"Wow. Does that mean there are angels that aren't virtuous?"
"Possibly."
"Did you press her on what she meant?"
"I asked her if she meant Pastor Drew, and she said she did. Then she looked away. Right out that window. And she looked totally disgusted--which wasn't a look I had seen on her face until that very second."
"But she didn't say anything more. She didn't elaborate."
"Nope. Maybe just as well. Most of the things she said were pretty loopy. At one point when I was showing her the autopsy room, one of the lab techs happened to come in with a Tupperware container full of hearts for the medical school. The lid was off. They were old and had bleached out over time, and so they looked more like headless chickens than human hearts. Heather didn't recognize what they were and asked. I told her. And her response? 'Why is it we always want the heart of a lion--and not the heart of an angel? An angel's heart is as strong as a lion's but has the benefits of acumen and history.' I didn't tell her that the only history in most of the hearts I see is too little exercise and too many Quarter Pounders with cheese. Then, a few minutes later, she noticed the bags of bones." Reflexively he glanced down at his shoes when he said that. No one wants to talk about the bags of bones: They are the human remains--the femurs like clubs and the mandibles that remind one of scoops, the occasional pelvic girdle--that have been unearthed at construction sites or excavations around the state. Most of them, we presume, are Abenaki remains from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and we will never attach a name to any one of them. But we have no precedent about how or where to reinter them, and the last thing we want to do is dispose of them with the hazardous waste that is part and parcel of any mortuary (or morgue). And so they sit in massive, Ziploc plastic bags on a couple of shelves in a far corner of one of the autopsy rooms.
"And what did she have to say about the bones?" I asked.
"They're why humans can't fly."
"Because we have bones."
"Yes. We need bones more like birds'."
"Or angels'?"
"Uh-huh."
"Really?"
"Yup. We need bones like the angels'. She said we'd fear dying so much less if we allowed ourselves to feel the presence of the angels among us."
"And you said?"
"I said absolutely nothing. It was a straight line with far too many responses. And she was so completely sincere. But you know what expression did cross my mind after she left?"
I waited.
And he said, his voice at once troubled and bemused, "Angel of death. I'm telling you: That woman is as stable as a three-legged chair."
THE TEST FIRE of George Hayward's handgun would show that it had been discharged at about two and a half feet from his skull: in all likelihood too far for a self-inflicted head wound. The lab used a bullet with a full metal jacket, as had Hayward, rather than one with a hollow point that is designed to remain inside the body and--not incidentally--expand as it penetrates its target, causing considerably more internal damage. Certainly we were aware of suicides where the victim had held the gun at arm's length, aimed the barrel back at his head, and used his thumb to pull the trigger. But it was rare. After all, if you're trying to kill yourself, why risk missing? And given how drunk George Hayward had been that night, it didn't seem likely to anyone in my office that he would have had the cognitive capabilities to figure out that he could hold the gun so far away and use his thumb to fire the weapon.
WE SEARCHED THE parsonage in Haverill, but we found nothing that was going to link the Reverend Drew to the Haywards' murders. I'm not sure any of us actually expected to find a flannel shirt with George Hayward's brains on the pocket, but we had to check. Alice Hayward's prints were on the kitchen table and on one of the ladderback chairs beside it, but that was the only trace of her we found in the house. Nothing in the bedroom, nothing in the bathroom. And there was nothing on the reverend's computer that indicated definitively either that he was having an affair with the woman or, later, that he had murdered one or both of the Haywards--though there was plenty that suggested an interest in the crime that he and his lawyer had to know could be made to look incriminating as hell if we ever presented it to a jury. In the days after the bodies were discovered, he was Googling sites with general forensic information about murder by strangulation and murder by a gunshot to the head. He had spent hours clicking through sites on crime-scene investigations and how a suspect might try to eliminate evidence of his presence at a homicide. He was also searching for anything he could unearth about Alice. High-school photos. College-yearbook appearances. There was little there, but he had seemed to have found what there was. What we discovered also corroborated a part of his story: On the Sunday night that the Haywards had been killed, he had frequently visited the website for Major League Baseball and followed the progress of a ball game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. And in the following days, he had indeed written e-mails to friends, as he had told us, some of which he had sent but most of which were sitting in the drafts folder in his mail program. All of them suggested he was merely a minister enduring a profound crisis of faith; none of them intimated that he just might have gone postal and shot George Hayward in the head.
Certainly the DNA swab he had given us, as well as his fingerprints, was damning as hell if we were trying to convict him of adultery. His presence was all over the Haywards' house, especially the master bedroom and bathroom and the kitchen. Unfortunately, this wasn't seventeenth-century Boston. We needed more than adultery. And, still, nothing that we had linked him to the house that awful night.
GORDON AND MICHELLE Brookner, the neighbors closest in proximity to the Haywards and the owners of the little pond where Alice had been baptized on the day she would die, had seen the pastor's car visit the Hayward house a number of times the previous winter when they had come north to go skiing. The timing, they thought, had been February and March. They knew that Alice and George had what Michelle referred to as "a troubled marriage," because of the winter months when George had been exiled to Lake Bomoseen. But they hadn't known until Alice was dead that George was physically abusive, and they had been surprised. They had rather liked him. Thought he was an impressive young entrepreneur. They had liked both Alice and George. It also hadn't crossed their minds that Stephen Drew might have been romantically involved with Alice; that, too, was a story they would hear first only after the Haywards were dead. "He was the minister. Why wouldn't he have come by their house?" Michelle observed.
When Emmet returned to speak once again with Betsy Storrs, the church secretary who I wanted managing my life and, if possible, coordinating the food and decoration for every major family holiday that was my responsibility--especially Thanksgiving--she was uncharacteristically evasive when asked about the minister's relationship with Alice Hayward. Had she ever seen Alice's car at the parsonage? Yes, but she had seen lots of people's cars at the parsonage. How often was Alice in Stephen's office? Most frequently in the months immediately before "George and Alice decided to take a marital breather," and then only occasionally in the late winter and spring. The only times she could recall Alice there after George had returned were two instances in July when she and Stephen were discussing the significance and specifics of her desired baptism. Did she think that Stephen and Alice had been more than mere friends? "No friendship is mere, is it?" Well, then, did she believe that it had gone beyond the traditional bounds of a pastor's relationship with one of his flock? Perhaps, but that was between two consenting adults, and she certainly couldn't testify under oath that she had ever seen anything inappropriate; besides, "if there was something tawdry there, Stephen and Alice can answer for that when the time comes in heaven. And yes, I do think Alice is in heaven right now, and when Stephen dies--which I hope isn't for a great many years--he will be, too."
AND WHAT OF the business associates George had had in his retail ventures over the years? What of the bank loan officers and store managers and wait
resses and clerks who had known George? Altogether he had a small empire, with twenty full-or part-time employees in two shops and a restaurant, plus three staffers in his headquarters office on the floor above the toy store. Might one of those workers have had a bone to pick with the man? Likewise, what of Alice's associates at the retail branch of the bank where she worked? Was it possible that there was a teller or customer-service rep who was a killer? Or might Alice have told them something that would illuminate in some way what had happened to her and her husband that July night?
In the end we interviewed nearly thirty women and men who were acquaintances of the Haywards and might have known something--anything--about why the two of them had come to such a tragic end. When we were finished, we knew that Alice was a customer-service representative for a community bank who was more alone than anyone realized and that George was a businessman who was starting to grow tired of what he did. (Without his supervision, by the end of September the toy store and the rib joint had closed. The original clothing store was still in business, but it was unclear whether it would last even through the December holidays.) No one expressed a particular closeness to George, but no one seemed likely to want to kill him. At the same time, everyone was saddened by Alice's death, but George had done such a first-rate job of isolating her from possible friends that no one at the bank seemed especially devastated by her murder, either. They were distressed, naturally, perhaps a little troubled by their proximity to murder, but they had moved on. And none of the people we spoke with seemed to have any motive for killing either of the Haywards or any information that was going to bring us nearer to indicting someone who might.
PAUL'S AND MY wedding anniversary fell on a Saturday that autumn, and the two of us had dinner plans that evening. But the day began when all three of the men in my life brought me waffles in bed and cards that each of them had made. Lionel's was a wobbly amoeba created from pink and red construction paper that in his mind was undoubtedly a heart. Marcus's was a painting of Cupid that he had downloaded from the Web, printed, and pasted into the background of a photo of Paul and me in the backyard. (It actually looked to me like the little Roman was drawing back his bow to murder one of us, but I reminded myself that only I would see a killer in Cupid.) And Paul's was a cute card from the drugstore, but the best part was the coupons for "romantic dinner for two" and "afternoon at the spa" that he typed up and folded inside it.
"I made the waffle batter, and Lionel picked out what would go in them," Marcus informed me with great earnestness and pride, while behind him Paul raised his eyebrows and nodded a little warily. Clearly my breakfast didn't need a warning from the surgeon general, but these might not be Food Network-quality waffles. I looked at the white, brown, and dark black flecks scattered along the grid.
"Coconut, chocolate, and burned coconut," Paul offered helpfully. "But not badly burned."
"And peanuts," Marcus said.
"Walnuts," Paul gently corrected him.
I pushed the pillows against the headboard and patted the mattress so my little boys knew to join me on either side of the bed, which they did in an instant. Outside, the sun was up, and there was the reassuring thump I heard many autumn Saturdays, the sound of our neighbor Rudy, an architect, tossing wood into the shed that later that day he would stack with mathematical precision. I poured a little maple syrup--which I discovered Paul had warmed in the microwave--onto the waffles and took a bite. Then I smiled at my boys and at Paul, and I don't think I thought for a moment the rest of that weekend about all of the disappointing marriages and broken families there are in this world, and the myriad ways love seems to go bad.
WHEN WE INTERVIEWED Ginny O'Brien the second time, journalists and bloggers already were convicting Stephen Drew. Consequently, Ginny was more forthcoming than she had been initially. It seemed less important to protect the confidences that Alice had offered, since they were no longer secrets shared between friends. And, of course, we knew more, and so we knew which questions to ask.
EMMET WALKER: Alice told you that she and the reverend had an intimate relationship?
VIRGINIA "GINNY" O' BRIEN: Yes.
WALKER: They were sleeping together?
O' BRIEN: Yes.
WALKER: When did she tell you this?
O' BRIEN: Last winter.
WALKER: Can you be more precise?
O' BRIEN: It was before Christmas. I don't know how long she and Stephen had had a relationship then, but she first told me about it a few weeks before Christmas. She was all giddy, and so I got all giddy. George was just too dangerous. I understand what she had first seen in him--Lord, I know what lots of people had first seen in him--but underneath it all he was just plain despicable. Horrible. I would have been so happy if she had just left him and married Stephen. Stephen's not perfect, but everyone would have been better off, and she'd still be alive today. Can't you just see her as a pastor's wife?
WALKER: I never met her, ma'am.
O' BRIEN: Of course.
WALKER: Did Alice come right out and say that she and the reverend were having intercourse, or did she simply imply it?
O' BRIEN: She said it. They were having sex. But I'm sure she only told me.
WALKER: And this started before she got the temporary relief-from-abuse order?
O' BRIEN: Long before. Like two or three months before. I don't know this for a fact, but I always assumed it was Stephen who had talked her into getting the restraining order. She wasn't listening to me, so she must have been listening to him.
WALKER: How long did the affair continue?
O' BRIEN: Until sometime late in the spring. She got the restraining order, and George left. I was sure that she would start divorce proceedings and soon enough she and Stephen would be living happily ever after.
WALKER: Why didn't that happen?
O' BRIEN: Stephen.
WALKER: What do you mean, "Stephen"?
O' BRIEN: He didn't want to get married.
WALKER: Did Alice tell you that she and Stephen had actually discussed marriage?
O' BRIEN: Not exactly. It never went that far. She just had the sense that ...
WALKER: That what?
O' BRIEN: That she wasn't good enough for him. Isn't that sad? Isn't that ridiculous and sad?
WALKER: Yes, it is.
O' BRIEN: Of course, Stephen probably didn't help matters in that regard: He's a little ... I don't know ... aristocratic. At least he thinks he is. And he never seemed to want to move the relationship along. Maybe he felt guilty. WALKER: Guilty because he was having an affair with a married woman?
O' BRIEN: And a parishioner. I mean, one of his sermons this spring was really interesting and--given what I knew about Alice and him--pretty darn revealing.
WALKER: What did he say?
O' BRIEN: He went on and on about how awful he was. He even used that word: awful. He said he was the worst of the sinners. I mean, we all knew he wasn't. This was pulpit stuff, I figured, to make a point that God loved even him.
WALKER: That was the point in the end?
O'BRIEN: I think so. I just remember that it made some people in the congregation love him even more.
WALKER: But not you.
O' BRIEN: Oh, I like Stephen. I just thought in that sermon he was a bit of a hypocrite. So what if you're sleeping with Alice Hayward? She shouldn't have been with a monster like George. Just announce to the world that you two are in love and be done with it. Marry her! Move on! Instead they broke up soon after that sermon. Well, they stopped sleeping together. It's not as if they were ever really a public item. It's not like there was something to "break up."
WALKER: Who initiated it?
O' BRIEN: The breakup? I think it just faded. George wanted to come back, and he vowed he had changed. He'd probably done such a job on her head over the years that she really didn't believe she deserved anyone better than him. And maybe Stephen really did think he was a sinner to be sleeping with Alice and that's why he didn't pursue someth
ing more. And Alice certainly wasn't going to press him. She didn't have that kind of confidence.
WALKER: She didn't have the confidence to press Stephen for a commitment?
O' BRIEN: That's right.
WALKER: Where would they rendezvous?
O' BRIEN: You mean for sex?
WALKER: Yes.
O' BRIEN: At her house.
WALKER: Not the parsonage.
O' BRIEN: I don't think so. It was too close to the church. It's in the middle of town. And anyone could drop by.
WALKER: Did Alice ever mention anywhere else?
O' BRIEN: Once when Katie was with a school trip to Montreal--an overnight for French class--they went to the hotel on the waterfront in Burlington. It was all very clandestine. She checked in, just in case he was recognized by some Burlington pastor or something. Sometimes his photo was in the Baptist newsletter. But he insisted on paying for it. They had a good time. Ordered room service and never left the hotel room.
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