X (Kinsey Millhone 24)

“Sorry. I should have explained myself. Pete’s widow is a good friend. She asked me to help settle his business affairs. I was hoping to deliver this to April, but I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. I came to you first because yours was the return address.”

She thought about that briefly. “You’d best come in.”

She held open the door and I stepped into the glassed-in front room. She closed the door behind me and returned to the jigsaw puzzle.

The tabletop was a large sheet of plywood, probably forty-eight inches on a side, resting on two sawhorses. Chairs had been placed around the partially completed puzzle so that several people could work at the same time. The light pouring in through the front windows brought the haphazard arrangement of puzzle pieces into sharp relief. She was apparently a purist, because there was no sign of the box top with the finished picture in view. The portion she’d pieced together was in tones of black and white. When I saw the subject matter, I leaned forward and looked more carefully.

The figures were small; a cartoonlike assortment of medieval peasants in a landscape rendered in minute detail. There were weapons everywhere—spears and crossbows and swords. Also, lizards and strange birds. Naked men and women were being variously whipped and beaten, pecked, and cut in half with a giant knife. All of the edge pieces were in place and she’d completed certain areas along the left-hand side, including a naked fellow, impaled on a stick, being roasted over an open fire.

“I hope you don’t mind if I work while we talk. My great-grandchildren will be here after school and I promised I’d get this started. Their patience is limited.”

“May I?” I asked.

“Of course.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down, putting the mailing pouch on the floor at my feet. I was transfixed by the horrors in the jigsaw puzzle. “What is this?”

“I’m teaching them about the Seven Deadly Sins. The two older ones are too busy to visit, so I’m having to focus on the little ones. Kindergarten through third. I started with an explanation of Gluttony and Sloth. They had no idea what I was talking about and couldn’t have cared less even when I explained. Then I found these puzzles, and now they can’t wait to help.”

“What am I looking at?”

“Pieter Bruegel the Elder did a series of engravings with the Seven Deadly Sins as his subject. This one is Anger. You can talk about Greed or Pride being wrong, but it doesn’t mean much to children. Eternal damnation’s an abstract, so what do they care? On the other hand, they know about tantrums and school yard fights, with all the scratching, biting, and kicking that accompanies them. They also have a keen understanding of punishment. This is a hell they can see with their own eyes. You’d be surprised how much fun we have.”

She was searching for a particular piece, so I held my tongue. “Where are you, you little dickens?” she murmured to herself.

I stole a quick look at my surroundings, which included the living room and a portion of the kitchen. The furniture was the sort I’ve seen at Goodwill donation centers: serviceable and well-used. No antiques and no pieces that would even qualify as “collectible,” except for the oven, which was a four-burner O’Keefe and Merritt with a center griddle, a fold-down shelf, drop-in salt and pepper shakers, and a clock that displayed the correct time. Henry would have given an arm and a leg for it.

Idly, she said, “I’m sorry to hear about Mr. Wolinsky. Was he ill?”

“He was killed in a robbery attempt,” I said, without going into any detail. “He went to some lengths to hide the mailer, so he must have been worried about its falling into the wrong hands. Do you have any idea why Father Xavier gave it to him?”

“Mr. Wolinsky told me April was living in Santa Teresa. I’d imagine he told Father Xavier the same thing. He saw her wedding announcement in the paper and that’s what set him thinking.” She picked up a puzzle piece and pressed it into place. “Gotcha. Hah! I haven’t laid eyes on that package in years. I expect Father Xavier asked him to deliver it.”

“How well did you know Lenore?”

“Her family attended St. Elizabeth’s the same as we did. I sat for Lenore when she was just a tiny little thing. I called her Lennie, but I might have been the only one who did. Once she married Ned, I looked after April if she was having a bad time of it. I raised six babies of my own and I know how rough it can be.”

“May I ask why she used your return address instead of her own?”

“She worried the package might be sent back. She didn’t want Ned to know she’d sent the keepsakes to Father Xavier.”