The Memorial Hall Murder by Jane Langton Page B

right shoe, which was skewed sideways against the back of the pew in front of him. He wondered if anyone had erected a memorial to the Harvard men who had died in Vietnam. Probably not. Altogether too controversial and nasty a little war. Too sticky a little problem. For the Civil War you got a building. For World Wars I and II you got a building. For Vietnam you got a dean carried out of a building. Heads busted in by the cops.
    â€œExcuse me.” The usher was squeezing a crowd of people into Homer’s pew. Homer looked up and moved over, and then he saw the Vietnam memorial. It was a small plaque on the north wall. Beside it hung another small tablet for the dead of the Korean War. “Sorry,” said the girl sitting next to Homer. She glanced at him apologetically and socked him in the hip with her bony little haunch. The usher was wedging still one more friend and admirer of Hamilton Dow’s into the pew.
    The ushers had their work cut out for them. The church was full. Homer looked over his shoulder and saw large jowly faces jammed in the doorway, raising their eyebrows at Homer’s usher. And now the usher was looking across the rows of seated bodies, searching for somebody expendable. He was walking forward, bending over the scruffy boy in front of Homer, murmuring something about prominent alumni.
    The student didn’t move a whisker. He spoke up clearly. “Fuck the alumni.” A fleeting expression of pleasure bloomed on the bland face of the usher, who then softly withdrew and approached the prominent alumni, shaking his head.
    Something was going on up front. Homer craned his neck to see past the frowsy head in front of him. A mighty woman in a black pyramidal veil was creating a disturbance. She looked gigantic and monumental like the Great Sphinx, only all in motion. It was the woman Homer had seen on the sidewalk outside Memorial Hall. Her two tubby little boys were behind her now, forming a phalanx. She was hissing at the usher, jabbing her finger at an empty pew in the front row. And now the usher was hastening to the back of the church to consult with Homer’s usher. “But it’s the President’s pew. It’s all I’ve got left. I can’t put her in the President’s pew. I’ve already got to get all the pallbearers in there. She can’t sit in his pew. But what am I going to do with her? She says she’s Ham’s mistress, for Christ’s sake.”
    â€œOh, God, it’s Mrs. Esterhazy. She’s not his mistress. I mean, good God, just look at her. Go ahead, put her in there. She’s going to start swinging in a minute. The hell with President Cheever.”
    The organ began filling the church with sound, and there were trumpeters, too, behind the choir screen, and then Vick’s chorus began to sing, massive and serene.
    James Cheever was doing his best to control himself. He had been chivvied about in the crowd, and pushed aside to make room for the casket, and then prodded to walk directly behind the pallbearers. Now he was walking slowly, holding back, because he was afraid the pallbearers weren’t going to make it, they were having such a struggle with the coffin, they were so burdened by the weight of the gluttonous body within. The idea of bringing the casket into the church at all was grotesque. A memorial service would have been in better taste. And the choice of music, good lord. “Worthy Is the Lamb That Was Slain.” As if Dow were some sort of latter-day Jesus Christ. Then the President of Harvard stopped short beside his customary pew and gazed thunderstruck at Mrs. Esterhazy and her two sons. The woman gazed fiercely back at him, streams of water pouring down her cheeks from eyes that were black blotches of mascara.
    President Cheever turned boiled eyes on the usher. “I can’t sit here,” he said.
    â€œI’m sorry, sir. It’s all there is left. Now, if you’ll all just push over