Murder on Lenox Hill (24 page)

The very air seemed charged, and no one engaged in friendly conversation. Instead, they looked around uneasily, as if watching and waiting for something to happen. The man who escorted her to her seat didn't smile as he had the week before. Instead he looked worried and preoccupied.

Sarah noticed the crowd was much smaller than it had been the previous Sunday. Mr. Linton sat in the same pew she'd shared with his family before, but he was alone. Mrs. Upchurch sat in what was apparently her regular seat near the front, as usual. Then Sarah saw Mrs. Evans just a few rows in front of her. At first she thought she must be mistaken, but then she realized that the woman next to her was her daughter, Percy's mother. Why would both of them be here after what they'd learned about Upchurch?

She remembered Malloy's warnings, about how families sometimes tried to pretend nothing was wrong or didn't believe their children at all. Could Mrs. Evans have decided she and Malloy were lying to her? Could Percy have changed his mind and denied everything when his grandmother confronted him? She could hardly imagine such a thing, but if the women believed that Upchurch had abused Percy, how could they sit here in his church?

Before she could make sense of it, an acolyte came down the aisle. Only one this time, and it wasn't Percy or even his young friend. Sarah recognized Isaiah. The expression on his face could only be described as grim as he marched down to the front of the church. A wave of whispers followed him as people remarked on something. Sarah knew that most churches used two acolytes, and they were usually younger boys. Were they commenting on the reduction in numbers? Or the fact that Isaiah was too tall for the robe he was wearing? Or perhaps on the fact that he was doing the job at all?

He began lighting the altar candles, and the whispers died. When he was finished, the organ music swelled, and the choir filed in, their numbers also greatly reduced. Then the congregation rose for the opening hymn. As she always did, Sarah started singing out the words printed in the hymnal, but she quickly realized that no one around her was singing. In fact, when she glanced across the aisle, she saw that no one there was singing, either. The choir appeared to be the only ones giving voice to the words, but their few voices were subdued, a hollow echo of the magnificence she'd heard from them before.

The service proceeded, but it seemed almost a parody of last week's. The choir performed halfheartedly. The offering plates passed down row after row and emerged empty. Something was terribly wrong. Did Upchurch realize it? How could he get up and give a sermon in the face of such hostility? And what would happen if he tried? But first, Upchurch rose to serve communion.

He seemed unaware that anything was amiss. The elements were spread on a table in front of him, and he spoke in his eloquent tones of Christ's sacrifice, holding up the bread and a silver chalice of wine. Did his voice sound less confident than usual? Had he sensed the antagonism that hung like a miasma in the room? Did he understand that somehow they had all turned against him? He certainly didn't appear to.

Then he called for those in the congregation who wished to partake to come forward. Isaiah moved from his place to stand beside him, apparently to assist, but his expression was less than reverent. Sarah had seen that very expression on boys in the Lower East Side, desperate boys who had lost their faith in everything and everyone and whose souls had shriveled into black lumps of hatred.

A rustle of movement disturbed the stillness of the sanctuary, but it was only people shifting uncomfortably in their seats. No one rose. No one began to move toward the aisle and down to the altar to receive communion. Everyone simply sat, staring at Upchurch.

Long moments passed. Upchurch issued the invitation again, the edge of alarm in his voice this time. Still no one moved.

His face white, Upchurch turned to Isaiah, silently pleading for assistance. The boy simply glared back. What was going through the minister's mind? Did he understand what was happening? Sarah had no idea, but Upchurch wasn't going to surrender just yet.

He broke off two pieces of the bread and said, “Take, eat, this is my body which was broken for you.” He offered one to Isaiah, who made no move to take it.

His eyes wild with desperation now, he stuffed the bread into his own mouth and swallowed it. The silence was almost deafening, as people seemed to hold their very breaths.

With unsteady hands, he lifted the silver chalice and spoke the scripture about the wine being Christ's blood, shed for the remission of sins. He turned slightly, ready to offer it to Isaiah, but the boy actually took a step backward, his chin raised defiantly in refusal.

Upchurch glanced around, as if looking for someone, anyone, to whom he could turn, but he was alone. Terribly alone. Holding the chalice in both hands he stared at it for a long moment, as if it held the answer to this mystery. Then slowly, deliberately, he lifted it to his lips and drank deeply, like a man dying of thirst. Some of the liquid ran down the corners of his mouth, and purple droplets stained the stole he wore over his robe. When he lowered the cup, he glared out at the congregation for a moment, then set it back down on the table with a thunk.

Sarah realized she'd been holding her breath, and the noise startled her into a gasp. What would he do now? Would he continue with this travesty? Would he insist on going to the pulpit and preaching whatever message he'd prepared? Would the congregation literally sit still for it or would they at last rise in protest? The tension made the air seem to hum as everyone waited.

Upchurch stood as if rooted to the spot, his eyes wide with disbelief. He put out a hand to brace himself on the table before him and drew an audible breath. His pale face flushed with color, and his breath seemed to strangle in his throat. For a moment, Sarah thought he was just having an emotional reaction to his congregation's silent rejection, but then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he keeled over backward.

Someone screamed, and a few people instinctively rose to their feet, Sarah among them. The sound of thrashing limbs told Sarah that the minister hadn't merely fainted.

“He's having a fit!” Isaiah cried, backing away in horror.

Responding only to her training, Sarah hurried up the aisle. Several men were there ahead of her, but they stopped short when they reached Upchurch's body. Sarah pushed past them. “I'm a nurse,” she said to their startled looks.

Upchurch was indeed having a fit, his body convulsing violently. Her mind raced, trying to diagnose the problem. Could he have epilepsy? Could the strain of this morning have caused a seizure? Vomit dribbled from his mouth.

“Help me turn him onto his side,” she said, kneeling down and grabbing one of his twitching arms. But no one moved to assist her. With all her strength, she heaved and succeeded in rolling him halfway over so he wouldn't choke to death. Aside from that, she could only try putting something into his mouth so he didn't swallow his tongue.

While she was glancing frantically around for an implement to use, the thrashing suddenly ceased. She looked down and saw Upchurch's face was oddly contorted, as if he were in pain. His body had relaxed, and his weight rolled him onto his back again, in an awkward position, as the seizure ceased as suddenly as it had begun.

She waited, expecting to hear him draw breath and begin to regain consciousness. Instead he simply lay perfectly still. Too still. He couldn't be dead, she reasoned. His skin was still a healthy pink. She found his hand and placed her fingers on his wrist but found no pulse.

An elderly gentleman had tottered to the front of the church, and the others made way for him. “What are you doing there, miss?” he challenged.

“I'm a nurse,” she explained again, a little impatiently.

“I'm a doctor,” the old man said, and when he tried to kneel down beside her, one of the other men hurried to assist him.

“Oh, thank heavens! I can't find his pulse,” she explained, moving her hand to Upchurch's throat and finding no sign of life there either. “He doesn't seem to be breathing,” she said, still puzzled. “But he can't be dead. Look at his color!”

The doctor frowned, rechecking the wrist and throat, then holding his hand on Upchurch's chest. “No heartbeat and no respiration,” he concluded. “He's definitely dead.”

“He's dead,” one of the men standing over them reported to the congregation. Gasps and cries of surprise greeted his announcement.

“We killed him,” one woman cried.

“No,” the man at the front said. “God killed him. He smote him like the sinner that he is.”

Vaguely, Sarah realized that they knew. They all knew. But she didn't have time to even wonder how.

The doctor was examining Upchurch more closely. He leaned over to sniff at his mouth, where the vomit was drying. He turned back to Sarah. “Can you reach that communion cup, miss? Be careful not to spill it. Hand it to me. There, that's good,” he said as Sarah cautiously passed the cup to him. It was nearly empty. He sniffed it as well, and then frowned.

“What is it?” she asked.

He leaned the cup toward her face, tilting it so she could sniff it, too. “Do you smell it?”

She detected no odor except the communion wine. “What should I smell?”

“Bitter almonds,” he said. “Not everyone can detect it. It's the telltale odor of cyanide. Victims' skin is frequently a pinkish color, which is what made me suspect. Leland,” he said, looking up at the man who had announced Upchurch's death. “You were a bit hasty in your judgment. God didn't smite Oliver Upchurch. Someone else took matters into his own hands. He was murdered.”

 
 
S
ARAH FOUND IT SURPRISINGLY EASY TO GET FRANK Malloy summoned to the church. The patrolman who arrived first was a Goo-Goo, what the men on the force called the new recruits. Sarah knew she could easily intimidate him by informing him that she was a personal friend of Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt. Then she suggested that he ask his captain to request that Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy handle the case since he'd already been investigating the victim's illegal activities.

By that time, several of the women in the congregation were weeping hysterically, and the few children present were also wailing. The poor fellow was only too happy for some guidance on how to handle this terrifying situation.

The man named Leland had taken charge. “We can't keep all these people here,” he said to the doctor when the patrolman had gone for help.

Sarah knew her opinions would be ignored, so she whispered to the doctor. “Someone should get their names before they leave, in case the police want to question them later.”

Dr. Thomas—he and Sarah had introduced themselves while waiting for the police to arrive—suggested that Leland and his friends organize an orderly retreat of those who wished to leave and make a list of their names as they went out.

Grateful for something constructive to do, the men standing around the body quickly mobilized and went to work. The congregation quieted after the announcement that they'd be allowed to go. Dr. Thomas had taken a seat in one of the chairs by the altar, and Sarah stood nearby, still not quite believing that Upchurch was really dead.

She looked around. Isaiah still stood almost exactly where he'd been when Upchurch first fell. His face was white, but his expression was still full of rage. Someone had pulled the cloth off the communion table and covered Upchurch, and Isaiah couldn't seem to tear his gaze from the shrouded body. Then Sarah was distracted by a figure moving over to where Upchurch lay. It was his wife.

Rachel Upchurch stared down at her husband's body for a long moment. Then, as if not quite satisfied, she reached down and lifted the corner of the altar cloth. She studied his face, turning her head this way and that, and before anyone could imagine what she had in mind, she kicked him sharply in the shoulder.

Sarah cried out in surprise, and Dr. Thomas jumped to his feet.

“What in heaven's name did you do that for?” he demanded, his wrinkled cheeks flushing scarlet.

Mrs. Upchurch gave him a mysterious smile. “I just wanted to be sure he's really dead. We wouldn't want to make a terrible mistake, now would we?”

At last Isaiah roused himself from his stupor and hurried to her side. “She . . . she's upset,” he excused her, taking her arm. “Come on, ma'am, let's go sit down.”

With one last wistful look at her husband, she dropped the cloth back over his face and allowed Isaiah to escort her to the front pew where they sat down, side by side.

Fortunately, no one else had witnessed this shocking display. Everyone else was either actually leaving the church or helping those who were.

“We'll have to tell the detective about that when he comes,” Dr. Thomas said.

“He . . . Upchurch treated her very badly,” Sarah said, offering another excuse.

“It's my understanding that he treated many people badly,” Dr. Thomas said knowingly.

“Yes, he did,” Sarah agreed. “That's why Mr. Malloy was investigating. Does everyone in the church know? Is that why no one would sing or take communion this morning?”

“Yes,” a female voice said. Sarah looked up to see Mrs. Evans laboriously climbing onto the platform, taking the steps one at a time. Her daughter hovered close behind her, ready to assist if needed. “I told them.”

“You couldn't have told all of them in just a few days,” Sarah protested, stunned that she'd been willing to speak of her grandson's humiliation at all.

“I told the other families of the boys involved,” she said, looking down at Upchurch's body. Mrs. York looked at it, too, staring as if transfixed. “I sent for them to come to my house and bring the boys,” Mrs. Evans continued, “and I had the church elders there, too.”