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Divine Inspiration

Page 22

by Jane Langton


  “Jesus Christ!” The attendant in the green jacket dropped the other end of the body, and it flopped back on the gurney. He snatched the release from his pocket and threw it at Homer. “Oh, God, don’t tell anybody. Jesus, don’t let my supervisor know.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s okay. This is a private investigation. I’m not part of any police department or anything like that.”

  Without another word the attendant whirled the body around and raced back down the corridor, propelling the gurney before him in the dark satanic tunnel, pursued by all the devils of hell.

  Homer drove away through the unlovely streets of Roxbury, remembering once again that the university where he taught and the suburb where he lived and the handsome streets of the Back Bay were merely a thin skim over the deep waters of the inner city. His unease was a typical sickness of the suburban soul in its genteel isolation from the dangers of urban life—We’re sorry, of course, really sorry, but it’s not our fault, is it? Well, maybe it is our fault, but we don’t know what to do about it, and anyway we’re busy. He drove for miles, gradually cheering up as countryside succeeded city, aware that his guilt would soon vanish.

  At home he found his wife bowed over her books. “It worked,” he said, tearing off his jacket. “He swallowed it, the guy at the morgue. He handed over the body, never questioned a thing. I almost came home with it. We could have propped it in the yard like a piece of garden sculpture. The point is, somebody else could have swiped a body and nobody would have made a fuss. How do you like that?”

  “Well, good for you,” said Mary, but she didn’t look pleased. “Homer, something else has happened. Charley’s disappeared. Alan called and told me. The baby’s gone.”

  Homer gasped. For a moment they looked at each other, and then both of them said, “Rosie.”

  Homer dumped his jacket on a chair and wrenched at his tie. “Well, there you have it, the doting mother after all. We’ve been wondering how she could endure being separated from her child, if she was alive. Well, now that’s no longer an issue.”

  Mary slammed the book shut and stood up. She was wearing an old-fashioned pair of golfing knickers. “Exactly. Who else would kidnap a baby?”

  “Oh, any number of people. Some young couple desperate to adopt a child. Or somebody in the business of supplying babies to couples like that. Or some affection-starved old lady on the street. They’re always extracting infants from baby carriages.”

  “But Homer, Charley wasn’t snatched from a baby buggy. Somebody entered the foster mother’s apartment on Bowdoin Street and took him away, leaving Debbie’s little three-year-old behind—Debbie was AWOL.”

  “Good Lord. So the next question is, how did Rosie know where to find him? That woman at Social Services, Mrs. Barker, she said people were phoning about him, only she wouldn’t ever tell them anything.”

  “Maybe she finally did. I’ll call and find out. Maybe she’ll talk to me this time.”

  “After lunch?” pleaded Homer. “I’ve been all over the East Coast this morning without a bite to eat. Take pity on a starving man.”

  “Look in the fridge,” said Mary heartlessly. “There’s all kinds of stuff in there. Liverwurst, cheese. Take a look.”

  When the phone rang in Mrs. Barker’s office, she was interviewing a pregnant teenager and the teenager’s mother. The mother looked more like the teenager’s sister.

  “I want to keep the baby,” wept the teenager.

  “An abortion, Sandra,” said her mother firmly. “You’re only fourteen.” She turned to Mrs. Barker. “Tell her. She’s only fourteen.”

  The phone rang again. Mrs. Barker sighed and reached for it, staring at the mother and daughter. She felt like Solomon giving judgment. If she agreed with the daughter, another wretched child would be born into an unstable family to be reared in bad circumstances and end up a costly burden to the state. If she sided with the mother, a human being would be denied existence, and who could tell what sort of flower might have blossomed from this unlikely ground?

  Mrs. Barker held the phone against her breast for a moment and closed her eyes, remembering a Right to Life poster she had seen somewhere, THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY SAVE THE WORLD. It was sheer sentimental nonsense, but still—“Hello? Marilynne Barker speaking.”

  “Mrs. Barker? My name’s Mary Kelly. My husband and I are investigating a recent case of kidnapping.”

  “A kidnapping? What kidnapping?”

  “Yesterday. A ward of the state was stolen from a foster mother named Deborah Buffington.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. You mean Charley Hall.” Mrs. Barker shook her head despondently and looked at the fourteen-year-old in front of her, whose pink cheeks were trickling with tears. “That child has been a problem from the beginning.”

  “Can you tell me, Mrs. Barker, whether or not you’ve given out his address to anyone recently?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m afraid I have. Normally we never give out addresses unless we’re positive the person has some legitimate connection. I refused the information several times, but then when someone called claiming to be a doctor, I told him. Well, what could I do? He said the child was in danger of suffocating from a collapsed lung. Naturally I gave him the address. And next day the child was gone. I blame myself. Although I must say Deborah Buffington is a careless creature. We’ve crossed her off our list.”

  “Do you know the name of the doctor?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a real doctor. The real doctor’s in Spain. The whole thing was just a ruse to get the baby’s location out of me. Unfortunately it worked.”

  “Thank you, that’s a big help.”

  Mrs. Barker returned to her clients. “Look, honey,” she said to Sandra, “I’m afraid your mother’s right. Wait till you’re a little older and can give a baby a proper family life. You should be enjoying yourself now, going to school and having fun with your friends.”

  “You see, Sandra?” said her mother. “I told you, you’re too young.”

  Sandra began to sob in earnest. “I want to keep the baby! I want to keep the baby!”

  Mrs. Barker put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER 51

  … truth goes a begging.

  Martin Luther

  Coming from his apartment on Dartmouth Street, Martin always entered the church by the basement door on the alley. It had been painted royal blue as a welcome to the mothers and children of the daycare center, which now occupied the three bright rooms so recently brought to life by Donald Woody.

  Through the open door of the biggest room came a babble of cheerful voices, the sound of small children singing. Kraeger nodded through the door at Ruth Raymond. To his surprise she glowered at him and turned her back.

  Upstairs he found Barbara Inch rushing along the corridor. Seeing him, she stopped so quickly her hair swung forward and her skirt swirled around her knees. “Oh, good morning,” said Barbara.

  Kraeger stopped too. “How are the Good Friday rehearsals coming along? What about Oates? Is he cooperating?”

  Barbara grinned. “If I don’t watch out, he’ll steal the show.”

  Kraeger took a shortcut through the kitchen, and there he had to stop and pass the time of day with Marian Beggs and Jeanie Perkupp, because they were old stalwarts who had been part of the congregation since long before his time. This morning they were preparing coffee and bouillon for newcomers.

  “Oh, Martin,” said Jeanie, “I wish you’d try one of these macaroons.” She held out a plateful. “They came out a wee bit limp.”

  Kraeger took one. “They taste fine to me. Delicious.” Then he had a thought. “How many macaroons have you people made for this church? I mean in all the years you’ve been coming here? And cookies and so on? Make a wild guess.”

  There were protests and bursts of laughter as they tried to calculate. It turned out that Jeanie’s entire record was some thirty thousand, Marian’s forty-five.

  “And if you took everybody else’s and a
dded them in,” said Martin, “it would mount up to half a million. That’s what’s held this place together all these years, not bricks and mortar. Not those rock-solid pilings under the church. Macaroons, cakes and pies. It gives me an idea for a sermon.”

  “Oh, Martin,” said Marian impulsively, “I want you to know I’m on your side.”

  “So am I,” cried Jeanie.

  Martin was surprised and pleased by these testimonials. But then his lifted spirits were dispelled by church treasurer Ken Possett, who was waiting for him in Loretta Fawcett’s empty cubbyhole outside his office. Loretta was taking her sick cat to the vet. “Oh, Martin,” said Ken gravely, “I’d like to speak to you.”

  If Martin had a taskmaster in the congregation, an authority figure towering over him, it was Kenneth Possett. Ken was a sturdy old parishioner like Marian and Jeanie. He was one of the staunchest contributors to the budget, he had chaired many an annual canvass and moderated innumerable annual meetings. He had been head of the search committee that had chosen Martin Kraeger from a long list of applicants. As the congregation had changed in the last thirty years from a parish of wealthy local residents to a mixed and transient population of students, professionals, suburbanites and street people, Ken had kept up. He had even adapted to the idea of a Tuesday evening service for gays and lesbians, and a pastoring group for sufferers from AIDS. His wife Dulcie was another pillar of the church, and their children were active in the youth group. Ken had earned his authority, and Kraeger had often bowed to it in the past. This morning it nearly knocked him down.

  “Of course,” he said, “come on in.” He pretended to unlock his door, because Ken would be shocked to think he ever left it open.

  Ken sat down in one of the six massive chairs. He had bad news. An anti-Kraeger group, he said, was forming in the congregation.

  “Oh,” said Kraeger, the light dawning, “is that what those two women were saying in the kitchen? They said they were on my side. You mean there’s another side?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Ken looked at him solemnly and began listing their grievances. “First, the fire in the balcony that killed Mr. Plummer. You said it was your fault. Some people still hold a grudge.”

  Kraeger’s bravado vanished. “Of course they do,” he said, wincing. “I don’t blame them.”

  “Second, your support for Harold Oates, who is manifestly a dangerous vandal. A lot of people think he should be locked up, or at least no longer permitted to perform on our valuable new organ at sacred services.”

  Kraeger opened his mouth in protest, but Ken held up another finger. “Third, political preaching. Some people complain there’s too much of it. They come to church for spiritual comfort, they say, not to be harangued.”

  Kraeger smiled. This one was easy. “I cannot deny that I have been more vehement than is seemly. They ought not to have stirred up the dog.”

  “What?”

  “Martin Luther. That’s what he said when people told him he should stop shaking his fist at Leo the Tenth.”

  Ken shook his head in warning. “It’s no joke, Martin.”

  “Of course not. But all members of the clergy worth their salt run into the same thing.” For a moment a note of bitterness edged Kraeger’s voice. “There are people like that in every congregation. They want everything sunshiny. They don’t want to hear about other people’s problems. They don’t understand that the future is made out of wretched material”—Kraeger waved his arms and thought up crazy examples—“like lost hubcaps and sticky sandwich wrappers and mildewed Bibles and the disreputable causes of long-dead men and women.”

  Ken stared at him blankly, and Kraeger went on wildly, reciting a hymn by James Russell Lowell about truth being forever on the scaffold and wrong forever on the throne, but fortunately it was the scaffold that swayed the future, because God was standing in the shadow keeping watch above his own. Then he shook his head sorrowfully. “The trouble is, maybe God isn’t keeping watch at all. Half the time the scaffold tumbles down and the hanged men fall into the pit and so do the women.” Kraeger stopped ranting, and made a gesture like brushing away a fly. “Listen, let those people who want spiritual solace go to Annunciation. Things are pretty soulful over there.” It was the wrong thing to say, and Kraeger knew it.

  “Love it or leave it?” said Ken. “You don’t mean that, Martin?”

  “No, of course not. But I’m not going to stop preaching the way I do. The soul isn’t some little closed-up walnut inside you. It’s part of a whole world of trouble.”

  “Fourth”—Ken held up another relentless finger—“Dora O’Doyle. She has been identified. It seems she’s a notorious prostitute. You wrote out a check for nine hundred and fifty dollars to a prostitute.”

  Kraeger stared at him, speechless. It came to his lips that it was not he who had engaged the woman’s services but Harold Oates, but he quelled the impulse just in time. It wouldn’t help matters to have another cause of complaint against Oates. “Look, Ken, you don’t think I’d pay a prostitute on a check labeled Church of the Commonwealth and have it turn up among your cancelled checks? It was supposed to be for Oates’s dental work, I tell you.”

  “It did not reach the dentist.”

  “No, that’s true. I paid the dentist’s bill a second time myself, later on. But at the time this woman told me she was the dentist’s accountant. Do you mean the whole congregation thinks I consort with prostitutes?”

  “Fifth—”

  “Oh, good God, what else?”

  Ken spoke with extreme distinctness, separating the syllables. “Child mo-les-ta-tion.”

  Kraeger laughed in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your former wife accuses you of molesting your daughter.”

  “Pansy? She says I molested Pansy?” Kraeger laughed again. “You don’t really take that seriously?”

  Ken spoke with distaste. “I don’t know anything about these things. But one reads about it in the papers. It seems to be fairly common.” Ken looked accusingly at Kraeger.

  “But she’s only four years old. She’s my daughter. How could I do such a thing? What exactly does she say I’m supposed to have done to Pansy?”

  Ken’s mouth worked. The details were apparently too repulsive to say aloud. “I think you’d better ask your ex-wife.”

  Kraeger sat stricken in his chair, and Ken Possett said a grim goodbye. He did not say, “Carry on, old man,” or “We’ll work it out together,” and therefore Martin knew what a dangerous gulf had opened in his congregation. Was Ken Possett on the other side? If Ken were to come out against him, Martin Kraeger’s time at the Church of the Commonwealth would soon be finished.

  Alone in his office, he fumbled blindly for the morning mail. Among the appeals for charity he found an envelope with a menacing return address, Pouch, Heaviside and Sprocket. With a sinking heart Kraeger recognized those pitiless extortionists, his wife’s divorce lawyers.

  He tore open the envelope and found a summons to an arraignment for child molestation.

  He called his ex-wife. “Kay, for heaven’s sake, what the hell are you doing? You know I never did a single damned thing to Pansy.”

  “Oh, no? Well, Pansy and I know better. You’re an animal, a beast.”

  “Oh, come on, Kay, be reasonable. I can’t believe this. What am I supposed to have done?”

  “My attorney has instructed me not to speak to you on this or any other matter,” said his ex-wife, slamming down the phone.

  CHAPTER 52

  Music is the best solace for a sad and sorrowful mind.

  Martin Luther

  The Boston Chapter of the American Guild of Organists was conducting an organ crawl. They were touring the churches in the Back Bay, getting acquainted with each other’s instruments.

  “Jeez, listen to the Krummhorn.”

  “How do you bring in the Contrabassoon? Oh, here it is. God, it’s like Judgment Day.”

  “Peggy? Your turn. Try the Cornet on
the Swell.”

  At the Church of the Commonwealth Alan explained the virtues of the new tracker from Marblehead and talked about the voicing.

  “You’ve replaced the Trumpets en Chamade, I see,” said Gilda Honeycutt.

  “Contra Bombardes still missing?” said Pip Tower.

  Alan was glad to see Pip back on his feet, fully recovered after his fall from the ladder. “Right. I’m getting kind of frantic. What have we got, two weeks? The whole thing’s supposed to be ready by Easter.”

  During the afternoon there was a good deal of grumbling about Harold Oates. “I don’t know what they’re waiting for,” said Jack Newcomb. “He ought to be put where he can’t do any more damage.”

  “But my God, can you imagine him in prison?” said Arthur Washington. “What a waste!”

  “And he’s so old,” said Peggy Throstle. “He ought to be allowed to play while he can, right?”

  Pip Tower turned to her angrily. “Suppose every time he plays, some good instrument is ruined or somebody’s back is broken, is that what you want?”

  Alan changed the subject. “Listen to this. I’ve been working on the sixteen-foot Trombone.” He ran his feet down the pedal scale. Deep braying notes shuddered in everyone’s bones and shook the walls. “Wait a second, I’ll play fifths. Listen to the resultant.”

  They stood around the console, watching Alan’s feet on the pedals, while across the sanctuary the spidery cracks in the east wall branched delicately upward, and the picture of Walter Wigglesworth slowly tipped askew.

  Afterward Alan persuaded Pip to join him for a drink at the pizza place on Boylston Street. He was anxious to mend their shaky friendship. It was probably vanity, he told himself, a case of not wanting to be disliked. But it was more than that. Pip had always been fun to talk to. He had a gift for intimacy and he told wonderful stories, funny anecdotes about mutual friends. One of his friends had been Rosie Hall. Alan felt an urge to confess his obsession with Rosie, his conviction that she was still alive. He wanted to ask what she was really like.

 

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