He shook his head in pity. “Sorry, McCain.”
There was no answer at the Halls’. I tried front and back doors, I peeked in windows.
I checked backyard, garage, nearby alley.
Why would Dierdre have broken into the rectory last night? Looking for what, exactly?
Kenny Thibodeau’s aunt was a nice-looking sixty-year-old woman who lived in a friendly-looking little white house on a nice shady corner of a dead-end street. She was on her haunches gardening when I pulled up. Her graying hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her white U of Iowa T-shirt and jean cutoffs made her seem much younger than she was.
Her son had gotten into some speeding trouble several times during the past few years and I’d represented him in court. She greeted me with a raised trowel. “Morning, McCain.”
“Morning, Am.”
“Plug your ears.”
“My ears?”
“These old bones make a lot of noise when I have to stand up.”
“You’re a doll and you know it.”
“I used to be a doll. A long, long time ago I was a doll. Here we go.”
Her bones did sort of crackle arthritically.
She wiped the back of a hand across her forehead.
“I bet Kenny told you about Dierdre.”
“Yeah.”
“If you want to know what she was looking for, I don’t know.”
“You’ve seen her there before?”
“Oh, sure. She was one of the Reverend’s regulars.”
“Regulars?”
“He counseled people. I know you didn’t care for him but he did a lot of good.
I mean, he was sort of stuck-up and a snob and everything. But he saved half a dozen marriages I know of and he got four or five men to quit drinking. Got them into Aa.”
Every time you try to hate somebody, they go and do something honorable. The inconsiderate bastards.
“And he counseled young people, too, huh?”
“Five or six of them on a regular basis. The Beaumont boy? All the trouble he used to get in? He’s been walking the straight and narrow for the past eleven months. Every time I see his mom, she breaks into tears over the Reverend. Says he walks on water and can do no wrong.”
“You ever hear any scuttlebutt about his counseling sessions?”
“What kind of scuttlebutt?”
She was about to answer when the mailman appeared in his pith helmet and blue uniform walking shorts and shirt. “There’s a nice cold glass of lemonade in the refrigerator for you, Deke.
I guess you know where to find it.”
“Thanks, Am,” Deke said. “You’re a lifesaver. As usual.” He nodded and left.
“They’ve got a lot tougher job than most people think. When my husband got laid off at the plant back in ‘ec, he started being a substitute carrier. You never saw so much leg trouble and back trouble and arm trouble. It looks a lot easier than it is. So when it gets real hot, I leave lemonade for Deke in the fridge. He just goes inside and gets it.
Even if I’m not here. And I have hot cocoa for him in the winter months.”
“You’re the one who walks on water.”
“Oh, yes,” she laughed. “I’m one holy person. That’s why Fred and I sit up in bed some nights reading Playboy and giggling over the cartoons.”
Deke had just set a record for lemonade-guzzling. He was back outside, waving good-bye, going on to the next house.
“What were we talking about?” she said. “Oh, yes, scuttlebutt. No, not really.”
“Anybody ever get mad at him about his counseling?”
“A couple of husbands who thought he was taking their wives’ side.” She smiled. “You know how men are, McCain. You have the misfortune of being one yourself. Here they were happily running around on their wives, and getting stinko in the process, and they deeply resented this minister telling them that they were at fault for their unhappy marriages. Why, the nerve of that man!”
“Were they mad enough to kill him?”
“Of the two I’m thinking of, one got a divorce and moved up to the Twin Cities. And the other one finally saw the error of his ways. He’s one of the ones who went to Aa. And he still goes, too. Things’ve worked out pretty well for him, in fact.”
“You ever hear any scuttlebutt about Dierdre Hall?”
“Well, I don’t know if this is scuttlebutt or not but there was a pretty angry argument there one night.”
“Between Dierdre and the Reverend?”
“No. Between Sara and the Reverend.”
“What happened?”
The phone rang. “Wouldn’t you know? I’ll be right back, McCain.”
She went inside. I watched butterflies, bees, horseflies, robins, dogs, cats… that parade of beings we share the planet with even though we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re the only ones who matter to the history of this nowhere little world.
She came back bearing lemonade. Handed it over.
“Boy, this is good,” I said.
She was the picture of the perfect housewife.
Except her lemonade was so sour I felt my cheeks puckering inward and my sinus passages starting to drain. No wonder Deke had made it out of there so fast. He knew what was waiting for him. He poured it out in the sink and fled.
“Homemade,” she said.
“Mmmm,” I said.
“Extra lemons and no sugar,” she said.
“Mmmm,” I said.
But intrepid detective that I am, I carried on with my questions. “You were telling me about the argument between the Reverend and Sara.”
“Oh, right. Well, she just burst in the rectory door one night and ran down the hall and burst into the study where he has his counseling sessions. And started screaming at the Reverend.”
“Was Mrs. Courtney home at the time?”
“No. She was out somewhere. She’s in a lot of clubs and groups. You know how it is for a minister’s wife like that.”
“So what happened inside?”
“Well, the first thing Sara did was to send Dierdre home.”
“Did Dierdre want to go?”
“No. She was yelling at her mother pretty loudly.”
“Could you figure out what they were arguing about?”
“Not really. The Reverend got very angry and told them to keep their voices down. He knew I was somewhere in the house.”
“Did Dierdre leave?”
“Uh-huh. She slammed the front door very hard.”
“How long did Sara stay?”
“Probably another twenty minutes.”
Her phone rang again.
“You’re a popular lady.”
“Oh, yes, I’m thinking of running for president next time.”
“I’d vote for you.”
She glanced at my glass. “You hardly touched your lemonade.”
“Oh. Sorry. I’ll finish it now.”
“I’ll get the phone.”
“I need to leave, anyway. Thanks for talking.”
“My pleasure, McCain.”
I made sure she didn’t see me dump the glass on the far side of the front porch. I set it on the steps and walked to my car.
You always think of burglary as a nighttime occupation.
But I didn’t want to wait for night. Things were starting to come clear to me, at least as far as the relationship between Dierdre and Reverend Courtney were concerned. I wondered what Dierdre must have been looking for when she broke in. I also wondered what else there was to learn about Courtney. The most promising place to look was his office in the rectory.
Church and rectory were built into the side of a piney hill. A tranquil, natural setting.
Anybody who pulled up in a car could be seen, however, from the street that fronted it.
The first thing to do was to walk up to the front door and ring the bell and see if anybody was inside.
I rang. Chimes echoed inside. No response. I knocked. A tabby cat with one injured eye viewed me skeptically from his perch on a low-hanging branch. No response.
I checked the adjacent garage. Empty.
I drove up on top of the hill. A small grocery store sat there. One of the few left, now that the supermarket chains had discovered our little burg. I parked way over on the edge of the gravel drive so the store folks couldn’t see me, went inside and bought a pack of Luckies and a pack of Black Jack gum, and then went back outdoors.