Fisher put his hands together as if in prayer. “I’ve been driving around, beside myself with grief,” he said. “I called off the study group. You cannot imagine… no, I take that back — if anyone can imagine, I’m sure you can — just how Nancy is taking all of this. Anyway, I remembered Lettie Kitchen mentioning that she had seen Ruth Rose up this neck of the woods and I thought i might just drop by and see if by any chance you’d heard or seen anything oí her.”
It must have been hard, thought Jim, for his mother to do what she did next. She had always taught him to tell the truth. Now, as he watched, she stared Father Fisher right in the eyes and said, “I’ll be sure to let Nancy know if I see her. You can count on that.” It was only when she had said it that Jim realized she wasn’t lying after all. She had told Nancy.
Father Fisher took another deep breath, held it in so that his chest puffed out as big as a rooster’s, then let it out in a thin exhalation. He took Iris’s hands again.
“Thank you, Iris,” he said. “I know you will do the right thing.” He turned and headed towards the door. “She means a lot to me.”
It was all Jim could do to restrain Ruth Rose. Her fists were clenched. The effects of the tranquillizer had obviously worn off.
With relief, he heard the door close on Father. Listening hard through the rain, which had picked up again, Jim heard the Godmobile drive away. He poked his head up to make sure the coast was clear, then entered the kitchen.
Iris checked her watch, swore under her breath at how late it was getting, but picked up a thin phone book that hung from a string under the telephone. It was the Blessed T. book that listed all the parishioners. Her finger went down the list of names on the inside cover. They were the people who worked for the church: the secretary, the sexton, the deacon and the elders. Her finger stopped at the name of Clive Stickley, the financial officer. She called his number.
“Clive? I’m sorry to be phoning so late. It’s Iris Hawkins. Clive, this is a little delicate. I hope you won’t think it prying or just plain rude.” There was a long pause. “There’s a rumour,” she said. “I just have to check up on it.” She took a breath. “I hear tell that the church might be considering a loan to help Jim and me out.”
She waited, and what Clive had to say made her wither before Jim’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.” She looked at Jim and gave him a wistful smile. Clive had a little more to say before Iris, with many more thanks for his time and apologies for bothering him, hung up.
“Well?” said Jim.
“It’s true,” she said. “They are going to help us. They just decided.” Then she held Jim tightly in her arms and rested her head on his shoulder.
He was glad. Of course he was glad. But it was not what he had expected to hear. And not, he realized, what his mother had expected to hear.
But if Jim was disconcerted by this startling series of events, it was obviously not half of what Ruth Rose was feeling. From his mother’s embrace he saw her standing in the doorway to the parlour, her arms crossed tightly on her chest.
“I’m so happy for you,” she said, but she didn’t sound it.
“Thank you,” said Iris, letting Jim go.
“Think nothing of it,” said Ruth Rose. There were daggers in her eyes. “Can somebody tell me where to sleep?”
Iris looked disconcerted. “What’s gotten into you?”
Ruth Rose cast her a withering look. “It’s pretty easy to see,” she said. “He’s done it again.”
“Done what?”
Jim took over. “Forget it, Mom. It can wait. You’re going to be late for work.”
Distractedly, Iris collected her raincoat and umbrella from the rack behind the door, but she didn’t leave right away. She gave Jim a long, hard, inquiring look which he met steadily. Then she took Ruth Rose gently but firmly by the shoulders.
“Like I said, have a little faith.”
Ruth Rose looked as if she was trying to summon up a sneer, but she didn’t say a word. Jim gave his mother a quick hug and then she was gone, off into the blustery, wet night, already late for work. They locked the door behind her.
Usually Jim hated to see her leave, but not tonight. There was so much to talk over.
He led Ruth Rose to the parlour and sat her down. She didn’t resist. The spirit seemed to have gone right out of her. But she perked up a little when he showed her the black-and-white photograph of the Three Musketeers.
She recognized Eldon Fisher right off. “Look at the slimy look on his face,” she said. Jim hadn’t thought of it as slimy; he had thought the boy looked confident. Now he kind of saw what she meant.
“Is this your father?” she asked, pointing to the youngest boy, the one whose skinny, shoeless, tanned legs dangled from the stoop.
“You recognize him?”
Ruth Rose shook her head. “Not really. I recognized his freckles.”
Jim blushed. “This here is Frankie Tufts,” he added, pointing at the boy with the white hair.
Then he took a big attention-getting breath. “I know who Tabor is,” he said. Ruth Rose glanced quickly at the photograph, as if maybe there had been a fourth person lurking in the window of the cabin, in the shadows. Meanwhile, Jim marched over to the Bible. It was open at Matthew, Chapter Seventeen. He read her the verses about the Transfiguration.
“Stop, stop,” she said, cutting him off. “Spare me the scripture. I get the drift. This is what Father was going on about on the tape, about being on the mountain and everything.”
Jim was smiling excitedly. “Exactly, but do you know what the name of the mountain was?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Mount Tabor,” he said.
She looked perplexed.
“They don’t mention it in the Bible, but I looked it up in a reference book.”
“But it’s in the Holy Land, right? What good is that?”
Jim sat down again. “I’m not sure. Except that I bet Tabor is a place, not a person. He blabbed about Tabor keeping his secret or something like that. Well, maybe he didn’t mean a person. Maybe he meant some secret place.”
“So where is it? It’s not as if there are any mountains around here.”
Jim felt let down. His breakthrough didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. North Blandford Township sat on the southerly fringe of the Cambrian Shield, the oldest mountain range in the world. But it had been millions of years since there had been anything like a peak in these parts. He already knew from consulting a survey map that there was no place, no hill, no poor man’s mountain called Tabor nearby. Reluctantly, he admitted as much to Ruth Rose.
“Right,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Trying not to be discouraged, he pulled out the foolscap copy of the story in the Expositor. He looked over her shoulder as she read, proud of his careful handwriting. When she had finished reading, she stared at Jim, her green eyes as big as moons.
“Now this is more like it. What did I tell you!”
Then he told her how the death of Frankie had affected his father, made him quit school. He told her what Everett had told him — about Eldon Fisher disappearing from town and then coming back a pastor. He stopped short of telling her about his father’s hatred of Wilf Fisher.
Ruth Rose looked at the handwritten account of the fire.
“What do you think about the haunting stuff?” she asked. “I mean, doesn’t it seem a little odd?”
Jim’s eyes lit up. “Go on,” he said.
“Well, here’s a guy so stupid he’d go light somebody’s barn on fire and come home stinking of gas when there’s a cop staying at his place. A guy so stupid he ended up lighting himself on fire. How’d a guy like that ever come up with such a cool practical joke? Let alone pull it off.” Ruth Rose looked at the photo again and poked the face of Eldon Fisher. “He thought of it,” she declared.