Alice sat on the terrace with her coffee Friday morning, creating an account of the shopping habits of the residents of Bethany Village. What she needed to know was who might have been in and around the store on the day the cartridges disappeared. It had been a Wednesday, about eleven, according to Dorothy.
Rachel Gearing liked to do her shopping that time of day on Wednesdays. Her son got her things from the market in White River Junction once a week, but that was on Saturdays. She bought some groceries at Collers’ and Alice often saw her on Wednesdays. Alice put her on the list. Then there was old Mary Harper. She liked to walk down to get the papers, but her knees were very bad and so it often took her until eleven to get up and moving. And there were the Tewksburys, who drove down once or twice a week to buy donuts at the store. Harold Philmore had the insurance business on Main Street. He was a very early riser, in the office by seven or eight, and he often came down to the store at eleven to get his lunch.
She drew a line next to each name. Four names. It was a place to start. She might think of some more as she went too. Inside, she told Mildred she was going out and took her hat from the rack by the side door. It was a nice sunny day and she didn’t want to burn.
Rachel Gearing was at home, working in her garden on the other side of the picket fence that separated her house from the sidewalk. Alice waved away her offer of something cool to drink and said, “I can’t stay, Rachel. I just wanted to see if you remember seeing anything strange at Collers’ Store, back a couple of weeks ago. I’m just trying to sort out a, well … a misunderstanding.”
Rachel didn’t question this. Everyone in town was used to Alice investigating things. “Depends what you mean by strange, Alice. Bea had some very nice loaves of wheat bread, better than her usual and I wondered if maybe someone else had done her baking. That was strange. But I don’t think that’s what you’re asking about.”
“No—at least, I don’t think it is. You didn’t see anyone who seemed … suspicious then?”
“Well, Clarence was lurking around. But then, he’s always doing that.” They smiled at each other. Clarence Parto was the town busybody. He lived in a small apartment over the green and was always walking back and forth, seeing what people were up to. He had an excellent memory for faces and names. Alice had known Clarence since they were children and she was used to his funny ways. She had met people in her life, all over the world, who reminded her of Clarence. She suspected there were doctors in New York or Boston who might have a name for how Clarence was different, but she didn’t think Clarence would ever be interested in that name.
“Okay, thank you, Rachel. I should talk to Clarence, I suppose.”
“Yes, I wish I could have helped you more. Are we ready for tomorrow, do you think?”
“We always seem to manage it,” Alice said. “Though there’s a lot to do.” Rachel was responsible for making the little cakes that were served with fresh raspberries and whipped cream at the raspberry social for twenty-five cents a bowl. She would start baking them this afternoon, Alice knew. Everyone had their part to play in the preparation of the tent, which was the Ladies Aid Society’s biggest fundraiser. Alice always helped with the table linens and collected the dishes they would use. She and Mildred had been ironing for days. And tonight, Alice would begin making the flower arrangements that would grace the tables in the tent. When people came to buy their tea cakes with raspberries and cream, they wanted to sit at a table with a beautiful flower arrangement on it. It was part of the experience. Every year, Alice chose a theme or a dominant color for the arrangements and she knew that people in town—and all those coming back to town for their summer visit—waited to see what it would be.
“I’m doing pink arrangements this year, Rachel,” Alice said. “My zinnias are lovely and the salmon ones did very well. That’s what gave me the idea.”
Rachel nodded seriously and went back to her gardening. Alice thought about how some people would likely consider the attention paid to the fundraiser frivolous. Rachel was a trained musician and teacher, very capable. And Alice was … well, though she had never held an actual job, Alice knew herself to be extremely competent at a great many things. Some might say they were wasting their time and talents. But the flowers and the cakes did matter, Alice thought. They were a tradition. And the money raised by the Ladies Aid Society did real good in the community. Good that would not be done otherwise.
Alice stopped in at the insurance office and told Freddie Somers that she needed a word with Harold. “You can go right in, Mrs. Bellows,” Freddie said. “He’s just been down to the store for his lunch and he’s having a bit of a rest.”
Harold Philmore was in fact fast asleep when Alice opened the door to his office and closed it again. She slammed it a little, and turned away from the desk, so that by the time she turned around and faced him, he was blinking and awake, his vanity saved.
“Oh, hello, Harold, I’m so sorry to bother you. It’s just that I’m trying to clear up a bit of a misunderstanding and I thought you might be able to help me. I know you often walk down to Collers’ Store around lunchtime and I was wondering if you might have seen something … out of the ordinary a couple of weeks ago. Someone who was acting strangely or perhaps someone you didn’t recognize. Was there anything like that, Harold?”
“In the store?” he asked, thinking, still blinking.
“Yes, or on the street. Really anything, or more precisely anyone, out of the ordinary.”
“Well, now … there were some tourists taking pictures the other day. Three young ladies. They had a car with New York plates and I noticed them because the car had a dent in the right rear bumper and I wondered why they hadn’t had it fixed. Perhaps the insurance coverage was subpar. So I noticed them.”
“I don’t think it would be them I’m thinking of,” Alice said. “But thank you, Harold.”
“You’re very welcome, Alice. Anything else I can help you with? Are your policies all up to date?”
“Yes, they are, Harold.” He still looked a bit needy, so she smiled and said, “Thanks to you, that is.” She hesitated before saying, “Some people don’t listen to your good advice, though, do they, Harold?”
He sat up straight. “No, Alice. I am sorry to say that they don’t.” He raised his eyebrows and shook his head in an exaggerated pantomime of sadness, communicating his agreement with Alice’s implication without actually naming the person to whom she referred. “It’s a terrible thing, tragedy compounding tragedy, when a person is insufficiently insured or not insured at all.”
Alice pursed her lips. “They say Hugh Weber didn’t believe in insurance,” she said in a very quiet voice. “He thought it was ‘money down a rathole,’ if you can believe it.”
Harold looked shocked for a moment and then he shook his head again. “Alice, you would be surprised at how many people feel the same. And so often, too often, those people are the ones who, when the unthinkable happens, find themselves high and dry. They become believers in the value of insurance then, let me tell you.”
Alice had to turn away so that Harold wouldn’t see her smile at his seriousness.
“Oh, Alice,” he said before she was out the door. “I forgot. There was something strange. I’d forgotten it until just this minute. But it wasn’t in the store. It was at our place. A few weeks back, just like you said. Florence’s little dog, Orlando, he wouldn’t stop barking one night. All night, barking and barking. We let him out and he barked at something and I heard something in the bushes. I thought, Well, perhaps there’s a bear about, or a raccoon. We don’t often get them, being in town, but…” Harold shrugged. “In the morning, though, I found muddy footprints on the porch. Someone had come right up on the porch! And it wasn’t a bear, Alice. It was a man.”
“Was anything missing, Harold?” Alice was alert now. “Did you notice anything missing?”
“Well, that was the strange thing. Nothing was missing. So why did he come up on the porch? I’ll tell you, Alice, Florence and I puzzled over it. We thought maybe he was thinking about breaking in, but Orlando scared him off. You know what they say, the bark of a dog is worth the best lock any day. It’s the psychological factor, you see. I always say that good security is like good insurance. You appreciate it when you—”
Alice cut him off before he settled into his subject. “Yes. I ought to be going, Harold. So much to do today. See you soon. Say hello to Florence for me.”
Out on Main Street, Alice spotted the distinctive figure of Clarence Parto, walking slowly past Collers’ Store. He was looking through the big plate glass windows, seeing who was in the store. This was normal for Clarence. He liked knowing what was going on. Alice walked right up to him and said, without preamble, “Clarence, I need your help. Do you remember seeing anything unusual here at the store a couple of weeks ago?”
Clarence looked at her suspiciously. “How do you mean unusual, Mrs. Bellows?”
“Well, like, someone doing something they don’t usually do. I know you keep track of the usual, well … the way of things, Clarence. And I know you would notice if anything was out of order.”
Clarence glanced back toward the store. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Bellows. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything. You might remember that I had a very bad cold and so I didn’t get out to do my usual errands for nearly a week.”
“That’s right, Clarence. I’d forgotten. I trust you’re feeling better now?”
“Oh yes, much better.”
“There’s nothing worse than a summer cold, is there?” Clarence agreed and they said their goodbyes.
Before she got the car out and went up to see the Tewksburys, Alice decided to take a chance that Mary Harper was home and not too tired. Mary was eighty-five now and though she hadn’t said anything, Alice knew that her days were numbered, though due to an actual illness or just an awareness that her body was winding down like a ticking clock, she didn’t know. But whenever she saw Mary, Alice made a special point of taking an extra moment to be kind to her and to soak in the presence of a person who had been in Alice’s life since she was born. When Mary was a teenager, then Mary Hall, she had been the Mary in the Universalist church’s pageants to Alice’s angels and animals until, at seventeen, Alice herself played Mary. Mary married Willy Harper the summer after she finished high school and they settled down to raise three girls in the small house just off the green. Alice thought all of those girls must have their own grandchildren by now. And so life went on. When Alice had returned to Bethany from Washington, DC, to live there full-time after Ernest’s death, Mary had welcomed her with a pound cake.
It had been a very good pound cake.
But when Alice approached the pretty white house on School Street, just off the green, she knew that Mary wasn’t there. The house had a sleeping feeling, the blinds drawn—Mary never would have kept the blinds drawn at eleven if she were home—and Mary’s black-and-white cat, Mr. Frog, was not sitting on the porch watching people walk by. If Mary was home, Mr. Frog was sitting there. Alice had a sudden panicky feeling. Perhaps Mary had not woken up this morning. Perhaps Alice should go in and check on her.
But then she saw Genevra Bell watering her plants next door and she walked over, noticing, because she couldn’t help it, that Genevra’s cosmos and marigolds were parched. She had not kept up with the watering during the dry days of late July.
“Is Mary out, Genevra?” she called.
Genevra turned the hose toward the ground. “She’s staying with Teresa for a few days, up in Burlington,” she said. She lowered her eyes to the water overflowing on the ground and said, “She was going to see a doctor up there, I believe, a friend of Teresa’s husband.” Her face told Alice everything she needed to know.
“I see,” Alice said. “You’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do, won’t you, Genevra?”
“Of course. Teresa’s bringing her home tomorrow, I believe.”
Alice took one last look at Mary’s house, wondering to herself if Teresa or one of the other girls would move in once Mary was gone. Probably not. Teresa’s husband was a doctor at the hospital in Burlington. The other girls lived in Massachusetts somewhere. Their husbands had good jobs too, and their children had settled with their own children where they were. Alice sighed. The children who had grown up in Bethany seemed to be flowing out of Vermont like the water from Genevra’s hose. They came back for holidays and summer vacations and Old Home Day, but there wasn’t enough for them to make lives here anymore.
The interstate would change all of that. At least that’s what they said. Alice knew there would be benefits to her neighbors, but she also shared some of Hugh Weber’s fear about how it would change things. She had seen enough of life—and enough of the world—to know that there would be good and bad coming to Vermont with the new roads. But unlike Hugh Weber, she knew there was no point in trying to stop it. It would come in any case. You had to be ready. That was the thing.
New people would arrive in Bethany, but they were likely to be people attracted to the qualities Hugh Weber claimed to want to protect. So they would be summer people, looking for peace and quiet, a counterpoint to their lives in the city, or they would be back-to-the-landers, looking for a place to live more simply.
Alice knew some of them might be looking for an escape from the problems of the world too. The Canadian border was not far and some of the young men who would likely be called up to service in Vietnam might be among those coming north. The papers were full of vague warnings about increased draft quotas and the lottery. The Falconer boy was an officer, as was Barbara Falconer’s fiancé, Tony Lindsey, so they had gone already, Greg Falconer to somewhere in Vietnam already, Tony Lindsey to some sort of training in Georgia. Had any Bethany boys been called up? Alice didn’t think so.
Not yet anyway.
The Selective Service had declared certain occupations as exempt and farming would surely be on the list. Manufacturing jobs, teachers, certain civil servants, including police, they would also receive exemptions, unless things got much worse, which Alice, who had seen wars bloom slowly and then gather momentum, feared they would. Increasing the quotas must mean something. What about boys like Richie who worked in shops?
Or no longer worked in shops? She felt a sudden rush of panic, imagining poor Richie in a uniform. He wouldn’t last long.
Well, that digression had gotten her into a philosophical mood. Back on the green, she thought about who she wanted to talk to next. She needed to drive up to the Tewksburys’ and ask them if they’d seen anyone in the store. And then maybe she’d go to the market in Woodstock and see if they had any fish. The truck often came on a Wednesday.
She told Mildred where she was going, tied a silk scarf neatly around her hair, got in the car, and set off. But as she neared the Gerharts’ house on Church Street, she slowed as a familiar-looking sedan pulled out of the driveway and turned right onto the main road. It was Richie, alone in the car. Alice gave him some space, slowing almost to a stop before setting off again with a couple hundred yards between them. When he reached the Woodstock Road, he turned.
Alice, her heart speeding up as she pulled the scarf more tightly around her hair, turned too.