“What do you mean ‘none of this’? None of what? You mean Francy wouldn’t be dead? John would still be alive?”
“Don’t go putting words into my mouth. Eddie wouldn’t be dealing with the police if he’d stayed away from those two to begin with, that’s all.”
“How could he stay away from her?” I said. “She was his nanny, wasn’t she? He didn’t have any choice. Anyway, you said in there, she was the best thing to happen to him.”
“I didn’t say that,” Samson hissed. By this time, Carla and the preacher had settled Mrs. Delaney into the Schreier’s car and were looking over at us. “It was Freddy Einarson said it. She was good for Eddie, only until she met Travers. She turned her face away from the Lord after that and poured poison into Eddie’s ears. Nothing but poison after that.”
Carla started to walk over to us.
“I have to get these ladies home,” he said. “We have guests waiting.” He clearly had no intention of inviting me to join the party.
“And Eddie?” I said.
Samson suddenly went all paternal on me. He put a heavy hand on my shoulder and smiled in what he probably thought was a caring way.
“He’ll be brought back when the time is right. Don’t you worry about him. You just go back to your goats and your friends and keep out of our business. It’ll be the best for all of us if you do as I say.” I felt my insides go cold. Stick to your goats. Gosh.
Carla had arrived at his side and took his arm possessively, smiling at me as if in apology.
“Samson, I’m so tired, dear. I need to rest, to lie down. The baby, you know. Can we go?” Samson’s face softened as he looked at her. A kind of wonder filled his eyes at the word “baby” and he put one of his large hands over her small one.
“Carla,” I said, in a last-ditch attempt to get through. She looked up with a surprised expression on her face, as if she had forgotten I was there.
“Carla, where did you get that crucifix?”
“Excuse me?” she said. She was wearing a coat, but I knew it was there, underneath, hanging significantly around her neck.
“The crucifix. The one you have around your neck. I noticed it earlier. It’s lovely. Where did you get it?”
“You’re mistaken,” she said. “I would never wear an image of our suffering Lord as an ornament.” She opened her coat to show me her unadorned neck, then she smiled, very sweetly.
“Carla was brought up Catholic,” Samson explained, indulgently, “but she’s put all that idolatry behind her, haven’t you, little one?”
Carla snuggled into him like a kitten. “Please can we go?” she said. Her little-girl voice was starting to get to me. It made me feel big and dumb. I also wondered if I had been hallucinating, earlier. I was sure I’d seen Poe’s cross around her neck. All this death was making me crazy. Carla gave me a little, waggle-fingered wave, then they turned their backs on me and walked to their car, got in and drove away. I stood for a moment, thinking, then walked briskly over to where the preacher was mounting the steps to go back into the Chapel.
“Mr. Er—pardon me. Sir?” He turned as if surprised to find me there, which was odd, seeing as I was the only other human being around, and I’d been there as long as he had.
“Ma’am?” If he had been wearing a hat, I swear he would have raised it.
“Do you think I could talk to you for a minute?”
“Of course, sister. I always have time for talk. Come on in.” He opened the door for me and lead the way purposefully past the chapel, where Francy’s body in its closed casket lay in state below the ugly window. I followed him into a small office, presumably his, which was no different from any church office in the world. Not to say that I’ve been in many, but they are all, it seems to me, furnished by the same company, who make blonde wood desks and chairs padded in burnt orange nubby stuff. There were pictures of Christ in various gentle poses hung on the walls and the bookshelves were full of theological texts and stacks of pamphlets. The carpet was beige. The air smelled melancholy—a mixture of furniture polish and dusty bibles. He waved me to a chair, opened the window a crack, then opened a drawer from which he extracted a cigar and an ash-tray.
“Do you mind?” he said. “I always like to smoke after a testimonial. It clears the air, so to speak.” I drew my cigarettes from my pocket and held them up, grinning. We understood each other and lit up, no words being necessary.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, blowing a scented smoke-ring.
“Well, it’s kind of complicated. I’m not really sure.” I wasn’t. I was feeling very odd—mostly because I hadn’t set foot in a religious establishment for a long time and it brought back uncomfortable feelings I had thought were long-buried. I liked this man, although I didn’t know him. I’d heard him speak at the funeral, using all the God-words I had come to distrust, but the way he said them somehow made them all right, as if it were a language he was comfortable using, but wouldn’t force it on anybody who didn’t speak it. Strange that some of his congregation (Carla, at least) felt it necessary to seek recruits, but he didn’t seem to. Maybe, as the leader, he was exempt from that obligation.
I didn’t know why I was there. It had something to do with the fact that I had seen a crucifix around Carla Schreier’s neck one minute and she had denied its existence in the next. It had something to do with my own grief, as well, which was building up like a migraine behind my eyes. But why I was sitting in the office of the guy in charge of the Chapel of the Holy Lamb, watching him puff on a cigar as he waited patiently for me to say something—that in itself was a mystery. The silence grew until he cleared his throat.
“By the way, I’m Pastor Garnet Larkin,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you my name right at the beginning.” This was not good. I was feeling inadequate already. The churchy atmosphere made me feel guilty. As if I were to blame for something. I was regressing rapidly, back to when I was ten.
“I’m Pauline Deacon,” I said and reached a hand across the desk. He shook it firmly.
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Deacon. You knew Mrs. Travers personally, didn’t you?”
“Yes. She was a close friend of mine. I found her, you know. In her kitchen. I was—kind of involved in the murder investigation up until then, but after that…” A large, fistsized knot was working its way up into my throat. My head felt hot, and my eyes started burning. He shoved a box of kleenex across the desk at me.
“Cry,” he said. “It helps.” I did. In fact, I cried totally and horribly in a very messy, non-communicative way for quite a long time. Pastor Larkin just sat there, smoking his cigar and gazing off into space. None of that “there, there” stuff for Larkin. I liked that. He just waited until I was finished.
I blew my nose and tossed the soggy mess into his wastebasket.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it. Tears clarify things pretty good, I find.” He leaned forward. “Now. Did you want to talk to me about something?”
“Well, actually, I just wanted to ask you if I could see Francy. The body, I mean. I know the coffin is closed and all that, but you see, the last time I saw her, she was hanging in her kitchen and I guess the image is haunting me a bit. I was going to ask her mother if I could, but she doesn’t like me much.” I was making it up as I went along, but it felt right. It fit the way I was feeling. I did want to see her, although the thought hadn’t occurred to me until the request popped out of my mouth.
“I can’t see why Mrs. Delaney wouldn’t like you,” the Pastor said. “Seeing as you were a close friend and all.”
“Well,