The Christening Day Murder

by Lee Harris

“Please go away,” she said. “Eric, go and look for him. Maybe he’s reading the papers at the library. Or having coffee at that new place.”

  Eric patted her shoulder and got up to go. I wrote my name and phone number on a slip of paper and gave it to her.

  “I’ll be at this number tonight. Will you call me and let me know what happened to him?”

  She nodded. I followed Eric to the door. Ellie’s forecast had been accurate. Huge snowflakes were falling. Although the street was clear, the lawns were turning white. I wondered if this would be the end of the drought, if Studsburg was about to sink into a lake of oblivion again. I had a desperate urge to know the truth before Candy Phillips’s grave was underwater for the second time.

  Outside the house, Eric zipped up a heavy jacket and pulled a knitted cap on his head. The snow was coming down furiously.

  “Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” he said.

  “A woman was murdered in Studsburg, probably on the Fourth of July thirty years ago, the last day of the town’s existence. Were you there that day?”

  “No. And I wasn’t there any part of that year.”

  “I’m trying to find out who she was and why she was killed.”

  “That sounds like a police matter to me. Why don’t you leave it to them?”

  “Has anyone from the sheriff’s office been here to question your parents?”

  “No one.”

  “That’s why I can’t leave it to them. They’re not trying very hard. When the body was found, there was a media circus for a day or two. Now that the cameras are gone, no one really cares very much.”

  “I can assure you my parents had nothing to do with anyone’s death.”

  “I agree with you.” I wasn’t all that sure, but I decided it was better to sound sure if there was any chance he might cooperate with me. “But they know something they don’t want to talk about. I’m sure you see that. And your father was obviously very disturbed when Fred Larkin called. Someone’s going to tell me eventually.”

  “I’ll talk to my mother when I get back. Maybe she’s protecting someone.”

  “Thank you. I hope you find your father.”

  “I’m sure I will.” But he didn’t look sure. He looked very worried.

  It was one of those snows that had dedicated itself to a small geographical area. Before I reached Binghamton I was out of it, and although the sky never cleared, I made it home without trouble.

  I went through the letters that had piled up inside my front door without opening any of them. Nothing looked important or urgent. Instead, I called St. Stephen’s and made an appointment to see Sister Joseph after tomorrow’s class.

  As I hung up, Carol Stifler called. I didn’t tell her what I had learned about Gwen Larkin, but I asked her if she kept any of the Christmas cards Fred Larkin sent every year.

  “All of them,” she said. “They always have a sketch or photo of Studsburg on the front. You want to see them?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Come on over. We’d rather talk to you than watch TV any time.”

  Before leaving, I called the Degenkamps’ number. It was answered by a harried-sounding Eric.

  “This is Chris Bennett. Have you found him?”

  “No, and my mother’s a wreck. We all are. We’ve called the police, and they found his car a little while ago.”

  “Where?”

  “Several blocks from here, a mile maybe. We’ve been up and down the streets for hours, but there’s no sign of him. The police think he got disoriented, but that never happened to my father before. Wait a minute. My mother wants to talk to you.”

  “Christine?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Degenkamp.”

  “I want you to know that I don’t know anything about that body they found in the church basement, and neither does Henry. I couldn’t tell you what Fred Larkin knows, but I don’t think he knows anything either. But you asked us last week about the newspaper, the last one J.J. printed. We never got it.” Her voice was so controlled, I had the feeling she had taken something to calm herself down.

  “Do you know why? Did you ask?”

  “It’s because Fred Larkin didn’t want them given out. We saw the fight. That’s the one thing we didn’t tell you.”

  “What fight?”

  “Fred and J.J. We were coming down Main Street to say our good-byes and pick up our Herald—J.J. had promised we’d all be in it—and they were both right there at the bridge, Fred in a real frenzy. I thought they might come to blows.”

  “Did you hear anything they said?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t hear a word. After Fred left, J.J. waved us on, said there weren’t any papers left, which you could see was a lie because he had them piled right there next to him. He just wouldn’t give them out.”

  “Did you ever ask either one of them about it, Mrs. Degenkamp?”

  “We asked Fred next time we saw him, which was a couple of months later. He said he couldn’t betray a trust. That’s just how he put it, he couldn’t betray a trust. That was all he would say.”

  “Do you think it had something to do with his wife?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “She died not long after that.”

  “That was a real tragedy, a young, beautiful woman like that.”

  “Mrs. Degenkamp, when I asked you today if Fred Larkin and Candy Phillips were lovers, you said Fred said they weren’t. You asked him about it.”

  “Well, something was going on. They were meeting together. Some youngsters saw them down in the park together, and Henry saw them one night. Someone else saw them in another town once. Fred said she was in trouble and needed help.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  I couldn’t think of any reason offhand why she shouldn’t. “I appreciate your—” I began when she interrupted me.

  “It’s the police,” she said. “I think they’ve found Henry.” She hung up the phone with a clatter, and that was the end of our conversation.

  By the time I got to the Stiflers’, I was on my personal reserve tank of energy. Carol had a shoe box ready, full of Christmas cards she hadn’t had the heart to throw out. There were enough from Fred Larkin to account for three decades of Christmases past.

  They were oversize and very handsome. The oldest one, dating back almost thirty years, had the aerial photo on the front. Later ones had photos of St. Mary Immaculate, the Main Street bridge, the school, the Simpsons’ farm, and sketches of houses, the trout stream, the general store, and other recognizable places in town. Inside, every card was identical. All were printed: “Merry Christmas to all our friends. Mayor Fred Larkin and Family.” No one ever put pen to paper to write a personal note.

  I put them back in the box. “Gwen Larkin was killed in an automobile accident almost thirty years ago,” I said.

  They looked at me as though I had declared Fred himself had died.

  “Are you sure?” Carol said finally.

  “I saw the death certificate this morning. I talked to his second wife about it.”

  “You mean he’s been hiding her death?” Harry said.

  “At least from the Studsburg people. The Degenkamps know, but I suspect they’ve been personal friends. Tell me, did you invite the Larkins to Richard’s baptism?”

  “We sent him an invitation,” Carol said. “He was on Harry’s mother’s list. He wrote back that he couldn’t make it.”

  But he could have been in the church that afternoon, digging out Candy’s body to retrieve a lost miraculous medal. “Did either of you know Candy Phillips, the teacher they hired for the last year?”

  They looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Did you ever hear that Fred Larkin was involved with another woman?”

  “Fred?” Harry said. “Sounds a little crazy. He married Gwen Harvey when he came back from college. The Harveys lived in Studsburg, and Gwen was an exceptionally beautifu
l woman. I suppose she was about my mother’s age, but even as a kid, I recognized that she was very beautiful. Everybody knew they’d known each other since school days. They had a son a couple of years younger than me, and they sure as hell looked like a happy couple.” He got up. “This is just nuts.” He went to the kitchen and made a phone call.

  While he was gone, I went through the Herald again. Gwen Larkin, in her early forties, was as beautiful as everyone said. Fred was pretty good-looking himself. In the eighth grade they must have been a cute young couple. In one large formal picture, Fred and Gwen were surrounded by other important Studsburg personages. Father Hartman was there, and so was Irwin Kaufman, who had been on the committee that interviewed Candy.

  Harry came back. “I just talked to my mother.” He looked less than happy. “It took some prodding, but she laid it out for me eventually. She knew who the Phillips woman was and she knew there was talk about her and Fred Larkin. She didn’t want it spread around, which is why she needed prodding. Then I asked her about Gwen Larkin. She never knew Gwen was dead.”

  Jack had spent the better part of the day researching Joanne Beadles for me. She had defintely occupied the apartment that the security check had been sent to, and he had traced her to another apartment in Manhattan she had apparently occupied for a long time. In New York in the sixties you could probably still find yourself a rent-controlled apartment at a good price—even if you had to make a payoff to an intermediary for the privilege of occupying it—and once you were in it, anywhere else you moved would cost an arm and a leg by comparison.

  “I need more time,” he said. “But it doesn’t look like anyone killed her thirty years ago.”

  I was relieved to hear that. “Anything on gun ownership?” I asked.

  “Got a partial answer there. I called Albany to have someone check the records for the names you gave me. They’ve got a bunch of civilians working up there now, and they don’t hop to it when they get a request the way the guys on the job do. So it’ll be a couple of days till I get an answer. But I got an idea while I was driving home, and it panned out. It occurred to me one of those guys, the rich one you said had been an army brat, might have been a collector. For that you need a federal license, not a state one, and the feds give you a quick answer. They did and he was.”

  “J.J. collected guns?”

  “Everything from a couple of Civil War handguns to some World War One babies I’d guess his daddy brought home and some he probably pocketed himself in World War Two. Also a few more modern revolvers.”

  “Jack, give me the bottom line.”

  “You mean did he own a thirty-eight that could have killed your schoolteacher? More than one.”

  “Wow.”

  He asked if I’d learned anything, and I told him I was too tired to think. It was the understatement of the day.

  23

  The class I teach each Tuesday morning is kind of a lifeline. At thirty I find myself out of touch with people ten or twelve years younger than I. The neighbors with whom I have formed friendships are my age or older. All of them are married, homeowners, parents, and profess to be concerned citizens. Their interests range from cinch bugs to disposable diapers, with a strong emphasis on local politics.

  My students, on the other hand, are all single, striving, female, and intellectually sharp. Most of them are more sexually experienced than I and more casual—or perhaps comfortable—with their sexuality. As human beings they represent the same range of personalities I had been teaching at St. Stephen’s College. There are the painfully shy, quiet ones who write magnificent papers, the loud, opinionated ones, some of whom write well and some of whom are all hot air. One girl invariably falls asleep about ten-thirty in the morning, leaving me to wonder whether she works all night or just finds the class boring. I have to admit that the latter possibility gives me my weekly dose of humility.

  On that Tuesday I found myself revived and invigorated by my students. Together we had drawn up the question: I am a nineties woman. This poetry was written more than two centuries ago. Why should I bother?

  At least one person thought she shouldn’t. The rest produced generally interesting arguments, documented with poems we had been discussing, on why they should. Even my sleeper contributed a few thoughts before retiring into dreamland.

  I left the college feeling remarkably refreshed and took off for St. Stephen’s, which lies not far from the Hudson well along the way to Albany. There was evidence of recent snow, and I wondered if Ithaca’s weather had moved east during the night. My arrival occasioned smiles and hugs from people who had functioned for many years as my family. I had the sense of coming home.

  Joseph, my friend, former spiritual director, and present General Superior, was called while I was chatting with brown-habited nuns, and she came down to greet me and separate me from them. We went upstairs to the large room that was her office, study, and conference room, a place that has barely changed in the fifteen years since I first saw it.

  Our lunch was on two separate trays on the long table, a thermos pitcher of coffee near one tray. As I spotted the pitcher, it occurred to me that the Superior of the Sacred Heart Convent could use one. I had seen her carrying a mug to the kitchen to replenish it, a long walk from her study, and I thought she would surely appreciate having a source of hot coffee nearby.

  “You’re looking well,” Joseph said as we sat down. “Perhaps a little thinner than last time. I hope you aren’t planning to model for a fashion magazine.”

  “Not in this lifetime. I just haven’t thought much about meals since I started looking into this murder.”

  “He isn’t likely to kill again, Chris, even if it takes you an extra day to find him.”

  “Someone’s already been hurt by this,” I said, thinking I should try to call the Degenkamps and see how Henry was doing.

  “Start from some reasonable place, geographical or chronological, and tell me what I need to know.” Joseph poured coffee for both of us, and I took out the Steno book that I used to take notes.

  I started with geography. On a sheet of typing paper that I found on the table, I sketched the Studsburg that I had seen on Fred Larkin’s aerial photo and that I had visited. At the front left center was St. Mary Immaculate, the focal point of the town. Off to the right was the Simpsons’ farm. Toward the top of the horizontal sheet, still to the right, was where the Degenkamps and Stiflers had lived. Moving downhill, which was left, I drew in Main Street and the bridge. Then I filled in the wooded area and the park or athletic field, both on the left side of the town. I realized I had no sense of direction, where north was, for instance, but it didn’t seem important. When I was finished, I turned it around so it faced Joseph.

  Then I explained my identification of Candida Phillips from the records in the county building and the meeting with the Thurstons, mother and daughter. I told her how almost everyone in the town had conveniently forgotten the existence of Candy, even those who had interviewed her for the job of teacher, except for one woman, Mrs. Mulholland, who admitted later to her daughter she was sorry she had mentioned her. There was Fred Larkin, the mayor of Studsburg, and his wife, Gwen, who had died in an accident that I considered suspicious, or at the very least mysterious, and whose death had been kept a secret for all these years except to those closest to Larkin. There was Henry Degenkamp, who knew something was going on but wouldn’t talk about it. But the children, now grown, had talked, linking Candy to the mayor.

  “What did the mayor say to that?” Joseph asked. “I assume you told him.”

  “I did. He was a little slippery when he answered me. He started out saying he had to give her professional help and finished by saying he had given her ‘family guidance,’ that she had become involved with a man who wasn’t appropriate.”

  Joseph smiled. “A nice way to tell the truth if he was the man.”

  “But he may not have been.” That led me to J. J. Eberling, army brat, well off, syndicated columnist, publisher of th
e Studsburg Herald, abuser of one teenage girl and possibly another, and owner of more than one .38 revolver.

  “But I have something that rules him out as a killer,” I said, opening my purse and fishing out the miraculous medal. I put it on the table near Joseph’s lunch tray. “Whoever opened the grave two and a half weeks ago found this inside and dropped it in his hurry to get away. I heard it fall. J.J. Eberling has been dead for years and he wasn’t a Catholic. But the mayor is a Catholic, and his mother might have been born in 1898. I still haven’t found out what her name was. He was invited to the baptism I went to, but he declined, probably because he never told most of the guests that his wife had died twenty-nine years ago. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t come to the church that afternoon and dig open the grave.”

  “Certainly a possibility,” Joseph said. She had moved her lunch tray aside and now sat with her hands folded in front of her on the table. Her face showed nothing, but her eyes seemed to be concentrating, as though it were the eyes that heard the story.

  “And then there’s poor Henry Degenkamp. He knew Candy, he knew the rumors about her and the mayor. He was at the baptism two weeks ago. But he’s well into his eighties. I don’t think he could have moved that stone without some help, and the medal couldn’t be his or his mother’s. The dates are wrong.”

  “Entirely wrong,” Joseph agreed.

  “I asked Father Hartman if anyone fitted the date and initials, but he couldn’t think of anyone.”

  “Is that it then?”

  “Not completely.” I told her then about the publisher of the Steuben Press and his brief message—there was a payoff—and about the money Joanne Beadles gave her mother. And then I finished with the last issue of the Studsburg Herald.

  “So something in that paper may indicate who the killer is if one can just figure out how to interpret it.” She picked up the medal, looking at it carefully for the first time. “It’s not unusual. There must be hundreds like it. I think my niece has the same one.” She laid it squarely on my sketch of St. Mary Immaculate.

  “But the killer must have felt it would identify him.”