Chapter 33 2025
Three hours after the reverend’s memorial service, the sheriff knocks on Meryl Fairbanks’s door. The tall man who had accompanied her answers with two bouncing black Labradors beside him.
“Hey, you,” the sheriff says, bending to scruff one of the dog’s necks. The other nuzzles and paws at him.
“Terrible guard dogs,” the man says, “but good company. Ed, down.”
The dog tilts his head as if considering the command and decides to ignore it. The sheriff gives him a scruff as well, then straightens.
“Elwood Banks,” the man says and extends his hand and a warm smile. “Meryl’s fourth, and hopefully final, husband.” His grip is firm, and his eyes are an intense, alert blue that look far younger than his sun-weathered face.
“Come in,” he says, opening the door wider. “Her majesty is resting, but I’ll let her know you’re here.”
The sheriff sits on a cream linen sofa with colorful patterned throw pillows. Through a set of French doors, he looks out at a stunning view of the pond and watches the swales of saw grass swaying with the breeze.
“Sheriff,” Meryl Fairbanks says, appearing from a hallway.
She has changed out of her burgundy dress and now wears powder-blue sweats and no makeup.
Yet somehow, she still manages to be striking.
She uses Elwood’s arm for support to walk to the overstuffed armchair across from him and lowers herself carefully. Elwood takes the other armchair.
“So what brings you to our neck of the pond?” she says, her hypnotic eyes dancing as if she knows perfectly well the reason he’s here and is toying with him.
And the sheriff can’t decide if she might actually know something, or if this is simply who she is, an incorrigible puppeteer who enjoys nothing more than pulling on the strings of others to watch them dance.
“I saw you at the service this morning,” the sheriff says.
Her lips quirk with a smile before she straightens the expression and says somberly, “So so sad. And he was so young.”
“Did you know him?”
“I know his wife,” she says, not exactly answering the question. “Heddy’s mother and I went to school together as girls, so I’ve known Heddy since she was born. Poor thing.”
Elwood crosses his legs and leans back, an intentional show of nonchalance. One dog sets his head on Elwood’s knees, and Elwood strokes his fur. The other lies at Elwood’s feet.
Careful not to overplay his hand, the sheriff matches their casualness and asks, “Have you been following the story of his death?”
“It’s caused quite a brouhaha,” Meryl Fairbanks says, her finely teased brows arching.
“I’m sure Holly is loving all the attention.
A horrible name, though, if you ask me. Certainly, a siren as legendary as her, devourer of men’s souls, deserves a more respectable name than Holly.
Something seductive like Medusa or Amphitrite. Serena would be nice.”
As she talks, the sheriff finds himself, once again, falling under her spell. The woman is a living siren herself, beguiling and disarming and, he’s certain, responsible for the demise of many men’s souls.
He clears his throat and straightens. “So you’re aware then that the body was found five months after the reverend went missing?”
“Makes sense. Five months with most men is plenty long enough.” She winks at Elwood, and he winks back. “Serena lost her taste and spit him back out.”
Elwood laughs, and the sheriff can’t help but chuckle as well.
He tries a different tack. “I have reason to believe the reverend was murdered.”
Neither reacts, which means either they expected it, or they are both very good at masking their emotions. His gut tells him it’s both, that they already knew the reverend was murdered, but that they are also old enough and wise enough not to give anything away they don’t want to.
“It appears he was shot,” the sheriff says, baiting them and getting nothing, not even a blink. Both sit impassively, waiting for him to go on.
“My best guess is that the murder took place at the inlet just over the hill.” He juts his chin toward the French doors and the knoll in the distance. “And that the body drifted to where it was found.”
It’s very slight, and had he not been studying Meryl Fairbanks carefully, he would have missed it, but undeniably, her eyes flick right before she says, “Hmm? The inlet? Usually there’s nothing on our side of the pond but rabbits and birds.”
“There’s a hole there, in the school’s wall, large enough for someone to crawl through. I believe the reverend used it to get to the pond the day he was killed.”
The sheriff notices Elwood’s right finger has started tapping the arm of his chair.
“Ooh,” Meryl Fairbanks says, “so Serena did call to him.”
“No,” the sheriff says sternly as if reprimanding a child. “I believe someone else, a real live someone, asked him to meet them there.”
Meryl Fairbanks pouts, clearly unhappy the sheriff is putting the kibosh on her fun.
Elwood speaks up. “And you’re here because you think we might know something about that?”
“There’s a trampled path that leads from the inlet to your yard.”
Meryl Fairbanks waves her hand dismissively. “My goddaughter visited last weekend, and she and Elwood like to go to the clover patch to feed the rabbits.”
“The clover patch? So you know about the hole in the wall?”
“I do. Though I’ve never paid it much mind. It’s been there since I was a girl.”
“And you didn’t think to mention it to Heddy when you heard her husband had gone missing after he gave his Sunday sermon at the school’s chapel?”
“It never occurred to me,” she says innocently, her eyes wide and her mirth quieted, which makes the sheriff deeply suspect she’s acting.
“Even after the body was discovered?”
Elwood says, “The body was found on the town’s side of the pond. Had we known he was killed on this side, as you now suspect, we might have thought to say something.” His finger resumes its tapping, a steady, quick pulse.
The sheriff looks from him to Meryl Fairbanks. Tall and small. The path from the likely scene of the crime leads to their backyard. And they definitely know more than they’re letting on. Though he can’t imagine any possible reason the two of them would have had for killing the man.