Body In The Belfry ff-1 Read online

  “I've never heard of any other girlfriend. It's been my impression that Cindy and Dave have been going steady for a long time," Torn mused.

  Faith had been delighted to discover that Tom was quite interested in gossip, unusual for a minister. Her own father could never get even the most straightforward scandals right and was apt to let his mind wander, presumably to a higher plane, whenever she tried to impart or extract any information. Tom spent a great deal of time with the kids in the parish. He was worried about the kinds of choices they faced, and was also aware that a congregation needed young people to keep going. If Dave Svenson had had another girlfriend, particularly one passionate enough to wield a kitchen knife, Tom surely would have known about it.

  “It's more the kind of thing Cindy would have done rather than have done unto," he remarked.

  “I 'm not sure of the grammar, but that 's what I've been thinking. If anyone was going to commit a murder in this town, it would have been Cindy, and I'm sure she would have thought she had a pardonable reason for it. That leaves us with an old boyfriend of Cindy's—of which there are legion—or a new boyfriend?”

  Cindy was notorious for regularly staging scenes with Dave that, Faith correctly assumed, then gave her the excuse to go off with someone else for a while. Often she didn't even bother with the scene.

  “Let 's see, it's hard to keep track, but it was about a month ago that she told me for the thousandth time that Dave took her for granted and needed to be taught a lesson. I believe that coincided with the Calthorpes' nephew 's visit," Tom recalled wryly.

  “So maybe he fell desperately in love with her and d ecided if he couldn 't have her, nobody would.”

  “That would solve things nicely, Faith, but he is presumably in West Germany for the semester. At least the Calthorpes drove him to Logan and put him on a plane for there. Still I know you won 't rule it out."

  “If it's not sex, then it's money," she said, ignoring this last. "It has to be one or the other."

  “Why ? There must be plenty of other reasons people kill other people. Anyway I thought that was why people got divorced."

  “Virtually the same thing. Murder, divorce. Gone is gone." Faith waved one hand summarily in the air. "Now the money. Cindy was going to be rich, we know that.”

  If Cindy Shepherd had lived to turn twenty-one, she would have come into a very tidy little fortune from her parents. Nobody had mentioned the exact figure, as Faith had discovered when once she had asked Tom just how tidy it was. She was always surprised how seldom anyone in New England ever mentioned actual dollar amounts and how much they appeared to think about them.

  “She must have made a will. Maybe Pix knows." Faith furrowed her brow. Their neighbor Pix's husband, Sam Miller, was a lawyer and had been known to let harmless but tasty tidbits of information fall from the table.

  “Please, Faith," Tom protested, "After all this mess with my mother 's family I don 't even want to hear the word will!"

  “I'm sorry, sweetheart, just thinking out loud.”

  Tom 's grandmother had died the previous spring and Marian, his mother, fully expected to claim the garnet brooch, wedding pearls, cameo, diamond lavaliere, and other mementos, which her mother had indicated were her birthright since she was a little girl. It had been a shock to discover that her mother had left her house and its contents to Marian 's brother, who had moved in with his wife to take care of her seven years earlier. Even then Marian had assumed they would share and share alike as was the right thing to do. Months of wrangling and eventually a hefty lawyer 's fee trying to prove undue influence had left her without so much as a jet hat pin.

  Faith shook her head.

  “No, I don't think it was money. If she had already inherited, then it would make sense. And anyway, given Cindy, sex is a more logical motive." She held out her empty glass. "Un peu more brandy, s'il vous plait," she said, slipping into Tom's eccentric French. (She had noticed that married people seemed to pick up each other 's habits, although so far she didn't see Tom adopting any of hers.) "It helps one think so much more clearly. Except that we should be drinking Scotch and calling for Asta.”

  Tom took her glass and looked down at her reprovingly, "Have your fun tonight, Nora Charles. I'll talk with you about all this until the cows come home, but if you have any idea of doing some sleuthing, with or without your Nick, forget it. I like you without roses stuck in your side."

  “ Don't be silly, Tom. What can I do, after all ? Maybe ask a few questions here and there. Do admit, this is pretty exciting. When is the last time they had a murder in Aleford anyway?"

  “ I have no idea. Although I did hear something about one of the Hales running amok in the thirties and killinghis wife's dog, then being prevented just in time by a neighbor from giving its mistress forty whacks as well."

  “So mine could be Aleford 's first real murder!"

  “I doubt it, Faith, and in any case it's not yours."

  “Ours then."

  “ No, absolutely. not."

  “You're just being cranky because you 're hungry and so am I. Did we have any supper ? I can 't remember. Anyway, I'm starving.”

  Faith was always starving, Tom thought happily. What a good idea it had been to marry someone who shared and satisfied his hungers so well.

  He followed her into the large kitchen and sat at the big round table while she split some bread in half and liberally covered it with chèvre and toasted walnuts before running it under the broiler for a moment. The kitchen bore little resemblance to the room Tom had used infrequently during his brief bachelor days in the parsonage. Faith had kept the old glass-fronted cabinets, but everything else had been torn out. She had actually shuddered when she saw the electric stove, vintage to be sure, and the single sink next to a small drainboard, the only counter in the room. Now with her gleaming, glass-fronted refrigerator, Garland stove, rows of hanging pots and pans, miles of white formica counters with a marble insert for pastry making, and a black and white tile floor, Faith felt at home. The table stood by a bow window overlooking the garden. As a concession to the setting, Faith had covered the window seats and chair cushions with Souleiado Provençal fabric. "But no country, Tom, nothing with cows on it and not even one dried flower wreath, please," she had stated emphatically.

  In between crusty bites, Faith kept talking about Cindy.

  “ It has to be a disappointed lover because of the rose.

  A poetic gesture, the final symbol of their blighted romance."

  “ If any romance was blighted, it was Cindy and Dave's. You know, Faith, I never could understand why those two were getting married."

  “Elementary, my dear Thomas. Because Cindy wanted it and Dave wanted her. Think about it, or rather, imagine yourself at twenty—not that long ago to be sure—and all those hormones and Cindy walks into your life. Those proverbial curves in the correct places, that long black hair with the blue highlights just like Wonder Woman's in the cartoons. It was sex. Frequent, prolonged, and poor Dave got hooked."

  “Keep talking, Faith. I find this not only mesmerizing but kind of a turn-on."

  “I'm not sure why Cindy wanted poor Dave, though. Maybe she wanted to get marriage out of the way and go on to bigger and better things, like affairs." She saw Tom's look. "Bigger and better for Cindy that is, silly. And Dave is a good catch. Steady, dependable, bright, and handsome. You know, I wouldn't put it past her to have chosen him because she wanted a blond to contrast with her looks."

  “ `Poor Dave' does sum it up. I tried to talk to him about Cindy several times, but he never seemed to want to. We were due to start the prenuptial pastoral counseling soon and I thought I might understand the whole relationship better then."

  “Yes, and probably you would have given Dave the courage to back out. Although short of having his parents fill his ears with wax at birth and tie him to the liberty pole in the middle of the common, I don't see how he was going to resist her call. But if you did, then Cindy would have killed you an
d Dave both. The invitations have gone out and she was not a girl to be spurned lightly.”

  Tom finished the last morsel on his plate and stood up and stretched.

  “It is pretty horrible, Faith. I've been thinking about her wedding service and now I have to write a funeral oration instead."

  “These theological dilemmas are bound to come up, Tom, but I have no doubt that you will rise to the occasion." Faith smiled primly, secure in the knowledge that rising to that sort of occasion was something she would never have to do.

  “It's certainly not one of the topics we wrestled with in Divinity School. Now what do you say to some sleep ? Frequent and prolonged or whatever."

  “Good idea. I am exhausted. This has been a very busy day, if I may be permitted the greatest understatement of my life, so far anyway."

  “You may and it is," Tom agreed.

  Faith followed him upstairs and wondered briefly if he had found Cindy attractive. She had worn sex the way other girls wore makeup. Depending on the circumstances, it could be the full treatment or a hint of lipstick and powder. Whatever it was, though, it was always there, unsettling and devastatingly provocative. Faith started to ask, then changed her mind. It was one of those questions, like whether there really is life after death, that she didn't want answered for sure.

  They looked in at Ben, marveled at that splendid accomplishment babies perform—breathing—and went to bed.

  They were not prepared for an insistent ringing at six o'clock the next morning. Faith woke up and wondered groggily why Benjamin was making such an odd noise. She was at the side of his crib looking down at a peacefully sleeping child before she realized it was the doorbell.

  She ran back into their bedroom, fully awake.

  “Tom!" she cried, "wake up! Somebody 's at the door!”

  Tom was a very sound sleeper. She shook him. " Tom ! Somebody's ringing the bell !"

  “ What ? Not again ? " he mumbled.

  “ The doorbell ! Someone is ringing our doorbell !”

  “All right, all right." He roused himself, got out of bed, and struggled into his robe. Faith followed him downstairs, hovering anxiously.

  “ Be sure to ask who it is, Tom," she cautioned as she moved toward the poker by the fireplace.

  “Faith, murderers usually don't ring the doorbell," Tom said. Like Benjamin, he was a slow waker and apt to sound snappish. "But if you like, I'll ask." Feeling slightly foolish, he addressed the solid oak door. “Who is it?"

  “It's me, Dave. Dave Svenson." Tom quickly opened the door. "I hope I didn't wake you folks, but I thought with the baby, you'd probably be up by now and anyway I was getting tired of waiting.”

  It turned out that Dave had spent most of the night crouched under the large willows in the backyard, and he looked it. There were deep circles under his eyes and his normally ruddy Nordic complexion was pale and wan. Tom led him straight into the kitchen for some sustenance, wondering what was going on besides what was going on.

  “Dave," he said soberly and with as much dignity as an old plaid Pendleton bathrobe could lend, "I know how you must be grieving. It is difficult to lose someone you love whatever the circumstances, but to have it happen in this cruel and senseless way tests all our belief. It is not much comfort now, but time will help and I hope you will come and talk with me whenever you feel like it.”

  Dave was looking at him in some bewilderment andTom wondered if he was in shock or if the bathrobe was simply too incongruous.

  “That's very kind of you, sir," he said as Faith entered the kitchen. She had hastily thrown on a pair of jeans and a shirt and grabbed Benjamin, hoping not to miss anything. She hadn't.

  Dave opened his mouth and a garbled bunch of words came tumbling out.

  “The cops are looking for me everywhere and they may be here soon. They think I did it and they're right. I mean," he amended hastily after seeing the looks of horror and disbelief on Faith and Tom's faces, horror for Tom, disbelief for Faith, "they're right that I wanted to kill her. I didn't actually do it, but I could have. I really think I would have done it if somebody hadn't beaten me to it."

  “ But Dave, if you didn't do it, why are you avoiding the police ? " Tom asked.

  “It's a long story," he answered, looking out the window anxiously as if he expected MacIsaac to be peering in.

  Faith took his arm and led him to the table.

  “Sit down. I'll get us something to eat and you can tell us about it," she offered.

  She put Ben in his playpen and stuck sonic plastic keys in his hand. He smiled benevolently at her. She was not deceived. She just hoped his fascination with the toy lasted long enough for Dave to tell his story.

  She took some of her sour cream waffles from the freezer, put them in the microwave, and started the coffee. A lot of coffee. She had visited the Svensons and the house always smelled like freshly baked bread and Maxwell House. It was unusual to see one of the Svenson family without a mug in hand. Dave had started to talk again ; he grasped the cup she put in front of him as it was a lifeline.

  “ Wednesday night Cindy and I had a wicked big fight. I had finally told her I couldn't marry her. I know I shouldn 't have waited this long, but every time I tried I just couldn't tell her. We'd been together so many years and—well, she could be very nice at times.”

  Faith had a pretty good idea of what being nice meant and gave a small knowing nod toward Tom.

  “I came home and told my parents and I planned to tell the Moores on Thursday, but I didn't want to see Cindy. I knew if I stayed away from her for a while I could stick to it. We've broken up before, but I always went back when she called. You don't know how much I've hated myself this past year. And hated her.”

  Faith pried the empty mug from his grasp and gave him a refill along with a stack of waffles.

  “ I'm sorry, Dave," Tom said, " I wish I could have helped you. I must confess I didn't think the marriage was a good idea, but I thought you wanted it."

  “ So didn't everybody. Even my parents. I guess a lot of people thought I was marrying her for the money. And she did give me a lot of expensive things, like this watch." He looked at the Rolex on his wrist in horror as if it had suddenly started to ooze slime. He quickly took it off and dropped it on the floor. Faith retrieved it and put it on the counter. A Rolex was a Rolex, after all.

  “The truth is, I was marrying her because I didn't have the guts not to. She's had her whole life planned since she was eight years old. She picked me then and in her mind there was no backing out. But I did."

  “Dave, just because you fought doesn 't mean the police suspect you," Tom said firmly.

  “ Maybe not, but the fact that the person she was waiting for in the belfry was me does."

  “What ? " Faith exclaimed.

  Dave nodded his head. The circles under his eyes madehim look like an underripe jack o 'lantern. One of the sad ones.

  “She called my house all day Thursday and I wouldn 't talk to her, then Friday she called at the crack of dawn and told my mother her parents wanted an explanation, which was a lie, I 'm pretty sure. She never told them anything. But my mother was getting upset, so I told Mom to tell her I'd see her and she said she'd be waiting in the belfry at noon. We used to go up there a lot."

  “S-E-X," Faith mouthed over his head. Tom pretended not to see.

  “She called back later to make sure I'd gotten the message and Mrs. McKinley was there drinking coffee with Mom and heard the whole thing. So you know there wasn 't a person in Aleford who didn 't know I was meeting Cindy in the belfry."

  “But Dave," Faith said, "I started walking up the hill around noon and I didn 't see you and I would have. It's not that big and the top is flat."

  “That's because I didn't go. I didn't like going against my mother, but she didn 't know Cindy the way I did. I guess I didn 't trust myself and maybe I hoped I 'd make her so mad, she would agree to break up. I started going in that direction, then turned and went for a walk in the wo
ods by the railroad tracks instead. The later it got, the freer I felt. Then I went home, got my car, and drove into town to do some studying at the library. I didn 't even hear she was dead until I got home last night."

  “ And of course nobody saw you down at the tracks," Tom said.

  “That's the problem. Some guy on a dirt bike buzzed by, but I have no idea who it was or what time he was there," Dave answered morosely.

  “I know they're looking for me" he went on, "be- cause they've been to the house twice. My parents were worried sick and when I walked in they both started talking at once.”

  Which must have been an event tantamount to sunshine in Stockholm in January for the taciturn Svenson household, Faith reflected.

  “They hadn't told the police anything except that I was at school and things were fine between Cindy and me.”

  Dave was a senior at BU and had applied to law school for the following year. He had wanted to get a degree in agriculture at U Mass, but Cindy did not fancy herself a farmer 's wife, even the kind of farmer Dave had wanted to be, a researcher in alternative food sources. " It's all cow cakes, Dave, no matter how you slice it," she had said, laughing at him.

  “When the police get me, they don't have to look any further. I wanted to do it and so far as anybody knows I was there. Even my parents thought I might have done it. I've been pretty crazy lately. All I know is I'm not going to be locked up."

  “Dave, believe me we'll straighten this out. It looks bad, but we 'll do everything in our power to help you. You must remember, God protects the innocent. Hold on to that," Tom consoled.

  “Thank you. I guess that's why I came. I need your help, though unless you find out who the real murderer is, I'm not sure what you can do."