The Body in the Gazebo

Chapter 7





“Afterward I was very ill for a long time,” Ursula said, her words in concert with the steady downpour outside the window. The rain had started as Faith drove home from Marblehead the night before, building to a window-rattling thunderstorm in the early hours of the morning. Soccer practice had been canceled and both kids had quickly filled the unexpectedly free day with various activities with friends. Tom was rewriting his sermon yet again, and after checking with Dora, Faith had come to see Ursula, who was sitting up, looked well, and picked up the threads of her tale almost as soon as Faith entered the room.

“Scientists say you can’t contract illnesses from shock, although a shock can make you feel ill, but I developed a serious case of scarlet fever. I had, most probably, contracted it days earlier on the Vineyard, but the symptoms were overlooked. I freckled in the sun and my high color had also been ascribed to too much exposure—and excitement. Before she left for Boston, Mother cautioned me to wear my broad-brimmed straw hat and stay in the cool shade.

“I don’t remember leaving the island or even what happened immediately after I found Theo in the gazebo. Mother had a school friend who’d married an Englishman and was living in Bermuda, where he had been posted as an adjunct of some sort to the governor. After I was out of danger, she and I went to stay with them in Hamilton for the rest of the fall and on into the winter.

“When I returned, my entire world had changed.”

Faith was very close to her sister, Hope, one year younger. The thought of losing her was unbearable. Theo had been older, but the siblings appeared to have had a similar bond, especially on Ursula’s part.

“It must have been terrible to return to the house, knowing he was gone from it forever,” Faith said.

“The thing was that it wasn’t my house.”

Faith nodded. “It must have seemed like a totally different place without him.”

“No, it really wasn’t my house. While we were gone, Father sold the Beacon Hill house and moved us to Aleford.”

Seeing Faith’s astonishment, she added hastily, “Mother knew all about it, and on the steamship back, she told me we’d moved, but I hadn’t fully taken it in until Father picked us up at the pier and we drove past the Boston Common without slowing down.

“He’d managed to hold on to the firm without declaring bankruptcy on Black Tuesday, but barely. Uncharacteristically he’d been investing heavily in the market and lost everything. And then there were Theo’s debts. I learned all this later. At the time, I was protected as much as possible from the grim financial reality my parents were facing in the midst of their intense grief. And guilt. Mother blamed herself for leaving, although I don’t see how she could not have gone. How could she have known? And her sister did have a close call. I believe, though, that to the end of her life, she wished she had insisted that the guests leave. Mother thought Mrs. Miles, the housekeeper they’d hired for the summer, would watch over things—she was quite a martinet—but she’d slipped out. Probably to meet someone to go to Illumination Night. Mother rued hiring her. And Father blamed himself for just about everything from renting the Vineyard house to not being strict enough with his son, although he may also have privately reproached himself for being too strict.

“During those times creditors did not expect to be paid—no one had money—but Father felt honor bound to settle Theo’s accounts and his own even if it meant selling everything. The building with his offices and the house both went. The Pines in Sanpere didn’t, but that was just because no one wanted to buy a big place like that on an unfashionable island. I believe for a while he thought that Mother and I might live there and he’d rent a room near where he’d rented office space. He let the servants go. When I think back, it must have been a terrifying time for him. Many of his wealthy friends were weathering the crisis, but an equal number were going under.”

Then as now, Faith almost blurted out.

“He was too proud to ask anyone for a loan. Fortunately he had many loyal clients who stuck with him, although their reduced incomes meant a reduced income for him. Years later, after his death, Mother told me that he had worried all that summer about a fiscal crisis, but he was in the market too deep to pull out. He thought he’d suffer losses, and then he lost it all.

“Mother had inherited a house in Aleford from a maiden aunt and it had always been rented. Now it was to be our new home. I’ll never forget arriving from Bermuda in the late afternoon—it was quite dark—driving down Main Street, which looked very pokey to me after Commonwealth Avenue. The house was on Adams Street, up the hill from the green. It’s changed hands many times since we lived there and I barely recognize it. The current owners gutted it and added another story and all sorts of enormous windows.”

And, Faith thought, probably a home gym, media room, spa, great room, and heaven knows what else—retromedieval banquet hall?

“It was a fair-sized early-nineteenth-century Colonial, but the ceilings were low and Father looked even taller coming through the doorways, which the top of his head just grazed. A local woman, Mrs. Hansen, helped Mother with the housework and the cooking—you’ve heard me talk about my Norwegian friend, Marit. That’s how we met. Mrs. Hansen was her mother and Marit was my age. Mr. Hansen was a builder, and there was no work during the Depression, so they went back to Norway a few years after we moved to Aleford.”

“I thought you’d been born here and grew up in this house,” Faith said.

“After so much time, it seems like it, but my parents were both still alive and living in the Adams Street house when I got married and moved into this one . . .” Ursula paused. “You must be wondering about that.”

“Arnold Rowe, the tutor. Your husband? Yes?”

Faith had hoped that Ursula would start with an explanation after her dramatic revelation the previous time, and it had been all she could do to keep from asking her about the Professor. Ursula, however, was telling her tale in her own way.

“It’s the rest of the story and it’s quite complicated,” Ursula said.

“That’s all right. Complicated is fine. The kids are with friends; Tom is with . . . well, himself and his maker, and I have as much time as you want.”

“Good—but Dora will be cross if I don’t eat. I’ve started going down to the kitchen for some meals. She left something in the fridge. If you’ll take my arm, we can go see.”

Dora had left what amounted to a ploughwoman’s lunch—a more delicate version of the ploughman’s wedges of cheddar cheese, relish, butter, and crusty bread. There was cheese, but thinly sliced, some chutney, the bread and butter plus salad, and with a nod to the Hanoverians, a modicum of Ursula’s favorite—liverwurst.

After settling Ursula with a full plate and putting the kettle on for tea, Faith excused herself to make several phone calls with her cell.

“It’s terribly rude, I’m sorry, but I wasn’t able to reach two of the people I’m hoping can come for Sunday dinner after the service tomorrow.”

“Don’t be silly. I just may make Samantha happy and get one of those things myself. They’re awfully convenient,” Ursula said.

Seeing James Holden, the newest Tillie, had caused Faith a restless night until suddenly in the wee hours of the morning she’d had an idea, a plan to “catch the conscience of a king.” She wasn’t going to stage a play, but she was going to set a trap, and if it did not snare a mouse, it would at least have been baited.

She was going to give a dinner party, or rather a Sunday dinner party. She often invited people for postchurch luncheon, so it would not seem out of the ordinary, and she was going to seed the guest list with her friends the Averys. Will and Patsy Avery were not members of First Parish, so had no idea of the current situation—otherwise Patsy would have been on the phone to Faith immediately. They had adopted siblings Kianna, age five, and her brother, Devon, age three, last fall after a prescient doctor asked them whether they wanted to reproduce themselves or raise a family together. For Patsy and Will, the answer was family, and they had found one in these harder-to-place older children, who were now also an extension of the Fairchild family. Ben didn’t mind it one bit that Devon worshiped him—and Faith suspected he liked the opportunity to play with LEGOs again. Amy and Kianna were equally inseparable and the four children would consider it a treat to have their lunch in the kitchen, away from the grown-ups, before going out to play on the swing set. Tom and his brothers had constructed it shortly after Ben was born, much to Faith’s amusement. It would be some years before the infant could climb the tower or go down the slide, but the Fairchild boys had worked in a frenzy to get it ready—and it did seem in retrospect that Ben was on it in a very short time.

The other grown-ups she was inviting were the Reverend James Holden—Faith intended to steer the conversation to boat purchases—and Eloise Gardner, the education director, who was also on the list Tom and Faith had drawn up. Eloise was a clotheshorse. A few pairs of Manolos, a Prada bag, plus trips to Sonia Rykiel, Ralph Lauren, and Burberry would eat up the missing money in a flash.

She hadn’t left messages on their machines when she’d called earlier, wanting a definite reply, and she was in luck. She reached them both and they would be happy to come. James had been previously, but Eloise hadn’t and expressed particular delight at the opportunity to sample some “real food,” confessing that her own “cuisine” was limited to the boxes in the freezer with “Lean” in front of the word. If Eloise turned out not to be the guilty party, Faith resolved to invite her for meals often. No one should be subjected to that kind of life.

Albert Trumbull, the parish administrative assistant, and Lily Sinclair, the former divinity school intern, as well as the vestry members on the list, would have to wait their turns for scrutiny.

She noticed she had a text and, after opening it, was pleased to find a response to the e-mail she’d sent to Zach Cummings Wednesday night. He apologized for not getting back to her sooner—and told her to call. He’d be around all weekend. He’d written, “Another mystery?” and added a winking smiley emoticon.

Things were looking up.

“Pour the tea and let’s sit here awhile. I love to look at the river, no matter what the weather,” Ursula said.

It was still pouring steadily and a pool had appeared at the bottom of Ursula’s yard that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. Faith hoped Tom had remembered to turn on the sump pump, so the parsonage basement wouldn’t flood. For a brief moment she thought longingly to the time in her life when she’d had no idea what a “sump pump” was.

“Here’s where I say, ‘Reader, I married him,’ although not for many years. It was, in fact, quite a while before I thought of Arnold Rowe at all. It never occurred to me that he hadn’t gone on to law school, completed his studies, and joined the ranks of desperate job seekers. I didn’t know about the trial and had blocked the image of him in the gazebo from my conscious mind. My unconscious was not so cooperative. That first year I was plagued by nightmares, waking with feelings of terror; but not wanting to disturb my parents, I would turn on the light and read until sleep, uninterrupted, returned.

“The same aunt who’d owned our house was an alumna of the Cabot School here in town and had left a substantial endowment for scholarships. Mother approached the headmistress, and upon returning from Bermuda, I was enrolled there as a day student. Life took on a semblance of normalcy with new routines. Father took the train into town; I walked to school; and Mother managed the house, although her heart was in the garden. In the spring, that’s where I’d find her, sometimes with tears in her eyes and I knew she’d been thinking of Theo. I missed him dreadfully and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about him. Mother and Father never mentioned him, or what had happened. There were no visible pictures of him in the house, nothing to indicate he had ever existed.”

“Why do you think this was?” Faith asked. It seemed so extreme. Theo hadn’t committed a crime. He was the victim of one.

“Mostly because it was too painful—and people didn’t ‘let it all hang out’ in those days, remember—but also because Aleford represented a new beginning for the family. The trial started in late October. Any reports would have been eclipsed by the day’s more dramatic accounts of bank and business failures. In addition, although Aleford was the same number of miles from town then as it is now, much more distance separated the two when it came to communication at that time. It was truly a backwater.

“Earlier, in August, there had been a quiet funeral at King’s Chapel and afterward he was buried in the Lyman family plot at Mount Auburn cemetery. I was too ill to be present.”

Ursula sounded as bereft now as she was then. Faith’s heart ached for her. Barely out of childhood, she had had the initial loss repeated over and over again with no one to talk to about her brother, no one with whom she could remember the happy days, years that had preceded his untimely death.

“He always kept Butterfinger candy bars in his pocket for me. They were my favorite. I haven’t been able to eat one since . . .”

Ursula hated Aleford. She kicked a stone on the sidewalk. It felt so good, she kicked another. Cabot wasn’t anything like Winsor, her old school. The day students, especially the ones on scholarships, were second-class citizens so far as the boarders were concerned. And how did they know—these girls who brought their own horses and talked of summers in the Adirondacks? Horses. Cabot was a very horsey school. Ursula had never ridden. The only horses she ever saw had been the ones the mounted police rode on the Boston Common.



She missed her friends. In the first months after the move, her mother had said not to worry, that they’d keep in touch and that Ursula could visit them often. And there had been a few letters back and forth, no one saying what they must all have been thinking, but these had petered out. The visits never materialized, and the only time she went to town was to go to church and see her cousins afterward. Even that wasn’t every Sunday. Her parents had started attending First Parish out here. It was nothing like King’s Chapel. A boring white church with a steeple just like every other one you saw on the greens of New England. King’s Chapel was made of stone, soaring pillars in front and inside vaulting that took your eye to the beautiful sky-blue ceiling above. It was the oldest church in Boston and didn’t have a steeple. So there. She kicked another stone.



It was wicked to feel this way. She knew that, and in a flash she thought that Theo would have understood. He would have said, “Don’t worry about it, squirt. Everything’s going to be hunky-dory.” But it wasn’t and hadn’t been.



She’d shot up the first spring here. Not surprising given how tall her parents were, but she felt like Alice after she’d nibbled the cake labeled “Eat Me.” The Cabot girls her age were petite and dainty. She hated them. If it wasn’t for Marit she didn’t know what she’d do. And even with Marit, she wasn’t able to talk about Theo.



Theo. She missed him all the time, and it seemed each day brought a fresh reminder, fresh pain. Last week she had been looking in the living room bookshelves for something about King Arthur and came across one of Theo’s books from his course on medieval history with his name and address printed in his sprawling handwriting on the title page. The Professor ran the study sessions for the course, which helped Theo pass, and that’s why Father had hired him to tutor Theo over the summer. Ursula had dropped the book, but picked it up immediately and rearranged the others to fill the space it had occupied. She took it to her room, searching in vain for any notes or underlinings Theo might have made, and slipped it behind her Little Colonel books in her own bookcase. Theo had given her a copy of his formal freshman portrait. The photo and now the book were all she had of him. His gift, her treasured wristwatch, had disappeared, lost that night or during the days that followed. She didn’t want another one, and in any case, they were too expensive for the Lymans now.



She turned on Adams Street. It was the beginning of their third fall in Aleford. Nineteen thirty-one. Soon it would be 1932. Father had been able to let Sanpere for the last two summers at what Mother said was a “giveaway price,” but it was something. Ursula hated the thought of strangers at The Pines. Maybe next summer . . .



Would things ever get better? She’d heard Father tell Mother that so many shoe and textile factories, the mainstays of Massachusetts manufacturing, had closed that former workers’ children were barefoot and in tatters. People were going hungry, too. Several Sundays ago they had passed a long line of people on Tremont Street, and when she asked what it was her mother told her they were waiting to get served at a soup kitchen. One man facing the street had a placard around his neck saying he would work for food. That his children were starving.



She was wicked. She had food and a very pleasant roof over her head. A school to go to when so many others had none of these things. She pinched her arm and vowed to stop being so self-centered.



She was almost home. Adams Street was lined with tall maples and oaks. The leaves were brilliant reds and golds and would start falling soon. Falling, too, on Theo’s grave. A grave she’d never seen. She blinked back her tears, wiped her eyes, and stood up straighter. She didn’t want to upset her mother.



Aleford. What a stupid name. She hated this place and was counting the days until she’d be old enough to leave and never come back.



“Well, your two lovebirds are certainly discreet,” Patsy Avery said to Faith as she came in through the kitchen door. Will and the children went straight through to the living room.

“Lovebirds?” Faith was startled, but not so startled that she failed to take the sweet potato pie from Patsy’s outstretched hands.

“Didn’t you say you’d asked the Reverend Holden to come? I recognized him, but not the woman. They were holding hands as they walked down the church driveway toward the cemetery, but dropped them as soon as they got to where you might see them from your back window. There they are now coming around to the front door.”

“The woman is Eloise Gardner, our education director. Are you sure their hands didn’t just touch in a sort of friendly accidental way?”

“Nope. This was fingers entwined. Nothing accidental about it, unless you call love an accident, which it certainly can be.”

The front doorbell rang.

“Tom,” Faith called. “Could you get that? It’s our other guests.”

Eloise and James. This was definitely a new twist, Faith thought. Tom hadn’t mentioned anything about a budding romance between the two, but then, it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d notice, not until he was invited to the wedding. And Faith rarely saw the two together. Eloise was around after Sunday school, but she generally didn’t attend coffee hour—too many parents wanting to grab her attention, Faith assumed.

Did Patsy’s observation make Faith suspect either individual or both more, or less?

She turned her attention to the roast. Faith was a firm believer in traditional Sunday dinners. Today it was a leg of lamb with new potatoes and asparagus. The first asparagus was coming in from California and Faith was roasting it at the last minute in the oven with olive oil and garlic, a drizzle of lemon when she took it out. The tips would be slightly crunchy, the stems tender. The potatoes had been steamed and were in the pan with the fragrant lamb to brown. She’d seasoned the roast with more garlic and rosemary. If James and Eloise were an item perhaps she should leave some breath mints on the table at the end of the meal.

“What’s this?” Patsy asked, pointing toward a small dish filled with some sort of red jelly.

“I refuse to spoil lamb with mint jelly, no matter what my husband got used to as a child. But he still wants something like it, so that’s red pepper jelly.”

“Will has to have Heinz catsup with his scrambled eggs and the eggs have to be almost burned because that’s how his mother made them. What will our children be laying on their poor spouses, I wonder?”

“Given what you put on your table, they’re going to have a hard act to follow,” Faith said.

“Ditto, but I plan on teaching both of mine to cook—a gift to whomever. And you’ve already taught Ben and Amy to do more than push a button on the microwave.”

This was true, although there was plenty of button pushing, but both kids had always enjoyed messing around in the kitchen with mom, something Faith had never experienced.

Things were going well. There was nothing like good food and a glass or two of wine—a nice, full-bodied 2008 Porcupine Ridge Syrah from South Africa—to make people feel relaxed. Will was talking about how growing up in New Orleans, he and his friends would sneak into Preservation Hall and other jazz joints when they were young teens.

“The music never left and the rest of the city is definitely coming back,” he said. “That Super Bowl win didn’t hurt.”

“Didn’t hurt,” Patsy cried. “Folks are still hanging their Saints banners all over the place and don’t even think of wearing a cap or T-shirt anywhere in Louisiana with another team’s name.”

Faith decided it was time to try to steer the conversation in the direction she’d intended.

“Are you a sports fan, James? I know you must follow things like the America’s Cup.” She addressed the whole table. “I learned last night that James is an accomplished sailor when he was inducted into the Tiller Club. Have Faith catered the dinner.”

“Congratulations,” Will said. “My time on the water has been strictly limited to trying to get crawfish in the bayous, but I’ve always wanted to sail.”

The Reverend had flushed at Faith’s words. Yes, she’d been pretty obvious and now she was going to push it even more.

“James just bought a new boat, the club chairman told me. I don’t remember exactly how big it is, though.”

“Not that big,” he said quickly. “I was able to get it for a very low price. The owner was forced to declare bankruptcy.”

“So I heard. A great bargain. What was it? Ten—”

Before Faith could finish the sentence, everyone’s attention turned to Eloise Gardner, who’d spilled what was left in her wineglass down the front of the light beige blazer she was wearing with a black pleated skirt.

“Club soda,” Patsy said, getting up.

“I’m so sorry, but I don’t think any went on your tablecloth or the rug,” Eloise said.

“Don’t worry. Patsy’s right about the club soda and I have plenty in the kitchen,” Faith said. The three women left the table, and as Faith went through the door, she heard James say, “So what kind of law do you specialize in, Will?”

Captain Holden had seized the tiller and was steering in another direction.

Club soda worked its magic and the wine had not spilled on Eloise’s ivory-colored silk blouse or the scarf she was wearing draped across her shoulders.

“Your jacket should be dry enough to wear by the time you leave,” Faith said.

“Even if it isn’t, I won’t need it. It’s so warm today. Winter may truly be behind us.”

Patsy straightened Eloise’s scarf. “There, you look fine. And I love the nautical pattern.”

Faith loved it, too. The scarf was from Hermès—the Christopher Columbus model to commemorate his supposed discovery of America. Hermès scarves like this one cost about $400.

“It was a gift from—a gift from a friend.” Eloise stumbled over the words.

Patsy gave Faith a knowing look.

“Well, that must be a very thoughtful friend—and a good thing the wine missed it. As long as we’re out here, why don’t we give these starving children some dessert and put the pie in to warm?”

There were cheers from the round table by the window where the kids had been watching the cleanup. Nobody had spilled anything at their table, they seemed to be saying.

Eloise, Patsy, and Faith returned to the dining room. Clearing plates, Faith thought to herself, as Sigmund had said, There are no accidents. . . .

The party broke up after dessert. Will took the children home—Devon needed his nap—but Patsy insisted on staying to help Faith and headed for the kitchen. Eloise expressed her appreciation for the “gourmet meal,” retrieved her damp jacket, and left. As Tom was seeing her out, Faith was left alone in the dining room with James.

“A delicious meal, as always. Thank you,” he said.

His stern expression was at odds with the appreciative words.

“I’m glad you were able to make it,” Faith said.

“I come from a family of sailors,” he said abruptly. “Holdens have always owned boats. Airing First Parish’s dirty laundry in public is not my style and I wasn’t about to respond to your innuendos, but I can assure you that I am not involved in any way with Tom’s problem.”

Faith felt as if he had slapped her. He might as well have. And “Tom’s problem”? The good Reverend was firmly distancing himself.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at, James.”

“Oh, I think you do and I’m telling you to stay out of my business. Boat buying or anything else I do on my own time has nothing to do with my commitment at First Parish.”

Faith knew he was speaking of “commitment” as in “calling,” but it certainly suggested “confinement.” She realized that she didn’t know much about James. Although he’d been at the church almost two years, she still thought of him as newly arrived. He wasn’t particularly outgoing, but both Tom and the vestry seemed happy with him, and she hadn’t heard any complaints from the congregation. She hadn’t heard much praise, either.

Tom came in. “Care to sit in the living room for a while, James? Another cup of coffee?”

“Thank you, no. I have to be in Cambridge soon.”

I’ll bet you do, Faith thought. Eloise lived near Inman Square.

He left and Tom went out to join the kids in the backyard. When Faith went into the kitchen, where Patsy had already filled the dishwasher, she could see her husband, rake in hand, heading for the thick winter leaf cover on the perennial beds.

There wasn’t much food left, but Faith put it away and was starting on the roasting pan when Patsy said, “Leave it to soak and pour me another cup of coffee. One for you, too. I want to know what’s going on.”

Faith had been waiting for this. Like her husband, Patsy was a lawyer, a juvenile public defender. Faith and she had been involved in two investigations over the years and Faith had learned that nothing much got past Ms. Avery. She couldn’t tell Patsy what was going on at First Parish, but if Patsy guessed . . . Faith laughed to herself as she admitted this was one of the things she’d hoped would happen today.

“Tom barely said two words all through lunch and he’s attacking those poor flower beds as if the leaves were hiding Satan himself,” Patsy said. “You start telling us about some boat and Reverend Holden looks like he’s been caught with his hand in the Poor Box.” Faith tried to suppress her gasp at Patsy’s apt description.

“So that’s it,” Patsy said slowly. “Money. Of course. A financial irregularity at First Parish. You don’t have to say anything. I know you can’t. You suspect James Holden and maybe the Sunday school director, too.”

Faith lowered her head toward her coffee to take a sip. It could also have been seen as a nod.

“But somehow Tom is being blamed, judging from the way he’s behaving—and the look on his face. One of those ‘My dog is lost; can you help me find him?’ kinds.”

Faith took another sip.

“Does he need a lawyer?”

“He has one,” Faith blurted out. “Sam. He’s away for the rest of the week, though.”

“Okay, I didn’t hear anything. Sam Miller is a good choice, especially as he knows the cast of characters. But before I leave, answer me one question: Why did Ms. Eloise pour her wine down her jacket so carefully? I saw it and she did a fine job of dribbling it so it missed her very expensive scarf and white blouse. Hmmm?”

“Hmmm,” was all Faith could think of in reply.

Dora had come in Ursula’s kitchen door the day before, closing her wet Mary Poppins umbrella behind her. She’d smiled broadly at the scene. Ursula’s plate was almost clean. She was popping a last bit of liverwurst in her mouth. Faith had been afraid Dora would chase her away, but instead she had suggested she make a fire in the living room fireplace. “You can stretch out on the couch, Mrs. Rowe, and Mrs. Fairchild can keep you company a bit longer. Her visit today looks like it’s done you a world of good.”

Faith was conscious of a gold star about to be pasted next to her name in the Book of Dora.

Once Ursula was ensconced in front of the fire with an afghan that Faith recognized as Pix’s handiwork, she began to talk.

“As I said, I hadn’t given any thought to Arnold Rowe. I tried not to think about that night at all, although it was always with me, not far from the surface. I was very restless in Aleford and had never settled into the Cabot School. I thought of myself as a city girl.

“Time went by, I turned sixteen and shortly afterward two things happened that changed my life forever. The first was finding a box of clippings about the murder and the trial. The Adams Street house had a large attic and things from our Boston house that Mother wanted to save, but didn’t have room for downstairs, were stored there. She never liked to go up in the attic—mice and spiders—but I loved it. There were two small round windows at either end, so it wasn’t dark. I’d often take a book and curl up on a chair that I’d dragged closer to the light at the end overlooking the garden. The trunks and boxes didn’t interest me, but one day Mother asked me to go through them for some curtains when I went up to read. She thought she could have Mrs. Hansen cut them down for the kitchen. The Hansens were going back to Norway, much to my dismay—I was already missing Marit—and Mother wanted to get as much sewing as possible done before they left.

“I found the curtains after much searching and was about to close that trunk when I saw there was a letter file in the bottom. These were large hinged boxes covered with marbleized paper where people used to file correspondence. My father had rows of them on the shelves in his office and I wondered what this one was doing here. I opened it and saw that the folders were filled with newspaper clippings and letters from a Boston law firm.

“I knew what it contained even before reading a single word—and why it had been tucked so far away. Perhaps that wasn’t a bad idea, and I considered leaving it where it was, unread. I was torn between not wanting to be reminded of that summer and wanting to know what had been happening during the time I had been ill. And then one of the headlines caught my eye: ‘Sentenced to Life: Tutor Convicted of Murdering Pupil.’

“I felt sick. All the time that I’d been going about my little life, Arnold Rowe had been in prison for his life—the Charles Street Jail, to be precise.”

Faith wondered whether Ursula knew that the jail, closed in 1973 because overcrowding violated the constitutional rights of the inmates, had reopened in 2007, after extensive remodeling, as a high-end luxury hotel ironically named the Liberty Hotel. Faith wasn’t sure whether such features as the Alibi Bar in the old drunk tank, the Clink restaurant with its vestiges of the original jail cells, and even the phone number (JAIL) represented a witty or totally inappropriate sense of humor. In its day, just before the Civil War, it had been hailed as a step forward in prison architecture with four wings to segregate prisoners by gender and offense extending from a ninety-foot-tall atrium. The multitude of arched windows set into the granite structure let in light and air, but didn’t let anyone out, of course.

“I started to read straight through. The first clippings described the murder itself and I immediately knew something was wrong with the reports. First of all, the party was described as a ‘small gathering of friends,’ and then there was a reference to an eyewitness who saw Theo go toward the gazebo at midnight followed by Arnold Rowe. I felt terribly confused. Certain parts of the night were as clear in my memory as they had been when they happened and I knew that Theo had been in the gazebo arguing with someone, a man, well before midnight. I’d been asleep and they’d awakened me. My watch had a luminous dial, quite a new thing, and it was eleven-thirty. I wasn’t able to identify the man’s voice, just Theo’s, but I did know it wasn’t Arnold’s. So who was there earlier with Theo? I read through the rest of the articles on the murder, including the news of Arnold’s arrest. There were far fewer about the trial, which was held in Edgartown at the Dukes County Courthouse. By that time, the country was caught up in the aftermath of the stock market crash. People were more concerned about their next meal and a roof over their heads than what was characterized as a fight turned deadly between two Harvard students. The trial was short and the guilty verdict swift. A court-appointed lawyer represented Arnold. I couldn’t find any indications of his line of defense. Without the proper facility on the island, Arnold had been immediately transferred to the prison in Boston.”

Ursula had been only sixteen! Faith pictured herself at that age. Her sister, a year younger, had mapped out her entire future—Pelham College undergrad, Harvard for an MBA, summer internships at the appropriate firms, and finally partner with a corner office on a top floor with multiple-figure bonuses. And it had all come true. Faith meanwhile had been busy thinking up ever new excuses to get out of gym and ways to get Emilio, the very cool Italian exchange student, to notice her. Ursula at that age was dealing with issues an adult would have had difficulty with—complicated by grief over an irreplaceable loss.

“Finding the box was both liberating—I now knew more about what happened—and depressing—there were still so many unanswered questions. Had there been a thorough investigation? And what about the reporters’ mistakes? It was not a small party, but a very large one. There was a single sentence mentioning a ‘fierce’ argument earlier in the evening between my brother and Arnold Rowe. Yet, at the time when it supposedly occurred we were at Illumination Night. The word ‘fierce’ surprised me, too. Theo could get annoyed, but even when he’d overly imbibed—in fact especially then—he was always very easygoing, and I’d never heard the Professor raise his voice.

“I returned often in the following weeks to reread the contents of the box until I had it virtually memorized, and then there was the second stroke of luck. Or divine intervention, if you will. I firmly believe in both.

“Mother and I had taken the train into town to see Aunt Myrtle. My cousins, whom I had thought would be there, weren’t at home. Seeing that I was at loose ends, my aunt sent me to Stearn’s to buy gloves on her account. I’m sure she noticed the ones I was wearing were outgrown. In those days you didn’t go into town without a hat and gloves. The department store was on Tremont Street across from the Common. I wish you could have seen it—it closed in the late 1970s. Such elegance.”

“My mother and I still miss B. Altman in New York—it sounds like the same kind of place.”

“I had selected a lovely pair of gray kid gloves when I heard a couple talking behind me. The man was urging the woman to buy a coat she had just tried on. He was tired of shopping and didn’t want to go to another store. She was resisting. I recognized both their voices immediately and told the saleswoman I wanted to try the gloves on in brown so I could remain at the counter. The woman was Violet Hammond and the man was Charles Winthrop. They hadn’t changed much, especially Violet. She was still turning heads.

“When the saleswoman brought the gloves for me to try on, my hands were shaking. Violet and Charles were continuing their discussion directly behind me. He was growing increasingly angry and I didn’t simply recognize the voice of the man who had been a guest at the Vineyard, but I recognized it as the man who had been arguing with Theo in the gazebo. Charles Winthrop was there well before Arnold. Charles Winthrop was the one who was desperate for money. Charles Winthrop had killed Theo.”

“Are you all right, miss?”



“Yes, just a bit faint. I’ll be fine in a minute.”



Ursula desperately needed to sit down. She was leaning against the counter, the neat rows of gloves arrayed on the shelves beneath the glass. So many kinds of gloves. Long, short, even the arm-length kind debutantes and brides wore. They began to swirl together in front of her eyes. She closed them to keep from passing out.



Charles Winthrop. The voice. The other noises. He’d hit Theo. In her mind she heard her brother again, “Whadya have to smack me for? Thought we were friends.” The thumping noise. Charles must have hit Theo again, hit him too hard. The sound she’d assumed was both of them running back to the party had been Charles alone. Charles running away to do what? Involve Arnold Rowe. Find someone else to blame. Maybe it was an accident. It had to have been. People didn’t go around killing people like that. He’d hit Theo too hard. It had to be that.



No! It wasn’t supposed to be at all. Theo was dead and Charles was guilty. Not the young man in a cell a short walk away.



“I’ll be a good little wife, Charlie. Calm down. People are starting to look at us. It’s a perfectly adorable coat.”



The couple moved off. Ursula told the saleswoman she’d take the gray gloves. By the time they were signed for and wrapped, she had regained her composure.



“The couple behind me just now. Do you know who they are?”



The girl answered readily, “Oh yes, miss. That’s Mr. and Mrs. Charles Winthrop. Very good customers.”



Ursula had had to be sure. And she was also sure of her next stop. Her mother and her aunt would talk for hours more. She tucked her parcel in her purse and turned her steps toward the Charles Street Jail.



The fire was burning low, but Faith didn’t want to interrupt Ursula by putting another log on. Outside the rain had tapered off, but the sky was still dark.

“I’ve never told anyone about all this, except Arnold of course. A few days ago you and I were talking about coincidence. Cosmic coincidences, a dear friend used to call them. If Aunt Myrtle hadn’t sent me to Stearn’s it’s unlikely that I would ever have seen the Winthrops. I was seldom in town, and in any case, we didn’t travel in the same circles.

“Unlike today, that day was beautiful. Early spring, like now. As I walked down Tremont Street past King’s Chapel and, yes, continuing on through Scollay Square into the West End, where the jail was located, I felt a warm presence. It was as though Theo were near. It gave me courage and strengthened my resolve. I thought I knew now who had killed him, but even so I realized I had known all along that Arnold hadn’t.”

Ursula paused, staring into the embers in the fireplace.

“That being so, I was just going to have to unmask the real murderer myself.”