Perfect Lies Page 13

  “Not really, Meggie honey,” Janine said, her face rosy from the steaming water. “It does me good to be doing something. I baked all afternoon just to keep my mind occupied. I’m making some tea now. Perhaps you can take it in to Frannie with that cookie tray?”

  Frannie. It seemed an unlikely, girlish nickname, Meg thought, for such a substantial and serious woman. But then Janine tended to cuten up everything around her—from people’s names to the little smiley face she drew in the upper loop of the J in her signature. No one seemed to mind it, because, Meg thought, nobody really bothered to notice. She worked so hard at pleasing others that it was easy to forget that Janine, too, must have emotions and needs.

  “How are you taking all this?” Meg asked.

  “Oh, I’m just—” Janine’s high-pitched voice warbled and broke. “It’s just… so sad.” Janine was shaking her head, and, though her wide back remained resolutely turned, Meg could tell that she was crying. Not only had she lost a good friend, Meg realized, but her livelihood had been wiped out with that fatal blow. Ethan’s designs and masterly technique were what made the Red River studio so successful. It seemed unlikely that Clint and Janine could carry on without him.

  “I’m sorry,” Meg said, taking a step toward her, though something kept her from reaching out a comforting hand. “It’s a tough time for everybody, I know.”

  “No-no-nobody can know how hard it is.” Janine sighed and visibly made an effort to pull herself together. “But it’s kind of you to at least ask.”

  Lark had joined Francine in the living room by the time Meg came in with the tea.

  “Thank you,” Francine said, as she reached for a mug.

  “You’ve done so much today, Meggie,” Lark said quickly. “You must be exhausted.” Meg was being dismissed, she realized. Lark would be turning to Francine for the comfort Meg would so willingly have given. She felt Ethan’s long shadow following her up the stairs as she went up to bed. Even from the grave, his powerful presence had managed to come between her and Lark. Unwilling to tell his wife the truth, perhaps unable to face up to it himself, Ethan had implicated her in his own wrongdoings. And now the seeds of doubt and jealousy he had sown were taking root… and spreading.

  Much later, when she woke up and heard Lark crying downstairs, Meg started to get out of bed. Then she heard the sonorous rhythms of Francine’s voice, though she couldn’t hear what she was saying. Francine seemed to talk on endlessly, intent on some explanation or instruction. And Meg lay awake, listening to the meaningless river of sound, feeling herself overtaken by an intense, irrational fear. She was certain now that Lark had told Francine about Ethan and her—had passed on the lie that Ethan had started and that now Meg was unable to set right.

  Francine seemed, in some way that Meg couldn’t explain, to know about all the dark, complicated workings of the town. The minister looked out over her congregation, heads bowed in prayer, and knew the sins and secret thoughts of every worshiper. Meg felt chilled. Now that Francine had the leverage to do so, she was afraid that the minister would try to drive the wedge between Lark and herself deeper and deeper—until the mistrust and the pain that Ethan had so selfishly inflicted robbed Meg of the one heart, the one home, where she once thought she would always be welcome.

  15

  The First Congregational Church of Red River had been built in the mid-1880s and was a fine example of classic nineteenth-century New England religious architecture: white clapboard frame and steeple, red arched double doors, simple, stained glass windows, a pipe organ behind the pulpit and choir chapel. The pews, divided by one main aisle, were crafted of local maple and hemlock. A needlepoint banner of gold thread on burgundy velvet, sewn by a group of female parishioners in the 1920s, hung above the organ as the visual centerpiece for the altar. It was composed of two doves holding aloft the scripted letters: THOU WILT SHOW ME THE PATH OF LIFE.

  Although the church had always been well-supported by the town, Francine Werling had, during her tenure, enlarged the parishioner base even further by introducing community-oriented programs such as after-school care and meals for the elderly and homebound. Built on a hill, the church basement was actually the first floor, accessible from the large macadam-paved parking lot. The church basement had become the social center of the town. Wedding receptions, town meetings, bake sales, chicken roasts, reading groups—the weekly schedule of events was posted on the glassed-in bulletin board to the right of the double front doors.

  Though a school-and workday, the church was packed on the afternoon of Ethan’s funeral. The morning had dawned cold and windy and by two o’clock, when the service was scheduled to begin, the first sleet of the season was gusting through the town. It sounded as though handfuls of pebbles were being thrown angrily up against the large stained-glass windows. The wind howled each time the doors were opened in the entry hall at the back of the church; it whistled down the aisles and fluttered the ribbons on the funeral wreaths grouped around the altar. Bad weather would have done little to deter country folk from coming, though there were people in the congregation that afternoon who hadn’t set foot in the church for decades. Ivar Dyson, Ethan’s neighbor who owned the goat farm, was one, dressed in the only suit he had ever owned, now several sizes too small for him.

  A town like Red River, still steeped in agrarian tradition, never failed to stop for death. A life, like nature itself, had its seasons. A murder, however, was something else again. That Ethan’s existence was cut short so tragically was the equivalent of the tornado that ripped through the valley in the early 1970s. It was unnatural and terrifying. The congregation that afternoon was subdued and tense. There had been a lot of angry talk about Lucinda’s bad behavior and her disrupting influence on other teenagers in town. Some stated privately that the family brought the tragedy on themselves.

  “Maybe Ethan and Lark were trying to do the right thing,” Meg had overheard Paula Yoder confide to several customers in the general store that morning. “But they put us all in jeopardy with that girl running wild.” When Paula had blocked Lucinda from entering the store after she had been caught stealing cigarettes, Lucinda told Paula that she’d “be getting hers someday.” It was a threat that Paula was now taking too much to heart. In any case, there was a general sadness and confusion in the crowded church, a need for answers and reassurance.

  The front right pew had been reserved for the immediate family. At two-fifteen, when people were standing five deep in the back of the church, Clint Lindbergh stepped quietly into the small office off the entranceway where Meg, Lark, and the girls had been waiting. Meg hadn’t seen much of Clint since the murder, though she was aware that he had been running errands for Meg and Francine and had done a yeoman’s job getting the church arranged for the funeral and reception. As the church organist, he usually hit as many sour notes as pure ones, but he was a dutiful and well-meaning musician, putting up with the gibes and insults that his playing prompted with his usual unruffled humor.

  “You guys ready?” he asked gently. He was wearing a black suit that looked suspiciously like a slightly altered dinner tux, though the jacket fit his barrel-chested frame with surprising elegance. He’d trimmed his beard and neatly parted and combed his thinning hair; he looked almost handsome. Though he smiled at them all and patted Phoebe’s shoulder affectionately, his red-rimmed eyes gave away his true emotional state. And Meg thought she caught a whiff of beer on his breath.

  “I’m going to go around to the organ loft now, and when you hear the first couple of chords of the Bach piece, just start down the aisle.”

  One can’t really anticipate a moment—how it will actually feel, the exact combination of impressions that will add up to the reality. Meg thought she’d be able to get through the funeral just fine. This wasn’t her town. She wasn’t a part of all this. And yet, as she walked behind Lark, who was carrying Fern, and Brook and Phoebe, who were holding hands and crying, she found how much she did belong to Red River. In the moment, her aching
heart suddenly bursting within her—demanding that she face the truth. Before her were many people she knew from town … and others who’d come up from the city. Hannah was there. Becca… Janine… Abe… Seeing them all, and then the flowers at the altar, and then—why hadn’t she been prepared for this?—the coffin with Ethan’s body inside, it really hit her. Ethan was dead. Ethan was gone. And though her feelings for him had changed radically over the last month, he still remained an essential part of her life. Over the last few days, his death had seemed impossible, and therefore, somehow, something she could deal with later. Now it was irrevocably true. It rose before her like a dark mountain. And she knew she had no choice but to climb it.

  “Friends.” Francine held her arms up, embracing them all. “Dear family.” Francine nodded to Lark. The minister was dressed in a white robe with a red satin mantle and gold-corded sash. When she looked out over the congregation above the half lenses of her reading glasses, her luminous gaze seemed to meet each and every eye.

  “Ethan McGowan was not a religious person.” Francine looked down at her notes and then up again. “He was not the kind of man you could label easily. For some in this town he was a good friend. For his daughters … he was the best father you could ever ask for. And for Lark … I think we all understand how special Ethan and Lark’s marriage really was….

  She was trying, Meg thought. Francine was making a real effort to sound the appropriate notes of sorrow and affection. But it was only after she had paid the necessary tributes to Ethan, only when she had moved on to her prepared sermon that Francine’s face took on its characteristic beaming glow and her words—always carefully crafted—found a life of their own. Meg listened to her tone as much as to her message—the lulling, almost hypnotizing promise in her voice.

  “But what are we to do with the injuries his death has left—the torn ligaments of our lives that were once so effortlessly attached to his? How do we attend to the horrible injustice that has ripped him from us … that has sundered this town?”

  Francine took a step back, as if affronted. She let a moment of silence follow the question before she went on, “Friends … Family … This, this loss was not God’s doing. It was not Her will. Death in many ways is a noble thing, a natural process, a homage to life. Death is, as a famous poet once wrote, the mother of beauty. But this was not such a death. This was an aberration. And its burden is much harder to bear. Its message is much more complicated—darker and more difficult to comprehend….”

  Meg could feel the congregation listening as one. And though there were many small children in the church, there was not one cry, one cough. Francine’s voice held them spellbound.

  “We must take heart and draw courage from the fact that even the vilest acts of man and woman are perpetrated under God’s all-seeing eye. We must recognize that there is a grand design to our lives … to all of life. We must believe that there is a method in what we sometimes perceive as madness. God saw the hand raised in hatred against Ethan McGowan. She saw it… and She did not halt it. She allowed it…. But why. Why?”

  The question came out as an urgent whisper—angry, outraged. Francine’s nostrils flared and she closed her eyes. She bowed her head and shook it back and forth. Then, slowly, she raised her head again and looked out over congregation.

  “We may never have the one, complete answer. But I believe there are many answers and each of us carries a slightly different one within themselves. Each time we feel hate in our heart… each time we experience a twinge of jealousy … each time we slight another … each time we lie… we know that we, too, have acted against God. We, too, are capable—as Cain was, as Judas was, as Ethan’s assailant was—to lift up our arm in anger against another. And every day, each moment of our lives, we choose—to walk on God’s path… or to follow our own. God lets us decide. She must let us decide. Because She knows, as every parent here today knows, that the only way children really learn is by trying, by failing, and by trying again.”

  Francine looked over at the coffin resting among the frozen wands of gladioli, carnations, and lilies.

  “But what do we do with the terrible fact of this man’s death? How do we learn from what seems to be such a senseless act of violence? Where do we turn for answers and guidance? Let me tell you, friends, do not look into your hearts. Do not follow your instincts. For the raw, emotional, immediate response to murder is … more bloodshed. An eye for a eye. Revenge, blame, blind justice. Let us all beware of what our hearts clamor for. Let us hold our fire. For as the Bible warns us: “Judge not that ye be not judged.’ There is not one person among us today who is without sin…. Friends, family …”

  There was a singsong finality to Francine’s words now. “We must put aside our anger. We must walk out of the shadows of our despair … and into the light of God’s wisdom. We must understand that Ethan’s death is, in a way we may never truly comprehend, a part of God’s plan. We must allow justice to take its course. We must not lay blame.”

  Francine ended the address, as she did every sermon that Meg had heard her deliver, with the evocation: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”

  After the prayer, Francine kept her head bowed in silence. Meg had been moved by the power of her words, encouraged by her moral support for Lucinda. Yet during the sermon, she kept sensing that something was missing. It took her until the very end to realize that while Francine had praised and mourned a life, it wasn’t really Ethan’s. She had made no attempt to evoke the charisma—his laughter, his voice, his outsized, sometimes outrageous enthusiasm. She had spoken about him only through the eyes of others—Lark and the children, his friends and neighbors in town. She had praised Ethan’s work in the community, his accomplishments as an artist, and though she touched on all the finer points of Ethan’s character, it was as though Francine were speaking about a man she had never met. Of the powerful, opinionated man himself—the man with whom Francine had clearly had her differences—she made no mention.

  Meg was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t realize right away that the silence was stretching on far too long. The congregation was waiting for Clint to start the Bach Fugue he always played for the processional, but nothing happened. A baby started to cry. Meg could hear people whispering behind her, a rustling of clothes as neighbor turned to neighbor. Francine stepped out of the pulpit and looked questioningly up at the organ loft.

  Just when it seemed obvious that something had gone wrong, Clint began. Note after note, phrase by phrase, Clint’s playing was strong, purposeful, and, it seemed to Meg, uncharacteristically—almost eerily—perfect.

  16

  The basement was so crowded that it took Meg several minutes to make it down the stairs at the back of the church. It didn’t help that Janine had set up the three refreshment tables directly to the right of the steps. Though this location was conveniently close to the kitchen and supplies, it meant that the crowd waiting for soft drinks and pretzels kept backing up into the stairwell, and newcomers had to nudge and squeeze their way down the steps.

  “Excuse me,” Meg said as she edged around the congested area, stepping, as she did so, on the heel of the woman in front of her.

  “Quite all right,” the woman replied, the familiar voice prompting Meg to look at her more closely. Black velvet cloche. Pearls with the trademark Mikimoto butterfly clasp. Tailored black crepe suit. Meg had scuffed up a pair of pumps that she estimated were easily worth three hundred dollars.

  “Hannah?” Meg asked.

  “Yes?” The close-fitting hat had obscured her hair at the back. She turned slightly, blocked by the crowd from facing Meg. “Oh, it’s you! I was just looking for you, Meg. You know …”

  The noise level was so high, Meg could only pick up bits and pieces of what Hannah was saying: “Awful sleet … van spinning out … I only just made it in time … desperate mood …”

  At one point, Meg though
t to ask, “What’s going to happen to Ethan’s show now? There’s been so much on my mind, I didn’t even think about you and the gallery.”

  “What?” Hannah demanded irritably. “I can’t hear a damned thing you’re saying.”

  “I can’t either,” Meg admitted. “Let’s try to find a quieter spot.” Meg pointed to the far corner by the coatracks.

  “What a crush!” Hannah cried when they’d finally reached their destination. “Who are all these people?”

  “They’re from the town mostly,” Meg told her, looking around the packed basement and seeing Ethan’s friends and neighbors through Hannah’s eyes. The majority were in their thirties and forties, overweight and badly dressed by Manhattan standards. A woman nearby had on a pale blue jersey pantsuit with pink piping—the kind of outfit New Yorkers wouldn’t even jog in—and beat-up white Reeboks. She wore her dyed blond hair pulled back in a thin ponytail. Meg had seen her around town, a load of kids in the back of a Chevy van. She was probably in her early thirties, but she had the worn-down look of someone much older.

  “Oh, I see,” Hannah said, her green eyes scanning the room. “It’s very interesting. Different from what I expected. Ethan always painted something far more dramatic, you know. Nature in all its wildness. I passed a Stop ‘n Shop not fifteen minutes from here.”

  “You came through Montville then,” Meg said and, wanting to justify Ethan’s view against Hannah’s urban scrutiny, she added, “Red River is still very rural. Some of the farms up here are the size of small counties. It’s a pretty tough life. A lot of hard work. And people just getting by.”

  “I can see that,” Hannah said.

  “This has hit them pretty hard,” Meg went on. “It’s a quiet town. A close one. Murder is something that just doesn’t happen here.”

  “It’s hit everybody hard, Meg.”

  “Yes,” she said and they were silent for a moment while the noise surged around them. Released from the solemnity of the church service, children raced through the crowd, their laughter drowned out by dozens of conversations, many conducted at shouting level. Meg strained to hear the snippets of conversation as the room filled to overflowing.