Connie gave an exaggerated shrug and flipped her hands out, palms up. ‘Kind of uptight,’ she wrote. ‘Religious, conservative, pillar of whatever he needs to be. Nothing like Philip. But that might be okay for Adriana???’
Slowly Sarah nodded. “It might indeed.”
*
First came a loud creaking, as chunks of ice cracked and broke, followed by a gentle, persistent dripping from the milkhouse roof. By afternoon it was fifty-five degrees. Stretched out on the sofa to read a section draft, Sarah kicked off the heavy wool throw and let the sun warm her skin.
The next thing she knew, somebody was knocking. “Stop working,” Colin’s voice called. When she opened the door, bleary from her unplanned nap, he said, “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Spring’s first fickle tease was in the soft air, and as they walked downhill toward the village, water streamed past them, faster and faster. The drainage ditch had become a rivulet.
“There’s no ice on the lake,” Colin said. “Can Simon swim? We’ll row over to the gazebo.”
“You want him to swim alongside?”
Colin laughed for the first time in days. “He’d never forgive me. No, it’s only that I don’t have a dog-sized life preserver for him.”
“Just keep the boat steady. Poodles are water dogs, but he’s never quite figured that out. Wait, though. If we’re rowing, we need a picnic.” Sarah veered toward the deli.
When she reappeared with a Thermos and a waxed bag, Colin grinned. “And I worried that Haiti would toughen you up.”
“I kind of hoped it would. Can’t seem to break myself of hedonism.”
“Don’t ever try. You’ve refined it to an art form.”
Ahead she saw the water, dark green and still. A flock of Canada geese glided down for a landing, shaving a slice of white foam from the lake’s surface. Simon ran after them, galloping along the water’s edge, and three of the biggest geese reared up and beat their wings in warning. He loped back with a happy rocking-horse gait, thrilled to have gotten a reaction.
If you weren’t a dog or a goose, the curve down to the water was pretty steep. Sarah debated her options − risk a twisted ankle or slide down through the soggy mud on her bottom? But Colin led her toward a tall clump of brown grass, dry as the frayed ends of an old broom. Behind it a set of stone steps led to the dock.
He undid the cover on the rowboat, slid it into the water and held it while she and Simon got situated. Twining her fingers through Simon’s collar, she watched the shore. Last night the trees had been a blur; now they looked as if someone had outlined each leaf with a fine pen.
Colin’s rowing was a little off kilter at first, either scooping too deep or coming half out of the water. Once he’d found his rhythm, she asked the question that had nagged at her all morning, “Was Father Charron serious last night?”
“I’m afraid he was.” He stopped rowing and let the rowboat drift. “You don’t know who he is, do you?”
Trailing her hand in the lake, she was contrasting the warmth at the surface with the chill a few inches below. “Cranky old Jesuit, teaches philosophy?”
“He was the assistant exorcist.”
Sarah yanked her hand out of the water and sat up. “You’re joking.”
“It’s a girl who’s possessed in the movie version; but, in reality, it was a boy. Roland. They brought him to St. Louis, to Alexian Brothers Hospital. The . . . symptoms . . . got worse and worse. Finally his parents brought him to the Jesuits. Francis was very young, still a scholastic.”
The rowboat had veered almost forty-five degrees, and Colin pulled hard on one oar to correct course. “For some reason − maybe because he was holy, maybe because he was tall − Father Bowdern asked for him as assistant. They talked and prayed with the boy around the clock, trying to figure out, cast out, whatever was bothering him.”
“I notice you’re not saying ‘Satan’.”
“I’m not. But he would. I asked him about it once, back in seminary, and when he started talking, I took notes, figuring he was already one of the last witnesses alive and there should be some sort of oral history. He answered every question. When we finished, he gave me a long look, and his voice got very quiet. “Simply by asking,” he said, “you give the evil fresh power.”” Colin rowed harder. “I went home and burned the notes.”
“No!”
“Aye, I know. Now I’d keep them. I was young. And he’s never talked about it again.”
Easing up, he guided the boat toward the little island’s edge. “Francis Charron’s not a nutter, you know. He’s just . . . torqued. The sheer force of what happened bent his mind in a certain direction.” Swinging his long legs into the shallow water, he climbed out and dragged the boat up on to the grass. Simon leaped clear with no encouragement. Clutching the Thermos and pastry, Sarah followed less gracefully.
As they settled themselves on the gazebo’s wooden bench, she asked tentatively, “Shouldn’t he be seeing somebody? A psychiatrist?”
Colin shrugged. “Most days, Satan doesn’t come up.”
He turned sideways and looked out at the lake, arm resting on the railing behind her back. “Francis came of age in a culture where he mattered, where what a priest could do had power. He thought he was fighting the devil − you don’t get much closer to saving the world than that. But now he’s old, and the world he saved is going away. It’s left him with little except suspicion.”
Slowly, meditatively, she unscrewed the Thermos. “New subject − how did Adriana get her scar?”
“I never asked. None of my business.” He glanced over at her. “Surely you don’t think Adriana killed Philip?”
“I know she wasn’t with her sister Friday evening.”
“How do you know that?” Colin’s eyes, normally a clear blue-grey, had gone dark. He isn’t liking all this intrusion, she thought. First the violence, now me poking around and contradicting his assumptions. All of it a reminder that he hasn’t created a cosy sanctuary after all.
“I called her sister.” After pouring coffee into the Thermos cup for herself, she handed him the flask.
He took a long swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How on earth did you find her sister?”
“She was on Whitepages.com − Alyssa Braxton Fuller.” Reaching into the bag, Sarah pulled out a small packet of cooked bacon. The sweet, dense, nose-tingling aromas of maple and pork wafted into the air, and Simon trotted back from the water’s edge to join them. “Some parents like using the same initial for all the kids,” Sarah continued, tugging out a strip of bacon for the dog. “There was a good chance.”
“And?”
“I didn’t ask her directly.” Dipping into the bag again, she pulled out two caramel-iced bear claws, crumbled the rest of the bacon on top and handed one to Colin. “I just said I was staying at the school, and all this had been stressful for her sister, and I wanted to make sure Alyssa was in the loop.” She took a big bite of pastry and wondered, fleetingly, how Paul had ever thought he could make her diet. “She said she was worried about Adriana, too − said when she saw her at Christmas, she’d seemed really happy for the first time in years, but she’s so high-strung, something like this could shatter her.”
“Right. Well, Adriana’s a private person. Maybe she just didn’t want to tell anyone where . . .”
“Alyssa said something else, too. She said, ‘Adri told me her life had turned upside down, but she wouldn’t say how.’” Sarah licked her fingers. “What do you suppose that meant?”
Colin drained the last of the coffee. “No idea. But the bacon on the caramel is brilliant.”
“Mrs. Dalton thinks she’s having an affair. And . . .” − Sarah’s big revelation − “Connie thinks it’s with Philip Grant’s father. She caught Adriana looking up the file one day.”
He frowned. “That’s hardly solid proof.”
“True,” she said, wiping icing and bacon grease from
her lips. “But I think we ought to find out where she was on Friday night.”
*
Even Father Charron seemed more relaxed at dinner that evening. Crazy what a little sunshine could do. Sarah decided not to risk the old priest’s wrath by bringing up Graham again. But she did ask Adriana, as they divvied up the asparagus nobody else wanted, “What was that mashup Philip was working on?”
“Basically a video collage, but with photos altered and superimposed. He told me he was collapsing the past and future into the present.”
“Meaning?” asked Colin.
“I don’t quite know. But I could tell he was working it out. Philip approached life like an artist.”
The cough was dry, an Oxford don’s derision. They all turned to look at Father Charron. “I heard he wanted to insert magnets under his skin, too,” he said. “‘Body-hacking,’ the boys call it.” He pushed his plate away and set his wine-stained napkin on the table. When he spoke again, his voice had softened. “I’m not blaming him, you know. He was young and unguarded and hungry for experience. He left the door open. It was our job to nail it shut.”
They continued eating in silence, until Jimmy, making a show of it, begged Mrs. Dalton for a second piece of pie. As Adriana rose to leave, Sarah put her hand on her arm. “Do you have time for another cup of tea?”
Those gorgeous green eyes widened. “I guess so. I’ve got some prep work to do later.”
“This won’t take long. I just wanted to chat a bit more.” After pouring them both fresh cups, Sarah motioned her into the library. Uninvited, Colin followed. Apparently he had no intention of leaving Adriana to Sarah’s mercy.
They took the wing chairs in the alcove, Colin dragging another one over for himself and turning on the gas fire. Sarah eased in, saying how hard Philip’s death must be for Adriana, and how she must have felt especially close to him because he was so extraordinarily creative. “Did he ever go too far, anger any of the other students or faculty?”
“I was a little worried about the mashup,” Adriana admitted, “because he kept saying he wanted to ‘tell the truth’.”
“What do you think he meant?”
“I wish I knew.” Her heavy, dark hair, swept up in back, was coming undone, and she fiddled with a bobby pin to secure it. “When it came to hypocrisy, Philip took no prisoners.”
“Who had secrets?”
Adriana smiled. “Every teenage boy has secrets. It’s a vulnerable time.”
“What about you?” Sarah asked, ignoring Colin’s glare. “You’re beautiful − you can’t tell me you don’t have men pining.”
“I wasn’t always. Beautiful.” Her cheeks splotched such a bright scarlet, it looked like a prank, red paint swiped onto a marble statue.
“Well, you are now,” Sarah said. “I bet the boys have crushes on you. Probably their fathers, too.”
Crossing her legs, Adriana reached for her cup and rested the saucer on her knee. The tea had gone cold in the chilly room, but she took several sips. Sarah crossed her legs, too − mirror the body position of the interview subject − and waited. Let the silence build.
It took less than a minute before Adriana set her cup down with a clatter. “I know what you’re hinting at,” she burst. “All right, fine. I was seeing Northrup Grant.” Her voice dropped, almost to a whisper. “We’d dated in college. That’s how I got this.” Lifting her thumb to her forehead, she slowly traced her scar, turning her face to the side as her thumb moved along her hairline and around the curve of her ear. “He was flying the plane when we crashed.”
So that was the story behind the scar. And Philip’s father had caused the accident? And she’d forgiven him? “Weren’t you angry?” Sarah asked.
Adriana’s smile twisted. “I don’t think I had enough spunk to be angry. And he did save my life − he dragged me from the wreckage. I sleepwalked through the next few months. They did surgery after surgery. My father’s a doctor, so he pulled in the best plastic surgeons in St. Louis, and my mother said yes to every improvement they suggested. They all wanted to make it better − make me better.” She stared at the cold tea’s oily surface, slowly sloshing the liquid as though trying to dissolve the film. “When they finished, I could barely recognise myself. Trying to assimilate all that − nearly dying, getting a whole new face − took me years.”
“And by then Grant had married?”
“Yes, and had a son.”
“So he just walked away?”
“Oh, he’d come to see me in the hospital. He came every day for a month. But he looked so miserably guilty, I told him to go and live his life.”
“When did you . . .” Sarah trailed off, not sure how to formulate the question.
“I didn’t even put it together at first. Grant’s a common name. Philip intrigued me from the start, but I thought it was just because he was so smart, so unusual.” A smile played on her lips. “In a lot of ways he was more interesting than his father. I have a hunch Philip’s wild creativity came from his mother. Anyway, we had the first parent-teacher conference in October.”
“And your old boyfriend walked in.”
She nodded. “We just stared at each other. Then he . . .” Colour spread across her cheeks, softly this time. “He said he hadn’t want to leave, but my parents urged him to. They never told me they talked to him. He said he’d always loved me, and his wife had probably sensed it, because she left as soon as Philip went off to high school.”
“Did you still love him?” Sarah asked, not daring to look at Colin. Any hint of ‘I told you so’ would break the spell.
“No,” Adriana said. “Not then. You get used to being alone, you know? Shakespeare and my students were enough. I was going to ignore North. My turn to leave him.” She looked up and found Sarah’s eyes. “Then I realised something. He’d loved me before. Do you see? He was the only man who’d ever loved me for myself, and not my new face.”
Sarah nodded. She did see. No wonder Adriana was so tentative. What would it be like, to receive all that admiration and not feel a claim to any of it?
“Thank you for telling us,” she said. “I understand completely.”
*
“I told you so!” They were up in Colin’s study. Now she could crow.
“You are as manipulative as hell,” he said, his tone half admiring, half accusing.
“So’s the Catholic church.”
“We’re not opening that discussion. If Adriana and Philip’s father were together Friday night, that’s an alibi for both of them, right?”
She dragged one of his blankets off the bed and wrapped it around her. “Unless one’s covering for the other. What if Adriana didn’t want to share her long-lost love with another woman’s son?”
“That’s ridiculous. She’s not like that. And she adored Philip.”
In a lot of ways he was more interesting than his father. Interesting enough to sleep with? She couldn’t bring herself to raise that possibility with Colin. “I wonder if Philip knew about their affair,” she said instead. “Maybe that was the secret he was teasing her with, and she couldn’t bear for it to be public.”
“That’s hardly enough reason to kill him.”
Sarah shrugged. “Maybe getting a new face really messed her up psychologically. You said yourself, she’s fragile. And she’s kept to herself all these years. Something could have snapped.”
“Does that even happen?” Colin asked irritably. “Everybody talks about people ‘snapping’, but every time you read about a crime, all the clues were present and nobody wanted to notice.”
His remark reminded her of Cookie Thornton, the middle-aged guy, adored by all his neighbours, who shot the mayor of Kirkwood and half of the city council. When Sarah dug into the story, she realised he’d been building up to it for months, isolating himself, spouting paranoia. But people talked like he was good ol’ Cookie right up until he opened fire.
But there were opposite examples
too. “What about Sean?” she said. “He snapped. Sure, his grades had been slipping. But he went from troubled teen to murderer overnight.” Charron’s haunted-adolescent scenario flashed into Sarah’s head. Dark forces, entering a boy when he was most vulnerable . . . She pushed the image aside. Possession, as a metaphor, she could buy. But demons didn’t breathe real air.
Eyes closed, she imagined a horde of tiny devils inside someone’s brain, chewing on the dendrites. Was that how her father felt? How bad was it this time? Tomorrow night would tell. She waited for the clutch of dread, but for once it didn’t come. Murder as distraction − it trumped the everyday fears.
“I can’t see something like that happening to Adriana,” Colin was saying. “Besides, she’s too fragile to kill somebody.”
Sarah was getting tired of hearing about the lovely Adriana’s fragility. “She’s tougher than you think. Look what she went through. She put herself back together, maybe not seamlessly, but with a pretty strong façade.”
She unbent one leg and stretched her toes closer to the fire, wriggling them in front of the flames.
“Careful,” he said, grabbing her shin.
“I’m fine. What does Northrup Grant do for a living?”
“He runs a company called Skycraft. Something to do with aviation.”
She rolled over on her stomach. “Having a drug-addicted, sexually ambiguous son might be an embarrassment, then.”
“He’s a staunch Roman Catholic, and he was just ordained a deacon.”
“Hate to break it to you, but that’s no guarantee of virtue.”
“What I meant was that he’d have even more reason to find Philip an embarrassment.” He shook his head. “I’m not buying it, though. Parents don’t kill children.”
“And children don’t kill parents,” Sarah said quietly. “Except that they do.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Francis Charron slid the letter from its envelope, reread it, and set it aside. Taking hold of the spindled bedpost, he eased himself down on one knee, then two. Once he’d knelt on hard ground for hours, praying without even noticing his knees − but floors were harder now. Groping under the bed, he touched old cardboard worn soft as felt. The box slid easily on the hardwood, and when it was clear, he lifted off the lid.
A Circumstance of Blood Page 14