The Christening Day Murder Page 10

  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.

  13

  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.”

  “I think I understand.”

  “It’s easy to look the other way when someone’s been good to you. He sure as hell didn’t do anything good for us. He was the son of a military man, you know, and he came in here all the time like a general commanding his troops. You would have thought he owned the place. It disrupted our business and got our employees angry. He had no respect for anything except his own work, and he expected people to move over and bow down because he was J.J. Eberling. My father was doing him a big favor—I’m sure we lost money on that job—but you’d’ve thought it was the other way around. Tell you what. Give me your number and I’ll do some calling around.”

  I wrote down the convent number and my own back in Oakwood.

  “You staying with those nuns?” he asked.

  “Just while I’m in the area.”

  “Nice bunch of ladies. My wife buys their jams and jellies every year.”

  “Where would I find Studsburg’s records if I needed them?” I asked.

  “Good question. I think I heard someone say they’re in the county building. You know where the sheriff’s office and the court are?”

  “I’ve been there.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Parker.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  The silence outside his office made me feel almost lightheaded. I drove to the motel and had a second breakfast in the coffee shop. Although we’d been talking about J.J. Eberling, I felt certain that the word “beholden” could apply just as well to Mayor Larkin. They were both good men to the people in their town, and I didn’t have the time or resources to find the potential one or two people from Studsburg who might have had a gripe against them. I needed to find people who didn’t live there but knew the town.

  I opened my notebook and turned pages while I sipped coffee. Mrs. Castro, the rectory housekeeper, wasn’t likely to be alive. Nor was Mrs. McCormick, who had taught school for forty years. The other teacher was Mr. Dietrich, no first name. Fred Larkin had said Mr. Dietrich stayed on that last year even though enrollment was way down. He hadn’t said how old Mr. Dietrich was or how many years he had taught in Studsburg.

  I paid my bill and found a phone directory near a bank of coin phones. There were enough Dietrichs listed to make my task embarrassing. The thought of calling half a dozen people and asking for a man whose first name I didn’t know—and who might not even be alive—gave me pause.

  Then I remembered the name Mulholland. On Tuesday evening Carol Stifler had called someone named Mulholland when we were trying to figure out who the miraculous medal belonged to. Mrs. Mulholland had had a school-age daughter named Amy. The list was in my bag. I gathered together enough quarters for a few minutes conversation, and dialed.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice answered.

  “Mrs. Mulholland?”

  “Yes, it is. Who’s this?”

  I told her.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “Carol Stifler called the other night. Wasn’t that something about the body?”

  “Mrs. Mulholland, the Stiflers said you had a daughter about ten or twelve that last year.”

  “Yes, Amy was in school then.”

  “I’m trying to reach a teacher from the Studsburg school. Amy didn’t happen to have Mr. Dietrich, did she?” I had decided that a woman was more likely to teach the younger classes, leaving Mr. Dietrich the upper half of the school.

  “No, Mr. Dietrich left the year before. He’d been there awhile, and the town—what was left of it—didn’t feel they could pay him full salary.”

  My heart sank. “Then Mrs. McCormick taught the whole school?”

  “Oh no. They got a new teacher just for that last year to teach the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Amy had her.”

  My heart had begun to pound. “Do you remember anything about her?” I asked. “Her name? Anything else?”

  “Amy would remember her name, I’m sure. All I remember is that she was young, just out of school, I think, so we were able to pay her next to nothing, which was all the town could afford. Kind of a pretty thing. The kids all loved her. I remember she wore blue jeans and sneakers once when she took them on a class trip.” She laughed. “Who could forget something like that thirty years ago?”

  14

  It was one of those moments when you want to grab someone and start dancing. I didn’t have a name, a reason, or a whisper of proof, but I was sure I had my victim. Mrs. Mulholland had given me Amy’s phone number, which I couldn’t call till late afternoon as Amy was teaching, but that didn’t stop me. I drove to the county building to find some old records.

  The people in the records office weren’t exactly delighted to hear my request, but after I filled out a form and waited my turn, a woman took me down to a basement room where old files were kept. The files for most of the towns in the county, she explained, were kept right in each town, but since in this case the town didn’t exist anymore, the records had been transferred to the county. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked to see these, but she knew where they were kept.

  It was dark and empty down there till she turned on some lights, and the air was musty. There were only a handful of boxes for Studsburg, and they were labeled by year. If the number of records was any indication of population, Studsburg had dwindled noticeably in the course of the twentieth century. I had no interest in any but the last year or two, and those files were all in one box.

  I looked at headings on folders till I found the files for the last two years. It was all there, ads placed in several newspapers and carbon copies of letters written to a variety of college placement offices explaining the need for a junior high teacher with a valid New York State license for a period of one year, not renewable. The town offered a salary of four thousand dollars plus a few benefits. If the file was complete, only four people applied. Their letters and resumes testified to their desire to teach in a small town, their ability to handle three classes at three different levels, their willingness to cooperate with the community, and their commitment to good education. Of course, all of them loved teaching junior high school students more than any other age level. They sounded spirited and dedicated, their personalities rising from the old typewritten pages. I would have hired any one of them myself.

  Only one of the candidates was ever interviewed. (The town sprang for the round-trip fare.) Her name was Candida Phillips, and according to her resume, she lived in Pennsylvania and was twenty-three when she applied. She was interviewed by a committee consisting of the mayor, Henry Degenkamp, Terence Scofield, Irwin Kaufman, and, in what I decided was a sop to the education profession (but not necessarily to women), Mrs. Adele McCormick, the only other teacher. It was obviously a town run by its men.


  The reports of the five interviewers were in the file. The mayor found Miss Phillips to be “pleasant, clean, well-mannered, appropriately dressed, and having an agreeable disposition.” Mr. Degenkamp also found her looks and manners acceptable and added that “she has the vigor and enthusiasm necessary to control the age group.” Messrs. Scofield and Kaufman echoed their colleagues’ favorable opinions in slightly different language, and Mr. Kaufman mentioned that Miss Phillips, “being young and unattached, can afford starting salary and will surely have no difficulty finding employment next year with her additional experience.” Mr. Scofield found “Candy to be an exemplary young woman who seems eager to accept the challenge Studsburg’s junior high will offer her.” My eyebrows rose as I read his opinion.

  By far the most interesting report came from Adele McCormick, who must have conducted the most searching interview of the lot. She determined Miss Phillips to be “well educated and knowledgeable in both pedagogical theory and relevant subject matter. She is personable and answers difficult questions with a demeanor that belies her age.” I made the assumption that the “difficult questions” were asked by the gentlemen, probably out of curiosity and for no reason connected to the job. I certainly knew which of the five I would select for my committee.

  The job was apparently offered to Miss Phillips on the spot following a brief huddle out of her earshot, and she accepted as quickly as they made the offer. A copy of the contract was in the folder, signed by Fred Larkin, Mayor. I guessed that in a town of five hundred, the mayor functioned as superintendent of schools and maybe as principal as well.

  The minutes of the meeting were taken by Mrs. McCormick, who, as the only woman present, was the obvious choice for recording secretary. I wondered if she had also typed the men’s reports.

  Miss Phillips was paid twice a month, as was Mrs. McCormick, and the canceled checks were there for me to see. There were deductions for social security, which made me gasp; they had increased more than tenfold in the intervening years. Ditto for the Blue Cross/Blue Shield deductions. I knew what Arnold Gold paid for mine in the present. A pittance was taken off for pension, and I made a note to ask Jack to check with Albany to see if Candida Phillips had contributed after that year. If I was building a case, I wanted a good one.