Body In The Belfry

at a public place—it is not shady and they have very good chowder—is not exactly tying myself to the railroad tracks.'

“And what if he had suggested you go examine the exact spot where he had seen Dave ? You would have gone. I know you would have. You are the most outrageous combination of blind trust and curiosity of any woman I have ever known ! '

“Stop shouting, Tom, you're going to wake the baby. And, how many trusting, curious women have you known ? Please give me a little more credit. I do have some common sense. I would not have gone to the railroad tracks with Scott. Especially not at first.'

“Faith!”

It took a while, but eventually Tom calmed down and Faith was able to tell him exactly what Scott had said. Which started him up all over again.

“ What does this guy look like anyway ? I think he must have mesmerized you.'

“Honestly, Tom! He 's just a kid. A little better than average looking, jeans, leather jacket. You know the type.'

“Yeah, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Tom Cruise all rolled into one.'

“Tom, we're getting off the subject here. We have a witness. Whatever you may think of him. He saw Dave by the tracks at noon and will testify if he has to and I think he knows he has to. It's that he wants to come in through us and as part of Dave's case rather than through the police. He didn 't say not to tell Dave's lawyer, only the police, and we can check with him tomorrow.”

But Scott was right. By the next day it wasn't necessary.

6

Faith was awakened early next morning by the sounds of an unusual amount of activity next door at the Millers. She got up and looked out the window.

“Tom ! Tom ! My God! Get dressed! There are a million police cars next door. Hurry ! “

Tom pulled on his clothes in record time and sped over to the Millers. He almost collided with MacIsaac and Dunne, with Sam Miller between them. Faith, watching from the window, could not imagine what was going on. What could they possibly want with Sam ? Tom got into the patrol car with them. Faith wasn 't sure whether she should go over to Pix or wait to see if Tom called. Five minutes later the phone rang. It was Tom.

“Faith, it's absolutely insane. Sam is a suspect inCindy's murder ! Evidently there are eyewitnesses who saw them together on Friday morning, quarreling. And some of the photos were of Sam. It seems he was having an affair with her. And they found a one-way ticket to Puerto Rico in his pocket for a flight tomorrow. You'd better get over to Pix.”

Faith for once in her life was absolutely speechless. Sam ? Cindy ? Who was going to be arrested next ? Mr. Brown, the church's seventy-five-year-old sexton ?

She got Benjamin ready quickly. She wasn't going to stop for breakfast, she was going right over to Pix. But as she opened her door, there was Pix on the doorstep, red-eyed and slightly crazy. They went into the kitchen where Pix immediately began to weep hysterically.

“Oh, Faith, I hope you don't mind. I didn 't want the kids to see me like this. Of course they don't want to go to school, so I can't leave them long. What are we going to do ? '

“Have something to eat first and then we'll try to figure it out.' It was Faith's credo. 'I assume you have a lawyer, right ? '

“Lawyers! Yes, we have a lawyer and he's on his way.' Pix was starting to hiccup, but it didn't lessen the emotional impact of her words, 'Faith, this is all my fault ! '

“Now don't tell me you were having an affair with Cindy, too,' said Faith, hoping to inject a little humor in the situation. She poured some coffee into two mugs, adding a liberal dose of brandy to Pix's. She cut some thick slices of cinnamon bread, buttered them, and sat down.

Pix raised her head from the table where she had collapsed. 'Believe me, Faith, if it would have kept Sam from having one with her, I would have. The little slut. It makes me nauseous to think of it.”

She took a large swallow of coffee and continued. 'I knew Sam was having an affair and I figured I'd just wait it out. You know how hard he took turning forty. You were at the party.”

Faith remembered. The tight little smile and forced laughter Sam had displayed as he opened his 'gifts'— bottles of Geritol, Playboy calendars, all singularly tasteless, in her opinion. Then there were all the jokes about getting it up—someone had even given him a small toy crane with a long pointless poem about how to use it and when. Somebody else had presented Pix with an elaborate gift certificate entitling her to trade him in for two twenties.

Sam got pretty drunk and went out the next week and bought a silver Porsche. He said it was his present to himself.

Pix seemed to be reading Faith's mind. “ He bought the car and I knew something was going on, but he didn 't want to talk about it. It looked ridiculous—our two cars in the driveway side by side—me the big clunky Land Rover, Sam the sleek Porsche. I tried to talk to him about it. After all, I had turned forty last year—very quietly.

“I knew the signs. I read books. Midlife crisis, all that, so I thought I'd try to change, too—bought a lot of lingerie and even tried some of the Total Woman stuff, you know getting rid of the kids and welcoming him home dressed in Saran Wrap and nothing else, but we just laughed too hard. I knew everything would be all right and decided I would just go on as always. Pretend that nothing was the matter. Sex was still good. I wasn't complaining and neither was he.”

Faith wondered if all minister's wives had to listen to this sort of confession, and tried to look mature and worldly, as if she had the wives of accused murderers sitting at her kitchen table every day, pouring out the most intimate details of their marriages.

“But if I had known it was Cindy, I would have killed her myself,' said Pix vehemently, 'Sam is a baby. He was too innocent for her and she must have been driving him crazy. I knew he was tense, but he said it was work. I knew it wasn't all work. There were a lot of unexplained late nights. It wasn't something I liked, but there it was.'' Faith reached over and took her hand. Pix gave it a squeeze and sat up straight.

“Faith, marriage is taking turns,' she said somewhat didactically. She was on her second mug of coffee cum brandy and her voice was assuming the authoritative tone Faith thought she herself should have. Who was supposed to be comforting whom ?

“You go through so many stages. When the kids were little and driving me crazy, Sam would come home and pitch in with the wash or whatever. He was strong for me. Now it's my turn to be strong for him. I certainly wasn 't going to throw a perfectly good marriage out the window because he was feeling middle-aged and needed some reassurance. Remember that, Faith. Tom may not have an affair' (better not, thought Faith) 'but there will be something, sometime.”

Pix started to cry again. This time quietly and that was somehow more desperate than her earlier wails. The anger was gone and the fear was taking hold.

“I've got to get back to the kids and I've got to find out what's going on. You've been a darling, Faith.' Faith gave her a hug at the door.

“Just remember, Pix, Tom and I are here for you any time of day or night—and for the kids, too. Whatever happens, just remember that. We're on your side.' Faith felt rather proud of this speech. It sounded like something a minister's wife should say. Then Pix took the wind right out of her sails; in fact, she capsized the craft.

“Faith! You think Sam is guilty!' She looked stunned.

“ Of course I don't ! ' said Faith immediately, realizing that in the back of her mind in fact she had believed Sam had killed Cindy in some crazed moment. She was as shocked at herself as Pix was. This was Sam and just because Dave would be off the hook now was no reason to think her obviously innocent neighbor, friend, and fellow parishioner was guilty. It looked as if she wasn't going to be able to abandon her investigation yet.

“ Pix ! You must believe me ! I'm as sure of Sam's innocence as I am, well—of yours or mine!”

Pix looked at her in the eye. 'That's better,' she said, then added, 'but I wouldn 't be so sure of mine if I were you.”

Faith gasped.

“Just testing,' Pix said wickedly.