The Body in the Bouillon (14 page)

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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

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“Let's assume Eddie was the right person in the wrong spot—I'm sure the murderer would have preferred the body not be found so soon—what was Eddie doing there and why two knives?”
“The what he was doing there is pretty obvious, don't you think? A tryst or whatever scumbags like Eddie call it. A quickie?”
“Yes. It must have been a quickie, because he was on top of the spread. He didn't want to mess up the bedding so someone would notice later. He probably used that room a lot. I hadn't gotten into the bed yet, so nothing was disturbed, and my clothes were out of sight in the closet.”
She remembered her purse was in the closet too and gave a thought to the contents, realizing that it was being gone over carefully and labeled exhibit something. She didn't think there was anything more incriminating than a Mass Millions ticket and a few cosmetics, which might suggest her natural look wasn't entirely due to the amount of time she seemed to be spending outdoors lately. She carried a knife, but it was the Swiss Army variety and not the kind sticking out of Eddie's chest and larynx.
“To be more precise, the question is why was he doing his kinky number there in the Hubbard House guest room and not in his own place or a motel in Danvers? The storm would have kept him off the roads, but his apartment was right there.”
Tom mumbled something in reply. He was dozing off.
Faith sat up abruptly. “I can't sleep after all, Tom. Besides, Ben will be up soon.” They had been trying to put Benjamin on a more humane schedule, but no matter what time he went to sleep, he was still up with the chickens. Faith had given a passing thought to leaving out a bowl of cereal or some yogurt in his room next to his toys, but
quickly abandoned it as she pictured the havoc a two-and-a-half-year-old could wreak on a house whilst his parents slumbered blissfully unaware.
Tom sighed. “I'll get up with you. In any case, our friend John should be dropping by soon too.”
Faith had told Tom about Detective Lieutenant Dunne, and Tom was pleased the detective was assigned to the case. Francis Coffin's reputation was not unknown in Aleford.
“I'll make some waffles. Put Dunne in a good mood.”
“It will put me in a good mood,” Tom said. Then, as he watched Faith pull her nightgown up over her head, added, “And speaking of moods …”
There was the patter of little feet in the hall.
“Damn. I swear that child is psychic.”
“Really, Reverend Fairchild, I didn't know you believed in the supernatural. Anyway, I'll give you a raincheck. Ben does sleep sometimes.”
 
The Fairchilds were sitting down to waffles with blueberry syrup when the front doorbell rang.
“I'll go, Faith, and this isn't like the other time. We tell Dunne everything. Not that we know much.”
Not that you know much, Faith said to herself, but she had no intention of holding out on John Dunne. There wasn't any point, except for the fun of it, and that seemed a bit immoral.
Dunne walked into the kitchen, rubbing his hands together. Faith expected to see sparks. His dark curly hair had a few more strands of gray than the last time she'd seen him—he was in his early forties now—but otherwise he appeared much the same. He'd bowed to the season and traded his Burberry for an elegant, three-quarter-length dark-brown shearling—much like the one Faith was giving Tom for Christmas. He was wearing a well-cut Harris tweed jacket underneath and an old school tie far from De Witt Clinton in the Bronx, where Faith happened to know he'd
prepped. She'd often wondered where he got his taste for elegant attire and decided it must be due to his size. If one was going to cut such a large figure, let it be in style. Besides, looking at his clothes kept people from looking at his face.
The Fairchilds had become close to Dunne during the investigation of Cindy Shepherd's murder. Faith felt an odd sense of kinship with this fellow New Yorker who also admitted to being still homesick after all these years, although it was corned beef, egg creams, and Orchard Beach he longed for. Faith liked a good egg cream herself and headed straight for the Carnegie Deli and corned beef sandwiches whenever she was in town, but she had a few more items—all located on the isle of Manhattan—on her list. She liked to think they were things such as the Metropolitan Museum, Lincoln Center, and MOMA. In reality she often skipped a visit to these venerable institutions in favor of a quick trip to Bloomie's, Balducci's, and friends' galleries in SoHo or NoHo, or a few on Madison.
“Just what I had in mind. Breakfast.” Dunne sat down at the table and had the grace to grin. “You can tell me everything while I eat. And you do make the best coffee I've ever had.”
“Is that a hint?”
“Yes, even though I've consumed several gallons of Mrs. Pendergast's brew in the last couple of hours.”
Faith put a gigantic stack of waffles on a plate and poured him a cup of coffee. She settled down across from him. Ben had finished his waffles and was trying unsuccessfully to engage the detective's attention by waving his syrup-covered hands at him. Tom took a last mouthful, scooped his son up, and took him out of the room.
“All right,” Faith said. “But if I tell you everything I know, will you tell me everything you know?”
“Probably not.”
“Oh.”
“Do I have to remind you that this is a murder investigation,
not a game, Mrs. Fairchild?” Dunne assumed Faith had had enough of semiprofessional sleuthing after coming perilously close to being a victim the last time. Apparently not.
“Don't worry, even if you won't share, I will.”
Faith started with Chat's call and Howard Perkins' letter, then described how she had started working at Hubbard House and Farley Bowditch's death. She finished up with her impressions of various family members, Hubbard House residents, and Eddie Russell from the Holly Ball.
“Do you think there's any possibility that he knew you were sleeping in the guest room and was waiting for you?”
This had not occurred to Faith and she swiftly considered it.
“Somehow I don't think so. I hadn't gotten into bed, so unless he opened the closet and saw my clothes, he would not have known I was there. The room would have appeared unoccupied. And I didn't see him again after he came into the kitchen for coffee at around ten o'clock in the morning. No, I think he
was
waiting for someone, but not me. Besides, he couldn't have tied himself up.”
“True, it would have been quite a trick, yet we can't rule any of this out completely.” John paused and polished off the stack of waffles in a few bites. His teeth looked sharp and his mouth cavernous. “You still haven't told me where you went.”
“I thought I might as well look around a bit so long as I was stuck there,” Faith admitted. “I thought there might be something in Dr. Hubbard's or Donald's office that might help me figure out what was bothering Howard.”
“So what did you turn up?”
“Not much. Donald's office was locked and Dr. Hubbard's mostly ran to vintage copies of the
New England Journal of Medicine.
I did find out there is another child, though, a son—James. He was in one of the pictures on the wall.”
“Dr. Hubbard mentioned him. He's the youngest. Works in Arizona. Okay, what else?”
Faith sipped her coffee. There really wasn't anything else, except James. And Leandra Rhodes, but she didn't think the poor woman's kleptomania was relevant.
“Nothing I can think of. Now it's your turn. What do you make of it?”
“Not much, yet. The guy had a reputation with the ladies—that's clear—and he may have been involved in some other enterprises. We're running a check on him in Florida. There's nothing on his sheet here. But screwing around doesn't usually get you killed, especially with two knives.”
“Maybe whoever it was wanted to make sure he was well and truly dead.”
“Oh, he would have been truly dead with one at least—the one in his throat—right through the trachea to the spine, according to the M.E.'s quick and dirty first look. I haven't heard about the other one in the chest yet. Two knives may have been insurance or—”
“It could have been two people!” Faith exclaimed excitedly. “Like what was it,
Murder on the Orient Express?”
“As I was saying, it could have been insurance, maybe two people, which is getting pretty exotic, or some kind of message—like that damn rose you found the last time.”
“Was there anything special about the knives? They looked like the kind hunters use to skin their prey.”
“Among other uses, yes. Puma knives—available in every Army-Navy store from here to California. Don't suppose you have any more waffles?”
“No, but I can make some more, or I have some walnut bread.”
“Jam?”
Faith brought the whole loaf to the table with butter and a full jar of Have Faith damson preserves. It was easier.
John sliced off a piece and slathered it with jam and butter.
“They were all there, you know.”
“Who?”
“The family. Donald came over to check on things after he'd finished at the hospital. Had a patient in bad shape. Charmaine didn't want to be alone. In case the lights went out, she said. Once they were there, they decided to spend the night. Stayed in what used to be Donald's old room on the third floor and is always kept available for him.”
“Did they know I was in the guest room?”
“Muriel said she had heard something about it, but the rest said no. Mrs. Pendergast thought you were staying on the other side of the house near the Cabots.” He ate his bread in a ruminative manner. Faith was reminded of a cow. A whole herd of cows. “You know, what makes it tough is that there were so many people around. Usually someone gets killed in less crowded circumstances.”
It was true. There was an embarrassment of suspects.
“What about the towel? Did you find it? Was there blood on it?”
“Yeah, we found a bloody towel—five of them to be exact, mixed in with a couple of hundred others in the basement the laundry didn't pick up because of the weather. The lab will go over them, but I doubt they'll come up with much since they were with all the others and any hairs or whatever could have come from others on top of them. Not the kind of evidence the DA shouts hallelujah about. Anyway, if one matches Russell's blood type, we'll have something.”
Faith was disappointed. She'd considered the towel one of her contributions to the case and pictured it hanging on somebody's towel rack or stuffed at the bottom of a closet.
“Still, those might not be the right towels,” she reminded him.
“Don't worry, we haven't stopped looking.”
Tom came in.
“Ben's watching ‘Shining Time Station.' I get a shock every time I see Ringo Starr in that train conductor's uniform and about five inches tall, but then Ben didn't know him when. What about it—have you two solved this thing?” He sat down and sliced himself some bread.
“Not yet,” John replied.
“And not ‘you two.' I shouldn't have said that. As you know, my wife seems to have developed an unaccountable affinity for murder—investigations, that is—since we've been married. I like to think it's chance and not boredom.”
“Probably both,” Faith retorted, a bit put out at being discussed
in absentia
while sitting there.
John Dunne was looking slightly embarrassed. “Actually, Tom, one of the things I came to discuss with you and Faith was ‘us two.' You see, Faith is in a position to hear a great deal. I am absolutely convinced she is in no danger, otherwise I would never suggest this. You know that. And we'll give her a wire if she likes. Everything to keep her safe and sound. But we'd like her to go back on Monday and keep her ears and eyes open. Nothing else.” He looked pointedly at Faith. “We don't have much of a handle on this one, and though I hate to admit it, we need her help.” The last words were dragged from him.
Tom looked incredulous—at the proposal, Dunne's admission, or both.
Faith looked thrilled.
She was going undercover.
Faith sat staring into the flame of the third Advent candle on the altar. Next Sunday would be Christmas. She turned to look at the rear of the church as the choir started to sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Cyle was absent, and she didn't think it was her imagination that the faces in the loft were a bit more beatific than usual. Tom's was. He'd been in a good mood ever since Cyle had called early that morning to announce a slight cold, nothing serious. She looked back at the candles. The Alliance had embroidered a special Christmas altar cloth many years ago, and the gold threads glowed against the scarlet silk in the soft light. Ropes of pine twined around large pots of white cyclamen on either side of the altar. Christmas was indeed coming.
But first there was work to do. And she didn't mean last-minute shopping. After Dunne's invitation, she'd been delighted. They'd be a team. Then his next words had quickly dispelled any thoughts of Tommy and Tuppence or Nick and Nora. Watson was what he had in mind.
“Only for a day or two and only what comes your way. We'll handle the rest. We don't want you going around asking questions or opening up people's private file cabinets in the middle of the night.”
They'd talked some more. Tom was resigned and Faith felt like a woman with a misson. She'd dug out a notebook, sharpened a pencil, and gone over to Pix's, but learned nothing more than she had on Thursday. Pix was full of questions, though, not having heard about the murder. It was while talking to Pix that Faith first felt sorry for Eddie. She'd been so busy speculating, she hadn't given much thought to the victim. He'd been a lecherous creep, maybe worse, but he'd been young, full of life. She pictured him stretched out on the bed, waiting. She knew what it was he anticipated and it certainly wasn't death.
As though in answer to her inward musings, Robert Moore, today's lector, began to read the epistle from I Corinthians. Faith listened carefully and, when he got to the section about judgment, took special notice. It was a lesson she had been trying to learn for most of her life.
 
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
 
One of the Sunday-school children read the second lesson from Mark remarkably well, and the service moved on to Tom's sermon. Faith gave him almost her full attention, wiping all thoughts of Hubbard House from her mind but occasionally straying to her gift and food shopping lists. Tom had wanted to give Ben trains—electric trains. Real
trains. Faith had persuaded him to consider Brio wooden ones as more age-appropriate—for Ben, that is. She still had to pick them up. And order her goose from Savenor's market. She was startled as everyone stood for the final hymn and quickly joined the singing: “Veiled in darkness Judah lay, Waiting for the promised day … .”
Back at the parsonage they ate a hasty lunch and Tom left to pay some calls. He was concerned about some of the elderly parishioners who hadn't been able to get to church because of the weather. Faith draped Benjamin in an apron, and the two set about making gingerbread dough. They were soon covered with flour despite the precautions, and Faith was enjoining Ben to stop eating the dough—“immediately!” He laughed mischievously and prepared to dip his finger in again. The room smelled like cinnamon and ginger. Yuletide smells. They were making the cookies to hang on the tree with bright red ribbons. If Ben kept snatching at the bowl, the branches were going to look a little sparse.
“Oh no you don't. There won't be enough for the cookies, sweetie.” She lifted him off the stool and went to the counter for an apple. She put it in his hand firmly, well aware that it was not the substitute he'd had in mind. He'd heard the magic word, and an apple was definitely not a cookie. But apple it was, and he was soon munching away at it and contentedly opening cupboard doors, dragging out the pots and pans.
Faith had started to roll the dough when there was a knock at the back door. It was Cyle. If you're sick, you're supposed to stay at home, she thought grumpily. He was the last person she wanted to see.
“Hello Cyle. How are you feeling?” She tried in vain to inject some genuine caring into her voice. “Tom's not home right now. May I take a message?” That should be clear enough.
It wasn't.
Cyle walked into the kitchen uninvited and sat down
at the table. He looked terrible, although he didn't seem to exhibit any of the traditional cold symptoms—red, drippy nose, watery eyes, balled-up Kleenex in the palm. No, he looked rather as if he hadn't slept in several weeks. His face was pale and pinched with deep circles under his eyes.
“I'll wait,” he said morosely.
“He could be quite a while. I can have him call you the moment he returns.” Was this apparition going to encamp in her kitchen all afternoon?
“Still, I'll wait. I really need to talk to him.” He lifted his eyes pathetically. Faith wasn't affected. She had the feeling that even if Cyle was terminally ill, she'd have trouble wrenching some good old-fashioned charity from her soul. He was that bad. Or she was.
“Ben and I are making cookies. You're welcome to just sit there if you want.” She returned to her dough. Oh all right, she said to herself, and the better Faith asked him if he'd like a cup of coffee or tea.
“Tea. Earl Grey if you have it.”
He'd want lemon too.
She brewed him a cup of tea and went about her business. Ben tried to interest Cyle in some parallel play by dumping a bag of Duplos at his feet, but Cyle wasn't interested. Ben began to make a little car with the blocks by himself, and Faith was beginning to think they'd stay fixed in their various attitudes until Tom came when Cyle said bitterly, “Women. It's hard to believe someone you've loved so much could do this.”
An unhappy love affair, which was no surprise. Even though her curiosity was piqued, Faith had no desire to act as Cyle's confidante, so she said in what she hoped was a noncommittal way, “Problems, Cyle?”
“Problems! That's putting it mildly,” he said angrily, and sat up straighter.
Well, I haven't done anything, you fool, Faith thought. No need to take it out on me, though this was without
question the norm for this young man. Whoever happened to be nearest would get it full blast.
“You found him, didn't you? You were there Friday night.”
“Eddie Russell? You mean what happened at Hubbard House?” Faith was surprised.
“Yes, Eddie—Edsel.” He sneered. “What have the police been saying about it? Who do they think did it?”
“I don't think they have any idea at this point,” Faith replied. This was getting interesting. “Why do you ask? Was he a friend of yours?”
“Friend! Oh yes, my friendly neighborhood blackmailer.” The words poured out before he had a chance to stop them, and he looked around the kitchen quickly. Seeing only Ben, he seemed to be reassured. “What I said is in absolute confidence, Mrs. Fairchild. It's why I came to see Tom.”
Faith didn't think the confidentiality of the confessional extended to ministers' wives and Cyle knew that, but she agreed it would go no further. No further than Tom, since Cyle had been planning to tell him anyway.
“Why was Eddie blackmailing you?” she asked. One never knew. He might tell.
“It was mother.”
“Your mother!” Bootsie, the iron-willed Madame Alexander doll!
“I'm afraid mother was, well, indiscreet with Eddie when he first arrived to work at Hubbard House. Oh, he was good, very good. Told her he was leaving soon and how much a moment with a beautiful older woman would mean. Anyway, she tumbled.” Cyle was starting to talk like a real person, Faith realized. “Of course, he had no intention of leaving. He was probably humping his way through the entire membership of the Pink Ladies and any other females around. Nice little sideline.”
“And then he told her that unless she paid up, he'd tell
everyone what the head of the Auxiliary was up to,” Faith guessed.
“Exactly. Mother told me all about it last night. She's frantic. She thinks the police are going to think she did it.”
Bootsie or one of the other victims. It was getting harder to think of Eddie as the victim, even though he was lying on a mortuary table somewhere.
“Was she paying a lot of money?”
“Fortunately, father left us amply provided for.” Stuffy Cyle had returned. “Eddie was smart enough not to bleed her. It was just a nice steady hundred here and there. Mother was actually grateful to him, she told me! Can you believe it?”
Faith could.
“You do know what she has to do, and I'm sure Tom will tell you the same thing.”
“Yes, we've got to go to the police. But it's so humiliating.”
Light dawned. It wasn't that Cyle was worried his mother might be up for murder one, but that she had slept with the help.
“I'm sure she won't be a suspect. No one was traveling about much on Friday night. Besides, she has you for an alibi.”
“I was in town Friday night. With a friend. Mother was alone, and of course she didn't go anywhere, but there's no one to prove it. And she has a four-wheel drive Bronco for bad weather.”
Leaving the Mercedes in the garage, of course. Well, Bootsie could have driven over to Hubbard House. Must have a key, and blackmail was a possible motive, yet Faith doubted the whole thing. She was pretty certain Dunne would too. Why would Bootsie Brennan jeopardize her social position for a paltry few hundred dollars, give or take? Besides, from the sound of it, she was still more than a little attracted to Edsel.
Faith gave Cyle John Dunne's number and promised
that Tom would call him as soon as she had had a chance to fill him in on the perils of Bootsie. She bundled him out the door with what she hoped was not unseemly haste and then finished her cookies. She couldn't wait to tell Tom.
Tom was home in time for supper and, in between bites of the cassoulet, which had been filling the kitchen with fragrant aromas of duck, sausage, and beans since the day before, heard Faith's tale with astonishment and amusement.
“I know I shouldn't be laughing at all this, but when I think of that woman all dressed up in her buttons and bows at the Holly Ball parading around as the queen of Hubbard House being blackmailed for a roll in the hay with the handyman, I can't help it.”
“Since when have you started using euphemisms like ‘roll in the hay,' Tom?”
“Since people named Bootsie entered my life.”
Faith conceded the logic of that.
“If Eddie was blackmailing Bootsie, it stands to reason he was doing it to others as well, don't you think?” Tom asked.
“Yes, and it gives me something to go on tomorrow. I'll be on the lookout for furrowed foreheads. John is also going to be happy to have this lead. He seemed convinced that the murderer was someone in Hubbard House at the time, and this gives him a line to follow.”
“I think I'll give Cyle a call now,” Tom said, soaking up the last trace of sauce from his plate with a piece of crusty French bread. “Although I have no idea what to say. ‘Sorry your mother is such a foolish and wanton woman' somehow doesn't sound very compassionate.”
“You'll think of something. Just make those sympathetic murmuring noises you ministers are so good at.”
“Ah yes, the murmuring noises, soon to be available on tape from your local ecclesiastical mail-order supply house.”
Tom returned shortly. “I didn't get to make many
noises of any kind. Cyle was on his way out and almost cut me off. He did say they'd been in touch with Dunne and he'd come down to talk to them, so if not exactly public knowledge, at least it's police knowledge at present.”
“I don't care much for Bootsie and family, but I still hope they don't find out about it at Hubbard House. She is a dynamo, and the Pink Ladies are essential to keeping the place running.”

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