“Oh, I do have to kill you, just not shoot you.” Nelson showed no inclination to follow Faith’s request or lead.
There was a stool next to Faith. She grabbed it.
Nelson?
Nelson Batcheldor had killed his wife—and Joey Madsen?
“I’ve always been so fond of you and Tom, but you’ve been seriously interfering with my plans. I had hoped to get everything settled last Saturday on the bike path, but then Millicent had to come along and stick her oar in.” Nelson was annoyed. Nature lover, bird-watcher, vestryman, librarian, handy-man—these were naught compared to the dramatis personae unfolding.
“And tonight I have a POW! meeting at seven-thirty. I was afraid I was going to have to be late, since you told us you wouldn’t be here until seven. Then I said to myself, Nelson, why don’t you take a little run over there and see if she started work early. You never know. So I did. Your car was out front, and here we are.”
Faith had been right. POW!
“Nelson, sit down. Why don’t we both sit down?
I’ll make some coffee and you can tell me what’s going on. You seem upset, and of course I want to help.
All this talk of killing. Haven’t we had enough? Think of poor Margaret.”
Two thoughts were pounding in her brain. The man was completely insane and the police wouldn’t be coming for almost an hour. Insane. An hour with a homicidal maniac—Aleford had been right. Her head was close to bursting.
“I did think of Margaret. Often. I’ve wanted to get rid of her for years,” he said peevishly.
Faith felt incredibly stupid. Where is the first place you look for a suspect? The face on the pillow next to the victim—or, in the Batcheldors’ case, on the pillow down the hall. But they’d all been deceived by the attack on Nelson, staged by Nelson himself in some way. The man had been extremely clever and a con-summate actor.
He was facing her across the broad metal counter where she’d been working. Nelson was slender and tall. His large, round, black-framed bifocals and the tufts that sprouted from his eyebrows gave him an owlish look. Perhaps this had attracted Margaret. He was dressed, as usual, in baggy tan pants and a rumpled button-down oxford-cloth shirt. In the winter, the shirts were covered by ancient Shetland pullovers, much mended, but inexpertly. Faith had always assumed the man was simply wearing his college wardrobe until the threads gave out, a common practice in Aleford and one from which she had had to wean her own husband.
Except for the gray in his bushy hair and the line through the middle of his lenses, Nelson Batcheldor had probably looked much the same at eighteen as he did now at forty-nine. He did not look like someone who had killed two people and was preparing to do away with a third. But then, murderers seldom did look other than completely ordinary. Few drooled or rolled their eyes.
Nelson was speaking very matter-of-factly about his desire to rid himself of his wife. “There were all sorts of opportunities, but I kept putting it off. I’m afraid I have a tendency to procrastinate,” he said apologetically. Faith hoped this tendency was rising to the surface now. “I never had a pressing reason until last fall, and it also seemed sinful to take her life before it was really necessary.”
“Necessary?” Faith had missed a chapter.
“I couldn’t remarry with Margaret alive,” Nelson explained patiently, much the way he’d explained the mechanics of a drill to Ben during the work on the classroom. Faith broke out in a cold sweat and the inside of her mouth got dry.
“Margaret wouldn’t give you a divorce?”
“I don’t know. I never asked her. No one in either of our families has ever been divorced,” he said with pride.
“Look, let me make the coffee.” Faith was sure Nelson would want to tell her all about it, and if she could keep refilling his cup, she had a chance of either being rescued or thinking of some way out of the situation herself.
“I don’t have much time. Millicent doesn’t like to start the meetings until everyone is present, and it’s also going to take a while to set up your suicide.”
“My suicide!” Faith screamed.
Nelson jumped. He cocked the trigger. She realized she mustn’t startle him.
“What suicide? I’m not planning on killing myself,” she said in what she desperately hoped was a calmer tone of voice.
“I know,” he whispered, “but I’m planning on it. I have to.” He raised his voice slightly. “You were bound to find me out sooner or later. You said so at the meeting, and that would have spoiled everything. Destroyed my only chance for happiness. I think we’d better get down to it right away. You’ve been over-whelmed by work. The whole town knows it. You simply cracked.”
No problem with procrastination tonight.
“Now wait a minute,” Faith said, relying on whatever natural authority her position as his spiritual leader’s wife might give her. At the moment, she was grasping at anything. “First, I think you owe me an explanation before I die. And second, I believe I’m also entitled to a last request. And I want a cup of coffee.” Nelson wasn’t your run- of-the-mill criminal.
She hoped her bizarre appeal would be matched by his own quirkiness. The code of the Batcheldors or whatever.
He sighed and looked at his watch.
“All right, but I’ll try to be brief. Why don’t you get the coffee while I talk. You see, I plan to knock you out and put your head in the oven. It is gas, I hope.
Then, I need to stay around for a bit to make sure it’s working.”
Faith knew all the color was draining from her face.
She decided not to tell him that, although the burners were gas, the ovens were electric—a better combination. She didn’t want him to opt for something short and sweet such as a pistol shot before burning the place down. He’d used the same basic method before.
Nelson perched on the stool across from her and eyed the large copper bowl. “What’s that?”
“Egg whites for meringues. Are you hungry? I have some cookies—or I can make you a sandwich.”
“Margaret didn’t like to cook. I’m afraid she wasn’t very domestic. Of course I knew that when I married her. That wasn’t the problem.”
Faith slowly ground some coffee beans. “What was the problem, then?”
“Not a very interesting story, I’m afraid. We married too young. I was just out of the service, the Vietnam War. Thank goodness I didn’t have to go over there. I can’t stand hot climates, and the jungle would have been the end of me. That’s where I got my gun, though. Margaret never knew I saved it. I won a medal for marksmanship. For a long time, I thought I would shoot her, but it’s so difficult to cover up that sort of thing. All my friends were getting married. No excuse, mind you. But I’ve always been a bit of a follower. Margaret did know that.”
The last phrase was spoken bitterly.
“I never even got to choose the color of my own socks, let alone make a big decision. Never even got to open my mouth. She wanted to live here. I wanted to live farther out in the country, but her family was from here. So Aleford it was. I wanted children. She didn’t. And those damn birds. I would have liked to sleep late just once. Since she died, I haven’t gotten up before eight.”
Faith found herself in the extremely odd position of feeling sorry for the man who was about to end her mortal life.
“You should have talked to Tom or his predecessor.
Tried to work things out.”
“Talk about our personal life to an outsider? No, I don’t think Margaret would have liked that. I know I wouldn’t.”
Faith was boiling water. The kettle whistled and Nelson was startled again. She quickly turned it off and poured it into the coffeemaker that sat on the counter to the left of the stove. It hissed as it hit the grounds and filled the room with a pungent smell. She set out two large mugs and waited before pushing the plunger down, straining the grounds in the glass cylinder.
