Alice slept until nine and woke up agitated, an unremembered worry lodged in her mind, tugging at her consciousness as she dressed and readied herself for the day.
After the phone had rung at three and she had gone next door to awaken Warren, she had lain awake for some time, confused thoughts ricocheting around in her brain. Finally, around five, she had drifted into a deep sleep that ended with the sound of Mildred banging on the door at nine.
Alice never slept until nine.
What was wrong with her? Her watcher, whoever they were, was on her mind, of course, and there were the fires—she would have to get more information in town today—but it was something else that was worrying her.
She dressed and drank the tea Mildred made for her, and it was while she was deadheading lilies that she realized. Lizzie Coller. That’s what it was. When Alice had been in the store yesterday, she had felt that Lizzie was out of sorts. Now, she was sure of it. Clearly there was something wrong with Lizzie, and Alice’s subconscious wanted to know what it was.
Perhaps her mysterious watcher would make himself known today as well. Alice didn’t like the way the possibility of him just sat out there, unresolved. She wanted to know who it was, but it was entirely beyond her control and she didn’t like it one bit.
She prepared herself for her day, taking a shopping basket and covering her hair with the large cherry-red silk scarf she’d bought in Paris in 1947. It was bright enough to be seen from anywhere on the green and she had with her a number of items to prolong her shopping trip.
First she stopped at the library, where she returned the Irving Wallace novel she’d borrowed. She hadn’t read it yet and would have to take it out again, but it gave her the opportunity to be seen going in and out and to stop on the walkway outside to chat with some ladies she’d known for years through the church. She found them especially tiresome and boring to talk to, but this morning she made a special point of asking one about her daughter in Connecticut and inquiring after the other’s husband’s always-precarious health. They stood on the sidewalk for nearly twenty minutes. Certainly long enough, she decided.
Next she stopped at the store to purchase a can of cooking oil and some dry beans. Lizzie wasn’t there, but her sister Dorothy was and Alice asked Dorothy for a wedge of cheddar from the big wheel behind the counter, both because she wanted some and because it took a bit of time.
“Where’s Lizzie today?” Alice asked casually. Dorothy was wiping her father’s huge cheese knife with a clean cloth.
Dorothy’s face clouded over. “She’s not feeling well,” she said in a grim voice.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Nothing serious, I hope.” Alice watched Dorothy lean on the knife. Dorothy was five years older than Lizzie, already married and, Alice suspected from the way her apron strained over her middle, expecting sometime in the winter. The Collers were private about such things, though. Always had been. They wouldn’t say anything until it was unmistakable.
“She’ll be all right,” Dorothy said. She wrapped the cheese in wax paper and taped it closed. Alice loved a wedge of cheese wrapped like that. It reminded her of going to buy it when she was a girl. She could almost taste the slight salty, tangy bite of it on her tongue, the way the cheese crumbled when you took a piece.
“I haven’t seen Richie in a few days. Has he been ill too?” Alice asked, tucking the proffered cheese into her basket and handing over the money after Dorothy rang it up on the huge brass-and-chrome register that sat on the counter like a king on a throne.
Dorothy grunted something about not knowing but Alice wasn’t fooled. Something was going on with Lizzie and her beau. Perhaps he had wronged her, stepped out with another girl, and the Collers had fired him for his disloyalty.
Dorothy’s face didn’t invite any more questions.
“Has my paper come yet, Dorothy?” Alice asked, though she knew very well it hadn’t or Dorothy would have handed it over. Dorothy always seemed put out by the special order of Alice’s New York Times. Alice knew she thought Alice ought to make do with the local papers.
“No. It should be here after lunch. Do you want the other papers?”
“No, thank you, Dorothy. I’ll come back this afternoon and get them all at once.”
Dorothy shrugged dispiritedly.
Outside the store Alice saw Jean Fielder and asked about her daughter, who was now ten and had begun to study the piano, and then, as though it were an afterthought, about whether Fred had any information about the fire last night up on Agony Hill. If Fred did, Jean did not yet know of it. But she did nod toward a tall man in a well-cut jacket walking quickly along the sidewalk in front of the inn. “That’s Hugh Weber’s brother,” she said. “I guess he’s here for the funeral, maybe. I heard from Ginny that he stormed into David’s office demanding his inheritance. Apparently, the new state trooper living in town had to arrest him.”
Alice thought perhaps Jean was inflating the drama—Jean tended to do that—but it was clear that something had happened and that Hugh Weber’s brother was angry about the will. That was very interesting to Alice.
Of course, no one would be getting anything while they were investigating the fire at the Webers’. Had there been insurance? If it was determined to be suicide, then Sylvie Weber wouldn’t get anything. Alice wondered how the family would manage in the meantime. The oldest boy could do a lot of what needed to be done, she thought. But could he handle other things around the farm? Did Sylvie even know how to go to the bank and ask to withdraw money for groceries? Was there any money to withdraw? Alice would have to see if there was something she could do for them.
She made a note on the ongoing to-do list she kept in her head. It had taken years of discipline to hone this skill, the visualization of the list, the constant adding and subtracting. She’d gotten so good at it that she rarely needed to write things down at all.
Take a basket of food up to the Webers, she added. Really, she should have done it before now. It was this man, this stranger, who had distracted her, whoever he was.
All in all, Alice was on the green for an hour and by the time she ducked into the Universalist church and took a seat in the rear pew, she was a bit sweaty and ready for a rest.
She waited for nearly twenty minutes but no one arrived to talk to her, so she walked slowly back to her house and stood outside for a long moment, examining the blooms on her Asiatic lilies in the front beds. They were small for the date but then it had been dry for at least three weeks. Tell Billy to water twice as often the next week or so. Finally she went around to the side gate and entered the garden.
Mildred had returned home to make lunch for her husband and the gardens were peaceful, lying in wait, all the flowers and plants waiting for … something. Alice closed her eyes and inhaled. A breeze stirred.
She waited. This was where the stranger would speak to her. It would be simple for him to get over the back fence or even to just walk through the gate, with Mildred and Billy both gone. Oddly, she was no longer afraid. She sat on the bench at the back and waited and after a few moments, she heard a twig break in the hydrangeas.
“Hello,” she said, turning around just as he stepped out from behind the willow tree at the back of the garden. “Oh, Arthur. What a relief! I should have known it was you. We’re quite alone. My woman has gone home for lunch. Oh, how long has it been?” She had the urge to giggle, to cheer. She had been so afraid and after all it was just Arthur Crannock.
Arthur was older certainly, his hair mostly white now and a lot less of it too, but he retained the boyishness she remembered and he was still fit. He was Ernie’s age, or the age Ernie would have been, so that made him sixty-one now. His blue eyes twinkled at her from an unremarkable face. He had the quality that so many of his kind had—the ability to disappear utterly, to take on the characteristics of their surroundings, to look unremarkable. In her blooming garden, he was a deceptively commonplace thing, a simple coreopsis, a retiring ornamental grass.
“Hello, Alice. It’s lovely to see you again. You’re looking fine.” He was holding a small white box and he handed it to her and sat down, close enough that she could smell his spicy shaving lotion. Bay rum, she thought. With a hint of lime.
She opened the box. Inside was a small piece of blue pottery with a silver loop so it could be worn as a necklace. “Arthur!” Alice said, taking it out and turning it over in her hand. “It’s lovely.” It was Egyptian faience, a wedjat eye amulet, meant to protect the wearer.
“I happened to find it the other day and I thought you would really appreciate it.” She couldn’t tell from his voice if he meant anything more than that by the gift. It was a possibility with Arthur, of course, ruled as he was by his old handler’s obsession with transactions. He might be reminding her of Cairo, might be hinting that he knew something he could hold over her.
On the other hand, it might just be a thoughtful gesture.
“Thank you, Arthur,” Alice said, leaning back on the bench and choosing to accept the simpler explanation, for the moment anyway. “Ahhhhh, I love this time of year. The summer is past the halfway point, you know. Things are in motion. The air can be so sweet, so very sweet, in August.”
“Nothing like the air in Cairo, though,” Arthur said.
“No,” she said, watching him closely again. “Why are you here, Arthur?”
He smiled. “I wanted to give you a heads-up, before any awkward meetings on the sidewalk. You’re a good actress, old girl, but it would be asking a lot. Wanda and I have bought a place down the road in Woodstock. We’ll be spending summers and weekends here and I wanted to let you know. You’ll see us around of course, since we’re so close. Didn’t want it to be a shock.”
Alice let out a breath. She had been expecting something else, something more … concerning. “How wonderful,” she said. “What made you choose this area?”
“Wanda has always wanted a place in the country and now that I’m based in Boston, well, it made sense. We’ve always remembered yours and Ernie’s wonderful stories about Vermont.”
“Well, I will look forward to seeing you and Wanda soon,” Alice said. It was a bit surreal, sitting there having a pleasant conversation with a man who had hopped her fence and hidden in her garden to avoid being seen. “Tell me about the house.”
He told her all about it, the Victorian on the Woodstock green. The sale had gone through last month. It had a lovely back garden. They would have to repair the roof and there was some updating to be done, but all in all it was a lovely house. A friend from Wanda’s girlhood also had a place in town and she was delighted to be able to walk to see her in the mornings. They were finding the social life very diverting.
Finally he stood up and glanced around the garden.
Alice knew there was something else coming but she wondered whether he would pass it on this visit. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, whispering, “I’ll be in touch, old girl. Something else afoot you ought to know about but it will have to wait.”
It was to be another visit then. She found she was pleased, to know that he would be back. The anticipation, not knowing when or how he would make contact—she had forgotten how much she craved it.
“You and Wanda must come for supper,” she said. “Shall I arrange a chance meeting?”
“That would be lovely. She may suggest calling you as well. She knows you’re up here.”
“What’s your work these days? Still the institute?” During the years that she and Ernie had lived in Washington, Arthur’s cover had been a foreign policy institute that often sent him abroad on research trips.
“Yes, same as always. It’s served me well over the years.” He was ready to go. She could feel his energy. But she wanted something from him. She hadn’t even realized she did want it until she spoke the words.
“Arthur, I wonder, would you do me a favor? The man who’s moved in next door, Franklin Warren. He’s from Boston, was a police detective down there. Now he’s been hired by the Vermont State Police. He’ll be a detective out of the Bethany barracks here. It doesn’t quite add up. I’d love a bit of background.”
“Franklin Warren. You’ll have it as soon as I do.” Arthur smiled. “Goodbye, old friend.”
Alice turned away discreetly, as though she were allowing him to adjust a piece of clothing. She slipped the faience amulet into her skirt pocket, feeling its weight against her hip. It called up a memory she couldn’t quite access. She had felt so relieved when it had turned out to be Arthur, but the weight of the amulet in her pocket had her on edge again. Arthur knew things about her and of course she knew things about Arthur too. She thought Arthur knew she could be trusted, but she knew better than anyone that if it were a matter of information that could be damaging to the interests of the agency, of the country, and if there was a question of trust or lack of it, well, then things like history and friendship didn’t matter at all.
Arthur, in Vermont. It had her off-kilter now. She had always thought of Vermont as her haven from the world, the place where no matter what, she would be safe. But Arthur and Wanda were here now and she found that she now had more questions than answers.
“Arthur?” she started to say. When she turned back, he was gone.