.” She waved a large ledger—the kind Faith associated with Melville’s Bartleby. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? We’ll have you out of here in no time.”

Faith was sure that’s exactly what Hope was planning, too.

H
er sister had friends in high places, so when New York’s finest shortly arrived, some at the front door, which Violet refused to open, but more over the wall and into the back patio, Faith was not surprised. She was, however, understandably enormously relieved. When the police shattered one of the glass doors to get in, Violet threw herself at Faith, knocking the chair to the floor, all the while screaming something about an unholy alliance on the part of Ursula, the Madoffs, and poor Faith herself. Marguerite was discovered deep in Beethoven’s “Moonlight” sonata and the two women were bundled off to the precinct charged with an entire laundry list of felonies, and thence, Faith assumed, soon to Bellevue, where their tattered apparel would be exchanged for more appropriate—and restrained—white jackets. Hope arrived on the heels of the police and accompanied her to the precinct.

“It isn’t that I think you need a lawyer; it’s that you need a sister,” she said. “Aside from wanting to see you safe and sound with my own eyes, I’m aware that the police don’t know you the way I do. I haven’t heard
this
story yet, but based on the past, I do know it will be a hard one to swallow.”

Faith never did get her egg cream and pastrami on rye, but took a rain check. She spent the night at Hope’s and left early in the morning. She wanted to go home. That home.

Aleford.

Chapter 11

N
o matter what form the wedding ceremony takes—in a church, a temple, or a field of daisies—the receptions all follow the same patterns. The toasts to the new couple, the first dance, breaking bread, more toasts, more dancing, neckties loosened, high heels slipped off, and late in the day or night, a feeling of great ease. Two families have become one—for the moment or forever. Degrees of separation disappear. Discoveries are made—“My sister Sally must have been in your class!” and “I was born in Orange Memorial Hospital, too!” The dancing becomes freer—and closer during the slow numbers. Time is suspended. Lights are lowered.

The reception had arrived at this point and Faith was sitting with Tom at the Millers’ table. She was breathless from the hora that one of Rebecca’s aunts had initiated, sweeping the women in the room into the circle, including Ursula, who knew all the words to “Hava Nagila,” most others chiming in only at the chorus, but with gusto. Earlier the bride and groom had been hoisted on chairs for that hora, the dancers snaking about in a joyous procession as the song continued on and on. Joy. So much joy.

Tom, sans collar, had acquitted himself so well in Hebrew during his part of the ceremony at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim that the Cohens’ relatives and friends were asking who the new rabbi was. The chuppah—the canopy under which the couple stood, which symbolized the home they would make together, a home open on all sides for anyone to enter—was composed of a blanket of flowers. Faith had never seen one quite like it, nor the flowers that were everywhere at the reception—roses, orchids, and other varieties in ivory, the palest of greens, and as many kinds of pink as Chanel’s lipsticks. The bridesmaids wore midcalf pastel strapless sheaths and carried calla lilies. They looked like lilies themselves.

Their parents escorted the wedding couple to the chuppah. Cissy and Pix wore deceptively simple, flattering cocktail dresses, cut exquisitely in two slightly different shades of lavender; Sam and Stephen sported elegant pale gray vests under their tuxedos. Grandchildren escorted grandparents to their seats and Ursula in her garnet satin looked like royalty.

“Happy, darling?” Tom placed his hand over his wife’s.

“Very,” she said. “And we have two more days here all to ourselves. Well, there’s the brunch tomorrow, which will be fun—but after that, it’s just you and me, kid.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Faith moved her chair closer to Tom’s and leaned back against his shoulder. She was content to sit and watch the dancers whirl by for now.

When Rebecca and Mark had stamped on the wineglass wrapped in the napkin at the close of the ceremony, Faith was reminded of the act’s additional meaning, apart from being a historic reminder of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. That the breaking of the glass symbolized our imperfect world, and the act carried a message for all present—to work hard each day to mend it.

There had been much mending of various sorts since April’s dramatic beginning. After countless vestry meetings preceded by consultations with Sam, Tom—and First Parish—had decided not to prosecute Albert and Lily. In fact, Tom decided to keep Albert on for a number of reasons: he’d been doing an excellent job; was clearly not cut out for the ministry, yet very much wanted to be a church administrator; and perhaps most pressing—Tom wanted to keep an eye on him. At first Faith had been vehemently opposed to this “turning of the other cheek,” but Tom had explained that although he didn’t feel that he had brought the whole thing on himself as Lily had described, he cared deeply about the young man and setting him adrift just didn’t make sense.

Lily was a different story, and while they were still struggling to sort out what to do, Lily herself came up with the solution, asking to meet with Tom and then the vestry accompanied by her mother. Her father was refusing to have anything to do with her at the moment.

She had confessed everything, describing the deep depression she’d fallen into at divinity school that had taken a manic turn during the internship. She was seeing a therapist and was feeling clear about what she really wanted to be doing—nursing. To start, she hoped to be able to work in Haiti with a view to returning to the Boston area in a year to enter an RN program, gaining the skills she needed to go back or go to another part of the world.

If Faith thought it was all a little too pat and the ends a little too neatly tied up, she kept her mouth shut. Sherman Munroe and others in the church were falling all over themselves trying to atone for their suspicions and she was unabashedly enjoying it. The Minister’s Discretionary Fund, and everything else requiring passwords, PINs, and so forth, had been protected as only Zach could. He boasted that First Parish was now on a level with the Pentagon, although he had added that neither place should be complacent. Hackers weren’t.

And there was further mending. Pix had arrived at Logan Airport late that Friday morning to find not only her own husband waiting for her, but Tom, in great agitation, waiting for his wife. “I seem to have missed something,” Pix had said, never dreaming how much. Over the next few days she’d found out—mostly from her mother.

In the weeks that followed they learned that the Winthrop women were indeed destitute. When Charles Winthrop died, the family told Violet that she could expect nothing from them save a spot next to him in the family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery and they did not wish to see her until she was ready to use it. Violet was thin, but she wasn’t too rich since she refused to sell the town house. Faith strongly suspected the cat food tins had not been enjoyed solely by the Winthrop pets.

They also learned that Marguerite was adapting well to life in prison—three squares, clean clothes, and fresh bed linens. She had changed her name to Daisy and was entertaining the other women in the upstate prison with medleys of show tunes on an old upright whenever she got the chance. Her mother was in a secure psychiatric facility.

“They’re playing your song. Shall we dance?” Tom said. The music had stopped, and was starting up again.

Faith stood up and began to sing along, “Start spreading the news . . .” as Tom led her onto the floor.

She’d been very careful about champagne, but Pix was still feeling very rosy. Aside from her own wedding, it was the happiest one she had ever attended. She only wished her father could have lived to see his beloved grandson as an adult, a fine young man with a lovely bride.

After Ursula had told Pix the whole story, Arnie flew in and Pix heard it again. When she and her brother talked later, they admitted that they had always suspected that there was something major their parents hadn’t shared with them, but thought it might be that their father, older than their mother, had been married before.

Pix drained the glass she’d been nursing. It was hard to believe all that had happened while she had been enjoying the Cohens’ hospitality, blissfully unaware, in South Carolina. Cissy and Steve were coming to Maine in August for a week of sailing, kayaking, and, in Cissy’s case, painting. She was a talented artist and confessed she’d always wanted to do watercolors of rockier shores.

“Don’t tell me it’s Pix!” The man standing in front of her looked very familiar and it took only a few seconds for Pix to gasp, “Brian?”

Brian had been Stephen Cohen’s Dartmouth roommate and Pix’s Brown roommate’s boyfriend. She knew Mindy hadn’t married him, but obviously he had stayed in touch with Steve. He was laughing.

“Mind if I sit down?”

“Please do.” Now what? Pix wondered. Would it all come out? Was he the type to grab the mic and make a joke about Green Key Weekend for the amusement of all?

“Just about missed the whole darn wedding. Car trouble and finally we just ditched it and rented one.”

“You were from Savannah, as I recall.” Pix tried to sound nonchalant. It wasn’t working.

“Talk about coincidences! The mother of the groom and the father of the bride—”

“Please,” Pix interrupted, and then was interrupted herself by Dr. Stephen Cohen, who had suddenly appeared at their side.

“Brian! You made it!”

“I wouldn’t miss Becca’s wedding for the world, old buddy. And the first person I run into is Pix . . . wait a minute, I’ve got it—Rowe. Mindy’s roommate. She’s still in Savannah, too. Hotshot lawyer and there’s talk of a run for the statehouse. Married a cousin of my wife’s and we’re all family.”

Pix was feeling dizzy and wondered whether it would be rude to excuse herself.

“Speaking of family. You two are family now!” His grin couldn’t possibly get any broader, Pix thought dismally. Any minute now, he’d start spreading the news. No, wait, that was the song. Oh, she couldn’t think straight at all.

“Yes, it’s great,” Steve said. “Pix and I have had fun talking over old times and the only fly in the ointment is that her husband can beat me at golf. I think Mark can, too, but he’s smart enough to let me have a few strokes. Maybe now that they’re married, it will change.”

Pix knew they were talking about golf scores, but she’d stop paying attention after the part about catching up on old times.

“Well, I need to congratulate the bride and groom and dance with my wife. She had us taking lessons last winter, said we were getting stodgy. Y’all take care now.”

“It was good to see you again,” Pix managed.

Stephen gave his friend a hug and said, “Now, about that weekend. You understand it’s Pix and my little secret.”

“Not to worry.” Brian zipped his lips and walked off.

“You knew it was me! All the time?” Pix didn’t know whether to be indignant or jubilant. “I thought you’d forgotten.”

“Wait a minute. I’d thought
you’d
forgotten. And yes, this is starting to sound like a bad sitcom,” he said, laughing.

Pix was speechless. It was the one thing that hadn’t occurred to her—or Faith. That Stephen would think Pix didn’t remember
him
. It really was very funny and she started to laugh, too.

Sam and Cissy came dancing over, finishing with a flourish, both singing “New York, New York.” It was that kind of song.

“Hey, you two, what’s so funny?” Sam asked.

“Nothing,” Stephen said, taking Pix’s hand for the next number.

“Absolutely nothing,” she said, stepping into his arms and matching her steps to his.

U
rsula sat listening to a long story Rebecca’s aunt was telling about someone. It wasn’t clear whether this person was in the present or past, but it didn’t seem to matter. Ursula had discovered that people in Charleston tended to regard the living and the dead much the same when it came to storytelling, even as to tense.

She watched the couples on the dance floor, her eyes picking out her own children and grandchildren with pride.

The living and the dead. Oh Arnold, I wish you were by my side—or whirling me about the way you used to when we would go dancing at the ballroom in Newton at Norumbega Park. So elegant—and you were, too, my darling.

The living and the dead. She saw Theo’s face in Dan, her youngest grandchild, who was the same age Theo had been when he died. Arnold was buried on Sanpere, but Theo was nearby in Cambridge at Mount Auburn. Faith had taken her the week after her return from New York and the two of them had laid a spray of white lilacs on the grave. Ursula knew Faith was keeping the details of her trip from her and Ursula didn’t mind. Being shielded was a blessing at this point in life. She suspected Violet may have told Faith that she alone was responsible for the murder. It didn’t matter. Her brother was gone.

“It’s a slow song, Granny. Would you like to dance?”

Dan had shed his jacket and tie. Like his mother, he had a habit of running his hand through his thick brown curly hair and it was no longer slicked down as it had been during the ceremony.

“I’d love to. Will you excuse me?” Ursula addressed the table and, taking her grandson’s hand, walked onto the dance floor. They were playing Cole Porter. “Easy to Love.” She hummed along as they danced and through half-closed eyes saw their faces.

Good night, Theo.

Good night, Arnold.