Body In The Belfry

“This is our last weekend before shutting everything up and we plan to spend it quietly. It would be nice to have you with us. Robert hopes to get one last sail in if the weather holds. So bring your long johns.'

“Oh, please come,' Jenny chimed in, 'Then I can play with Benjamin all day ! “

Faith looked at Tom. ' It's up to you, sweetheart, or rather up to your sermon.”

Tom tried very hard to keep Saturdays clear for Faith and Benjamin. It was his day off, if a minister can be said to have a day off, but in practice he was sometimes hastily polishing the next day 's sermon. Faith couldn't imagine writing one of these things every week and heartily admired him for doing so.

“There seems to be a lot of food for thought these days,' Tom said glumly. 'And the sermons are almost writing themselves. There should be no problem about going.'

“ Good. That's settled then,' Patricia said, ' We'll see you sometime in the morning ? “

Tom took Patricia outside to get her opinion on the wisdom of fall pruning for a line of straggly yews and Faith and Jenny sat at the kitchen table consuming oatmeal cookies and drinking black currant tea. Benjamin had stopped his post-nap fussing and was swinging placidly in the wind-up swing.

Jenny Moore was a small, slender girl with pretty brown eyes and what used to be described in another era as 'nut-brown hair.' In other words, not many people would have looked at her twice with Cindy in the room.

It was Jenny who brought up the subject of Sam and Cindy.

“You just don't know what she was like, Mrs. Fairchild. Sometimes I think she wasn't really normal. She used to talk a lot about all the guys she had. I couldn't believe it about Mr. Miller at first. I thought it was just Cindy boasting again. She did a lot of that too, but after awhile, she knew too much about the family. Like when they were going to be away in Maine and stuff. Samantha is my best friend and I haven't been able to go to their house for months. I was afraid I'd see Mr. Miller. How could he do that to them ? '

“I don 't know, Jenny. I think he was pretty upset about it and wanted to end it. He just got in over his head. It's no excuse, I know, but sometimes even older people do pretty dumb things.'

“ Yeah, but Cindy. I mean, couldn't he have picked somebody better ? “

“I think she picked him,' Faith said gently.

Jenny had been dangling an Ambi mirror block in front of Benjamin's pudgy face and said, 'Poor Mr. Miller.'

“Jenny,' questioned Faith, 'when I was talking to you at the house I had the feeling you weren 't telling me everything. Was there anything else besides this business with Sam ? '

“No,' said Jenny quickly. Too quickly? 'This was what was bothering me. I couldn 't tell anyone because of Samantha.'

“So there wasn 't anyone else Cindy might have been seeing ? '

“Well, I think there was someone new, but it was pretty recent. She was still at the hinting around stage. That everyone would be surprised if they knew and how no one was without sin—I thought that was a funny way to put it. Almost like it was a priest or something. Oh my gosh, Mrs. Fairchild, I'm sorry.' Jenny put her hand to her mouth.

“That's all right, Jenny, don 't worry. I know Tom has plenty of sins, but Cindy wasn't one of them. Of course there are other clergymen in town, or in the greater Boston area for that matter. Cindy didn 't always stay close to home, did she ? ' Faith mused.

“No,' sighed Jenny.

This is going to be harder than I imagined, thought Faith. And it always looks so easy in the books. Of course it would be ridiculous to think that Tom ever had the slightest notion of Cindy except as something that crawled out from under a rock.

If Tom noticed the two of them eyeing him with particular intensity when he walked in the back door with Patricia a few minutes later, he didn't let on.

The Moores left and the doorbell rang.

“Does life seem to be taking on a disturbingly frantic quality?' Faith asked. 'Not that I 'm complaining.'

“I'11 let you know after I see who it is,' Tom replied.

It was Oswald Pearson and as he ushered him into the living room, Tom gave an imperceptible nod to Faith. The last thing he felt like was being interviewed by the press on the day 's twists and turns. But Oswald was a loyal parishioner, so he dredged up a welcoming smile. 'Nice to see you. We were just going to start a fire. Would you like to join us?”

Faith knew what she was supposed to say and chimed in, ' How about a glass of wine or some coffee ? “

However, Oswald was not paying a social call. He turned to Tom and seemed a bit embarrassed by the hospitality.

“ Actually, I had wanted a few words with Reverend Fairchild in private.' He cleared his throat. It occurred to Faith that now she knew what 'harumph' sounded like. Not that she could spell it.

“I'm here on a personal matter,' Oswald explained.

Faith looked at Tom bleakly. Don 't tell me Cindy was harumphing him too, she transmitted silently and excused herself to go play patty-cake with Benjamin or whatever.

Tom was mystified. Oswald seemed a well-balanced sort. A little smarmy and self-important for Tom 's taste, but maybe that was the tabloid influence.

After gazing intently at Tom's bookshelves, Oswald got straight to the point.

“You probably don 't know this—not many people do, especially in Aleford—but I'm gay.' He paused to gauge Tom's reaction, was apparently reassured, and continued. ' I've known ever since I was in college and I'm not here to talk about my decision. I 'm comfortable with it, but I feel it is my own private business. I've never felt the need to be active in gay rights, but I 'mcertainly not ashamed of being a homosexual. It's like the color of my hair or eyes—a part of me and I'm much more interested in having people judge me on my newspaper than on my sexual preferences.”

Tom thought he knew where this was going. 'Oswald, did Cindy know about this?”

Oswald looked very tired and the Liberty paisley bow tie under his blue pinstriped collar seemed to wilt.

“She saw me in Boston one afternoon and decided to follow me, just for the hell of it, I guess. Well, she struck pay dirt. I was on my way to meet a friend at a bar on Tremont Street. It 's pretty well known as a gay bar. She waited until I came out with my friend, then snapped a picture. He grabbed the camera and tore out the film. She just smirked. `I don 't need evidence, though, do I, Mr. Pearson ? You'd find it awfully hard to lie to your mother, wouldn 't you ?' I wanted to kill her on the spot, but we went to a luncheonette and she told me what she wanted.'

“Money 1' Tom guessed.

Oswald laughed, a quick burst of laughter that sounded more like a dog barking. “ This might be hard to believe, but we're talking about Cindy Shepherd here and she was beyond the scope of the ordinary imagination. She wanted publicity. She wanted to be sure that anything she did—sneeze, cross the street, fart—would be in the paper, and with a picture.”

Tom had always been pleased with the amount of coverage the paper had devoted to the Young People 's activities. Now that turned to ashes in his mouth. He remembered all the pictures of Cindy. She must have been crazy.

“She had me where she wanted me. My mother would have found a gay son quite unacceptable. Even without a photograph, just the suggestion would have been enough to make serious trouble.”

And, Tom recalled, Mother had covered the paper 's losses for years, had, in fact, bought the thing for her son.

“But your mother died last summer. Surely you don't think the police would suspect you ? ' Tom was beginning to wonder what the point of all this revelation was.

“After Mother died, I told Cindy the deal was off, but she wasn 't very happy about it. She informed me that she was glad I didn 't mind my fellow townspeople knowing and she was sure that I could keep on coaching the youth soccer league.”

Tom leaned forward and exploded. 'She was diabolical, Oswald. I wish I had known what you were going through ! '

“ I wish I had told you. It never occurred to me that my position in the town would be affected—what people thought of me. So I renewed the contract. I figured she was getting married and after that she'd find bigger