The Wolf in Winter (14 page)

It was quite a speech. I’d have voted for him if he ran for office.

“So you drove Jude to Medway”—I resisted suggesting that Jude had literally been given the bum’s rush—“but I’ll venture that he didn’t take the hint.”

Morland puffed his cheeks.

“He started calling my office two or three times a day, asking if
there had been any progress, but there was none. Nobody here had seen his daughter. He’d been given bad information. But he wouldn’t accept that, so he came back. This time, he didn’t pay me the courtesy of a visit, just went from house to house, knocking on doors and peering in windows. Naturally, I started getting telephone calls from panicked residents, because it was getting dark. He was lucky he didn’t get himself shot. I picked him up and kept him in a cell overnight. I told him I could have him charged with criminal trespass. Hell, he even ended up in the cemetery more than half an hour after sunset, like that fella in Dickens.”

“Magwitch,” I said.

“That’s the one.”

“What was he doing in the cemetery?”

“Trying to get into the church. Don’t ask me why; we keep it locked, and visits are only by appointment. We’ve had incidents of vandalism in the past. Do you know about our church?”

I told him that I did, and that I’d be curious to see it before I left, if that was possible. Morland perked up slightly at the prospect of my leaving town. He was tiring of talking about the problems of dead bums and their daughters.

“In conclusion, the next morning I drove him back to Medway—
again
—and told him that if he showed his face in Prosperous one more time he would be arrested and charged, and he’d be no help to his daughter from a jail cell. That seemed to get through to him, and, apart from a phone call or ten, that was pretty much the last I saw or heard of him, until now.”

“And nobody in town knew anything about his daughter?”

“No, sir.”

“But why would his daughter have said that she was going to Prosperous if someone hadn’t given her reason to do so? It sounds like an odd story to make up.”

“She might have been trying to impress the other street people.
Worst case, she spoke to someone in Bangor who told her they were from Prosperous when they weren’t. It may be that this Jude was right, and something did happen to her, but if so, it didn’t happen to her here.”

Morland returned the photo of Jude and got to his feet. We were done.

“So you want to see the church before you go?”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” I said. “At least you won’t have to drive me to Medway after.”

Morland managed a thin smile, but said nothing. As I stood, I let my arm brush one of the photographs on the desk. I caught it before it hit the floor, and returned it to its place.

“Your family?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Good-looking boys. No girls?”

Morland gave me a peculiar look, as though I had intimated something unpleasant about him and the nature of his familial relations.

“No, no girls,” he said. “I’m happy about that, I got to say. My friends with daughters tell me they’re more trouble than boys. Girls will break your heart.”

“Yes,” I said. “Jude’s daughter certainly broke his.”

Morland took the photograph from me and restored it to its place on his desk.

“You had a daughter, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “She died,” I added, preempting whatever might have followed. I was used to it by now.

“I know,” said Morland. “I’m sorry. You have another little girl now, don’t you?”

I looked at him curiously, but he appeared nothing but sincere.

“Did you read that somewhere too?” I asked.

“You think there’s anyone in Maine law enforcement who doesn’t know your history? This is a small-town state. Word gets around.”

That was true, but Morland still had a remarkable memory for the family histories of men he had never met before.

“That’s right, I have another little girl,” I conceded.

Morland seemed on the verge of saying something, then reconsidered, contenting himself with, “Maybe if this man Jude hadn’t walked out on his family his daughter might not have ended up the way she did.”

Morland had a point—Jude, had he still been alive, might even have agreed with him—but I wasn’t about to point the finger at Jude’s failings as a husband and a father. I had my own guilt to bear in that regard.

“He tried to make up for it at the end,” I said. “He was just doing what any father would have done when he came looking for her in Prosperous.”

“Is that a criticism of how he was treated by my department?”

Morland didn’t bristle, but he wasn’t far off it. “My department,” I noted, not “me.”

“No,” I said. “You just did what any chief of police would have done.”

That wasn’t quite the truth, but it was true enough. Maybe if Morland had a daughter of his own he would have behaved more compassionately; and if Jude hadn’t been a bum, and his daughter a homeless ex-junkie, Morland would have tried a little harder—just a little, but sometimes that’s all it takes. I didn’t say any of this aloud, though. It wouldn’t have helped, and I couldn’t guarantee that, in his position, and with his background, I would have behaved any differently.

We walked from his office. Morland told the receptionist that he was heading out to the chapel. She looked surprised, but said nothing.

“This woman, Annie Broyer, you think she’s dead?” asked Morland as we stepped outside.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope not.”

“So you’re going to keep looking for her?”

“Probably.”

“And you’ve been hired to do this by whom?”

“I haven’t been hired by anyone.”

“So why are you looking for her?”

“Because nobody else will,” I said.

Morland took this in, then told me to follow his car.

He was still shaking his head as he pulled away.

CHAPTER

XXIII

The Chapel of the Congregation of Adam Before Eve & Eve Before Adam, to give it its full title, was situated in the middle of a forest about half a mile northwest of Prosperous. A road marked
PRIVATE
, and secured with a lock and chain for which Chief Morland had a key, wound through the woods until it came to iron railings painted black, within which lay the town’s original cemetery and the church. Morland parked his car on a narrow strip of grass beside the railings, and I parked on the road. There was a gate in the railings, also kept closed with a lock and chain, but it was already open when we arrived.

“I gave Pastor Warraner a call along the way and asked him to join us,” said Morland. “It’s just good manners. The church is in his care. I have a key, but it’s only in case of an emergency. Otherwise, I leave all such matters to him.”

I looked around, but I could see no sign of the pastor. The church was even smaller and more primitive than I had expected, with walls of rough-hewn gray stone, and a western orientation instead of the more usual eastern. I did one full circuit of the building, and it didn’t take long. A heavy oak door seemed to be the only point of entry or exit, and there were two narrow windows on its northern and southern walls, sealed with glass from within and bars without. The wall behind what I presumed to be the altar was blank and windowless.
The roof was relatively new, and appeared incongruous above the ancient stones.

The main decorative features, the faces for which the church was famous, were in the upper corners of each wall, creating a kind of Janus effect where they met, an impression compounded by the fact that the lengths of carved ivy and branches of which the decorations were composed flowed between the faces and continued along the upper lengths of the walls, so that the visages all appeared to spring from the same source. They had weathered over the centuries, but not as much as might have been expected. Intricate constructions of stone leaves formed a protective screen around them, from which the faces peered out. They reminded me of childhood, and fairy tales, and of the way in which the markings on the trunks of very old trees sometimes took on the appearance of contorted, suffering people, depending on the light and the angle at which they were examined.

But what struck me most was the sheer malevolence of the expressions on the carvings. These were not manifestations of gentle emotions, or signifiers of hope. Instead, they boded only ill for all who looked on them. To my mind, they had no more place on a church building than a pornographic image.

“What do you think?” said Morland, as he joined me.

“I’ve never seen anything like them before,” I said, which was the most neutral reply I could offer.

“There are more inside,” he said. “Those are just the opening acts.”

As if on cue, the door to the chapel opened and a man stepped out.

“Pastor Warraner,” said Morland, “this is Mr. Parker, the detective I told you about.”

Warraner wasn’t what I had expected of a cleric who had charge of a building that was almost a millennium old. He wore jeans and battered work boots, and a brown suede jacket that had the look of a garment long reached for instinctively when warmth and comfort were required. He was in his late forties, with heavily receding hair, and as
we shook hands I saw and felt the calluses on his skin, and caught a faint smell of timber and wood shavings on him.

“Call me Michael,” he said. “I’m glad I was around to say hello.”

“Do you live nearby?” I asked. I hadn’t seen any other vehicle when we arrived.

“Just the other side of the woods,” he said, gesturing over his right shoulder with his thumb. “Five minutes on foot. Same time it takes me in my truck by the less scenic route, so it makes more sense to walk. May I ask what brings a private detective to our town?”

I stared at the church carvings, and they stared back. One had its mouth wide open, and a tongue poked obscenely from between its carved lips. It seemed to mock any hope I might have of finding Annie Broyer alive.

“A homeless man named Jude came to Prosperous recently,” I said. “Chief Morland tells me that he may have trespassed on the church grounds in the course of one of those visits.”

“I remember,” said Warraner. “I was the one who found him here. He was very agitated, so I had no choice but to call Chief Morland for assistance.”

“Why was he agitated?”

“He was concerned about his daughter. She was missing, and he was under the impression that she might have found her way to Prosperous. He felt that he wasn’t getting the help he needed from the police. No offense meant, Chief.”

“None taken,” said Morland, although it was hard to tell if he was sincere, as he had kept his sunglasses on against the glare of winter sun on snow. I barely knew Morland, but I had already figured him for a man who guarded any slights jealously, nurturing them and watching them grow.

“Anyhow, I tried to calm him down, but I didn’t have much success,” said Warraner. “I told him to leave the grounds, and he did, but I was worried that he might attempt to break into the church, so I called
the chief.”

“Why would you think he’d want to break into the church?” I asked.

Warraner pointed at the faces looming above his head.

“Disturbed people fixate,” he said, “and this wonderful old building provides more opportunities for fixation than most. Over the years, we’ve had attempts to steal the carvings from the walls, and to deface them. We’ve found people—and not just young ones either but folk old enough to know better—having sex on the ground here because they were under the impression it would help them to conceive a child, and, of course, we’ve been visited by representatives of religious groups who object to the presence of pagan symbols on a Christian church.”

“As I understand it, this town was founded by the Familists, and it was originally their church,” I said. “Their belief system strikes me as more than a complicated variation on Christianity.”

Warraner looked pleasantly surprised at the question, like a Mormon who had suddenly found himself invited into a house for coffee, cake, and a discussion of the wit and wisdom of Joseph Smith.

“Why don’t you step into my office, Mr. Parker?” he said, welcoming me into the chapel.

“As long as I’m not keeping you from anything important,” I said.

“Just kitchen closets,” he said. “I run a joinery service.”

He fished a card from his pocket and handed it to me.

“So you’re not a full-time pastor?”

Warraner laughed. “I’d be a pauper if I was. No, I’m really just a caretaker and part-time historian. We no longer have services here; the Familists are no more. The closest we have are some Quaker families. The rest are mainly Baptists and Unitarians, even some Catholics.”

“And what about you?” I said. “You still keep the title of ‘pastor.’ ”

“Well, I majored in religion at Bowdoin, and studied as a Master of Divinity at Bangor Theological Seminary, but I always did prefer woodworking. Still, I guess you could say that the theological gene
runs in the family. I hold a weekly prayer group, although often I’m the only one praying, and there are people in town who come to me for advice and guidance. They tend to be folk who aren’t regular churchgoers but still believe. I don’t probe too deeply into what it is that they
do
believe. It’s enough that they believe in some power greater than themselves.”

We were in the church now. If it was cold outside, it was colder still inside. Five rows of hard wooden benches faced a bare altar. There were no crosses, and no religious symbols of any kind. Instead, the wall behind the altar was dominated by a foliate face larger than any that decorated the exterior. Two slightly smaller faces of a similar kind were visible between the windows.

“Do you mind if I take a closer look?” I said.

“By all means,” said Warraner. “Just watch your step. Some of the stones are uneven.”

I approached the altar along the right aisle of the church. As I passed, I glanced at the first of the faces. It was more detailed than the ones outside, and had a grinning, mischievous expression. As I looked at it more closely, I saw that all its features were made from stone re-creations of produce: squash, pea pods, berries, apples, and ears of wheat. I had seen something like it before, but I couldn’t recall where.

“Wasn’t there an artist who painted images like this?” I asked Warraner.

“Giuseppe Arcimboldo,” he replied. “I’ve always meant to study up on him, but there never seems to be enough time. I imagine that he and the creators of these carvings would probably have had a lot to discuss, particularly the intimate connection between man and the natural world, had they not been separated by the ages.”

I moved to the altar and stood before the carving on the wall. If the face on the right was almost cheerful—albeit in the manner of someone who has just watched a puppy drown and found it amusing—and evoked images of the earth’s bounty, this one was very different. It
was a thing of roots, thorns, and nettles, of briars, bare winter bushes, and twisting ivy. Branches bristling with spines poured from its open mouth and seemed both to form its features and to suffocate them, as though the image were tormenting itself. It was profoundly ugly, and startlingly, vibrantly present, an ancient being brought to life from dead things.

“It’s the same visage, or the same god, depending upon one’s inclination,” said Warraner from behind me.

“What?”

He pointed to his right, at the face made from produce, to his left at another constructed from blossoming flowers, and finally at a fourth face that I had not noticed before, as it was above the door: a face composed of straw, and leaves that had just begun to wither and die.

“All versions of a similar deity,” said Warraner. “In the last century, the name ‘Green Man’ was coined for him—a pagan god absorbed into the Christian tradition, a symbol of death and rebirth long before the idea of the resurrection of Christ came into being. You can see why a building decorated in such a manner would have appealed to the Familists, a sect that believed in the rule of nature, not God.”

“And are you a Familist, Pastor Warraner?” I asked.

“I told you,” he answered. “The Familists no longer exist. Frankly, it’s a shame. They were outwardly tolerant of the views of others while repudiating all other religions entirely. They refused to carry arms, and they kept their opinions and beliefs to themselves. They attracted the elite, and had no time for the ignorant. If they were still around today, they’d regard most of what passes for organized religion in this country as an abomination.”

“I read that they were accused of killing to defend themselves,” I said.

“Propaganda,” said Warraner. “Most of those allegations came from John Rogers, a sixteenth-century cleric who hated Christopher Vitel, the leader of the Familists in England. He called the Family of
Love a ‘horrible secte,’ and based his attacks on depositions given by dissenting ex-Familists. There’s no evidence that the Familists ever killed those who disagreed with them. Why should they? The sect’s members were quietists; they didn’t even identify themselves publicly, but hid among other congregations to avoid being identified and put at risk.”

“Like religious chameleons,” I said, “blending into the background.”

“Exactly,” said Warraner. “Eventually, they simply became what they pretended to be.”

“Except the ones who traveled here to found Prosperous.”

“And in the end even they vanished,” said Warraner.

“Why did the Familists leave England?” I asked. “It wasn’t clear from the little that I could find out about them. As far as I can tell, religious persecution was already dying when they departed. Why flee when you’re no longer threatened?”

Warraner leaned against a pew and folded his arms. It was a curiously defensive gesture.

“The Familists entered a state of schism,” he said. “Disagreements arose between those who advocated following the Quaker way and those who wished to adhere to the sect’s original belief system. The traditionalists feared being named as something more dangerous than dissenters, particularly when it was suggested that the building we’re in should be razed. They viewed this church as the wellspring of their faith, which was probably why those who had chosen to follow an alternative path so desired its destruction. A wealthy cadre of the faithful came together to save the church, and their sect, from annihilation. The result was an exodus to New England, and the founding of Prosperous.”

He glanced at his watch.

“Now, I’m sorry,” he said, “but I really do need to get back to my kitchen closets.”

I took one more look at the largest of the faces on the wall, the
image of a winter god, then thanked him and joined Morland, who had waited throughout by the door. We watched Warraner lock the chapel with a key from a heavy ring and check that it was securely closed.

“One last thing,” I said.

“Yes?”

He sounded impatient. He wanted to be gone.

“Wasn’t Christopher Vitel a joiner too?”

Warraner thrust his hands into his pockets and squinted at me. The sun was setting, and the air was growing colder, as though the chill inside the chapel had permeated the outside world while the door was open.

“You really have done your homework, Mr. Parker,” he said.

“I like to keep myself informed.”

“Yes, Vitel was a joiner. It was used against him by his enemies to suggest that he was nothing but a vagabond.”

“But he was much more than that, wasn’t he? I understand that he was also a textile merchant in the Low Countries, and it was there that he encountered the founder of the Familists, Hendrik Niclas, except at that time he was Christopher Vitell. He dropped the second ‘l’ when he returned to England to spread the doctrine of the Familists, effectively giving himself a new identity.”

“That may be true,” said Warraner. “Such changes of spelling were not uncommon at the time, and may not even have been deliberate.”

“And then,” I continued, “around 1580, when the government of Queen Elizabeth was hunting the Familists, Vitel simply disappeared.”