The Body in the Bouillon ff-3

by Katherine Hall Page

  It wasn't.

  Cyle walked into the kitchen uninvited and sat down at the table. He looked terrible, although he didn't seem to exhibit any of the traditional cold symptoms—red, drippy nose, watery eyes, balled-up Kleenex in the palm. No, he looked rather as if he hadn't slept in several weeks. His face was pale and pinched with deep circles under his eyes.

  “I'll wait," he said morosely.

  “He could be quite a while. I can have him call you the moment he returns." Was this apparition going to encamp in her kitchen all afternoon?

  “Still, I'll wait. I really need to talk to him." He lifted his eyes pathetically. Faith wasn't affected. She had the feeling that even if Cyle was terminally ill, she'd have trouble wrenching some good old-fashioned charity from her soul. He was that bad. Or she was.

  “Ben and I are making cookies. You're welcome to just sit there if you want." She returned to her dough. Oh all right, she said to herself, and the better Faith asked him if he'd like a cup of coffee or tea.

  “Tea. Earl Grey if you have it.”

  He'd want lemon too.

  She brewed him a cup of tea and went about her business. Ben tried to interest Cyle in some parallel play by dumping a bag of Duplos at his feet, but Cyle wasn't interested. Ben began to make a little car with the blocks by himself, and Faith was beginning to think they'd stay fixed in their various attitudes until Tom came when Cyle said bitterly, "Women. It's hard to believe someone you've loved so much could do this.”

  An unhappy love affair, which was no surprise. Even though her curiosity was piqued, Faith had no desire to act as Cyle's confidante, so she said in what she hoped was a noncommittal way, "Problems, Cyle?"

  “Problems! That's putting it mildly," he said angrily, and sat up straighter.

  Well, I haven't done anything, you fool, Faith thought. No need to take it out on me, though this was without question the norm for this young man. Whoever happened to be nearest would get it full blast.

  “You found him, didn't you? You were there Friday night."

  “Eddie Russell? You mean what happened at Hubbard House?" Faith was surprised.

  “Yes, Eddie—Edsel." He sneered. "What have the police been saying about it? Who do they think did it?"

  “I don't think they have any idea at this point," Faith replied. This was getting interesting. "Why do you ask? Was he a friend of yours?"

  “Friend! Oh yes, my friendly neighborhood blackmailer." The words poured out before he had a chance to stop them, and he looked around the kitchen quickly. Seeing only Ben, he seemed to be reassured. "What I said is in absolute confidence, Mrs. Fairchild. It's why I came to see Tom.”

  Faith didn't think the confidentiality of the confessional extended to ministers' wives and Cyle knew that, but she agreed it would go no further. No further than Tom, since Cyle had been planning to tell him anyway.

  “Why was Eddie blackmailing you?" she asked. One never knew. He might tell.

  “It was Mother."

  “Your mother!" Bootsie, the iron-willed Madame Alexander doll!

  “I'm afraid mother was, well, indiscreet with Eddie when he first arrived to work at Hubbard House. Oh, he was good, very good. Told her he was leaving soon and how much a moment with a beautiful older woman would mean. Anyway, she tumbled." Cyle was starting to talk like a real per- son, Faith realized. "Of course, he had no intention of leaving. He was probably humping his way through the entire membership of the Pink Ladies and any other females around. Nice little sideline."

  “And then he told her that unless she paid up, he'd tell everyone what the head of the Auxiliary was up to," Faith guessed.

  “Exactly. Mother told me all about it last night. She's frantic. She thinks the police are going to think she did it.”

  Bootsie or one of the other victims. It was getting harder to think of Eddie as the victim, even though he was lying on a mortuary table somewhere.

  “Was she paying a lot of money?"

  “Fortunately, father left us amply provided for." Stuffy Cyle had returned. "Eddie was smart enough not to bleed her. It was just a nice steady hundred here and there. Mother was actually grateful to him, she told me! Can you believe it?”

  Faith could.

  “You do know what she has to do, and I'm sure Tom will tell you the same thing."

  “Yes, we've got to go to the police. But it's so humiliating.”

  Light dawned. It wasn't that Cyle was worried his mother might be up for murder one, but that she had slept with the help.

  “I'm sure she won't be a suspect. No one was traveling about much on Friday night. Besides, she has you for an alibi."

  “I was in town Friday night. With a friend. Mother was alone, and of course she didn't goanywhere, but there's no one to prove it. And she has a four-wheel drive Bronco for bad weather.”

  Leaving the Mercedes in the garage, of course. Well, Bootsie could have driven over to Hubbard House. Must have a key, and blackmail was a possible motive, yet Faith doubted the whole thing. She was pretty certain Dunne would too. Why would Bootsie Brennan jeopardize her social position for a paltry few hundred dollars, give or take? Besides, from the sound of it, she was still more than a little attracted to Edsel.

  Faith gave Cyle John Dunne's number and promised that Tom would call him as soon as she had had a chance to fill him in on the perils of Bootsie. She bundled him out the door with what she hoped was not unseemly haste and then finished her cookies. She couldn't wait to tell Tom.

  Tom was home in time for supper and, in between bites of the cassoulet, which had been filling the kitchen with fragrant aromas of duck, sausage, and beans since the day before, heard Faith's tale with astonishment and amusement.

  “I know I shouldn't be laughing at all this, but when I think of that woman all dressed up in her buttons and bows at the Holly Ball parading around as the queen of Hubbard House being blackmailed for a roll in the hay with the handyman, I can't help it."

  “Since when have you started using euphemisms like 'roll in the hay,' Tom?"

  “Since people named Bootsie entered my life." Faith conceded the logic of that.

  “If Eddie was blackmailing Bootsie, it stands to reason he was doing it to others as well, don't you think?" Tom asked.

  “Yes, and it gives me something to go on tomorrow. I'll be on the lookout for furrowed foreheads. John is also going to be happy to have this lead. He seemed convinced that the murderer was someone in Hubbard House at the time, and this gives him a line to follow."

  “I think I'll give Cyle a call now," Tom said, soaking up the last trace of sauce from his plate with a piece of crusty French bread. "Although I have no idea what to say. 'Sorry your mother is such a foolish and wanton woman' somehow doesn't sound very compassionate."

  “You'll think of something. Just make those sympathetic murmuring noises you ministers are so good at."

  “Ah yes, the murmuring noises, soon to be available on tape from your local ecclesiastical mail-order supply house.”

  Tom returned shortly. "I didn't get to make many noises of any kind. Cyle was on his way out and almost cut me off. He did say they'd been in touch with Dunne and he'd come down to talk to them, so if not exactly public knowledge, at least it's police knowledge at present."

  “I don't care much for Bootsie and family, but I still hope they don't find out about it at Hubbard House. She is a dynamo, and the Pink Ladies are essential to keeping the place running.”

  They moved into the living room and sat before a fire reading Ben his favorite books of the moment, In the Night Kitchen and Katy and the Big Snow, until he dropped off to sleep and they carried him up into the hibernal regions of the bedrooms and put him in his bed. He had forsworn his crib at the beginning of the fall in favor of an old spool bed Aunt Chat had unearthed from her attic. They kissed him good night, slid the little bars into place that would keep him from falling out, and walked back downstairs arm in arm.

  “At last," said Faith.

  “
At last," agreed Tom.

  Monday morning was sunny and cold, but the roads were clear. The Byford police had had Faith's car towed to a garage in Byford center, and Tom was driving Faith over to get it. It was parked in front.

  “I'll wait to make sure everything's okay," Tom said.

  “Thank you, darling. I'll go ask in the office.”

  It was, and she stuck her head out to tell Tom, waved good-bye as he drove off, then quickly went back in.

  Scott Phelan was sitting at a battered gray metal desk leaning precariously back in the chair behind it. He had on grease-stained coveralls, and no amount of Lava soap would ever get his hands clean. He looked gorgeous.

  “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Fairchild. Hear you found another body. Getting pretty good at this, aren't you?" He smiled, and for more than a fleeting moment Faith wished she didn't take her vows so seriously. Scott looked like the handsome one in Tom Cruise's family. They'd met two years ago when Scott had agreed to give Faith some information that gave one of the suspects in Cindy Shepherd's murder an alibi. She'd seen Scott several times since then at the Willow Tree Kitchen, a New England equivalent to a roadhouse—seedy, but with ruffled Priscilla curtains at the windows. Scott ate there every night and the Fairchilds went occasionally for the chowder and chili, which were excellent (in contrast to the rest of the menu and a wine list limited to two screw-top offerings—red or white).

  “Still hanging out at the Willow Tree?" Faith asked.

  “Yeah, but not for much longer. Trishia and I are getting married next spring."

  “That's great, congratulations. She's a terrific girl." Trishia was the one who had led Faith to Scott.

  Scott smiled slowly. It lit up the room. "Yeah, we're spending all our time together and I figured if we could stand each other this long, we're a pretty safe bet. She'll be graduating from Middlesex Community College over in Bedford then, so we'll have one party. Hope you can come—and the Reverend," he added after a distinct pause.

  “We'd be honored.”

  Scott stood up and sauntered around the desk.

  “Your car is fine. Not a scratch on it. You were lucky. And it started right up. We didn't even have to tow it."

  “That's great.”

  As they headed toward the lot, it occurred toFaith that Scott might have heard something about Eddie Russell. Habitués of the Willow Tree knew most of what was going on in the area before it happened.

  “Did you ever run into a guy named Eddie Russell in your travels?"

  “You mean the stiff?"

  “Yes. Did he come around the Willow Tree?"

  “Yeah, old Edsel used to come around a lot. But not to eat. At least not lately. Wasn't good enough for him. No mixed drinks. Liked to impress the ladies."

  “Well, what did he come around for then?"

  “Look, Faith, think about it for a moment and then forget the whole thing. Eddie Russell was not a nice boy and he was into some pretty heavy shit."

  “Drugs." As Faith said it, she mentally kicked herself for not thinking of it before. It fit so neatly into the rest of the picture. Dunne probably knew from the start. And it wasn't that she had led a particularly sheltered life.

  “The man was a walking Rexall's. I asked him for Band-Aids once. He didn't get it. Pretty stupid for a guy who thought he was smart—but he also got himself killed, which is about as stupid as you can get.”

  Faith had not regarded murder in this light, yet it made a certain amount of sense.

  “So it was pretty well known that if you wanted drugs, you could get them from Eddie?"

  “Everything from nose candy to weed. He wasn't a druggie himself, though. I heard him talking about some of his customers once. Thought they were complete losers. Trish and I laughed about it later. If anyone was a loser, it was Eddie."

  “Why do you say that?"

  “He was a type. Always wanted to be one of the big shots. But—what was he, thirty, thirty-one?—he wasn't anything but a handyman at an old people's home hustling on the side. I remember when he was first back from Florida. He was bragging about all the rich women he'd had down there. How he could have married any number of them—but you notice he didn't. A loser."

  “Who do you think killed him?"

  “Maybe he owed a lot of money to the wrong people and they wanted to make an example out of him. Maybe somebody's husband. Maybe somebody had just had enough of his face.”

  Or his blackmail, Faith speculated to herself.

  “Knifed, right?" Scott said with more than a touch of relish. "You have to be pretty strong to drive a blade in—and get it in the right place.”

  Faith thought of the knives in Eddie's throat and chest.

  “Oh, whoever it was got them in the correct places, all right."

  “You mean there was more than one? Jeez, I hadn't heard that.”

  Something to regale the bar with after work at the Willow Tree.

  “Yes, two knives. Ordinary ones, like hunting knives.”

  Scott reached into his pocket, produced a knife for her inspection, and flicked it open. The blade looked sharp enough to shave a peach.

  “Like this?"

  “Exactly.”

  As she drove away from the gas station, she realized how difficult it was going to be for Dunne to trace the murder weapons if virtually every male—and no doubt a fair number of females—of a particular age and background carried the same knife. She turned her attention instead to what Scott had just told her about Eddie. It provided another possible motive, but what drug dealer was going to pick the first heavy snowstorm of the year and Hubbard House, filled with people, to kill Eddie when the task could be accomplished so much more easily on a long car ride to a deserted beach, for instance? And why the whips-and-chains accoutrements? Faith hadn't thought it wise to reveal too much to Scott. The number of knives had been in one of the papers, but so far nothing had been said about the cords.

  She pulled into the Hubbard House parking lot, got out, and went into the kitchen. The only alteration in her routine was that she was going to stay for lunch. Tom had grudgingly agreed to get Ben at school and take him to Lizzie's house.

  “This hasn't been the merriest of Christmas seasons," he had said sadly earlier that morning.

  “It will be, darling. Don't worry. I'm only going to help for a day or so more, then we'll turn our full attention to the blazing hearth before us and sing Noël," she'd promised.

  Mrs. Pendergast didn't hear Faith come in. She was running the enormous electric mixer. Faith walked over and tapped her on the elbow. She jumped a mile or the equivalent for a woman her size.

  “What are you doing creeping up like that! Most scared me to death!"

  “I'm sorry, but you didn't hear me with that thing going.”

  Mrs. P. turned that thing off.

  “I'm making a nice Lady Baltimore cake. People around here need something to lift their spirits." She looked at Faith darkly.

  Faith had to protest. "Mrs. Pendergast, it wasn't my fault Eddie Russell was murdered. I just happened to be spending the night in that room. It could easily have been somebody else sleeping there. You, for example."

  “Well, I stayed in my bed all night. That's all I know. And I never sleep in the guest room. It's too cold." She unbent a little. "Why don't you make up some frosting for the cake while I put this batter in to bake?”

  Faith wondered if others at Hubbard House were blaming her indirectly. She supposed if she had stayed in her bed, Eddie and whoever would have seen she was there and the murderer would have canceled his plans—or pinioned Faith to the bed too for some knife-throwing practice.

  It was a busy morning, and they were interrupted several times—first by Donald Hubbard, who was looking for his wife. She had been due to meet him in his office at ten o'clock.

  “She's usually late," he said indulgently, "but not this late. I've already asked Muriel and some of the people Charmaine knows here. So far no one has seen her. Her car is in the par
king lot, so she's around someplace."

  “Did you try the Porters? She likes to go see Naomi's orchids, you know," Mrs. Pendergast offered.

  “Good idea. I'll do that. Thanks, Mrs. R" Donald was in a good mood. The murder of Eddie Russell hadn't cast a pall on him. But his mood did have a thin overlay of concern, and Faith wondered whether it was totally due to the question of Charmaine's whereabouts. His next comment increased her doubts.

  “I haven't had a chance to speak to you before, Mrs. Fairchild. It must have been a terrible shock for you to find poor Edsel. And then all the police interrogation."

  “Of course it was horrible, but the police have been very kind."

  “I don't suppose they've told you anything about a suspect," he said casually—too casually.

  “No, I don't think there is one at the moment." She was about to ask him his opinion when Boot-sie Brennan came flying through the swinging door, and he wisely beat a hasty retreat.

  She left as quickly as she had come after asking what "we" were giving them for lunch today.

  Faith and Mrs. Pendergast looked at each other when she left and exploded in a fit of laughter.

  “Someday I'm going to tell her 'we' are giving them bread and water today. Bet she says, 'That sounds yummy.' “

  The next visitor was Denise. Faith hadn't seen her since the night of the Holly Ball, and the change was startling. Denise looked dreadful. She was wearing sweatpants and a worn Champion sweater under her fur coat. She didn't have any makeup on, and if her hair had been longer, it would have been unkempt. There were deep circles under her eyes, and the moment she entered the kitchen she reached into her bag and took out a cigarette. "I don't care what Roland says, I've got to have a smoke." They didn't stop her. She walked shakily over to the counter and sat down on one of the kitchen stools.

  “Have you been ill? The flu?" Faith asked.

  “Something like that," Denise said shortly. When she lit her cigarette, Faith noticed her hands were unsteady and several of her nails had been bitten to the quick.

  “Where's Charmaine? She was supposed to meet me here. We're having lunch. Have you seen her?”