The Christening Day Murder (12 page)

“I just talked to Fred Larkin,” I said.

“The mayor of the old town?”

“Yes. He said your office had already questioned him.”

“I did it myself. We looked up his name in the records, and I drove out last week and saw him.”

“Did you mention my name to him?” I asked.

We had been walking out to the parking lot. Now he stopped and looked at me. “Why would I do that?”

“He said someone from the sheriffs office had mentioned my name.”

“No, ma’am,” he said firmly. “First of all, I don’t go telling people I’m questioning police business, and secondly, I can’t think of one good reason why I would have done it in this case.”

“Thanks, Deputy. That’s all I wanted to know.”

Which meant the Degenkamps had called Fred Larkin after I left.

   The car seemed to have a will of its own. Without thinking about where I was going next, I found myself on the little road that led to Studsburg. There were no cars parked at the edge of town, no people walking the streetless streets, snapping pictures of buildings that had vanished more than a
quarter century ago. There was just a windowless church rising from the depths of a lake that had dried up.

I stood at the edge for a while and then scrambled down the slope. The crime scene tapes were gone, and the sign warning me to
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
was staked near the entrance. I took the dare and entered. It was late enough that the sun was nearly down, and without my flashlight, I would have been in trouble. But the floor, if anything, was cleaner than the last time I’d been there. Perhaps they had swept it up, looking for some clue to the man who had unearthed the body.

I walked to the sanctuary, pleading silently for some insight on where to go from here. If Fred Larkin had seen my name in a newspaper article, he would have used that as a reason for knowing about me. But he made up a lie to explain his slip when he recognized my name. It told me he was nervous. The Degenkamps had warned him that I was on my way. Fred Larkin knew something. Or maybe the Degenkamps did, and didn’t want Larkin spilling the beans on them.

I remembered that when I had asked them if they knew any young women in their twenties who had worked in Studsburg, they had looked at each other in a way that I had interpreted as prodding their memories. Now it seemed that what they were doing was warning each other to keep silent. There
was
someone, and both the Degenkamps and the Larkins knew who it was. Which meant I was on the right track if I could just figure out which of my many lines of questions was the right one.

It was getting late, and I wanted to reach the convent in time for dinner. Using my flashlight, I went back to my car and then drove south.

   The nuns were just leaving chapel when I got there. I sat at dinner with Sister Concepta, who quickly set an additional place for me. The nuns at the table were full of questions, my investigation having sparked their interest and set them
all thinking. As we ate, they speculated on who, how, and why.

“If it was a boyfriend killing his girlfriend,” Sister Gracia said, “I think it’s a dead end. He’ll have covered his tracks, married someone, made a new life. Today he’ll be a respected citizen, a good father, someone no one would ever suspect had committed a murder. His friends will probably give him testimonials,” she finished wryly.

“Even if you don’t find him and bring him to justice,” Sister Concepta said, “he may suffer from what he did. He may have a terrible conscience.”

Sister Gracia waved away the possibility. “People live with their consciences better than we’d like to think. And guilt rarely leaves a mark that we can see. If it did, the police would have an easier job. Unfortunately, guilt isn’t like a scar or a tattoo or a scarlet
A.”

I felt she was right. Without some overt mark, I could not identify the guilty conscience in someone I spoke to. I had already made at least one mistake of judgment, putting the Degenkamps in the safe-and-honest category.

“You’re right about the girlfriend,” I said. “But it seems to me there has to be more to it than that. The coroner said the woman wasn’t pregnant, which is the first thing you think of as a motive, especially thirty years ago. It has to be something else, something these older people are trying to keep from me. What could all of them have had in common?”

“The occult,” one of the other nuns said. “A witches’ coven. God forbid,” she added, crossing herself.

It didn’t seem likely. I listened as they let their imaginations take hold. Nothing they proposed really grabbed me. When dinner was over, I helped with the washup and then set the tables for tomorrow’s breakfast. It wasn’t much, but it gave someone old enough to be my mother the chance to take it easy while I was able to burn off the energy I’d stored while sitting on my duff in the car most of the day.

When I was done, I put my coat on and walked over to the chapel. Usually when I visit a church, I light three can
dles, for my mother, my father, and my Aunt Margaret. I hadn’t done it for a while, so I did it now, leaving a contribution in the box. Because we were schooled strictly in safety, I sat in a pew till the candles burned down, which took about half an hour. While I waited, I drained my mind of everything to do with the Studsburg murder. I thought instead of Jack, of how happy I was when we were together.

The chapel was old and small, dimly lit and fairly low-ceilinged. There were two confessionals, one on either side. A priest probably came once or twice a week to hear the nuns’ confessions. It may seem strange to think of a nun living in austere circumstances, dedicating herself to her faith, needing to confess, but nuns are as human as the rest of us. They have feelings, sometimes strong, angry ones, just as motorists and politicians do, and sometimes they get out of hand. And they succumb to temptations that the rest of the world might find surprising. Once, when I was alone in Aunt Meg’s house, I went to her bedroom, the one I now sleep in, and looked at my face in the mirror. It had been years since I had seen that face, and I was overcome with the desire to know what I looked like. Through all the time I lived in the convent, I had dutifully shunned reflecting windows and pools of water. Now, purposefully, I inspected the face that was mine but not mine to see, the arch of the brow, the length of the lashes, the fullness of the lips. When I smiled at the reflection with satisfaction, I knew I had sinned in more ways than one. When I returned to St. Stephen’s, I confessed to the priest who visited us regularly and never looked at my reflection again until I was living in the house and had met Jack.

Now I carried a different guilt with me. I was engaging freely and happily in a physical relationship with a man to whom I was not married. That half the women in the country were doing the same thing did not excuse or forgive me, and I was unable to confess. When you confess, you promise not to repeat the sinful activity, and I was not ready to do that. True, little children promise week in and week out not to hit
their little brothers or eat too many cookies or disobey their parents, only to return home to do it all again with relish. But I was no child, and I could not make a promise I knew I would break.

Two of the three candles had burned out. I went over and watched the last one as it flickered to its demise. When it was safely out, I returned to the Mother House.

   “Christine,” Sister Gracia said as she saw me, “you had a phone call a little while ago. Just a minute and I’ll get the message.”

The little Post-it said that Sergeant Brooks had called, and I could return the call collect. He must have decided that calling a sergeant would be easier than calling a boyfriend.

“If you want a little privacy,” the nun said, “there’s a phone in the kitchen.”

“Thank you.” I went to the darkened kitchen, found the light switch, and put my call through.

“Sure, I’ll accept,” Jack’s voice said after answering on the first ring. “Hi, sweetheart. Get there OK?”

“Got here fine, but I made a bunch of detours along the way.”

“I’ve been thinking about your investigation versus our sex life.”

“And what did you come up with?”

“That I don’t want us to give up either one. Suppose I meet you Saturday at the motel you went to for the baptism.”

“Jack, that would be terrific.”

“I’m just full of great ideas. I’ve just had the most boring day of my entire career, so I put my head to work.”

“My day was interesting, but I’m getting pulled in several directions.”

“It’ll clear up when you get closer to the end. Look, I can leave here by eleven, so I should get there by what? Three, four o’clock?”

“Yes. I’ll meet you there. What a neat idea.”

“Need anything?”

“Not anymore.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

As long as I had a telephone handy, I called Harry Stifler’s mother. I had met her at Richard’s baptism, and I knew she would remember me.

“How nice to hear from you,” she said. “I’ve just been watching the most awful movie on television, and I needed an excuse to get away from it.”

“I wanted to ask you about Fred Larkin, Mrs. Stifler.”

“Fred? Dearest man in the world. Born and raised in Studsburg, and loved it with every bone in his body.”

“Did you know him well?”

“Everyone knew him well. He had a full-time job, you know. Being mayor was only a hobby. But it was the kind of hobby that took every minute of his life. He knew everyone. Every baby that got born got a gift from him. Every couple that got married got something. He attended every funeral, visited every patient in the hospital. There just wasn’t ever another person like Fred Larkin.”

I was sorry I had called and I was dangerously near laughter. Somehow, I had expected to hear complaints, old grievances, and here I was getting the kind of testimonial usually reserved for a eulogy.

“Did you know his wife?” I ventured.

“Lovely woman. Beautiful. It was such a good town, Chris. There’ll never be another one like it.”

I gave up. I was obviously asking about a place in heaven, and this old woman wasn’t going to go on record as having any objections to the celestial governing body.

When I got off the phone it occurred to me that all the information of substance that I had gotten had come from Darlene Moore, who was the one person I’d talked to who hadn’t lived in Studsburg. Maybe if you didn’t live there, Fred Larkin didn’t owe you anything. And you didn’t owe Fred Larkin anything. I decided that the next morning I would try to find Steuben Printers.

The noise of the presses was constant and seemed to be located on the other side of the wall of the office.

“Yeah, my father printed that little paper for him at the end.” The man whose voice was raised to be heard over the din was Kenneth Parker, and the business was Steuben Press. It was located an even mile from the motel I had stayed in.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could talk to your father.” I didn’t think there was. Kenneth Parker looked about fifty.

“You’re a few years too late. I’m sorrier than I can tell you. My father was a wonderful man.”

I said something appropriate. “I don’t suppose you remember J.J. Eberling?” I asked.

“Sure I remember him. We printed that paper—” he looked up at the ceiling “—I’d say damn near six months.”

“Must have been expensive for J.J.”

“He had no choice. They were closing down the shops in that old town, and they wouldn’t let him stay on. That crazy little paper was his life. Besides, the expense didn’t bother him.”

“I heard he had plenty of money.”

“He had enough. His column kept him going.”

“His newspaper column?”

“He had a syndicated column, ran in forty or fifty papers around the country, maybe more. Couple of times a week. Folksy stuff. You know, pipe-in-the-mouth scribblings.
‘Anywhere, U.S.A.’ or ‘Little Town, America’ or something like that. Oh, yeah, J.J. made a living.”

“I heard he inherited money,” I said.

“Probably, but we’re not talking oil wells. Maybe enough to keep him off the streets.”

His widow certainly wasn’t living two steps above the poverty level. “You didn’t happen to go to Denham High School, did you?”

“That’s the other side of Studsburg.”

“Then you wouldn’t have known Joanne Beadles.”

He measured me with his eyes before answering. “That wouldn’t be one of J.J.’s little girls?”

“Was he known for that?”

“There was a rumor once. J.J. kept it out of the papers. That was one thing he knew how to do.” Parker laughed. “I couldn’t tell you if there was a Joanne involved. I couldn’t even tell you what it was all about.”

“Was the rumor around the time that Studsburg was flooded?”

“I’d say so.”

“I wish I could find someone to tell me about it.” I felt my meaning couldn’t have been clearer without drawing a picture, and I’m a terrible artist.

“What’s your interest in J.J., Miss …?”

“Chris Bennett.”

“Miss Bennett.”

“A young woman was murdered and buried in the Studsburg church thirty years ago. I want to find out who she was, and I don’t think the sheriff is doing a very enthusiastic investigation.”

“And you think she was one of J.J. Eberling’s little girls.” He said it as though he’d drawn a conclusion.

“I don’t know who she was. I’m looking for a lead, anything I can find. I’ve talked to several people who used to live in Studsburg, and I have the clear sense that I’m being lied to. Not just about J.J.,” I added.

“Let’s face it, you’re looking for someone who hated him.”

“I’m looking for someone who wasn’t beholden to him,” I said.

That was when he smiled. “I see you’ve got Studsburg figured out. You’re right, you need to talk to someone who didn’t live there.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Because it’s no secret J.J. was good to everyone in that town. Folks needed a little help, he came through. And he gave them something no one else in the world could, a chance to feel famous. There weren’t more than five hundred people in that town by the nineteen fifties, and it wasn’t hard for him to get every one of them in the paper for one thing or another. You having a party? J.J.’ll print pictures of it. You get the math award? J.J.’ll write you up.”