I sat on the edge of the narrow bed that was mine for the night, wearing the rose-colored nightgown that Jack’s sister had given me as an engagement present. It was the most elegant and luxurious piece of clothing I had ever owned, spaghetti straps down to a permanently pleated gown with yards of yummy fabric that looked more like an evening gown than something to sleep in. Knowing where I was going to spend the night, I would have been smarter to take along a flannel nightie, but I couldn’t resist the appeal of wearing something so fine in a place so spare.
Jack opened the door, returning from the long trek to the shower room. “Gotta be forty in that hall, but it’s nice in here. Boy, do you look gorgeous. You wore that on our wedding night, didn’t you?”
“It’s the one your sister gave me.” I stood and turned a full circle, relishing the feel of the soft fabric as it swirled around my legs and ankles.
Jack took his bathrobe off and put his arms around me, lighting fires inside. “The bed’s too narrow, and even thinking of sex in this place gives me the creeps, but that’s all I can think of right now.”
“Me, too.”
“Your place or mine?”
“I don’t think it makes any difference. We’ll probably end up on the floor.”
He laughed and sat me down on my bed, but I was right. A couple of minutes later, aided only by pillows, we made love on the wooden floor of a dormitory room that couldn’t have witnessed such activity in all the years of its existence. I found that exciting and Jack must have, too, because it was very good, a good way to end Christmas.
“You think Sister Joseph is holding something back?”
We were sitting on my bed in the dark room, the only light the occasional red glow of the heater as the thermostat turned it on. “I know her very well, Jack. She didn’t answer Arnold, and I think she wouldn’t lie except perhaps to save a life. If there was something she wanted to avoid saying, saying nothing may have been the most honorable way out.”
“So you tell me. You remember him well. You thought he was a wonderful person. Everybody irritates someone. Who had a gripe against him? Who didn’t like the way he counseled the students? Who hated his sermons?”
“No one ever complained to me. He was well liked. He’s a great person.”
“What was it like when he left? Was it sudden? Were there whispers?”
“I don’t know, Jack. I wasn’t here that year.”
“What do you mean, you weren’t here? Where else could you have been?”
“It was the year I went for my master’s. I stayed at school over Thanksgiving, I remember, and I asked permission to visit Aunt Meg at Christmas.”
“Christmas is a long vacation. You spent the whole time in Oakwood?”
I thought about it. “No, I didn’t. I stayed through the holiday and then I came up here. Hudson was gone, I’m sure of it.”
“So he left before Christmas.”
“He must have.”
“Before you left for school in the fall, was he talking about going away?”
“Not to me, but there was no reason why he’d talk to me about something like that. He would have talked to Sister Clare Angela, the superior, or Joseph, maybe to some of the nuns that he was particularly friendly with, but I was kind of a kid. He might have told me after it was in the bag, but I wasn’t around. Why do you think there’s something funny about his leaving? It was something he always wanted to do, travel, work with poor communities.”
“Because Arnold hit her with two questions that she refused to answer. If I’d asked you the same question—who would harm Hudson and why?—what would you say?”
“Nobody. He never gave anyone a reason not to like him.”
“But she didn’t say that. And it left both Arnold and me feeling uncomfortable. Why do you think she didn’t answer the way you did?”
There was only one possible reason. “Because for her it wasn’t true. You think something happened that year I was away, that first semester, probably.”
“Right. Besides the convent, where else did he serve?”
“There’s a small, old church in the village. He lived in the rectory there and that was officially his parish, although he had a lot of duties associated with St. Stephen’s. He would offer mass for us at six A.M. and then one at the church later. Father Kramer took over as pastor of the church when Hudson left, and continued here, too.”
“Do you know where he was before?”
“Father Kramer? Somewhere near Newburgh. I don’t remember where.”
“So he wouldn’t remember anything firsthand about that year.”
“No. Tell me what you’re thinking, Jack.”
“Nothing very substantial. It just seems possible that something happened at that little church in the village, someone got angry at Hudson for something, and it precipitated his leaving.”
“And the person carried a grudge,” I said. “But how would this unknown person even know that Hudson was coming back today?”
“How about this? Hudson gets to the rest stop near Albany and calls St. Stephen’s. But this other thing is on his mind. So he makes a second call to someone who lives around here and says, ‘Let’s talk. I’ll meet you at the next rest stop in an hour.’ ”
“And the meeting takes a bad turn.”
“It means we’ve got to find the phone he called St. Stephen’s from and see what the next call was.”
I didn’t like it, but it fit a lot of what we knew.
“There’s another possibility,” Jack went on. “He gets to the rest stop where he’s going to change from his traveling clothes to his clerical suit and he just can’t do it. He can’t face the convent.”
“But why?”
“Sister Joseph knows.”
“Then where is he, Jack?”
“Who knows? In a hotel somewhere. On his way back to Buffalo. Sitting in his car at the side of a road trying to make sense out of his life.”
“You’re awfully melodramatic for a cop.”
“I guess you’re right.” He sounded playful. “How can a cop from Brooklyn appreciate melodrama? I should leave that for poetry teachers.”
“What I’m really afraid of is that what happened to Hudson was random violence, someone seeing a watch he was wearing and trying to get it away from him, threatening him with a gun. Maybe he did have a car someone wanted, one of those four-by-fours I always see in the supermarket parking lot. His parishes always covered a lot of territory. Maybe he needed that kind of car or truck to get around difficult terrain, to carry things to parishioners. Maybe this is a car jacking after all and somehow he ended up being taken with the car.”
“Let’s sleep on it.”
I kissed him and he got off the bed, waited for me to get under the covers, and tucked me in. Then he turned the heater down a little and turned the light off.
The bed was narrow and not very comfortable. At home we had a brand-new one with a firm mattress and lots of room. This was the first time I was alone in bed since my marriage last August. Somehow I knew it wasn’t going to be my last.
There was no news from the state police in the morning. The trail had dried up at the rest stop. All they could be sure of was that the owner of the clerical clothing—who might or might not be Hudson—had gotten out of his car, walked out of the parking lot to the snowy area in back, dropped some of his clothing, and gone back to the car. With the people using the parking lot such a transient group, it was impossible to find anyone who might remember a Wyoming car. But they now had a license plate number and a description of the vehicle Hudson had been driving. As it turned out, I was right. It was one of those all-terrain vehicles with heavy-duty tires, purchased used several years ago. Although the police were now fairly skeptical about the possibility of foul play, they promised they would keep a lookout for the vehicle.
After breakfast, we drove into town and found the Church of the Visitation. It had been built late in the nineteenth century and little about it had changed. The trees nearby were gnarled with age. Like many old churches, its entrance was flush with the street, the double doors thick wood with wrought-iron trim.
We went inside and I dipped my fingers in the font of holy water and crossed myself. The interior was beautiful, high windows all around letting in the daylight, polished old pews that had taken their knocks. I walked around to one of the side altars and lit my usual three candles, one each for my mother, my father, and my aunt Meg.
Jack had his wallet open, but I motioned him away. Perhaps when I’ve been married longer I’ll feel different about it, but I’ve always felt I have to pay myself with money I have earned or money that would come out of my daily expenses. There was a statue of a very sweet Mary at the altar, and I smiled up at her as I walked away.
Jack took my hand and we walked to the sanctuary. No one was around. A side door to the outside was locked, so we went back to the front door and out to the street. The rectory, a newer red-brick building, was next door. I rang the bell and heard a woman calling that she was on her way.
“Good morning,” she said brightly as she opened the door. “I’m afraid you’ve missed Father. He’s gone to the hospital to visit a sick parishioner.”
“You’re Mrs. Pfeiffer, aren’t you?” I said.
“Yes, I am. You look familiar, too, but I can’t place the face.”
“I was Sister Edward Frances at St. Stephen’s.”
“Oh, of course you were! Come on in, Sister. Well, it isn’t Sister anymore now, is it?”
“No, I’m Chris Bennett, Chris Bennett Brooks. This is my husband, Jack.”
She said how delighted she was to meet him and invited us to sit down. When we turned her down on coffee, I was afraid we’d wounded her mortally.
“But you’ll stay for lunch,” she insisted. “I’ve just made the best turkey salad you’ll get anywhere.”
I looked at Jack and he agreed with a grin. It wasn’t the kind of treatment he got when he went out with a partner to interview a possible witness about a crime.
“You’re really the one I wanted to see, Mrs. Pfeiffer. You’ve been here for a long time, haven’t you?”
“My goodness, yes. I lost my husband in my thirties and I needed a job, and I won’t tell you how many years it’s been since then.”
“You were here when Father McCormick came.”
“Yes indeed. A wonderful man. Father Kramer told me this morning that he didn’t get to the convent last night. I hope you’re not bringing me bad news.”
“No, no news at all. We don’t know anything more than you do. I just wanted to ask you about the years Father McCormick served in this parish.”
“I was here the whole time,” she said. “I was here when he came and here when he left. Are you trying to find him? Is that it?”
“We’re trying to figure out whether someone in the parish might have wanted to harm him.”
“Impossible.” She looked shocked. “Who would harm a priest?”
“Do you remember any disagreements while he was here? Any person or people who might have been unhappy with him as pastor?”
“No one. Never.” She was adamant. I was asking for something she could not conceive of.
“Just think for a minute. Parish politics can be the making or undoing of a priest. One person thinks another has been shown favoritism. Someone thinks he’s gotten the wrong end of the stick.” I sat back and let her get her thoughts together. Jack had walked away from us, leaving us to face each other across a scarred coffee table.
“Well, there was that business about refurbishing the rectory.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It was very silly, really. It had to be done. The wiring was shot and the plumbing was lousy.” She made a face over her choice of words. “It’s not as if Father McCormick was putting velvet covers on the chairs. The fire department told him he’d better do something about the wiring, and then the plumbing gave out about the same time. But no one would harm a priest over something like that, and ten years later to boot.”
I had to agree with her. “Were there people in the parish who objected to the work being done?”
“Oh, there was some nastiness. It didn’t amount to much and a collection was taken and the job was done. I had a few days when I couldn’t use the kitchen sink, but we were all better off when it was taken care of.”
“Do you remember who made the fuss?”
“Oh, that nasty Mr. Abbott. I know I shouldn’t say that. Father McCormick said he was a fine man with a lot of problems. But Father McCormick always saw the best in people. As Father Kramer does,” she added, lest I think she favored one priest over the other.
“Anything else you remember, Mrs. Pfeiffer?”
She pursed her lips and looked thoughtful. “Well—no, I don’t think so. Everything went smooth. I’m sure of it.”
“Does he write to you?” I asked.
“Oh my, yes. He never forgets my birthday. He sends me a lovely card at Christmas. Sometimes they’re made by the children or by some Indian artist or something. He’s a thoughtful man, but you know that.”
“Any letters?”
“Once in a while.”
“Do you remember when he left?”
“Yes, I do. We had some party for him. It was really lovely.”
“Do you remember when that was?”
“Let me see. It was cold and there was snow. It was before Christmas, I’m sure of that. Father Kramer was here for Christmas that year. I think Father McCormick wanted to have Christmas at his new parish. That was so nice of him, bringing Christmas to those poor people out there.”
“Was it sudden when he left?” I asked.
“Well, for me it was. It came so out of the blue, but I expect he’d been thinking about something like that for a long time.” She flashed a smile at me. “It was pretty sudden when you left, too, you know.”
And I’d been planning it for a year and thinking about it even longer. “Thanks an awful lot, Mrs. Pfeiffer. You’ve really been very helpful.”
“Anything I can do. You two young people go out and look at our pretty village. I’ll have your lunch at noon. How’s that?”
“Terrific,” Jack said.
We buttoned up and went out into the cold.
The village really was something to look at. Houses were decorated, stores were decorated, the streets in the center of town looked fantastic. Children in colorful snowsuits ran alongside women in warm coats and boots, sporting yesterday’s presents on an arm, around a neck, perched on a head. In fact, some of the boots looked pristine to me, as if they hadn’t yet slogged through the inevitable slush.
We walked around, looking in a craft shop, a china shop, a little knitwear store, buying nothing but having a good time. When we found a pay phone on a corner, Jack called the state police and asked if there was news. There wasn’t. Hudson and his ATV had vanished from the face of the earth.
“You want to hunt up this guy Abbott?” Jack said after he told me the nonnews.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It seems so unlikely, so farfetched. Someone who complains you’re spending too much money when you’re repairing wiring and plumbing is just a tightfisted old guy who complains when his wife buys a new dress after five years. He isn’t someone who kidnaps a priest. You know, when Mrs. Pfeiffer said that my leaving the convent came as a surprise to her, I realized I was very much in the same position as Hudson. I kept it all to myself except when I talked to Joseph or Father Kramer. I didn’t sit around gossiping to the nuns and I don’t think Hudson did either.”
“Want a cup of coffee?”
“Sure.”
We went inside a coffee shop we were passing and sat at one of several empty tables. I ordered cocoa and Jack got his midmorning caffeine fix, something I teased him about.
“I think she was telling the truth,” Jack said.
“Me, too.”
“I’ll get someone to check on those rest-stop phones, but it may take awhile, Chris. So let’s take another look at the other possibility, that your friend, Father Hudson McCormick had a reason why he didn’t want to show up at the convent yesterday, and when he got to the rest stop, whatever was bothering him got the better of him and he just couldn’t push himself to complete his journey.”
“So he dropped the clothing to let us know he’d gotten that far and that was it.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no reason for it. What could be so threatening about St. Stephen’s?”
“That’s what we have to ask Sister Joseph.”