“Yeah, Evelyn. We've been married for years. Goipg public is not good for her image or maybe for mine, either. But everybody knows:' Everybody did not know. Cornelia didn't and Faith was sure Sandra Wilson hadn't known, either.
“Hypocrisy" Max was continuing to associate freely. "The Scarlet Letter is a story about hypocrisy—maybe that's what drew me to it in the first place. I never read it when I was a kid. I picked it up a couple of years ago and it blew me away. All the phoniness. All those people pretending to be something or someone they weren't. The townspeople. Chillingworth. Even Hester. She put the letter on, but she didn't feel guilty. She'd have done the same thing all over again, even though she was married. And Cappy, I mean Dimmesdale, he didn't get caught, but he was guilty—not so much for the adultery as for the cover-up. He didn't deserve her. Hawthorne knew that. That's why he killed him off. The governor's sister, the witch, is the only truth-teller. I see A as the perfect metaphor for the hypocrisy of our time—the Watergates, the Irangates, the fucking of a whole country.”
It would be the rain forest soon, Faith was sure.
“And the environment. Yeah." He'd closed his eyes. "When we move up from Hester and Dimmesdale in the forest, we'll go high enough to show a dump or some nuclear power plant. Something toxic." He'd opened his eyes and focused his gaze on Faith for the first time. "Anything like that around here?" He hadn't waited for an answer, but bolted out the door. "Thanks for making me think of the idea—oh, and the food is great.”
After he'd left, Faith considered once and for all abandoning her Reed/Chillingworth theory. This was a man who would never have done anything that would get in the way of making his picture—unless, of course, he had an ingenue PA who could replace the star. Maybe Faith wouldn't totally give up on it yet. There was still the strong possibility Evelyn was the intended victim. f there was ever an example of an obsessive personality, it was Maxwell Reed. f he thought Evelyn was having an affair with Cappy, that might have goaded him into thinking the picture would be even more of a masterpiece with Sandra. He might not actually have planned to kill the one he loved, just make her very, very sick.
Alden's last rites were moving right along. Tom had managed to get Dan Garrison to participate, asking him to read a psalm, Psalm 90. Dan read well and did justice to the beautiful words: "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." He continued on, soon reaching "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee; our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.”
On the other side of the aisle, two rows ahead of Faith, Audrey Heuneman stood up when Dan said " `secret sins.' " She was a petite woman with short light brown hair, always well dressed. She was standing very straight and very still. She looked taller. Dan stopped, momentarily startled, then went on with the reading. Audrey seemed about to speak. Sitting at her side, James's face was an enigma—was it pain, sadness, embarrassment? Perhaps all three. His wife reached for her coat and left the pew, walking rapidly down the aisle. James followed immediately. The front door closed with a bang behind them.
The thrill-seekers had gotten their thrill.
Ten
It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
Every bone in Faith's body wanted to follow the Heunemans down the aisle, even as her mind was sensibly alerting her to the further scandal that would cause. The funeral was already destined to join such other historic notables as Peter Smyth's—the casket lid fell off when the pallbearers tilted slightly to the left—and Susannah Prebble's—her daughter wore a crimson beaded cocktail dress.
Faith had a pretty good idea of what Alden Spaulding's "secret sins" might have been in regard to Audrey Heuneman. The Bartletts hadn't been watching as closely as they thought.
Instead of dashing off to test her theory, Faith had to remain where she was through Tom's eloquently circumspect eulogy, which segued from involvement in civic activities immediately to ah, sweet mystery of life—and death. By the time they all rose for the last hymn, "I Cannot Think of Them as Dead," she was ready to scream, not sing.
And there was still the burial service to endure before she could talk to Audrey. At least Faith didn't have to work today. The filming the night before had ended much earlier than Tuesday's, but Max had decided not to go on location until the afternoon. Apparently, he was going to spend the morning with Nils, going over the dailies and figuring out where they were. Despite recent events, the picture was on schedule. The producers would be pleased.
This meant no lunch, only snacks and the craft services table, which Pix and Niki were handling. Faith figured she could pick up Amy at the sitter's and then pay a call on the Heunemans. She'd already arranged for Ben to play at a friend's in case the funeral went past his schooltime.
The Spaulding family plot was at Mt. Auburn cemetery in Cambridge, thirty minutes from Aleford. The time to be in Mt. Auburn—for the living, that is—was in the spring, when its beautifully landscaped 164 acres were in full bloom. The venerable garden cemetery was the final resting place of many famous people, serving as a pleasant and—of course—educational outing for Cantabrigians and their neighbors. One of Faith's favorite spots was Mary Baker Eddy's grave, complete with an apocryphal story of a telephone to God on the site. Such a device would certainly make life easier, but even with call waiting, it would, no doubt, be impossible to get through. She drove past the impressive monument, following several cars behind the hearse and attendant limousine carrying Daniel Garrison, his wife, and poor Tom. A minister's lot was often not a happy one. Faith had insisted on her own transport and desperately hoped she could get out of going back to the Garrisons' for the baked meats after the service.
She parked and went over to the new grave. The press had been barred from both services, contenting themselves with exterior shots. And the interest of the ghouls at the church service had apparently not been sufficient for the drive to Cambridge. There were very few people to say the final farewell to Alden. Which made Charley MacIsaac and John Dunne stand out all the more. Faith was not surprised to see them and assumed they must have been sitting in the church balcony earlier, keeping an eye on things. Dunne had told her once that it was amazing how many murderers were unable to resist the temptation to attend their victims' funerals. Whether it was from a fear that they might not have done a thorough enough job, remorse, or simply to gloat, they came. Remembering this, Faith looked at the faces gathered around the elaborate coffin, heaped with mounds of gladioli, presumably by direction of the deceased, as was everything else—save Audrey's performance—at the services. As Faith waited for Tom to find his place, she wondered whether she would like these flowers better if they were not so indelibly associated with headstones. It was one of life's many unanswerable questions—along with who among those gathered here this morning, heads bowed, hands clasped, might have picked up the two-by-four that irretrievably knocked Alden out of the running for selectman.
Faith eliminated herself, Tom, Charley, and John to start, then slowly examined the others. Most were known to her—parishioners—and it was hard to imagine what possible reasons they could have had for killing Alden. Disliking him, yes, but actually committing a mortal sin, no. Dan Garrison was not a member of First Parish, but again, why would he want to get rid of Alden just when the man might be at the point of attaining a position of power in the town? A position in which he might even be able to throw a little work in the path of his friend's contracting business.