What Tiffany didn’t know was that the hands and legs had been dug up at Foxden. So now Miranda Hogendobber was able to tellher story again. Center stage was natural to Miranda.
Grateful to Mrs. Hogendobber for taking over the“entertainment” department, Harry returned to filling up the post boxes. She was glad she was behind the boxes because she was laughing silently, tears falling from her eyes. Susan came over, thinking she was upset.
Harry wiped her eyes and whispered,“Of all people, Mim! What willTown and Country think?”
Now Susan was laughing as hard as Harry.“Maybe whoever it was made the mistake of sailing in her pontoon boat.”
This made them both break out in giggles again. Harry put her hand over her mouth to muffle her speech.“Mim has exhausted herself with accumulating possessions. Now she’s got one that’s a real original.”
That did it. They nearly fell on the floor. Part of this explosion of mirth was from tension, of course. Yet part of it was directly attributable to Mim’s character. Miranda said there was a good heart in there somewhere but no one wanted to find out. Maybe no one believed her. Mim had spent her life from the cradle onward tyrannizing people over bloodlines and money. The two are intertwined less frequently than Mim would wish. No matter what story you had, Mim could top it; if not, she would tip her head at an angle that made plain her distaste and social superiority.
Nobody would say it out loud but probably most people were delighted that a bloated corpse had found its way into her boathouse. More things stank over at the Sanburnes’ than a rotten torso.
14
The deep glow from the firelit mahogany in Reverend Jones’s library cast a youthful softening over his features. The light rain on the windowpane accentuated his mood, withdrawn and thoughtful, as well as exhausted. He had forgotten just how exhausting turmoil can be. His wife, Carol, her violet eyes sympathetic, entreated him to eat. When he refused she knew he was suffering.
“How about a cup of cocoa, then?”
“What? Oh, no, dear. You know I ran into Cabell at the bank and he thinks this is a nut case. Someone passing through, like a traveling serial killer. I don’t think so, Carol. I think it’s closer to home.”
A loud crackle in the fireplace made him jump. He settled back down.
“Tell you what. I’ll bring in the cocoa and if you don’t want it, then the cat will drink it. It won’t solve this horrible mess but it will make you feel better.”
The doorbell rang and Carol answered it. Two cups of cocoa. She invited Blair Bainbridge into the library. He also appeared exhausted.
Reverend Jones lifted himself out of his armchair to greet his impromptu guest.
“Oh, please stay seated, Reverend.”
“You have a seat then.”
Ella, the cat, joined them. Her full name was Elocution and she lived up to her name. Eating communion wafers was not her style, like that naughty Episcopalian cat, but Ella did once shred a sermon of Herbie’s on a Sunday morning. For the first time in his life he gave a spontaneous sermon. The topic, “living with all God’s creatures,” was prompted, of course, by Ella’s wanton destructiveness. It was the best sermon of his life. Parishioners begged for copies. As he had not one note, he thought he couldn’t reproduce his sermon but Carol came to the rescue. She, too, moved by her husband’s loving invocation of all life, remembered it word for word. The sermon, reprinted in many church magazines beyond even his own Lutheran denomination, made the Reverend something of an ecclesiastical celebrity.
Ella stared intently at Blair, since he was new to her. Once satisfied, she rested on her side before the fire as the men chatted and Carol brought in a large pot of cocoa. Carol excused herself and went upstairs to continue her own work.
“I apologize for dropping in like this without calling.”
“Blair, this is the country. If you called first, people would think you were putting on airs.” He poured his guest and himself a steaming cup each, the rich aroma filling the room.
“Well, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am that this, this—I don’t even know what to call it.” Blair’s eyebrows knitted together. “Well, that the awful discovery was made in your family plot. Since your back troubles you, I’m willing to make whatever repairs are necessary, once Sheriff Shaw allows me.”
“Thank you.” The Reverend meant it.
“How long before people start thinking that I’ve done it?” Blair blurted out.
“Oh, they’ve already gone through that possibility and most have dispensed with it, except for Rick, who never lets anyone off the hook and never rushes to judgment. Guess you have to be that way in his line of work.”
“Dispensed … ?”
Herbie waved his right hand in the air, a friendly, dismissive gesture, while holding his cocoa cup and saucer in his left hand.“You haven’t been here long enough to hate Marilyn Sanburne. You wouldn’t have placed the body, or what was left of it, in her boathouse.”
“I could have floated it in there.”
“I spoke to Rick Shaw shortly after the discovery.” Herb placed his cup on the table. Ella eyed it with interest. “From the condition of the body, he seriously doubted it could have floated into the boathouse without someone on the lake noticing its slow progress. Also, the boathouse doors were closed.”
“It could have floated under them.”
“The body was blown up to about three times normal size.”
Blair fought an involuntary shudder.“That poor woman will have nightmares.”
“She about had to be tranquilized with a dart gun. Little Marilyn was pretty shook up too. And I don’t guess Fitz-Gilbert will have an appetite for some time either. For that matter, neither will I.”
“Nor I.” Blair watched as a log burned royal-blue from the bottom to crimson in the middle, releasing the bright-yellow flames to leap upward.
“What I dread are the reporters. The facts will be in the paper tomorrow. Cut and dried. But if this body is ever identified, those people will swarm over us like flies.” Herb wished he hadn’t said that because it reminded him of the legs and hands.
“Reverend Jones—”
“Herbie,” came the interruption.
“Herbie. Why do people hate Marilyn Sanburne? I mean, I’ve only met her once and she carried on about pedigree but, well, everyone has a weakness.”
“No one likes a snob, Blair. Not even another snob. Imagine living year in and year out being judged by Mim, being put in your place at her every opportunity. She works hard for her charities, undeniably, but she bullies others even in the performance of good works. Her son, Stafford, married a black woman and that brought out the worst in Mim and, I might add, the best in everyone else. She disowned him. He lives in New York with his wife. They made up, sort of, for Little Marilyn’s wedding. I don’t know, most people don’t see below the surface when they look at others, and Mim’s surface is cold and brittle.”
“But you think otherwise, don’t you?”
This young man was perceptive. Herb liked him more by the minute.“I do think otherwise.” He pulled up a hassock for his feet, indicating to Blair that he should pull one up, too, then folded his hands across his chest. “You see, Marilyn Sanburne was born Marilyn Urquhart Conrad. The Urquharts, of Scottish origin, were one of the earliest families to reach this far west. Hard to believe, but even during the time of the Revolutionary War this was a rough place, a frontier. Before that, the 1720’s, the 1730’s, you took your life in your hands to come to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Marilyn’s mother, Isabelle Urquhart Conrad, filled all three of her children’s heads with silly ideas about how they were royalty. The American version. Jimp Conrad, her husband, not of as august lineage as the Urquharts, was too busy buying up land to worry overmuch about how his children were being raised. A male problem, I would say. Anyway, her two brothers took this aristocracy stuff to heart and decided they didn’t have to do anything so common as work for a living. James, Jr., became a steeplechase jockey and died in a freak accident up in Culpeper. That was right after World War Two. Horse dragged him to his death. I saw it with my own eyes. The younger brother, Theodore, a good horseman himself, quite simply drank himself to death. The heartbreak killed Jimp and made Isabelle bitter. She thought she was the only woman who’d ever lost sons. She quite forgot that hundreds of thousands of American mothers had recently lost sons in the mud of Europe and the sands of the South Pacific. Her mother’s bitterness rubbed off on Mim. As she was the remaining child, the care of her mother became her burden as Isabelle aged. Social superiority became her refuge perhaps.”