1

IRENE DELAFIELD WAS DEAD and Frank Bennett was glad.

It wasn't the first time he'd been happy to hear of someone's passing. When Ronald Beemis, serial child molester, had been shanked in the exercise yard of the Missouri state prison, Frank couldn't help but feel that the world was a better place. And when Osvaldo Merguez and Tyrone "Teeko" Mills had taken each other down in a blaze of semiautomatic gunfire over contested drug turf in Kansas City, Frank had joined his fellow cops in a genial celebration at their local bar.

Irene Delafield didn't have a rap sheet; she was the organist at the Presbyterian Church in Trout Run, New York—but what she did to the fine old melodies in the Presbyterian Hymnbook was positively criminal. Under Irene's inept fingers, "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today" became a dirge. She was so flummoxed by the syncopations of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" that she lost the entire congregation before the first verse ended and left each person valiantly singing whatever he thought best.

As the widower of a very fine church musician, Frank couldn't bear to listen to Irene play. When he occasionally got in a churchgoing mood, he headed down to the Congregational Church in Keene Valley, where the organist put on a creditable show. Frank's flagrant disloyalty did not go unremarked in his adopted hometown. He was, after all, the police chief of Trout Run and should set an example.

So he had chosen the first Sunday in November, All Saints' Day, to rejoin the fold now that a heart attack had taken Irene off the organ bench for good. And it hadn't been bad. The service had ended with a rousing rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In" that made sitting through Pastor Bob Rush's meandering sermon worthwhile.

He was still humming under his breath when Reid Burlingame and Ardyth Munger cornered him during fellowship hour.

"Good to see you here, Frank," Reid said. As chairman of the town council, Reid was his boss, so Frank was glad his attendance had been duly noted. "What did you think of today's music?"

Frank swallowed the last morsel of his crumb cake. "Terrific. Stepping outside the hymnal with that last number, no?"

"Matthew wanted to play it, and Bob said it was okay," Ardyth explained.

"Matthew?"

"Matthew Portman. That was him playing the piano during the service."

"Ah, that Matthew." Matthew Portman was only fourteen years old when he had filled in on piano last year while Irene visited her sister in Toledo, and church attendance had risen dramatically. After that, Pastor Bob had thoughtfully encouraged Irene to take more vacations, but she had clung to her organ bench with barnaclelike tenacity, and Matthew hadn't gotten another shot.

"Did you see this?" Ardyth tapped the back page of her bulletin, which proclaimed in boldface print: Hymn Sing and Pie Social, Saturday, November 14. "It's a fund-raiser so we can send Matthew for organ lessons."

Reid beamed. "We've had a real stroke of luck. Oliver Greffe, the music teacher at the North Country Academy, is quite an accomplished organist. He's agreed to instruct Matthew. It's another example of the good things that school is doing for our town now that it's under new management."

Frank braced himself for another one of Reid's rah-rah speeches. He'd hardly had a conversation with the man lately that didn't revolve around what a boon to the local economy the new North Country Academy was proving to be. The academy used to be a third-rate boarding school catering to kids who couldn't get into—or had been kicked out of—better institutions. But its remote location and indifferent academic reputation had finally driven it out of existence at the end of the last school year. Trout Run greeted the news with a big yawn—although technically within the town limits, the school had never seemed like part of the community. Only one person from Trout Run taught there, and all the local kids went to Trout Run Elementary, then on to High Peaks High School.

Then, at the end of the summer, a man named MacArthur Payne had bought the North Country Academy and the place had been reborn as what Reid liked to call a "therapeutic school." Frank, who hadn't mastered political correctness, referred to it as "that high-priced private reform school."

"So Matthew's going to the North Country Academy for organ lessons, huh," he said. "What'll they do if he doesn't practice—lock him up?"

Reid glared at him. "Frank, that's a very unfair remark. You—"

"Joking, I was joking!" Geez, Reid had really lost his sense of humor over this place.

"The lessons will be here in the church, where the organ is," Reid explained. "Plus, Matthew will be able to walk here."

Copyright © 2005 by Susan Werlinich