“There are Catholics,” she says, “and there are Catholics
“That’s true,” I admit, surprised she would know. I suspect it is not the Pope who bothers her but the accommodation made by any modern-day Christian to harmonize faith and science. Ever since Galileo looked through his telescope, the battle has been joined. My latest evidence of the fight, laughably sketchy, since I don’t have anything to do with the church, comes from the popular press. Shamelessly summarizing years of scholarship mainly by European Catholic Biblical scholars, an article I read some time ago in The Atlantic on the historical Jesus put the matter bluntly: the four gospels in the New Testament are best understood as a collection of interwoven faith documents which put a particular theological spin on early Christianity (St.
John, for example, was influenced by Greek philosophy). As accounts of the life of Jesus, according to the article, they contain very little history.
“Either you accept the entire Bible as the written word of God or you don’t,” she says flatly, her eyes fierce.
I wonder if poor Chet is cutting the mustard as a con vert. The hypocrisy of people never fails to amaze me.
Now that this Miss Ice Bitch is back home, she’s holier than the Pope. It hasn’t been very long since she was doing some serious backsliding of her own. According to the file, she had practically dropped out of the church by the time of the murder. I swallow a mouthful of moist cake to keep from saying that I’d rather be inter viewing a boa constrictor. Get a grip, I tell myself. Murderers aren’t usually Miss Congeniality material.
Actually, behind this frosty facade, she may be scared to death, and that accounts for her snottiness. I decide to kill her, if not with kindness, at least with my own hypocrisy.
“It looks like events are conspiring,” I say in my friendliest voice, “to get me to see what Christian Life is all about.” Briefly, I tell her about Rainey’s apparent conversion and my conversation with Chet’s stepson. I conclude by saying, “I’ll be there Sunday.”
Leigh Wallace’s face softens a bit. Stories about women and children get women and children every time.
“Don’t expect to get everything from the Sunday service,” she warns.
“The place where you change is in your family, if you choose to participate.”
“That’s what Rainey says,” I gladly acknowledge.
“Can I ask you something about it?” I ask, feeling at last that the bait is set.
“What bothers me about religion is that it seems like a feast-or-famine proposition. For example, Mr. Bracken says that after you were married your participation at Christian Life dropped way off. It seems like people get excited about Christianity and then drift away from it. Is that what happened to you?”
For a moment she does not speak, as if I have asked a profound question that demands reflection.
“There really is such a thing as evil in the world,” she says, without smiling.
If she weren’t so serious, I’d have to laugh. It’s not that I disagree, but the evil I know comes in human form. Her tone makes it clear that it might not be a bad idea to check under the beds when I get home tonight.
Peeling as if I were auditioning for a part in a soap opera, I ask, “Was your husband a part of that evil?”
Perhaps realizing she has sounded a little more dramatic than the situation warrants, Leigh gets up to cut a slice of cake for herself.
“Art really wasn’t interested in Christian Life. He joined just to get me to marry him.
I quit going regularly to please him.”
I’d like some more cake, but feel I ought to wait until I’m asked.
“Wasn’t that a natural thing to do for a while?” I ask, sympathizing with the lust of a dead man.
Who wouldn’t want to skip church to stay home with a woman who looks this good?
The piece she has cut for herself hardly seems worth the trouble. She moves some crumbs around on her plate. “There is always a choice about how a person lives. I let myself be lulled into believing I could be a Christian outside my family at Christian Life;” So far I haven’t learned anything I didn’t already know, but at least she’s talking. So long as I stay on the topic of religion, she feels safe, but sooner or later, we are going to have to begin talking about his murder.
“Do you feel somehow guilty about his death?” I ask.
“I mean, if he had been interested in the church, maybe this wouldn’t have happened?”
For the first time, Leigh recoils as if she had been hit.
Ah, guilt. What would we do without it? I have wounded her, but she won’t admit it.
“Art had every opportunity to stay involved,” she says mechanically.
“He never intended to.”
Despite her tone, her face looks sad, as if she has failed someone besides herself. I feel slightly more confident now.
“Who do you think could have murdered him?” I ask, relishing the last sip of coffee. I’ll take more of everything if I get the chance.
Leigh folds her arms across her breasts.
“I have no idea,” she says coolly.
“I’ve already been over this with Mr. Bracken.”
I don’t believe her. I may be wrong, but she sounds too defensive.
“Just so I’m clear,” I say quickly, “my understanding is that you told the police you had been at the church all morning that day you brought a friend home for lunch and found your husband’s body.”
Her cake is forgotten now. Rigid in her chair, she says, “That’s absolutely correct.” There is not a jury in the world who would fail to read guilt into her body language.
I hurry, afraid she won’t let me continue.
“According to Chet,” I say, making him the bad-news messenger, “there is some dispute about this.”
Leaning into the table between us, she answers, “Which is easily explained. The two women whom I saw and spoke with at Christian Life that morning are in their eighties. They often get their times confused, for obvious reasons. I myself was in error when I told the police I spoke with Nancy Lyons. I probably saw her the day before.”
Like a hungry dog licking his dish, I scrape at the crumbs on my plate. This is weak even if you blow off the neighbor who remembers her driving past on her way home at nine-thirty. Several members confirm seeing her again at eleven-thirty, but nobody remembers her there between nine and eleven as she says. Since it was undisputed that Wallace died about an hour before an ambulance reached him (a fact confirmed by his autopsy), the police did not suspect Leigh initially, because they thought, with good reason, she had been at the church all morning. Mrs. Sims, the old woman Leigh invited to lunch, had told the cops Leigh had been with her at the auditorium listening to a missionary But after Leigh had become the only suspect, the old woman admitted that she had not seen her since a little before nine, when the meeting began, until it was over at eleven-thirty. The police hypothesize that Leigh set it up to look as if she had been at the church for almost three hours.
“Is it possible,” I ask, avoiding her eyes so as not to challenge her, “that for a perfectly good reason you wanted to play hooky and stay home with your husband that morning and just didn’t think it was the cops’ business that you were home instead of at the church all morning?”
She stands and takes my dish and coffee cup to the sink. I should have stayed on the subject of religion until I had gotten my fill.
“I’m sorry if you think I’m not telling the truth,” she says, turning on the water.
“Maybe what happened that morning,” I persist, “is that your husband wanted you to stay home, and you went to the church and put in an appearance and turned around and came home and then went back to show your face, and in the interval someone your husband knew came to the house and shot him.”
Leigh does not speak. She seems to be looking through me. I feel as if I were a vacuum cleaner salesman who lost his customer during the demonstration of the third attachment. Damn. It is not as if I have suggested that she went home to worship a golden calf.