“It’s the little things, things that weren’t valuable. Not that we had diamonds and emeralds lying around—more’s the pity—but all the jewelry I’d saved from when I was a kid and planned to give to Amy when she was older, like a little coral-bead necklace that was my grandmother’s. She gave it to me because I was ‘the careful one.’” Faith’s tone was mournful and bitter.
Patsy Avery nodded and poured Faith some more wine. It was Wednesday and she’d stopped by on her way home from work, bearing chardonnay for what was quickly becoming a wake, as Faith bade final farewells to the coral necklace, her Cinderella watch, and other treasures. Tom wasn’t home yet and the two women had settled into the kitchen to talk while Amy sat in her high chair, content for the moment to pick up Cheerios one by one and, alternately, turn the pages of a new Beatrix Potter board book—also a gift from Patsy. Ben had raced off to his room with his present, yet another Lego. A shaft of late-afternoon sunlight crossed the table, sending reflections of their glasses glimmering against the wall. Faith noted the tiny dust motes lazily drifting in the light and felt she should be sitting with Patsy in two rockers on a front porch.
“Girl, I don’t know anybody with their original jewelry. I kissed all that stuff good-bye years ago when we were broken into, but I still look for a little fake pearl bracelet with a poodle charm my daddy gave me every time I’m in a flea market or at a yard sale.” Patsy didn’t mention the number of times she’d had to kiss subsequent stuff good-bye. When you are in the middle of a tragedy, you don’t want to hear how often somebody else has been through the same thing. You want to talk about your pain and you want to talk about it now.
“Aunt Chat, that’s my father’s sister, Charity…” Faith paused and added parenthetically, “They were either devoid of imagination or had too much. The Sibleys named the boys in each generation Lawrence or Theodore and the girls Faith, Hope, and Charity as they came along. I’ve always suspected my mother stopped with two rather than have to saddle a child with Charity.”
Patsy gave an appreciative chuckle. She could never get enough of these WASP folktales, especially when the teller appreciated them, too. It was hard to keep a straight face when the speaker was a believer.
“Anyway, Aunt Chat used to bring my sister and me a charm from every place she went—all over the world. She had her own ad agency. We were on bracelets number three by the time she retired.” Faith sighed, knowing she’d never see them again—or any of her other treasures. She thought about the other things entrusted to her, especially by her maternal grandmother. It wasn’t that her sister, Hope, was reckless, strewing her possessions about, but rings had a way of slipping off her fingers when she skated and thin gold chains snapping when she climbed trees, lockets disappearing. So Faith had always been the recipient because, unfairly, she was older; and, fairly, she did take better care of them.
“I know it wasn’t my fault, but I can’t get over feeling guilty. I didn’t just lose a gold watch or drop a silver teaspoon down the garbage disposal. I lost everything, Patsy. It was horrible telling them all.” Faith had insisted that she be the one to break the news to both the elder Sibleys and Fairchilds. Her father had brushed aside her talk of possessions, open garage doors, and the like, caring only about how she was. Her mother, calling upon her return from work, had done much the same. Before hanging up, however, Jane Sibley had slipped in a query about what jewelry Faith had put on that morning.
“If I ever get any more good jewelry, I’m going to wear every bit of it all the time,” Faith intoned solemnly to Patsy. The wine was beginning to feel just fine.
“All dressed up like a Christmas tree? I’d like to see that in Aleford. That old biddy—what’s her name?—Ms. Revere something, she would be scandalized for sure.”
“Millicent Revere McKinley. You have gotten around,” Faith commented admiringly. Patsy had retained a touch of her Louisiana accent and it made whatever she was saying sound fascinating—the vocal equivalent of garlic.
“I get to eavesdrop a lot. Particularly at the bus stop in the morning. In the beginning, folks seemed surprised that I was going to town—getting on the bus, not getting off it to clean their toilets. Now I’ve made a couple of friends and I’m invisible to the others. You’d be amazed at what people will say if they don’t register that you’re there.”
Frowning, Faith poured Patsy some more wine and shoved the plate of crackers and chicken liver and mushroom pâté they’d been steadily nibbling at toward her.
“Are you sure you’re going to be happy here?” They’d talked about the way the Averys stood out in the community before. “It was bad enough for me at first, a New Yorker.” She didn’t need to add “But I was white.”
Patsy slathered one of the Carr’s water biscuits with a good-sized portion of pâté. “You have got to give me this recipe. Will is crazy for anything as artery-clogging as I suspect this is—and I’m not changing the subject. Just don’t want the moment to pass. No, I’m not sure I’m going to be happy in Aleford, but it has nothing to do with race. Hell, I get more hostile looks in town any day. I don’t know where we could live and bring up kids where our color wouldn’t be a factor. I hear Cambridge, but you have to send them to private school. The South End was fun for grown-ups, but Will worried about my safety. Roxbury feels the most like home to me, but both prob-lems exist—schools and well-being. There’s no perfect place on earth, as you really found out yesterday.” Patsy patted Faith’s hand and took Amy, who was beginning to whine, on her ample lap.
Patsy Avery was a good-looking woman. Her skin was dark, smooth, and slightly shiny—like some of the round stones the tide has just uncovered on the beach in Maine. She wore her hair pulled straight back into a large chignon, often sticking an ornate tortoiseshell comb or pair of lacquered chopsticks into the thick, glossy mound. She was tall and her large frame wasn’t squeezed into any size eights. She’d told Faith once that Will liked a little meat on his women: “He doesn’t want to see bone, honey.” Will, on the other hand, was all bones, tall and skinny; his skin was the color of Faith’s favorite bittersweet Côte d’Or chocolate. Patsy spoke slowly and deliberately; each word seemed especially chosen for the occasion. Will’s words flowed like a fountain, hands gesturing, punctuating his phrases emphatically in the whirlwind he created around him.
Faith returned to Patsy’s comment. “If it doesn’t have to do with race, then why don’t you think Aleford is the place for you?”
“Too damn quiet. Too many trees. Too…too pretty.” She burst out laughing.
“I know what you mean,” Faith agreed. “Sometimes I feel as if I’m living in a Currier and Ives calendar. When it gets unbearable, I head for New York and walk a few hundred blocks!”
Patsy stood up. “I’ve got to get home. I’m not going to need any supper after all this pâté, but I have a perpetually hungry man to fill up.” She knew she hadn’t answered Faith’s question about Aleford. The foreboding she had about the town sounded vague—and even superstitious—when put into words. Maybe it was race. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was a whole lot of things.
Faith was scooping the remaining pâté into a container over Patsy’s protests. It was a good recipe—chicken livers, onions, mushrooms, port, and, as Patsy detected, a great deal of butter. Faith had rediscovered it after Stephanie Bullock nixed the pâté de campagne, originally planned as one of the wedding hors d’oeuvres, in favor of this one. Pâté de foie de volaille apparently sounded more elegant than a pâté “of the country.”
After Patsy left, Faith decided to feed the children early and heated one of the casseroles. Ben had been greeting the offerings as exotic, extremely haute cuisine, savoring green beans in mushroom soup with water chestnuts and Durkee canned fried onions with all the appearance of a connoisseur hailing Paul Bocuse’s soupe de truffes. While her offspring gleefully devoured what appeared to be ground beef, tomatoes, and corn, with mashed potatoes on top, Faith turned her attention to dinner for the grown-ups. Earlier in the day, she had decided they needed more than a nice piece of fish and some salad—her mother’s old standby, or its variation, a nice salad and a piece of fish. No, the Fairchilds needed calories, plenty of them. Comfort food. Food for thought. Faith was ready with both—thoughts and food. She looked at the thick veal chops from Savenor’s market, located on Charles Street, at the foot of Beacon Hill. It was worth the trip to this culinary shrine, transplanted from the original store in Cambridge after it burned down. Jack, the paterfamilias, had been Julia Child’s butcher, and now it was the next generation’s turn. But Jack still supplied the best jokes. She took some portobello mushrooms out to grill. They’d go on top of the chops. What else? Fresh steamed asparagus with a little lemon and olive oil—and some polenta with Gorgonzola. That should hold them. She was searing the chops when she heard a familiar voice and felt two arms lock themselves about her waist, pulling her back into a warm embrace. Tom was home.
“So it’s really up to us. The police can’t investigate the way we can. They don’t have the time, or staff.” The kids were asleep—or at least Faith was choosing to believe Ben was—and their parents were talking about the robbery, what else?
Tom had been happily gnawing on the remnants of his veal chop and Faith’s emphatic statement caused him to drop the bone onto his plate with a clatter.
“What do you mean, ‘investigate’—and what do you mean by ‘we’?” he asked, dreading her reply. Over the years, this anxious response to his wife’s avocation had become something of a reflex.
She poured some of the 1975 Saint-Emilion she’d opened into his empty glass, sighing inwardly. He ought to be used to her sleuthing by now. But Tom was clinging stubbornly to his protest. She could see it all over his face.
“Nothing even remotely dangerous. I’m not that brave a person, remember. Especially lately. But we, or I, can go around to pawnshops in the area to look for our stuff, and we definitely need to have a meeting. I want to get the names of people with break-ins similar to ours and invite them as soon as possible. I’ve started to draw up a questionnaire….”
“Wait a minute, honey. Don’t you think the police should be handling all this?” With Faith, inches became miles faster than well-fertilized kudzu grew.
“They can’t. You notice I’m not saying won’t.”
After yesterday’s promising beginning—the photography, fingerprinting, Charley’s call, regrettably resulting in the wrong jewelry—Faith had assumed the tempo of the investigation would continue, even increase. Having seen her family out the door—the front one, for the moment—she’d raced down to the police department that morning to see what Charley had planned for the day. She’d been full of ideas—cross-checking the prints they’d found with U.S. and Canadian authorities, judicious questioning of known stool pigeons, area checks of other break-ins occurring the day before, and so on. Instead, she’d found Dale Warren at the desk. Charley was having breakfast at the Minuteman Café, as usual, and when Faith confronted him there, he confessed over his scrambled eggs that there wasn’t much more they could do at the moment than they’d already done. Life was not the movies, or books, and there was no mechanism for cross-checking prints on the scale Faith proposed. Her vague notions of DNA testing were out of the question, too. Nor did the Aleford Police Department have a list of canaries. He’d find out about the break-ins, though, and when the pictures were ready at Aleford Photo, he’d send them along to several of the surrounding towns, but she knew he was just saying all this to make her feel better.
She’d returned home and called the man she chose to think of as her partner, Detective Lt. John Dunne of the Massachusetts State Police. In fact, despite numerous cases together, Dunne would never use the word partner regarding Mrs. Fairchild. In his opinion, she was a woman of seemingly insatiable curiosity—and worse. This, however, had never seriously registered with Faith, and she did not hesitate to call him now.
He was very sympathetic, especially when she told him about Sarah Winslow’s death and break-in exactly a week earlier. This attitude changed abruptly when she started relaying her investigative plans and asking him what else she could do.
“Look, Faith, I don’t know how to put this any other way, but most likely your property is out of state by now and the profits up somebody’s nose. It’s good you have pictures. They’ll help with the insurance. It’ll be enough of a job for you and Tom to deal with the adjuster and get your house back to normal. Concentrate on that.”
“I intend to, yet I can’t simply let these people get away with this. At least I’m going to have the meeting and see what we might have in common. For all you know, we could have the same plumber, or new roofs or something.”
Faith was beginning to accumulate what she referred to as “larceny lore”—stories about burglaries. The latest was one relayed by Pix about a ring of thieves whose other job was roofing. They cased houses when repairing or installing a roof. Then on rainy days, when they couldn’t work, they’d come back and break in. A cop in Byford had noticed the rainy-day pattern and solved the crime. Then there was the obituary felon. He noted the time of the funeral of the deceased, when a house would be empty, and planned his crimes accordingly. The cops staked out a series of houses over time and got lucky. He even dressed in black to pass himself off as a mourner if surprised.
Dunne’s deep voice interrupted Faith’s reverie. “I would say the probability of all of you in Aleford having the same plumber and virtually every other service person is pretty high, but if it makes you feel better, have a meeting. That’s about all you can expect from it, though.”
“Why are you being so negative?” Faith asked.
“Because I’ve been a cop for a very, very long time. Bad guys are mostly stupid and they get sloppy, especially the druggies, although yours sound like pros, and they stay clean for the job. Somewhere down the line, someone will get caught and the prints will match up. Then, bingo, you’ve got your guy—or girl.”
Faith was by no means ready to give up, or hang up. “If I was going to look for our belongings, what pawnshops should I go to? I’m not particularly well versed on the locations.”
Dunne figured he might as well tell her. She’d either nag at him until he did or go through the Yellow Pages. This way, he’d make her feel she had accomplished something and she might leave him alone—for a little while anyway. “You could try up in Lowell. Bad guys like to get rid of things quickly and easily—zip down the interstate to Aleford, or one of the other western suburbs off Route One Twenty-eight, and then zip back up, stopping on the way to get rid of the stuff. You might also go across the border to Salem, New Hampshire. Easy access, and there’s a track there—that means lots of pawnshops. Then the ones in town. But, Faith, don’t go alone. I mean it. You’re not dealing with people who gift wrap. Take Tom.”
Faith was pleased. Now she was getting somewhere, if only as far as Lowell. She’d gotten more information than she’d thought she would, and yes, she would take Tom—if he’d go.
Now she looked across the kitchen table—she didn’t plan to eat in the dining room until the sideboard or its drawer was replaced—and thought about the best way to convince her husband to help her.
“‘Bad guys.’ That’s what the police kept saying. Really. Good guys and bad guys. It must make life very simple.” She paused and speared a last stalk of asparagus from the serving dish with her fork. “It’s hard to explain, sweetheart, but I feel like they’ve won. The bad guys. Not just that we were robbed but that somewhere they’re sitting around laughing at how helpless we are. If I don’t do something, that helpless feeling is going to get worse and worse. Even if we look in only a few of the pawnshops and have the meeting, I’ll feel as if I have a little of my own back, that I’ve done something. Does this make any sense?”
Tom picked up his bone again. Unfortunately, it did make sense. He felt it, too. When you’re a victim, you have lost control completely. Any steps toward changing their status would feel good, although he sincerely doubted the bad guys, whoever they were, spent their time chortling over their victims. It was a whole lot more impersonal than that. But Faith could have her meeting. Pass out her questionnaire. They’d go to two or three pawnshops. What could be the harm?
If someone had told her a week ago that she would be grateful for Stephanie and the diversion the difficult young woman’s wedding presented, Faith Sibley Fairchild would have made an immediate appointment with the nearest therapist for a reality check. Yet, the next day when Stephanie breezed into the catering kitchen, unannounced, as always, Faith greeted her warmly. At least this was lunacy she could handle.
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by to see if there’s anything you wanted to go over. Saves me a trip. Is that fresh coffee?” Stephanie’s requests were always couched this way. She was perennially doing them a favor, while saving herself any bother. “This will save you time later” was one of her ubiquitous, and most dreaded, formulations.
“The Fairchilds’ home was burglarized on Tuesday and they’ve lost almost everything of value—all their silver, jewelry,” Niki said sternly. Unlike Faith, she was not in the mood—ever—for Stephanie. As Niki was wont to say, it was women like Ms. Bullock who put a hex in Generation X.
“How perfectly awful!”
For an instant, Faith and Niki watched with bated breath. Would the figure on the tightrope topple? Was Stephanie a human being after all? Not!
“When I was at school, someone stole the diamond tennis bracelet Mummy and Daddy gave me for my Sweet Sixteen, and it was literally sick-making. I had to go to the infirmary. Of course, I haven’t lost anything since then. The one they gave me to make up for it was actually nicer, but that’s not the point. The point is, someone took it, and you can be sure I kept a sharp eye on everyone’s wrists afterward, but she was too smart. I think it was Debbie Putnam. She was new.” Stephanie stopped ruminating over this past injustice and fixed Faith with a scolding look, as was due someone careless enough to lose not merely a bracelet but absolutely everything of value. “Don’t tell me you forgot to set the alarm.”
Faith mumbled something about not having an alarm, not wanting to live that way, but she needn’t have bothered. Dismissing Faith’s misfortune with a wave of her hand—no need to speak of unpleasantness—Stephanie went on to something more important: her rehearsal dinner. Ostensibly, the groom’s parents, the Wentworths, were hosting the event, and footing the bill, but the Bullock women were in charge. Faith had not even met Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth, the couple having wisely departed for Palm Beach when the engagement was announced, and pretty much staying there since.
“Are you sure Daddy’s house is going to work? It was Binky’s idea to have it there, not so stuffy as the Algonquin Club, which was Daddy’s thought. But maybe that would be easier on you?” Again the pretense of concern when Stephanie was actually thinking about what was easier for her. It could be that she’d suddenly decided she didn’t want to drive out to Concord the night before the big event, or she could simply be in the mood to stir up trouble.
Binky was Stephanie’s fiancé, Bancroft “Binky” Wentworth III, stockbroker and scion of another old Boston family, the limbs sufficiently far removed from the Cabots and Bullocks to ensure good breeding stock. After seeing Binky and Stephanie together the first time—both blue-eyed, lean, tall but not ungainly, Stephanie’s long, silky light blond hair matched by Binky’s somewhat darker, slightly wavy locks—Faith was not altogether sure that breeding hadn’t been the whole idea—most certainly, in Stephanie’s case. Lord help them if they produced an errant throwback to a myopic or undersized ancestor.
Following the ceremony at Trinity Church in Copley Square, the lavish reception would be held high above Boston in the large private dining room on top of the Wentworth Building. When she and Niki had gone to check out the premises, Faith’s breath had been taken away by the harbor views. Forget the Skywalk at the Prudential Center. The Wentworths had their own personal nontourist attraction—and no ticket could get you in.
“If you cancel the rehearsal dinner at your father’s, the Wentworths will still have to pay for it, plus another one,” Faith warned. “The Algonquin does their own functions.”
“Oh, don’t be a silly, of course we don’t want to cancel it. Daddy would be terribly hurt if we didn’t have it at his house. And Mummy has her own reasons for wanting it there—mostly because Daddy didn’t in the beginning.”
Faith wasn’t too sure about the first part of Stephanie’s statement. The one time she had met Julian Bullock at his home, which also served as his very exclusive antiques shop, she’d received the distinct impression that dinner at his house had been his daughter’s and his ex-wife’s idea—totally. The second part of Stephanie’s remark confirmed this. Courtney Cabot Bullock, as she introduced herself, had positively purred while Julian put up a well-bred protest about the place being too small, then demolished his objections with one swipe of her paw: “It’s going to be an intimate dinner, darling. Only the wedding party. The dining room table seats twenty, if I’m not mistaken.” She wasn’t.
“Besides, even if we did change our minds about anything, Daddy and Binky’s family have wedding insurance.”
Niki whispered in Faith’s ear, “We do that in my family, too, but we don’t bother with the premiums, just keep a loaded shotgun around.”
Stephanie reached for a chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie from a rack where a batch was cooling. Resisting the temptation to slap the back of her hand, Faith said, “We really are terribly busy, Stephanie.” The diversion was beginning to pall.
The young woman looked around in surprise. “You don’t look very busy to me. Maybe we’d better run through the menus one more time, although Mummy wanted to be here for that.”
Grabbing for an out, any out, Faith said, “Then let’s schedule a time to meet. Your mother called last week. She still hasn’t found the fabric she wants for the tablecloth. We could have a final,” she put extra stress on the word, although knowing it was a vain attempt, “final run-through meeting next week.”
Mrs. Bullock, who had been her husband’s business partner when they were married, handling the decorating end of things, still dabbled in the trade. None of Have Faith’s linens had met with her approval for either the rehearsal dinner or the reception. She had found a gold damask that picked up the colors of the bridesmaid’s simple sheaths for the round tables in the Wentworth dining room, but she was still searching for a print—“witty, but not too Provençal”—for the night before.
Niki stood up and pointedly removed the cookie racks, placing them out of Stephanie’s reach. “The menus you have are perfect, Stephanie. It’s going to be a wonderful wedding. Now, why don’t you run along and break in your shoes or something while Faith and I handle the food?” Niki didn’t believe in coddling the debutante. She had told Faith months ago that since she never intended to work for Ms. Bullock, soon to be Mrs. Bancroft Wentworth III, she had nothing to lose.
The shoe remark hit home. “Mummy and I are having such a hard time finding shoes to match our gowns. You’re right: I need to concentrate on that. The food can wait until next week. I think I’ll give Mummy a call and see if she’s had any luck at Saks. If not, we can go out to Chestnut Hill and look some more.” Stephanie treated the firm’s phone as her own private line, and after a half-hour call at daytime rates to her maid of honor in San Francisco, Faith had declared the instrument for staff only. In the interests of moving her along today, though, she held out the receiver, dialing Courtney Bullock’s number herself.
Animal imagery seemed to come easily regarding the Bullock women. After meeting them, Faith had characterized Stephanie as the spoiled lapdog of the family and Courtney as the pit bull in pearls. In one of her soliloquies, Stephanie had waxed nostalgic about her grandparents’ house on Beacon Hill—Louisburg Square—where Mummy had grown up, before flying in the face of mater and pater’s advice to marry Julian. Courtney had come to that first meeting with the caterer armed with a leather wedding planner embossed with Stephanie’s name and the date of the wedding—then over a year away—Filofax, swatches, and even recipes. Faith was impressed: Here was a woman who knew what she wanted and usually got it. Surely her organizational acumen was being wasted on a mere slip of a girl, her daughter. After several more meetings, it became clear that Stephanie was Courtney’s jewel in the crown, her most perfect creation. Decorating a condo at the Four Seasons for a princess or locating a King George tankard for the Museum of Fine Arts was naught compared with the job she’d devoted her life to—Stephanie. And Stephanie’s mother. She had not neglected her own complementary persona. Slim, with a flawless complexion and a pageboy the color of an Elsa Peretti gold necklace, Courtney worked almost as hard at being Courtney.
She was clearly delighted with her daughter’s match and wedding plans, the only discordant note being Binky’s insistence on red meat for the main course at the reception—no fish, no chicken. Meat. Faith had been fascinated to watch Binky, hitherto easygoing to positive carpetlike proportions, lay down the law to the Bullock women. She had wondered how long it would take after the nuptials for Binky to disappear and Bancroft to take charge. Courtney had tried staring him down, pleasantly—firmly—voicing her own preference for poached salmon, “so much more appealing to the eye than bloody slabs of prime rib.” Hoping to lighten the mood, Faith had jocularly suggested as a compromise the largest dish ever served at wedding receptions: hard-boiled eggs stuffed into fish, the fish into cooked chickens, the chickens into sheep, and the sheep into a camel, which is then roasted—a Bedouin custom and guaranteed to provide something for everyone. It was after the leaden silence greeting her remark that she realized for the first of many times that both mother and daughter had no sense of humor. None. None at all. When Binky laughed and suggested they go for it, Courtney had hastily declared beef it would be.
Stephanie hung up the phone and grabbed her Hermès Kelly bag. She had them in several colors. “It works out perfectly. Mummy has about twenty pairs to return.”
Niki had to turn around. The Cabot Bullocks were fast becoming her favorite sitcom, and it was getting harder and harder not to laugh in the bride’s presence.
Stephanie air-kissed Faith, bonding with the help, and was out the door, leaving traces of Joy, her signature fragrance, to mingle with the more plebeian aromas of freshly baked cookies and bread. Niki exploded. “I swear, Faith, we should be writing this all down.” She wiped a tear from her eye and stopped laughing. “But if they change the rehearsal dinner menu one more time, I’ll spit in Stephanie’s Perrier.”
It was Faith’s turn to laugh, and she did. Niki’s Greek temper was more than a match for these Boston Brahmins.
“Everyone’s accepted,” Faith told Pix. “They positively leapt at the chance to do something about their break-ins.” The two women had bumped into each other at the Shop ’n Save and had pulled their carriages to one side in front of the dairy section. Pix had reached for the Velveeta, while Faith had her hand on a log of Vermont goat cheese.
“When are you going to have this shindig, and can someone who hasn’t had her house robbed come? I could pass the punch and cookies.” Pix knew that Faith would no more consider inviting people to her house without serving food, even for an occasion such as this, than she would purchase dough in a cardboard tube—several varieties of which were tucked under Pix’s cheese.
“Tomorrow night at seven, and you can come, but don’t wear any jewelry.” Pix had some good jewelry inherited from various relatives, but her habitual adornment other than wedding and engagement rings was a Seiko watch with a sensible leather strap. Period. So long as Sam persisted in referring to pierced ears as “body mutilation,” Pix’s lobes remained unadorned. Clip-ons hurt.
A bit piqued that Faith could think her so insensitive, Pix suggested tartly, “Why don’t I wear my mourning brooch? The one with the woven hair that belonged to Great-Aunt Hannah?”
“I’m glad you understand. Of course you can come. Coffee, not punch, but cookies. We don’t want to be fooling around with plates and forks while we’re working. I’m on my way to the church office to do the questionnaire after I finish here. I just needed a few things.”
“Do you want Samantha to come and take care of the kids?”
Faith had been so intent on other matters that she had neglected to plan for the probable interruptions—cute though they might appear—her children would present. It was this single-mindedness that had also caused her earlier jewelry remark to Pix.
“That’s a wonderful idea. Are you sure she doesn’t have plans?”
“Even if she does, I think she’d like to help. The kids have been terribly upset, you know. Danny wants us to get an alarm system. In fact, he’s been talking about it ever since he heard about Sarah. Now before he leaves for school, he tells me to be sure the doors are locked and not to let strangers into the house. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.”
Faith gave her friend a quick hug and headed for the checkout counter.
The parish secretary’s office was a small anteroom carved from the much larger space that composed the minister’s office at the rear of the church. It had retained one side window, and on this day, another sunny one, the room was warm and welcoming. Faith had called ahead to ask if she could use the laser printer sometime, and Rhoda Dawson had told her when she could come. Stepping through the door, Faith was struck by the changes the woman had wrought—and the contrast between this obsessively neat room and Tom’s work areas—at the church and in the parsonage. Books were lined up neatly in their shelves; there were no stacks of paper. The in box was empty, the out box full. The previous secretary had been a devotee of houseplants, crowding the sill with African violets, obscuring the light with a large hanging spider plant. The top of the file cabinet had been taken up with jars of murky water, containing cuttings from the aforementioned. A strawberry begonia in a perpetual nonblooming state had occupied a good portion of the desk. This flora had all been banished. In its place was a small basket of dried flowers centered on the sill.
When Faith explained what she was doing, Ms. Dawson offered some format suggestions. Faith could see why Tom was so pleased with the woman. She was a model of efficiency. A mastermind.
As Faith typed the questions under the secretary’s watchful eye, she felt uneasy. Was it simply coincidence that the thefts had coincided with the woman’s arrival in Aleford? She hadn’t answered the phone the day of the Fairchilds’ break-in. Disposing of the loot? In the short time she’d worked for Tom, she had been in the parsonage several times, picking up or dropping off work. Tom had mentioned to Faith that the only address the secretary had given him was a post office box in Revere, and questions about her personal life had been met with brief, noncommittal responses. Faith stopped typing and looked up at the secretary, who was sitting across the room, reading the Boston Globe. Rhoda was a woman of a certain age, not unattractive, who dressed for work in midcalf tailored suits with large shoulder pads. Not one to be swayed by the whims of fickle fashion, she’d apparently found her style sometime in the seventies and stuck with it.
“This won’t take but a minute more. I really appreciate it,” Faith said, causing Rhoda to lower the paper a fraction of an inch.
In the twilight world Faith had entered since Sarah Winslow’s break-in and their own home invasion, one of the worst aspects of the terrain was that everybody was a suspect. Here she was, composing a list of questions about burglaries, with a host of suspicions about the parish’s newest employee, who was only a few feet away—no doubt perfectly innocent, a perfect stranger, in fact. A perfect stranger. It was horrible, yet there was nothing she could do about it; Faith had to find out all she could about Ms. Rhoda Dawson.
“I wouldn’t want you to have to stay late and keep your family waiting. I don’t recall whether Tom said you were married or not?” There it was. The woman would have to answer.
“The Reverend doesn’t have too much for me to do today, so there’s no problem.”
Faith persisted. “Well, I wouldn’t want your kids or whoever to worry about where you were later.”
“Thank you.” Ms. Dawson smiled and stood up. “So long as you’re here, I’ll run out to the drugstore if that’s all right. Won’t be more than ten minutes. Will you need more time than that?”
It was Faith who couldn’t escape the question. “No, you go ahead. I’ll be finished by then.” Drat and double drat.
“Cleaning persons, lawn services, plow services,” she typed. She’d already listed “Time of day?” “Day of week?” “Items taken?” as well as queries about construction work in the neighborhood or on own home, service calls, UPS, FedEx, mail delivery, and the like. After baby-sitters and housekeepers, she ended with “Our professions.” Hitting “Save,” she wearily pushed Rhoda’s ergonomic chair away from the desk and tried to think of any areas she might have missed. Tom came into the room and stopped in surprise at seeing his wife totally out of context behind his secretary’s desk. “Where’s Ms. Dawson?”
“She’s running an errand and I’m doing the questionnaire for tomorrow night’s meeting. The printer here is so much better. She said it would be all right.” Faith felt slightly defensive. She wasn’t sure why. Tom’s turf? Yet, he dropped by the catering kitchen all the time.
“Great. No problem. I was at a meeting at the library. We really need to raise money to repair the roof. If we don’t do something soon, the place will have to be condemned. You wouldn’t believe the mess in the attic.” According to the ironclad stipulations of the bequest that established the library, the trustees were composed of Aleford’s school committee, selectmen, and settled clergy. Some of these individuals took a more active interest than others. Tom was one of them.
Faith wasn’t listening. “Did it ever occur to you that there’s something odd about Ms. Dawson? I mean, no address, and she told you her phone was unlisted, too. I asked her whether she was married and she wouldn’t answer. The same with whether she had any kids.”
Tom looked worried. “Rhoda Dawson is the best secretary I have ever had, bar none, and if she wants to keep her private life private, that’s fine with me. You didn’t upset her, did you? I mean, she didn’t seem annoyed or anything?”
“She wasn’t, but you might want to think about your wife.” Faith flushed.
Tom bent over and kissed said wife. “I always think about my wife. It’s my favorite thing to do. I just don’t want her to grill my secretary and chance losing her.”
The kiss helped. “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything to upset your paragon, even if she does have all our silver.”
The door opened at that very moment and Tom’s look of horror was almost comical. Faith didn’t miss a beat.
“Finished your shopping? I’m done here, too. Bye, Tom, Ms. Dawson. I’ll leave you to your work, and thanks again for letting me infringe on your time. I have high hopes for this questionnaire. It would be wonderful if the group could turn up something to solve these burglaries.”
Ms. Dawson’s face was impassive. “It was no trouble at all. I’m glad to have been of help.
Faith went down to the church basement, where Ben’s nursery school was located. It was almost time to pick him up. As she waited in the corridor with the other mothers, she felt a bit foolish about her suspicions of Rhoda Dawson. Everyone a suspect. She wondered how long she would feel this way. Since the robbery, each time she’d looked out the front windows and seen a van or panel truck go by, she’d said to herself, Is this the one? She didn’t greet the mailman as cheerfully as she had before. Answering the questionnaire in her mind as she typed it up, she’d formed theories about a host of people. People she’d trusted. People she didn’t trust now.
“Mommy, Mommy! Look what I made for you.” Ben flung himself at her, thrusting a macaroni-bead necklace in her face, each rigatoni painstakingly painted with bright primary colors.
“It’s lovely, sweetheart,” she said, scooping him up as she put the necklace on over her head. Some of the beads were still slightly sticky.
“See, now you don’t have to worry about not having any jewelry anymore. I’m going to make you lots.”
She waited until they had collected Amy, eaten lunch, and the kids had gone down for naps. Then she went into the bathroom, locked the door, and cried her eyes out.
Pix volunteered to take notes and Tom passed out the questionnaires, so everyone would have a copy, but Faith was clearly in charge. Five households were represented, six counting Sarah Winslow’s, and Faith was definitely counting it. As she had tossed and turned the night before—sleep was pretty elusive these days—she realized that the force driving her was not the break-ins so much as Sarah’s murder, for murder it was in Faith’s mind. Yes, she wanted to find out who the intruders at the parsonage had been, but linking them to Sarah was paramount.
“Shall we get started? I spoke to all of you on the phone, but perhaps we should go around and introduce ourselves.”
It was a varied group—Mr. and Mrs. Roland Dodge, an elderly couple—he, a retired MIT professor, and she, a homemaker active in the Historical Society; Cecilia Greenough, single, an art teacher in the schools; Pauline and Michael Caldicott, young marrieds, both of them CPAs, a baby very obviously on the way; and, finally, Edith Petit, a widow who lived in one of the houses bordering the green.
By the end of an hour, they’d covered all the questions, eaten all the cookies, and Tom had brought out a decanter of sherry.
Michael Caldicott had been keeping his own notes. “There’s quite a lot here for the police. This really was a brilliant idea on your part, Faith.” They’d gotten to first names by the second question.
She nodded. “The most striking coincidence is the day of the week and time—all on a Tuesday and all daytime breaks.”
“Chief MacIsaac told us daytime breaks are the most common,” Roland Dodge added ruefully, “especially among those who are doing this for a career, as opposed to teenagers and drug addicts. If you’re caught, the penalty for a daytime crime is considerably less than for one committed under the cover of darkness.”
“And none of our houses had alarm systems; that’s another common denominator,” Faith continued.
“We’re remedying that,” Pauline said. “Would you believe we’re on a waiting list? All Aleford wants to get wired.”
Faith had found this out herself when she’d called. Minuteman Alarms’ owner’s joy at the sudden rise in his fortunes had been apparent even over the phone. The parish Buildings and Grounds Committee had approved alarm systems for both the parsonage and the church.
“Some of my friends have wondered why I want to put in an alarm now, the old locking the barn door business. It’s true I haven’t got much left to take, but I simply don’t want anyone in my house again whom I don’t know!” Edith Petit said grimly.
Unless it was someone you did know, Faith thought, but she said instead, “I’ve since learned thieves make it a practice to return roughly a year later, on the assumption that you will have replaced what they have taken with your insurance money. You can tell that to anyone who doubts the wisdom of an alarm system.”
They’d been sharing larcency lore throughout the evening, Roland Dodge contributing the funniest. Several years ago, a neighbor of theirs had seen a young man leaving the house next door with a television set, putting it into the back of a van parked in the driveway. She insisted he come in and take hers as well, since it was “on the fritz.” “It’s absolutely true,” Roland insisted. “I heard it from the woman myself, and of course she never saw her TV again!”
The items taken from their respective dwellings were also the same—silver, jewelry, and, in the art teacher’s case, a box of chocolates from an admirer. Cecilia was particularly indignant about that affront, although it was her mother’s locket with pictures of her mother and father, the only ones the family had, that Cecilia said she would give anything to get back.
Faith knew this game. She played it at night when she couldn’t sleep. The first day it was “If I Could Have One Thing Back, What Would It Be?” She had quickly moved to three things and as she cataloged what was gone, the items changed from night to night.
Silver plate and costume jewelry, except when it was mixed in with the real thing, had been ignored. None of the houses had been trashed, although searched thoroughly. Like Sarah, both the Dodges and Edith Petit had had canisters of flour and sugar emptied. Faith caught Tom’s eye and knew they had come to the same conclusion: clever thieves who knew the inhabitants and ages of the homeowners. These pros knew a younger person didn’t gravitate toward the pantry for hiding places—jewel rolls in the bottom of a garment bag and rings in the freezer were the choices of the next generation.
They did have many of the same service people, but as Detective Dunne had pointed out, there weren’t many alternatives in a town the size of Aleford, and people like Mr. McCarthy, the plumber, had lived in town forever, the firm getting its start plugging up the musket holes in rainwater barrels, no doubt. It seemed crazy to suspect him, but then, he might have had someone working for him who was less reliable. They carefully listed the plumber, the plow service, cleaners—anyone who had been in the houses as far back as a year ago. The Caldicotts and the Dodges had both remodeled their kitchens. It all went down in the report.
As she listened carefully to what had been stolen from each house—and what hadn’t—Faith knew there was something she was missing. Her Nikon camera had been on the kitchen table. The Caldicotts had state-of-the-art computer equipment and a Bang & Olufsen stereo system in the same room. None of this was even moved out of place, nor was liquor touched in any of their houses. “Not even my Macallan twelve-year-old scotch!” Roland exclaimed. “Wished they’d taken all the booze and left my Brass Rat—that’s what the MIT class ring is affectionately called, has a beaver on it,” he explained. Nothing new, even though it would certainly have been easy to fence these things, Faith assumed. It couldn’t have anything to do with size, because the sideboard drawers were large and those had been taken from Sarah’s house and the parsonage. Three homes, including Sarah’s, had lost antique Oriental rugs. The Dodges were missing a pair of mahogany knife boxes, too—empty of cutlery, but fine eighteenth-century examples with intricate inlay work.
“Charley MacIsaac says all the houses bordering the green have been broken into at one time or another, and I certainly wish someone had told me that when I was buying mine,” Edith said. “If we do nothing else tonight, I think someone should write up a list of tips for people on how to avoid being broken into, and we’ll put it in the Aleford Chronicle.”
Things like not leaving your garage doors up when the garage is empty, Faith thought dismally. It was a good idea, though. Pix volunteered to write the article. She felt it was the least she could do as one who had retained her circle pin.
It was dark by the time everyone left and there was a strong feeling of camaraderie. Dunne had been right about that. Everyone did feel better. Telephone numbers were exchanged and promises made to keep in touch.
“Oh dear,” Edith said as she put on a pale lavender sweater for the short walk across the green to her house. “We didn’t get a chance to talk about those insurance adjusters. It might be a good idea to meet again. My turn next time. I’ll bake an angel food cake,” she said brightly.
A new association. What could they call themselves? We Wuz Robbed, Inc., flitted across Faith’s mind.
After she closed the door on Pix and Samantha, with many thanks to them both, another thought loomed.
“Honey, do you think Edith Petit was referring to anything specific when she mentioned insurance adjusters?”
“I doubt it. We’ve been with the same company for years, and Gardner’s been our agent the whole time. You sent them the police report and our list of what’s gone, didn’t you? Anyway, we’ll find out tomorrow morning. The adjuster’s coming at nine, right?”
“Right—and I didn’t send anything; I took it to the office myself, with the photos, so we know they have everything.”
“Unfortunately, this happens all the time, Gardner said, and it’s probably done by rote,” Tom added.
After the conversation of the night before, Faith was unprepared for the fact that in the future she’d be referring to the freshly shaven, well-dressed young man who appeared promptly at nine A.M. on her doorstep as “theinsuranceadjusterfromhell”—all one word.
“Hello, my name is Mr. Montrose.” The voice was devoid of accent and expression.
He stepped into the hall, extending a business card instead of his hand. Faith took it between two fingers. Maybe this was like showing a badge, presenting credentials in the wake of the crime.
“Please come in. My husband, the Reverend Fairchild, was called away unexpectedly, but he hopes to be back before you leave.” It appeared first names were being omitted. “I’m Mrs. Fairchild,” she added, although it seemed pretty obvious. Once again, the Millers had whisked the children off. Faith had thought to spare the adjuster any interruptions, yet she was fast concluding that the children were the ones who had been spared. As yet, there hadn’t been any “So sorry you were ripped off” or any other niceties.
She ushered him into the living room, deciding not to offer coffee. He sat down in the larger of the two wing chairs that flanked the fireplace, setting a slim briefcase on the floor beside him. He put the tips of his fingers together and nodded to her to take a seat also. Who did he think he was? Faith thought in growing annoyance, some sort of headmaster, or the host of Masterpiece Theatre? It was a very theatrical gesture and she waited for him to produce a well-worn green brier pipe, tapping out the ashes on her hearth to complete the act.
Next, he folded his hands together in what under other circumstances would have looked like the old childhood amusement “Here is the church; here is the steeple.” Hands flip. “Look inside and see all the people.” Mr. Montrose’s hands dropped neatly into his lap.
“Now, Mrs. Fairchild, you understand that the first thing the company needs to establish is exactly what was taken and the value of these items before any compensation can be offered.”
“I think we can go on to step two. We have submitted a detailed list with the values, as well as photographs of much of what we lost.”
“Ah, yes, the photos.” He leaned over, balanced his briefcase on his knees, and unsnapped it, pulling out a thin manila folder. “The problem with your snapshots is that we have no way of knowing whether these items were actually in your possession.” He handed her one—sterling flatware spread out on a piece of black cloth, per her father-in-law’s instructions.
“I don’t need to see the photos. I took them. And what do you mean that you have no way of knowing these were ours? Do you think I went out, borrowed a bunch of valuables from friends, took pictures, and then brought them to the agency?”
He smiled smugly. “It’s been known to happen. I’m sorry, but we need to establish ownership….”
She cut him off in midsentence, ready to throw him out of the house. “Establish ownership! There’s the date on the original roll of film, for one thing. You can subpoena the people at Aleford Photo who developed it! And wait—” She raced to the bookcase and took out an album. It was stuffed with photographs, still in their folders from the camera shop, that she had not gotten around to putting in. Roughly two years’ worth. The next rainy day never seemed to come.
“Here.” She thrust a shot of Christmas dinner under his nose. “See the silver on the table. The candlesticks. The carving set my husband is holding. Gone. And they’re in the black-and-white photos. How dare you suggest that somehow we’re out to defraud the insurance company. Maybe you think I staged the robbery, too? Cracked my own door!”
“Mrs. Fairchild, there’s no need to take this tone. I have to do my job. Why don’t you show me the room in this picture?”
Fuming and muttering, “Maybe you think I borrowed that, too,” Faith led the way into the dining room. He took a small camera from his pocket and started snapping away.
“You can see they took a drawer from the sideboard to carry it all in.”
“Ah, yes, the sideboard. We’ll need an appraisal on it. We’ll be sending someone along.”
“I think we’ll be having it appraised ourselves, if you don’t mind.” Faith could well imagine what value his “expert” would assign.
“Probably the simplest thing would be to have another drawer made.” He’d shot a whole roll, or was finishing one up. In any case, the whir of the film rewinding automatically sounded like fingernails on a blackboard to Faith.
“And this drawer held what?”
“Mostly serving pieces, candlesticks, a set of coffee spoons in a leather case, some silver wine coasters.” Faith was discouraged from continuing by the look on Mr. Montrose’s face. Lurking behind his impassive expression was total doubt. “What?” she asked.
“What do you mean ‘what?’” he countered.
“You don’t believe me again.”
“It’s not a question of what I believe, Mrs. Fairchild. It’s for the company to establish what you had and didn’t have. I repeat, how will they know there was all this silver in the drawer? Do you have receipts?”
That did it. Faith blew up. “I want you out of my house. Now! Do I have any receipts? I’m afraid they weren’t tucked in with our wedding gifts—or passed down over the years. What the hell do you think? That the perpetrators took a drawerful of tablecloths! I haven’t heard that linens are bringing too much on the street these days, but then, they may have specialized in them. In which case, they missed the ones in the drawer below!” She was shouting at him as he walked rapidly toward the front door, obviously eager to get away from this madwoman. “And give me back the picture of our Christmas dinner. I don’t want you to have it. Give me the whole damn file!”
He tossed the photo her way but held his folder tightly and was out the door before she could try ripping it from his grasp.
Tom appeared twenty minutes later. Faith had fetched the children immediately, both with the thought of not imposing—below the surface, also saving up for another imposition—and because she wanted to exorcise the adjuster. First, she’d given Pix a quick rundown on “Mr. Monstrous,” as she was calling him out of real and pretended confusion as to his name; then she’d scooped up Ben and Amy for some cookie making at home. Tom walked into the kitchen as Faith was putting out ingredients for her oatmeal chocolate goodies, an absurdly easy, child-friendly concotion.
“That was fast. He’s gone already?”
“Yes,” Faith hissed, “and I’ve been waiting for you to get back before calling Gardner. He has to tell them they have to send another adjuster. If that particular man ever tries to come into this house again, I’ll pour boiling oil on him from the upstairs window.”
“Really, Mom? Could I watch? A big pot? Like from a castle? What kind of oil?” Ben stopped stirring, excited at the prospect of a siege.
“Olive oil, and no, you can’t watch,” Faith said, looking at Amy, blissfully ignorant of adult conversation as yet. Having Ben around was like living in China at the time of Mao’s youth informant program. Parental privacy had become a distant memory.
“Oh, no, Faith!” Tom had spent the last two hours mediating between an angry teenager and her mother with some success, for the moment. He’d felt happier than he had in days—until he came home. “What happened?”
Faith switched to a combination of schoolroom French, pig Latin, and English, which seemed to suit the outrageous events of the morning, and soon Tom was boiling mad, too.
“It’s like getting robbed all over again!”
“Exactly,” Faith agreed. “And now we know what Edith Petit meant. They have got to come up with another adjuster!”
That more than agreed upon, Tom left the room to call, and Faith started to calm down. After the cookies were made and they had lunch, maybe Samantha could come over, or Danny. She was in the mood for action. There were a couple of pawnshops she wanted to check out.