The Body in the Gazebo (7 page)

The Millers had arrived before the Cohens, and Pix had stretched out on the chaise on their own private patio while everyone else had hit the beach. She wished Faith could see the room—a bed that must be larger than a king with a tentlike canopy and plenty of comfy, overstuffed armchairs piled with bright pillows. The bath was the size of one of her kid’s bedrooms, complete with a rain forest shower and a whirlpool, both of which she intended to try as often as possible. But first she had closed her eyes just for a minute. . . .

There had been a scramble to get dressed and down to dinner. All her dread at meeting her future in-laws had returned and fortunately Samantha had stopped by, since Pix had completely forgotten to change her flats for heels.

Miles away from last night and at the brunch table, Pix absentmindedly drained the rest of her mimosa.

“Surely you aren’t going to ignore the chef’s famous sticky buns, Pix? You’re in pecan country now,” said Mrs. Cohen. No, it was “Cissy.” They were all on a first-name basis as soon as they’d greeted each other. Apparently “Sister” was a common nickname in households like Mrs. Cohen’s where she’d been the only girl growing up with two brothers. And her given name was Cynthia. It certainly wasn’t any more unusual than “Pix.” She had been tiny at birth, and Pix’s father had referred to his new baby girl as his little pixie, a name promptly adopted by everyone and soon shortened to Pix. It no longer applied by the time she was two, and by the time she was fifteen and grazing the six-foot mark, it was ludicrous, but it had stuck. Given that Ursula had named her daughter Myrtle after both a favorite aunt and the ground cover with tiny purple blossoms, Pix had opted for the lesser of two evils, jealous of the Debbies and Margies in her class.

“Another mimosa to go with the bun?” asked Dr. Cohen, ever solicitous. His bedside manner was faultless. Pix put her hand firmly over her glass at the thought. At all her thoughts.

“No, thank you, Steve, I’ll pass,” she said, aware that she was speaking very distinctly. Loopy, yes, she was loopy and it was starting to give her the giggles.

Stephen Cohen, M.D. Her son’s father-in-law-to-be. She glanced at her watch. She should have left the message on Faith’s cell instead of the parsonage phone.

Stephen Cohen.

Steve. Her Steve.

M
ost Sundays, whether by prior invitation or as a result of an impulse on Tom’s or Faith’s part, the Fairchilds had guests at their Sunday dinner table. Happily, thought Faith, today was an exception. The other exception was staying at coffee hour until the bitter end. And if the coffee was anything to go by, the bitter dregs. She’d sent Amy home with Ben as soon as Sunday school had let out, ushering them through the side door and watching them cross the cemetery until they disappeared into the parsonage through the back door. Ignoring their disappointment at having to forgo the tomato juice and Ritz crackers offered up for First Parish’s smaller fry (she had not managed to make even the slightest change in coffee hour from this to the choice of Triscuits and orange cheese or Vanilla Wafers for the grown-ups), she resolutely stood by her man and smiled until her mouth hurt.

At last, Tom and she walked out into the fresh air. She took his hand.

“For the moment, two choices. After some lunch, we can sit down and start trying to figure this all out. Or we can go off somewhere with the kids and try to forget it for a few hours. Which one?”

“Door number two,” Tom said, pulling her closer to his side as they made their way between the rows of headstones with their lugubrious epitaphs. She always walked quickly by “As you pass by / And cast an eye / As you are now / So once was I” and slowed to consider what “She did what she could” might have meant to the survivor who commissioned it carved on the plain slate devoid of the angels or ghoulish figures so popular with those who practiced the art of gravestone rubbing. Faith did have a favorite epitaph, a more modern one. Her father had sent it to her after a parishioner had come across it on a trip: “Here lies an Atheist / All dressed up / And no place to go.”

They’d reached the parsonage and stopped before going in.

“In any case,” Tom said, “until I talk to the bank, all our speculation is just that. I need to compare my records to theirs.”

“Okay, where to?” Faith was relieved that Tom had picked what she thought was the better course of action. She intended to get to the bottom of all this, but she needed more information. The first thought that had crossed her mind after Tom’s announcement was that somehow the theft had occurred when Tom was ill. It was where she planned to start, anyway. She was already making a list in her mind. Who had taken over what?

“It’s a good day for kites. Crane Beach?” he suggested. “Bring Frisbees, too?”

Crane Beach was a wonderful nature preserve up on the North Shore in Ipswich. The kites would soar with terns and other seabirds. As for the Frisbees, it would be a fun challenge tossing them in the wind and keeping them from the waves.

“Perfect. I’ll pack snacks while you and the kids have some of the borscht I took out of the freezer last night. We just need to heat it up. There’s still some of that dark rye to go with it.”

Faith had made vats of borscht last August with the succulent beets from the garden of her Sanpere neighbor Edith Watts. Faith’s secret was using red onions and adding a red bell pepper. The color of the soup was glorious and she’d swirl some low-fat sour cream on top in the spiderweb pattern the kids loved. The Fairchilds had altered their diet somewhat since Tom’s illness and Faith found there were things, like regular sour cream, that could be replaced with low fat or low sodium without a loss in flavor. Not butter, though. Real butter. She was with Julia on that one.

She noticed the light on the message machine was blinking and she was tempted to ignore it. Her clerical training was too strong, however, and she pushed the button. Being a man or woman of the cloth meant you were
always
on call.

It was Pix and she sounded as if she were phoning from the bottom of a well. Faith increased the volume and played the message again. It was typical Pix Miller. Much hemming and hawing and no information. This one was unusually cryptic, though. Faith knew Ursula was fine and Pix had made a point of saying that everything at Sea Pines was okay when she’d called after her arrival. Probably a sudden need for wardrobe advice. Except Samantha was there. Faith took out her cell and called.

“Hi, I just got your message. What’s up?”

“Everything’s great and this place is really lovely—the views, the room, and you would love the food. We just finished a fabulous brunch.”

“You’re with people, right?”

“Absolutely. And the guys are all about to hit the links, what ho, while we womenfolk get massages, the works.”

Pix was sounding like a cross between P. G. Wodehouse and Zane Grey. “The links, what ho”? “Womenfolk”?

“Mimosas at brunch?” Faith asked.

Pix was an even cheaper date than Tom when it came to booze and had been known to get slightly tipsy on her mother’s rum cake.

“Yes, several.”

“Well, you certainly sound cheery. Now, maybe I can guess why you’re calling. The massage? I don’t think you’ve ever had one, have you?”

“That’s right, and yes, Samantha is going with us.”

“So that’s not it.”

“Nope.”

“Is it bigger than a breadbox?”

Entertaining as the conversation was, Faith wanted to get going.

Pix lowered her voice. “Much, much bigger.”

“Ah, a person. And he or she is there, so call me when you can talk. We’re off to Crane Beach to fly kites.”

“Keep an eye out for a snow owl. They might still be there.”

“Of course,” Faith assured her friend, although this had been most definitely the furthest thought from her mind. But it was the kind of thing Tom got excited about. Bird-watching. A New England trait inbred along with a love of Indian pudding and touch football. She made a mental note to tuck some binoculars and the Sibley bird guide in the canvas tote she’d packed.

“Coming,” Pix called to her unseen companions. “I’ve got to go, but . . . well, I’ll call later.”

“Have fun, sweetie,” Faith said, “and I hope they keep the champagne flowing. You deserve it.”

A
lthough the weather was fine and a pale sun shone, the sky and sea at Ipswich were a single shade of gray, almost indistinguishable from the color of the sand as the tide ebbed. The children’s kites joined others, rising and falling in brilliant streaks. Tom and Faith walked along the tidemark toward a rocky outcropping in the direction of Castle Hill, a magnificent early-twentieth-century estate open in the warmer months for tours and concerts. Faith had catered events there and it was an exquisite setting, especially at night, the house sitting high on a bluff above the sea, with long views of the North Shore coastline.

Crane Beach was no Sanibel, but soon Faith’s pockets were filled with tiny whelk shells and bits of beach glass.

There had been no sign of any snow owls, but plenty of the terns, gulls, and plovers. Tom had the binoculars around his neck.

After determinedly talking about everything except that which was uppermost in their minds, Tom finally said, “Okay. I’ve gone over and over the past year, all the money I’ve given out—it’s not hard to recall things that are emergencies like this—and I keep coming up with the figure I gave them. No more, no less. Well, we won’t discuss it now.”

Faith stopped and faced him, forcing him to a standstill also. “It’s like a sore in your mouth. You want to keep your tongue from touching it, but you always do. And it’s always still there. I think we
should
be discussing this whenever we feel like it and especially as soon as you get back from the bank tomorrow morning.”

“Someone there may be able to shed some light on the whole thing, I hope, but we’ll have to wait to talk it over. It’s one of my days at the VA hospital,” Tom said. He took his wife’s hand and they turned around, walking slowly back toward Ben and Amy, eyes still trained on the sand the way people do when they walk on a beach.

Faith had forgotten about the VA. Tom was one of the volunteer chaplains there.

“It could be someone at the bank. And he or she could be dipping into more accounts than just yours,” Faith said.

Tom shook his head. “I suppose it’s possible, but somehow I don’t think that’s it. Everyone’s been there for ages and—well—they know their clients.”

Hawthorne Bank and Trust did have branches in several localities, but was scarcely on a scale with Bank of America. There was a bowl of Tootsie Pops on the counter in front of the two teller windows and the bank sent you a birthday card each year signed by everyone at the branch. You were greeted by name. But Faith wasn’t so sanguine. It didn’t mean the individuals who worked there were immune to corporate greed, although there had been no signs of any bailouts, which seemed to be the signature of this sort of activity these days.

And as for knowing their clients, that might be why Tom’s account had been selected. Tom, well respected in the community, a safe target. Or simply because of the nature of the account. This wasn’t the first time that Faith had marveled at her husband’s innate trust of his fellow man and woman. As for herself, she planned to stop by and start a conversation about vacation destinations. See who’d been on a cruise lately or planning one of those expensive tours of Egypt. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts had mounted a blockbuster Egyptian exhibit, “The Secrets of the Tomb,” and suddenly half the population of Massachusetts seemed to be heading for the Nile and the rest were reading or rereading Alan Moorehead.

“The big question is whether the money was taken in cash from the ATM or in checks,” Faith said.

“I’ve been thinking that, too. I get a copy of any checks cashed with my statements and they’re all in a binder locked in one of the file cabinets in my office. When I need to distribute some cash, I go to the machine, but there’s a record of that, of course, and I save the slips in the same binder attached to the appropriate statement.”

“Tom, when is the last time you went over the statements?”

He looked up—and then down. “I’ve been meaning to . . .” His voice took on a defensive quality. “So much piled up when I was sick and there’s never been a problem with the account. In the past I used to go over them for the end-of-the-year report and maybe a few times in between.”

“And it wasn’t something you could delegate to the parish assistant.”

“No.”

Soon after Tom’s arrival, the parish secretary had been renamed the parish administrative assistant. For many years the post had been ably filled by Rhoda Dawson, who moonlighted on her days off as Madame Rhoda, Psychic Reader. Where was she now when they needed her? Faith wished ruefully. The last she’d heard Rhoda had moved to Sedona and had branched out into aura photography. The post was then filled by Pat Collins for several years. Last winter she’d joyously announced her engagement. She got married soon after and accompanied her military spouse to his new posting at Fort Drum in New York. This year’s Christmas card had brought news of a baby due in July. Neither woman would have had access to the particulars of the fund, but somehow Faith’s instinct told her that they’d know what had happened—or it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Maybe.

Most men are very bad with change and her husband was no exception. Tom grumbled even as he toasted Pat at the party the Fairchilds threw for the couple. An ad was placed and the Aleford grapevine alerted. Tom hated all the candidates. They weren’t Rhoda or Pat. Finally a friend at the Harvard Divinity School, where Tom had taught during a sabbatical several years ago, told him about Albert Trumbull.

Albert had been in one of Tom’s classes and he’d liked the young man—bright and headed for a parish ministry. They’d kept in touch for a while after Tom left. The last Tom had heard Albert had decided to get a doctor of theology degree. And then, he’d abruptly applied for a leave. He’d been looking for a job other than at CVS while he tried to decide what his calling really was.