"One has, Father Michael."
The priest's hands were shaking. "Oh, no. Who?"
"Roscoe Fletcher." Rick breathed deeply. "The lab report came back. He was poisoned by malathion. Not hard to get around here, so many farmers use it. It works with the speed of light so he had to have eaten it at the car wash. We've tested the strawberry hard candy in his car. Nothing."
"There couldn't be any mistake?"
"No. We have to talk, Father."
After Father Michael hung up the phone, he needed to collect his thoughts. He paced outside, winding up in the graveyard. Ansley Randolph's mums bloomed beautifully.
A soul was in peril. But if the confession he had heard was true, then another immortal soul was in danger as well. He was a priest. He should do something, but he didn't know what. It then occurred to him that he himself might be in danger—his body, not his soul.
Like a rabbit who hears the beagle pack, he twitched and cast his eyes around the graveyard to the Avenging Angel. It looked so peaceful.
24
His shirtsleeves rolled up, Kendrick Miller sat in his favorite chair to read the paper.
Irene swept by. "Looking for your obituary?" She arched a delicate eyebrow.
"Ha ha ." He rustled the paper.
Jody, reluctantly doing her math homework at the dining-room table so both parents could supervise, reacted. "Mom, that's not funny."
"I didn't say it was."
"Who knows, maybe your obituary will show up." She dropped her pencil inside her book, closing it.
"If it does, Jody, you'll have placed it there." Irene sank gracefully onto the sofa.
Jody grimaced. "Sick."
"I can read it now: 'Beloved mother driven to death by child— and husband.' "
"Irene . . ." Kendrick reproved, putting down the paper.
"Yeah, Mom."
"Well"—she propped her left leg over an embroidered pillow— "I thought Roscoe Fletcher could have sold ice to Eskimos and probably did. He was good for St. Elizabeth's, and I'm sorry he died. I was even sorrier that we were all there. I would have preferred to hear about it rather than see it."
"He didn't look bad." Jody opened her book again. "I hope he didn't suffer."
"Too quick to suffer." Irene stared absently at her nails, a discreet pale pink. "What's going to happen at St. Elizabeth's?"
Kendrick lifted his eyebrows. "The board will appoint Sandy Brashiers headmaster. Sandy will try to kill Roscoe's film-course idea, which will bring him into a firefight with Maury McKinchie, Marilyn Sanburne, and April Shively. Ought to be worth the price of admission.
"How do you know that?" Jody asked.
"I don't know it for certain, but the board is under duress. And the faculty likes Brashiers."
"Oh, I almost forgot. Father Michael can see us tomorrow at two thirty."
"Irene, I have landscaping plans to show the Doubletree people tomorrow." He was bidding for the hotel's business. "It's important."
"I'd like to think I'm important. That this marriage is important," Irene said sarcastically.
"Then you pay the bills."
"You turn my stomach." Irene swung her legs to the floor and left.
"Way to go, Dad."
"You keep out of this."
"I love when you spend the evening at home. Just gives me warm fuzzies." She hugged herself in a mock embrace.
"I ought to—" He shut up.
"Hit me. Go ahead. Everyone thinks you gave me the shiner."
He threw the newspaper on the floor. "I've never once hit you."
"I'll never tell," she goaded him.
"Who did hit you?"
"Field hockey practice. I told you."
"I don't believe you."
"Fine, Dad. I'm a liar."
"I don't know what you are, but you aren't happy."
"Neither are you," she taunted.
"No, I'm not." He stood up, put his hands in his pockets. "I'm going out."
"Take me with you."
"Why?"
"I don't want to stay home with her."
"You haven't finished your homework."
"How come you get to run away and I have to stay home?"
"I—" He stopped because a determined Irene reentered the living room.
"Father Michael says he can see us at nine in the morning," she announced.
His face reddening, Kendrick sat back down, defeated. "Fine."
"Why do you go for marriage counseling, Mom? You go to mass every day. You see Father Michael every day."
"Jody, this is none of your business."
"If you discuss it in front of me, it is," she replied flippantly.
"She's got a point there." Kendrick appreciated how intelligent his daughter was, and how frustrated. However, he didn't know how to talk to her or his manipulative—in his opinion—wife. Irene suffocated him and Jody irritated him. The only place he felt good was at work.
"Dad, are you going to give St. E's a lot of money?"
"I wouldn't tell you if I were."
"Why not?"
"You'd use it as an excuse to skip classes." He half laughed.
"Kendrick"—Irene sat back on the sofa—"where do you get these ideas?"
"Contrary to popular opinion, I was young once, and Jody likes to—" He put his hand out level to the floor and wobbled it.
"Learned it from you." Jody flared up.
"Can't we have one night of peace?" Irene wailed, unwilling to really examine why they couldn't.
"Hey, Mom, we're dysfunctional."
"That's a bullshit word." Kendrick picked his paper up. "All those words are ridiculous. Codependent. Enabler. Jesus Christ. People can't accept reality anymore. They've invented a vocabulary for their illusions."
Both his wife and daughter stared at him.
"Dad, are you going to give us the lecture on professional victims?"
"No." He buried his nose in the paper.
"Jody, finish your homework," Irene directed.
Jody stood up. She had no intention of doing homework. "I hated seeing Mr. Fletcher dead. You two don't care. It was a shock, you know." She swept her books onto the floor; they hit with thuds equal to their differing weights. She stomped out the front door, slamming it hard.
"Kendrick, you deal with it. I was at the car wash, remember?"
He glared at her, rolled his paper up, threw it on the chair, and stalked out.
Irene heard him call for Jody. No response.
25
"You cheated!" Jody, angry, squared off at Karen Jensen.
"I did not."
"You didn't even understand Macbeth. There's no way you could have gotten ninety-five on Mr. Brashiers's quiz."
"I read it and I understand it."
"Liar."
"I went over to Brooks Tucker's and she helped me."
Jody's face twisted in sarcasm. "She read aloud to you?"
"No. Brooks gets all that stuff. It's hard for me."
"She's your new best friend."
"So what if she is?" Karen tossed her blond hair.
"You'd better keep your mouth shut."
"You're the one talking, not me."
"No, I'm not."
"You're weirding out."
Jody's eyes narrowed. "I lost my temper. That doesn't mean I'm weirding out."
"Then why call me a cheater?"
"Because"—Jody sucked in the cool air—"you're on a scholarship. You have to make good grades. And English is not your subject. I don't know why you even took Shakespeare."
"Because Mr. Brashiers is a great teacher." Karen Jensen glanced down the alleyway. She saw only Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, strolling through Mrs. Hogendobber's fall garden, a riot of reds, rusts, oranges, and yellows.
Taking a step closer, Jody leaned toward her. "You and I vowed to—"
Karen held up her hands, palms outward. "Jody, chill out. I'd be crazy to open my mouth. I don't want anyone to know I went to bed with a guy this summer, and neither do you. Just chill out."
Jody relaxed. "Everything's getting on my nerves . . . especially Mom and Dad. I just want to move out."
Karen noticed the tiger cat coming closer. ' 'Guess everyone feels that way sometimes."
"Yeah," Jody replied, "but your parents are better than mine."