by Carrie Smith
He watched her step over to the long blue couch. “Graves sat right here,” she said again as she lowered herself onto the far-right cushion. “And at around ten forty-five, he got up to leave.” She stood as she said this. “He walked to the door.” She walked to the door. “And then he took his coat off the rack.” She walked to the coatrack across from the Blue Lounge door. “Everyone must have seen him go. And then they all made their moves.” She turned to him and Muñoz. “And each of those vestry members had specific motives to their movements.”
“Beyond their reported motives, you mean,” said Haggerty.
“That’s right,” said Claire. “Susan Bentley walked Philip to the door.” Claire moved in that direction now. “And then—supposedly—she turned into the Community Room.” Claire pointed through that door. “We’re supposed to believe that she waited in there for Anna Brookes, who went to her office to take a book on meditation from her bookshelf.”
“Are you thinking that maybe the rector didn’t do that?” asked Muñoz.
“It’s a possibility we can’t overlook. I mean, everyone at that meeting has made claims, and they can’t all be true. Susan did show me a meditation book—Finding Your Inner God—when I interviewed her on Wednesday night, and my instincts tell me she and the rector are being truthful, but we can’t be certain. It’s possible that book had been in Susan’s bag for weeks and they made up a convenient story. Susan was awfully quick to show it to me.”
Haggerty watched Claire retrace her steps back to the coatrack outside the Blue Lounge. “At about the same time that Susan was walking Philip to the door,” she said, “Vivian was so adamant about taking the tea service to the kitchen without Emily Flounders’s help that she pretty much ordered Emily to go home—even though she and Emily had cleared the tea service together at every meeting since Rose Bartruff joined the vestry.”
Claire’s intently focused eyes stared into the Blue Lounge. She was seeing into that night, Haggerty thought. “Rose Bartruff stayed in this room,” she said, “until she got her coat, went outside, and decided to check on the Moroccan mint in the garden.”
“Which led her to find the body,” supplied Haggerty.
“And Peter Linton claims he was also in the Blue Lounge—until he got a phone call from his client and went into the corridor.”
Claire walked to the end of the corridor and turned left in the direction of the kitchen. She stopped in front of the men’s room door. “Roger claims he left the Blue Lounge to go in here. Rose and Vivian both recall him saying he was going to the men’s room.”
She ran her fingers through her hair. She always did that when she was thinking. “Somebody’s lying to us.” She turned left, entered the commercially outfitted kitchen, and leaned on the long granite island. “Let’s assume for a moment that Vivian really did come into this kitchen. After all, she certainly fought hard to keep Emily out of it. Why would she have wanted to be in here alone?”
She looked from Muñoz to Haggerty. Haggerty knew there was no point in answering her question, because she already had the answer in her head. Seconds later she looked at him. “As you learned from Rose Bartruff, this kitchen is a very convenient place in which to make a phone call without being observed.” She turned to Muñoz. “But we know from the call records you got that Vivian didn’t make any phone calls that night, and she didn’t receive any either—until she got a call hours later from Roger and Kendra’s home phone, a call that Kendra must have made because Roger hadn’t come home. Why did Vivian need to be alone in here?”
“To meet with someone,” Haggerty responded on cue.
“Right,” said Claire. “And the question is, with whom did she meet? There are only four contenders if we accept Rose’s claim that she remained in the Blue Lounge. Roger could’ve sneaked in here while he was supposedly in the men’s room. Anna could’ve come in while she was getting a book from her office down the hall. And it’s possible Susan joined her in here after she sent the rector to get the book. It would have been easy enough for her to slip through the same passage Rose used Wednesday night when she came here from the Community Room to make coffee and a phone call.”
“What about Peter Linton?” asked Muñoz.
“Yes. He’s the fourth contender. He could easily have ducked in here after he spoke to his client.” She crossed her arms and let out a deep breath. “So the next question is, which one of them did Vivian want to speak with alone?”
Claire stared at him. In all his years of working with her, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her quite this focused and determined.
“Vivian and Peter were on the same side of the cemetery vote,” she continued. “Vivian wouldn’t have needed to speak with him unless it was to commiserate on their loss, but I don’t get the sense that Vivian commiserates with too many people. According to Rose, Vivian was angry at the end of the meeting. So I’m thinking she would’ve wanted to let out her anger at someone. Rose and the rector abstained from the vote. Vivian probably wasn’t happy about that, but I don’t think she would have targeted them. I don’t think she spoke to either of them in the kitchen. I think she would have wanted a word with Roger or Susan. They’re the ones she’d counted on to vote with her. They’re the ones who really let her down that night.” Claire’s eyes focused on the granite island in the center of the kitchen. When she finally looked up at him again, she said, “I think Vivian wanted a private conversation with Roger that night.”
“What makes you think it was him?” asked Muñoz.
“First, no one actually saw him enter the men’s room.”
“And second?” prompted Haggerty.
“He’s married to Vivian’s niece,” she said in a tone that suggested this was obvious. “Vivian would’ve expected him to support her position. And she probably felt justified in giving him holy hell when he didn’t.”
“So where does that leave us?” Haggerty asked.
“Presumably it leaves us with Susan and the rector in the Community Room, Vivian and Roger here in the kitchen, Rose in the Blue Lounge, and Peter wandering in the corridors.”
Haggerty and Muñoz accompanied Claire out of the kitchen, down the hall, and up the stairs to the second floor. They stopped in front of the supply closet. “And then there’s the issue of Stephanie Lund and Todd Brookes,” Claire continued. “Both of them were up here. Sergeant Zamora found Stephanie at the piano in the reception hall.” She looked in there now. “Todd was found here in the corridor—after the murder, of course, but we don’t know how long he was actually in the building.”
She turned and pointed to the supply closet. “And the shovel used on Philip Graves was in here—with two people’s blood on it.” She paused. “Who put it there? Was it Todd Brookes? Did he kill Philip Graves, take the shovel to the rectory, and then bring it over to the parish house and slip it into the closet? Did Stephanie put the shovel in the closet for him? Or are we totally wrong about Todd being the killer?”
Claire rubbed her temples. “We still have way more questions than answers.”
CHAPTER 66
At ten thirty, Muñoz leaned against a double-parked patrol car to watch parishioners arrive for the eleven o’clock prayer service. His one good suit felt tight across the shoulders. He hadn’t worn it in almost a year—since before the afternoon he’d taken a bullet to the shoulder chasing a suspect through the Frederick Douglass projects, back when he was still working narcotics. Rehab after his gunshot wound had made his arms and shoulders even more muscular than they’d been before the injury.
Two uniformed officers stood outside the gates, ensuring that reporters didn’t enter or impede parishioners from entering the church.
Keep your eyes and ears open, Codella had instructed him, and he now watched an elderly black woman with a cane emerge from a car and make her way to the gate. The old woman’s shoulders were stooped, and her black velvet hat made him think of his long-deceased grandmother dressed for church on a Sunday morning.
; He watched a white family walk up the block—mother in a navy blazer and pencil skirt, father in gray pinstripes, daughter in a black dress with matching black ribbons in her ponytail. The mother’s face was a knot of severity. The father was talking on his cell phone. The little girl smiled at Muñoz as she passed, and he smiled back at her.
Mourners streamed through the garden gate for the next ten minutes until Muñoz recognized the familiar face of Peter Linton stepping out of an Uber. He stood on the curb, and his eyes darted up and down the block as his wife, a tall brunette of about fifty, emerged from the other side of the car. The two did not look at each other as they walked through the gate.
Rose Bartruff introduced Muñoz to her daughter, Lily, before she passed through the gate. Roger Sturgis wore a handsome black suit, and his wife, Kendra, was on his arm. Below Kendra’s open coat, Muñoz could see her body wrapped in a tight black sheath dress that might have been more appropriate on a red carpet. She was, he thought, a remarkably beautiful woman.
Just before eleven o’clock, Vivian Wakefield strode up the street wearing an elaborate church hat and a dark trench coat. As she approached the south gate, she avoided his gaze and didn’t acknowledge the uniformed police, but she made a point of nodding to the reporters assembled behind a barricade. “Mrs. Wakefield!” one of the reporters called. “Do you have any comment?”
Vivian stepped closer to them. “This is a sad day for everyone who loves St. Paul’s. We continue to wait for justice.” She nodded, stepped through the gate, and walked deliberately up the stone path and into the parish house.
Susan Bentley, in a tailored black pantsuit, arrived less than a minute later, and Muñoz followed her into the church.
CHAPTER 67
A greeter just inside the nave was handing out programs. Codella took one and glanced at the grainy black-and-white headshots of Emily Flounders and Philip Graves on the front cover as Haggerty nudged her farther into the dim church. The pews on either side of the central aisle were packed, so they settled for a discreet standing position along the right wall and listened as an organist in the choir loft—a stand-in for Stephanie Lund—played a solemn prelude.
Moments later, a bold sustained chord introduced the processional hymn, signaling the congregants to rise. Their hands reached for hymnals, and mouths opened wide to sing as the procession made its way slowly up the central aisle—the crucifer and torchbearers in front followed by robed choir members and an Episcopal flag bearer. Rector Anna Brookes brought up the rear, her hymnal open in one palm, her other hand following the bars of music as she sang the lyrics and cast her eyes from left to right.
Acolytes lit candles on the altar, and a gospel reader ascended to the lectern on the right side of the chancel. The reader was not a well-practiced orator, and through the speaker system, her words—timid and monotone—sounded more like whispers from a white-noise machine.
As a second reader took his turn at the lectern, Codella studied the churchgoers. Susan Bentley sat in the third row on the far side of the central aisle. Roger and Kendra Sturgis were four rows behind her, and Peter Linton and his wife occupied a pew on the right aisle only twenty feet from Codella and Haggerty. Codella couldn’t find Rose Bartruff, and it took her several moments to locate Vivian Wakefield seated near the back of the church, where, curiously, most the black parishioners had chosen to sit. Codella wondered what to make of this visible racial divide in a church where diversity was so proudly celebrated, and as she watched the churchwarden, she thought again of their unpleasant encounter yesterday.
When the last reader finished, the choir and congregation sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and by the time the hymn was over, Rector Anna Brookes had ascended into the pulpit. As she lifted her arms to bless the congregation, her chasuble became a pale-purple half-moon. The audience sat, and Anna Brookes stared down at them with a bittersweet smile. “Tomorrow we will celebrate Palm Sunday,” she pronounced in a strong, steady voice. “The day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and people covered the ground with branches and palms, singing, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
She paused, allowing the congregation to absorb the significance of those words. “When Jesus entered that city,” she continued, “he knew that he was coming there to face a violent and angry end. He knew that his purpose on this earth was to secure everlasting life for us—so that on mournful days like this one, we might still have hope.”
The parishioners were silent now, their eyes focused on Anna as if she alone could make sense of what had happened on Wednesday night.
“Today we’ve gathered to mourn two beloved family members, friends, and colleagues—Emily Flounders and Philip Graves. We are horrified and deeply saddened that these two cherished people suffered such a violent end, and we can’t quite believe that they have left us for good. In our hearts, we believe they should still be here, and we keep asking ourselves, ‘Why would anyone want to take them away from us like this?’”
Codella watched the rector gaze directly into the eyes of parishioners as she spoke. “We’ll be asking ourselves this question for a long time—I know I will—but as we mourn Emily and Philip today, we can at least take comfort in the knowledge that Jesus, having also faced his violent death, secured a place for Emily and Philip—and all of us—at the right hand of God.”
As Anna continued her sermon, Codella surveyed the parishioners again. Rose Bartruff, she finally noticed, was sitting next to an older black man with white hair. Codella was still staring at her when the cell phone in her pocket began to vibrate. McGowan, she thought. McGowan was looking for her, and when he found her, he wouldn’t show her any Christian compassion.
“Tomorrow we celebrate Jesus’s triumph,” Anna Brookes finally concluded, “but today we celebrate the lives of Emily and Philip. While they no longer walk among us, we can feel their spirits filling this sacred space.”
Vivian Wakefield rose from her pew as if those words were her cue. She wore an elegant black jacket and matching pleated skirt, and the gold scarf at her neck was a ring of warm light. She moved toward the central aisle with calm dignity, and when she reached the chancel, the waiting congregation was so still that Codella could hear the churchwarden quietly clear her throat several feet from the microphone.
She stepped to the lectern and gazed into the faces staring back at her. “In all my years at St. Paul’s, I’ve never stood here except to read the Gospel to you,” she began with a resonant musicality that could not, Codella thought, be learned in any public speaking class. “I’m not an eloquent preacher like Mother Anna, but I feel called to speak my own mind today.”
Codella looked at Haggerty and discreetly rolled her eyes. She wasn’t fooled by Vivian’s false humility. This was hardly the first time the churchwarden had been called to speak her mind since Wednesday, and there was no debating her effectiveness.
“In Matthew 18:20, the Lord said, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ And I do feel the Lord here with me today. Don’t you?” Vivian smiled into the crowded pews.
Several amens came in response. Many of them, Codella noted, came from the African American parishioners in the back rows.
“I feel Emily and Philip’s presence as well. I hope you do too.”
Vivian cast a knowing look from one side of the nave to the other. She raised her chin and acknowledged the choir in the loft. She turned to the acolytes and the deacon sitting behind her on the altar. “Never again will I feel the warm embrace of my dear, dear friend Emily, who was such a comfort to me in my darkest moments. Never again will I hear the impassioned voice of my cowarden, Philip. In times like these, I know from too many past experiences, we must call on our faith to give us strength to go on. ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.’”
She paused. Heads nodded. “Emily and Philip did not die in vain,” she declared. “God had a plan for them. God always has a plan.
We may find his plan hard to understand or accept, but our faith compels us to accept it.” Vivian’s voice crescendoed to match her rising passion. “And we take comfort in the fact that their spirits remain with us.” She shook her index finger in front of her face. “Remember, we share a collective memory. We are the body and soul of this church. We hold in our grasp the stories of our fathers and mothers, our sisters and brothers, our children and our friends. Today we add to our collective memory the stories of Emily and Philip, and we take comfort in the knowledge that so long as St. Paul’s survives, they will still be with us.”
Codella heard many more amens. Heads all over the church nodded as Vivian Wakefield stepped down from the lectern. On the other side of the central aisle, Susan Bentley’s expression had not changed. Kendra Sturgis, however, was dabbing the corners of her eyes with a tissue. As Codella studied her, Roger Sturgis turned, and their eyes met, but he quickly looked away.
Anna Brookes spoke from the pulpit. “Thank you for those comforting words, Vivian.” She turned to the congregation. “I invite family and friends of Emily and Philip to come forward now and share a memory or a prayer.”
The first man who stepped to the lectern had a helmet of thick silver hair. “I’m Tom Farrell, and I’ve been a member of this congregation for twenty years,” he began. “Emily Flounders was my friend. We taught together in the Bronx. When my wife died of cancer, I was, well, inconsolable. Emily lifted me up. ‘Tom,’ she said, ‘you’re coming to church with me this Sunday.’ The music and sermon soothed me, and I still remember how Emily took me by the arm during the coffee hour and introduced me to everyone. The people I met that day have become my new family. I’ve come here every Sunday since. St. Paul’s is a special place, and Emily was a special person. I’m going to miss her so much. God bless you and keep you, Emily.”
He descended from the altar, and a brunette woman with a cast on one wrist climbed the three steps up. “Can you hear me?” She spoke so close to the microphone that her words were distorted. “All three of my children attended St. Paul’s Sunday school,” she began without introducing herself. The deacon moved swiftly from his bench on the altar and adjusted the microphone’s position. “Emily was a saint. There’s no other word to describe someone so good. My youngest—Meghan—has autism, as many of you know. One day when she was little, she threw a terrible tantrum in Sunday school. I was so mortified I stopped bringing her to church. A month later, Emily called me. ‘We miss Meghan,’ she said. ‘Why hasn’t she come to Sunday school recently?’ Emily already knew the reason, of course, but she begged me to bring Meghan back. ‘We all have our bad days,’ she assured me. That was Emily Flounders.”