Liss stared after her, speechless. What was there to say? Her mother was never going to change.
When she heard laughter coming from the dining room, she put on her party face and joined the others. She had to smile in earnest when she saw what had amused them. Dandy was sitting on one of the dining room chairs, looking for all the world as if she expected to share in the family’s Thanksgiving dinner. And there, halfway along the table, unerringly close to the turkey Dan was about to carve, a large yellow paw poked up from between two empty seats. Lumpkin was up to his old tricks.
Margaret collected the dogs and confined them in the downstairs bath. Liss corralled Lumpkin and Glenora and carried them off to the pantry. Except for an occasional yowl from that direction, the humans in the house were able to enjoy their meal without interruption. Everyone was careful to avoid controversial topics and concentrate on counting their blessings. It wasn’t until Mac and Dan had adjourned to the living room to watch football that the word Pilgrim entered the conversation.
“It still bothers Mac that he was out grocery shopping when Spinner showed up at our place,” Vi confided as she picked up the empty gravy boat in one hand and a butter dish in the other and headed for the kitchen. “He seems to think he should have been there to protect me.”
“He’s not alone.” Liss hefted the turkey platter. “Dan has been beating himself up over the fact that he let me sleep in on the day of Spinner’s bail hearing. I keep telling him that it probably wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“It’s nice they care about their wives,” Margaret said, following them with a stack of dirty dinner plates, “unlike some people I could name.”
“The Pilgrim men weren’t all bad,” Liss objected. “They were duped by a charismatic con man. That reminds me. Sherri found out where George Gerard was on the day Connie left Pilgrim Farm. Remember? He was supposed to be picketing the hotel but he wasn’t there. It turns out he was house hunting. He and Solomon have rented a nice little place in Three Cities.”
“Connie’s gone to Boston,” Vi said.
“So,” Margaret said, leaving the plates and making a quick return trip to the dining room for water goblets, “are the police going to be able to prove that Miranda poisoned Hadley’s oatmeal?”
“Probably. Sherri told me that they think she slipped some herbal concoction into his food before he went out looking for Connie.”
“He had it coming.”
“Mother!”
“Well, he did.”
“He drowned Susan,” Margaret said in a subdued voice. “Miranda’s lawyer told me that Hadley confessed while he was in the hospital. I guess he thought he was going to die. I’m glad he recovered. He deserves to be locked up for the rest of his life. I don’t care if it’s prison or a mental hospital, just as long as he never gets out.”
“Did you know that Chloe Spinner called the state police?” Liss asked. “Gordon was already on his way to talk to Hadley when Sherri got my text.”
“I doubt she could tell them much.” Vi scraped leftover vegetables into storage containers while Liss and Margaret went back and forth to finish clearing the dining room table. “I mean, wasn’t Connie the only one who actually saw Hadley with a knife? And if Miranda was the lavender lady in the town square, Chloe wasn’t there, either.”
“I feel sorry for Miranda,” Margaret said. “All she ever wanted was to be able to stay on the family farm.” She tackled stripping the remaining turkey from the bone and dividing it into three equal portions of leftovers.
“Actually, Chloe knew quite a bit,” Liss said. “According to Sherri, she was aware that Jasper was about to make a move to usurp Hadley as leader of the New Age Pilgrims and that he had the support of most of the rest of them. They’d realized that Hadley was out of control. Call it what you like—dementia, megalomania, narcissism, paranoia, or just plain craziness—they were all scared of him. Chloe was a bit confused at first because Hadley lied about the details of the murder. He claimed his cousin had been shot. But once she knew Jasper was killed with a knife, she didn’t have a doubt in the world that it was Hadley who murdered him.”
“If you hadn’t kept going out there, against all sensible advice,” Vi said, “Chloe might never have worked up enough courage to talk to the police.”
Had that been a compliment? With her mother, it was hard to tell.
“The phrase ‘too stupid to live’ comes to mind.” Margaret smiled as she said it, but her words still stung.
Once the sealed containers of leftovers were safely stored in the refrigerator, out of reach of both dogs and cats, Liss freed the animals. She caught Glenora as she tried to streak out of the pantry, picking her up and cuddling her. “I don’t believe I was ever in any danger at Pilgrim Farm. Frankly, the camps on Ledge Lake are more dangerous.”
Vi ran water into the sink and added a dollop of dishwashing liquid. While she washed, Margaret dried, leaving Liss to put everything away in the proper cabinets.
“What I still don’t get,” she said after a moment, “is the rationale behind the New Age Pilgrims. Why start your own religion at all, especially when it doesn’t sound as if it was particularly faith-based? The Pilgrims were more like a flock of sheep with Hadley as the sheepdog. He’d bark out commands and they’d follow blindly, even if they were just going around in circles to show off at the county fair.”
“Interesting comparison,” Margaret said in a dry voice, reaching down to stroke Dandy’s soft fur.
Both dogs sat at her feet, watching her every movement with intense interest. They had not yet gotten the message that the food was already put away. Lumpkin, on the counter, was in a stealthy approach pattern to the empty roasting pan. Liss put Glenora down and went to intercept him.
“You know what I mean,” she said to her aunt. “I can understand why Miranda and Susan married Hadley and Jasper. They didn’t want to leave the only home they’d ever known. That’s pitiful but it makes sense. And I can accept that before Hadley went completely around the bend, he was one of those charismatic leaders who draw people to him, people who latch on and become obsessed, the way some fans attach themselves to movie stars. But so much of what he convinced them to do seems irrational.”
“The housecleaning?” Margaret grinned.
“No. That actually makes sense. They needed income to keep the farm running. What I don’t understand is why he insisted that everyone be married and then kept the couples separated.”
“Oh, Connie explained that to me,” Vi said, never looking up from the soapsuds. “Hadley was under the misapprehension that wives can’t testify against their husbands. He thought it would be safer if the women, being the weaker sex, were prevented by law from harming the rest of the community.”
“Are you serious? I’m no lawyer, but it’s the rule that a wife couldn’t be forced to give evidence against her husband?”
“It doesn’t surprise me that Hadley was confused. The rest of what Connie told me just confirms it.”
“I’ll bite,” Liss said. “What other cockamamie claims did he make?”
“She said that Hadley established the Pilgrims as a religious group because he believed that members of a congregation couldn’t testify against their pastor.”
Liss stared at her. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe so, but apparently the Pilgrims believed what Hadley told them, at least at first. I guess he was pretty convincing. It’s only been during the last few years, after his self-control started to slip, that Connie and some of the others realized that the real goal of most of his rules was to keep everyone in line. He liked being the ruler of his own little kingdom. If he decided he hated something, then they all had to hate it.”
“Here’s another thing I don’t understand,” Liss said.
“Only one?” Margaret asked, sotto voce.
Liss ignored her. “Back in the beginning, what was he afraid one of his followers might testify to in court?”
Vi chuckled.
“Connie told me that, too. It’s not such a big deal now that Maine’s marijuana laws are changing, but fifteen years ago the crop Hadley harvested at Pilgrim Farm wasn’t exactly legal.” She took a final swipe at the roasting pan and handed it to Margaret.
In a few more minutes, the cleanup was complete. Margaret suggested they join Mac and Dan.
“I know the Pats aren’t playing,” she said, “but we should be able to get some idea of the competition New England will be facing for the rest of the season.”
“You go on ahead,” Vi told her sister-in-law. “We’ll be right in.”
When she made no move to leave the kitchen, Liss stayed behind, too. An awkward silence fell between them. Liss had a feeling she should say something, but she wasn’t sure what. She didn’t want to get into another debate over her mother’s failure to share information about her health. There was no way she could win that one.
It startled her when Vi flung her arms around her. “I was so proud of you that day,” she said, still holding Liss tight. “I should have said so at the time, but between Hadley Spinner and the police, I never had the chance.”
Liss rarely heard words of praise from her mother. She was so pleased that she blurted out the first words that came to mind: “I was proud of you, too. We make a good team.”
Vi beamed at her. “We do, don’t we?”
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