Everything about Julian Bullock shrieked bespoke, from the cut of his summer-weight suit to his Turnbull and Asser shirt, the cuffs linked by discreet Cartier gold knots. He was a tall man with a well-scrubbed pink-and-white complexion. His thinning blond hair appeared to have been cut that very morning. He used Penhaligon’s Blenheim Bouquet aftershave—but not too much.
He greeted the two women as they stepped out of Patsy Avery’s car. “So good of you to come by.” They might have been arriving for elevenses, rather than coming to what was, after all, a place of business. “Wonderful run of good weather. So good for the garden.” As with his person, there was a British inflection in his voice. It was a voice Faith had heard often since coming to New England—long pauses between words, followed by a sudden rush of sentences. And all the clichés, the Vaughn Meader imitations—those r’s and h’s where none existed. In short, it was the assured voice of the upper class.
Julian Bullock, however, was a fraud—or rather, he was his own creation. He’d been born in Massachusetts, but in South Boston, not in Milton or Prides Crossing. His ancestors had crossed the pond, but not on the Mayflower. He’d invented himself. Firmly turning his exquisitely tailored back on Southie, he’d pursued and won a scholarship to Deerfield, then another to Harvard. In one of her tantrums at Daddy’s “meanness,” Stephanie had gleefully revealed his roots. “He was so silly to divorce Mummy. I mean, it’s not likely he’ll marry a Cabot again, is it?” Blood will tell, Faith thought at the time.
“Yes, this weather makes me homesick. You Yankees get all excited at a few rhododendron,” Patsy was saying. “You should see Audubon Park back home this time of year. Makes your flora look puny. I know you know Faith Fairchild, and, by the way, congratulations on your daughter’s wedding,” Patsy added.
“Delightful to see you, Faith.” He extended his hand and ushered them into the house. “I suppose congratulations are in order, but, no offense to the caterer, you had best save them for after the happy day. So far, all it’s meant has been an enormous amount of aggravation.” His broad smile took some of the sting from his words. Faith sympathized with him, silently adding, And money. She could imagine only too well what the year had been like.
“I’m off duty,” she said. “Here only to give my opinion if asked and possibly look for a sideboard. My house was burglarized and they took one of the drawers from ours to carry things in.”
Julian shook his head. “I’m so sorry. Did you lose much?”
“All our silver, jewelry—everything of value. They left us the plate.” Before he could tell her she’d been hit by pros, she quickly added, “We have recovered some items. They’ve been turning up in these large antiques marts.”
“Odd places.” He grimaced slightly. “One always feels so uneasy with those surveillance cameras. And they’re so superfluous. A show really for the poor unsuspecting public. Locking things up makes them seem more valuable, but the vast majority of the booths are filled with little flea-market turds.” He flung open a door dramatically, then caught it before it could hit the Queen Anne highboy on the other side. “Now, here, my dear, is your table.”
It was also the table for Stephanie’s rehearsal dinner, Faith realized. She’d seen it when she’d come here to check out the premises. If Patsy bought it, Courtney would be—she consciously echoed Julian’s slight crudeness, calculated to shock and amuse—bullshit. But Julian would get another in time. Twenty people couldn’t eat from TV trays.
Patsy was slowly circling the long, gleaming Federal mahogany dining table. She and Will entertained frequently. At last, they could have large sit-down dinners and forget balancing plates from a buffet. Conversations were so much better around a table. She crouched down to peer underneath and then stood up. “Faith?”
“It’s beautiful.” She’d start out slowly, waiting to take her cue from Patsy. It was, in fact, the perfect table for the Averys’ dining room, and Faith had already envisioned a runner covered with gourds, squash, beeswax candles, and fruit stretched down the center next Thanksgiving. Patsy could spray them gold for Christmas.
Julian had effectively blended into the woodwork, effacing himself. Not an easy task in a room crammed with furniture. The whole house was like this. It seemed like someone’s home, but someone who delighted in multiples.
“Damn straight it’s beautiful. All right, Julian, I’ll take it. Let’s start playing that game where you name a ridiculous price and I say you’re crazy for a while.” Patsy was gleeful.
He materialized immediately. “Over tea? Or a glass of wine?”
They opted for tea and followed him out to the kitchen.
Boiling water was about all Julian could do, and the kitchen itself was not up to much more. As Faith remembered, it looked marvelous. There was a Hoosier kitchen in mint condition and shining copper pots—all completely useless—hung from the rafters. But there was almost no counter space, the dishwasher dated from the fifties, and the oven was tiny, sporting the patina of years of spattered fats. She’d seen, and worked, in worse, but not many. Julian had made no apologies during her earlier visit, merely observing succinctly, “I do very little cooking myself.” There must have been a cook—at least when Stephanie was growing up. Faith could not envision Courtney in an apron, whipping up meals for her family. The cook would have served up the plain, slightly monotonous fare that sustained this segment of the New England population: baked scrod, watery peas, lumpy mashed potatoes.
Julian had struck Faith as charming before, maintaining a slightly sardonic but amused manner with his ex-wife and daughter. Now, with a sale in sight, the charm had been turned up a notch. He carried the tea tray, loaded with objects of desire and all for sale, into the library.
“Tell me more about your quest,” he said to Faith after murmuring he’d “be mother,” pouring them each a cup of strong Darjeeling tea.
Knowing it was scripted as part of his sales campaign, Faith was nevertheless glad to have the opportunity to get some information.
“All the items have turned up in cases that belong to a dealer named George Stackpole. Do you know anything about him?”
“George Stackpole…” Julian popped a Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie into his mouth. “Met him once or twice. Know him slightly. He’s what’s called a ‘picker.’ Rather far down in the food chain, but you can make a decent living.” His smug glance around the room made the words nothing like me unnecessary.
“What’s a picker?” Faith asked.
Julian lifted the gleaming silver teapot with a questioning air. Both women extended their cups. After pouring himself one, he drank half and put the cup down. He was in an expansive mood. He liked Patsy Avery and he liked his table. While he viewed the furnishings of his house as stock, he was not without prejudice when it came to parting with favorite items. The Averys had the makings of discerning collectors, and collectors were his bread and butter.
“Pickers go around and knock on people’s doors, ask if they have any old junk for sale—that sort of thing. If you picture my business as a kind of pyramid, the pickers are at the base. Above them are runners. They don’t knock on doors, but they buy from the pickers and move good pieces on up. This is not to denigrate anyone, because at each level, you can’t make it in this business if you don’t have a good eye. A feel for things. A kind of visceral response to an object.”
“You make it sound very sexy,” Patsy commented.
Julian looked at her and took another cookie from the plate. “Every item can tell a story. A story of the past. Sometimes we know the tales, sometimes not. Your grandmother gives you something that was her mother’s and tells you about it. She’s connecting you to the past and leaving a bit of herself for the future.”
Faith knew this. When she was robbed, the thieves had, in effect, taken scissors and cut some of these threads forever. She pictured her cameo ring on another finger, the wearer oblivious to stories about Great-Aunt Phoebe so often repeated to Faith—her musical ability, her love of poetry. Julian had warmed to his subject. “Someone like Stackpole doesn’t have the connections to sell a really expensive item. He doesn’t deal with museums and the major collectors. The further you go up the chain, the smaller the number of people involved—buyers and sellers.”
It was fascinating.
“Of course, the deal is off if Will doesn’t like it,” Patsy said as she and Julian shook hands after arriving at a price.
“That goes without saying.”
“When can you get it to us?” Patsy asked. She knew full well her husband would adore the table—and would have ended up paying too much for it.
“As soon as you like. Today? Tomorrow?”
While they were talking, Faith wandered out into the hallway. There were no price tags, but she knew the small oil painting of a rolling meadow in the last long light of the day, which looked like it had been done by a member of the Hudson River School, probably had been. And equally probable was the possibility that it was high up there on top of the pyramid, far out of her reach. So, too, was the beautiful sideboard standing beneath it. It was elegant, graceful. She ran her hand across the surface. The wood was as smooth as butter. Much nicer than the sideboard they had, bequeathed by an aunt of Tom’s when she moved to a retirement community. It hadn’t been in the Fairchild family. Just something they picked up to fill the space, she’d told them. Tom and Faith had been happy to get it. This piece of Julian Bullock’s was in a whole different league.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Julian said. “A fake, but a very good fake. One hopes the intent was not fraudulent. Hepplewhites have always been very popular in this country and there have never been enough to go around. It was probably made at the turn of the century. I can give you a good price on it if you’re interested.”
“I am.” Tom had demanded and received another insurance adjuster. He’d turned up on Monday night, an elderly Irishman who won their hearts with his first sentence. “I treat every burglary as if it were my own house that was broken into. It’s a terrible, terrible thing to experience.” When he left, he told them to start replacing what they could. Faith hoped the fact that they’d been finding things wasn’t going to throw a monkey wrench in the works. But there was no question about the sideboard. They weren’t going to find the drawer in any of George Stackpole’s booths.
“I’d like to bring my husband by. We might be able to come on Saturday.”
“Just give me a call to make sure I’m here and come anytime you wish.” He made it sound as if they would be doing him a great favor. “I’ll also arrange to appraise your piece if you like. I can have a drawer made and keep it from being a total loss. We could apply the amount to the price of my little faux Hepplewhite—depending on how your insurance company handles things.”
Faith liked the idea. She didn’t want to have a drawer made herself. She’d always know it wasn’t the original, yet she hated the thought of the whole piece being junked. Plus, now that she’d seen this sideboard, she would never be satisfied with the old one, intact or not.
“And a good time was had by all,” Patsy declared, waving good-bye to Julian.
On the way back to Aleford, Faith felt better than she had for days, weeks. The possibility of getting rid of the sideboard with its gaping reminder of the break-in filled her with optimism.
“What a roller coaster this is,” she told her friend. “You can’t believe some of the things I’ve been doing. I’ve only just stopped telling perfect strangers all about the robbery. It was beginning to get embarrassing. Even Ben noticed. I suppose it was a little weird when I told the clerk while I was picking up milk at the 7-Eleven last weekend.”
“I don’t think it’s weird at all. I’d be shouting it from the rooftops, only I know you all don’t do that kind of thing in Aleford. I’d be saying, ‘Somebody ripped me off! Ask me how I’ve suffered!’”
“It’s so pathetic, though. I should have carried a placard with FEEL SORRY FOR ME on it. This is what it’s all about, I suppose.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Patsy was quick to reply. “Pretend you’re on one of those talk shows—you have a right to your pain!”
They both burst out laughing.
As she got out of the car, Faith thanked Patsy. “This was great. You have a gorgeous table and I may have a gorgeous sideboard. And I learned a lot about the antiques world. I wouldn’t have known the Hepplewhite was fake, you know, if Julian hadn’t said so. I looked at it pretty closely and there were no metal screws or obvious giveaways.”
“If Julian knowingly sold fakes, he wouldn’t be in the position he’s in. We are minnows in his pond, but those big fish don’t like to be fooled. He has to maintain trust or he would be eating Ring Dings before you could say ‘Going, going, gone.’”
Faith didn’t think Ring Dings were all that different from the supermarket cookies Julian was presently consuming, but she got the message.
“I’ll do your first party. My thanks for taking me out there.”
“You’ll do no such thing. But you will be invited.” Patsy drove off before Faith could protest further.
Julian didn’t know George Stackpole—or rather, he didn’t know him well. He hadn’t been much help there, but he had given Faith a new perspective on the world of antiques. She knew it was big business simply by following the Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions reported in the New York Times, but she hadn’t thought about the hierarchical nature of the process. Stackpole might be a picker, but he could be picking up some very choice items to send up the ladder. Faith was convinced the man had either broken into her house or knew who did and that this was a main source of his stock, as opposed to the methods of other dealers like Julian—or, lower down, Nan Howell. But how to find out more about George Stackpole? The police weren’t going to investigate her hunch, even though she had what she felt was conclusive evidence. The first thing was to go to the antiques show preview tomorrow that Nan Howell had told her about and find Stackpole’s booth. It was a three-day affair, with dealers and the public paying for the privilege of first crack on Friday. She could go in the morning while the kids were at school. So long as Courtney didn’t decide to change their meeting time at the last minute—always a possibility if something in her own schedule changed—deciding to walk her dog herself, for instance.
Tom was holed up in his study, starting Sunday’s sermon. Occasionally when someone asked him what it was like to be a minister, he replied, “Like always having a paper due, with no possibility of an extension.” Faith didn’t know how he did it week after week, especially the no extensions part. All-nighters and appeals for more time had been her modus operandi in college. She was sitting at the kitchen table, idly flipping through her recipe binders, one ear open for sounds of nocturnal activity from upstairs. Because Tom wanted to get to work, they’d eaten early, and Faith had seized the chance to get the kids into bed a little earlier, too. Ben especially had seemed tired after school and Faith hoped he wasn’t coming down with something. She’d finally reached the point where she didn’t have to wear a diaper on one shoulder as part of every ensemble and, even though she knew it was in vain, she planned on permanently avoiding any form of spit-up.
The house was uncharacteristically quiet. She could hear the clock ticking. It was 7:30. Maybe she’d call Pix and see if she wanted a cup of tea or something. This was the dreaded homework hour, though, and Danny needed his mother’s physical presence to stay on track.
She decided to put on the teakettle anyway. She’d take Tom a cup. Waiting for the pot to boil, she confronted her restlessness. This wasn’t the run-of-the-mill weltschmerz she’d been experiencing for the last two weeks. It was worse. She wanted to find out more about George Stackpole and she wanted to find out now. Like so many of her responses since Sarah’s death, the impulse was…well, impulsive. She was itchy. She wanted to get out of the house. She wanted to see where he lived. She wanted to see what he looked like. The little bird on the top of the kettle began to chirp. Faith looked at it with annoyance. It was so cheery. She would have to get a kettle with a plain old-fashioned whistle.
She put some molasses spice cookies on a plate to go with the tea and went into the study.
“Honey, I thought you’d like some sustenance.”
“Hmmmm? What? Oh, thanks. Great.” Tom was frowning at the computer screen. “I don’t know whether technology makes it easier or harder to write. You can move things around so fast that it’s tempting to cut and paste, instead of chucking the whole thing and starting over, which is what I would have done before.” Faith had a vivid recollection of Tom sitting in the middle of a sea of crumpled lined yellow legal paper. It was an endearing one.
“Do it anyway. Delete and start from scratch.” He wasn’t listening. He was already intent on the screen again. The tea would get stone-cold.
“I’m going to run out for a few things.”
Something in her tone made him look up.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine, but, unlike you, I’m having trouble concentrating, so I might as well get some shopping done. The kids need summer things. I guess I’m excited about finding a sideboard—and everything else that’s been going on. It’s distracting me from anything that requires more than a small fraction of my brain.”
“We’ll go out to see the sideboard on Saturday. I hate looking at the other one, and if you liked this one so much, I’m sure I will, too.” He reached up an arm and pulled his wife close for a kiss.
“Don’t forget your tea,” she said as she left the room. “Or the kids.”
He picked up the mug and took a sip. “Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “I’ll check on the tea and won’t let the kids get cold.”
Framingham along Route 9 was one big mall—mile after mile of stores surrounded by acres of cars. And consumers, weary of winter’s depredations, were out searching for bargains in droves this Thursday night in May. Faith hated malls, even the upscale ones, and preferred to do her shopping in places where she could tell the weather and time of day as she went from establishment to establishment. Then there was the driving—no, she corrected herself, the parking. It wasn’t so much that you had to drive to get to these places; it was that you had to circle endlessly, waiting for a spot to open up, pathetically tracking shoppers, car keys in hand as they emerged from the mall.
As soon as she put the keys in the ignition, she’d admitted to herself what she’d known all along. The car had headed for Route 128 south as if it were on automatic pilot. She was going to Framingham. She was going to drive by the dealer’s house. She had figured she’d shop on the way, easing her conscience. But she couldn’t. Now that she was here, it was too depressing and she was too tense. Instead, she pulled into a gas station and asked for directions to Stackpole’s street.
It was dark by now and maybe she’d be able to see in his lighted windows, she reasoned as she drove the short distance to his address. She had a sudden fantasy of seeing her goods spread out on his dining room table, then calling the police to nab him.
George Stackpole lived on a small side street lined with rows of identical ranch houses. Over the years, various owners had strived to achieve some vestige of individuality—trees, hedges, garages replacing carports, new entryways, an addition here and there. But the houses still managed to look the same. She slowed down, trying to read the numbers on the mailboxes. Several of the streetlights were broken—or had been turned off in a cost-cutting measure. Aleford’s board of selectmen had proposed this recently, and the following week they faced a room packed with angry citizens recommending that the lights on the selectmen’s streets go, but not on theirs. The measure had been shelved.
Number 47. Stackpole’s was 51. She pulled over and parked. There were other cars on the street, but none in front of his house. A car had been pulled up under the carport. Scattered residents had put their trash out and their recycle bins. All very normal. She began to wonder why she’d come.
Number 51 was certainly a modest house. Very little had been done to it. The grass needed mowing and there were a few straggly arborvitae under the front windows. If he was making a lot of money, it was not obvious from his dwelling place. The car was a Mercedes, though. Only a few years old. It looked totally incongruous next to the house, with its slightly peeling paint and plastic shutters—Roman Holiday, a princess—or prince—mixing with the commoners.
Faith got out of her car. When she’d left the parsonage, she’d slipped on a dark raincoat over the black slacks and sweater she’d been wearing. It didn’t make her invisible, but it helped. Now she covered her light hair with a navy silk scarf she’d brought along. If she was going to make a habit of stakeouts, she’d have to invest in a proper surveillance outfit. Black jersey. Maybe Eileen Fisher would have something appropriate.
The lights were on in Stackpole’s house, so he was home. Yet, she couldn’t merely walk up to the front door and pretend she was collecting for the March of Dimes at this time of night. Besides, she didn’t want him to see her, since she hoped to be able to buy some more of their things back from him the following day at the Copley Plaza show.
What happened next wasn’t so much a decision as a reflex. She slipped into his side yard and flattened herself against the house, peering through the lower part of a window. She was looking into the dining room, where stuff was piled all over. There was no room to eat on the large round oak table. It was covered with stacks of china, a box of what looked like old Lionel trains, and a pile of damask table linens. None of it looked familiar. And no one was in the room. Faith moved around to the back of the house. By standing on the bulkhead, she had a clear view of the kitchen.
A man, whom she presumed to be George Stackpole, was packing a carton with silver spread out on a 1950s Formica table—the kind of retro set New Yorkers were paying high prices for in SoHo. A woman was helping him. They weren’t talking, just packing. They must be getting ready for the show. Stackpole was the antithesis of Julian Bullock. Unkempt, unshaven, he wore a rumpled brown suit that appeared to have come from a vintage clothing store. He was short, paunchy. His red face looked oily and the broken veins across his nose and cheekbones betrayed years of drinking. The one indication of vanity was the attempt to cover the vast expanse of his baldness by combing the few remaining strands of hair over it, slicking them into place with some kind of gel that fossilized the whole attempt. Should George ever be sucked up into a tornado, all three hairs would stay put.
The woman at his side appeared to be a few years younger, but not much more than that. All Faith’s notions of what antiques dealers looked like had been undergoing rapid revisions lately. The establishments she’d frequented in the past had tended to be run by women of a certain age in twin sets and tweeds or men in sports jackets, suede patches at the elbows. Maybe dapper suspenders. Like the proprietor at the Old Oaken Bucket, this woman looked as if she should be sitting on a bar stool. She was wearing a short, tight turquoise spandex skirt and matching top that was being stretched to its limits, the fabric straining over her midriff and breasts. She had big hair and it had been subjected to a serious henna treatment. Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes—she was covered with jewelry, most of it apparently fake, but the huge diamond solitaire on her ring finger sparkled as only the real thing could. There was no wedding band.
As Faith watched them work, she felt chilled to the bone despite the mildness of the evening. These could be the people responsible not simply for the house breaks but also for Sarah’s death. She stared at George’s hands. They didn’t match the rest of him—well formed, nails trimmed, long, tapering fingers. He was deftly wrapping objects, placing them in the cases and boxes that filled the floor space. Hands that could tie an old woman up, an old woman who would have been no match for him. And the woman with him. Had she played a part in all that? The fact that they weren’t talking made the scene unreal and even sinister. There was no indication of companionship, pleasure at what they were doing, doing together. They worked methodically, wrapping item after item, eyes on their work, eyes on the merchandise. Merchandise belonging to whom?
The silence gave no cue. No time for Faith to get away. Suddenly, the woman reached for the back door, opening it, anticipating George’s action. Loaded down by two boxes, he was on the back stoop, a few feet away from Faith, heading for his car before she had any notion that he might be leaving the house. She didn’t dare move, dare breathe. She heard the beep as he unlocked the car automatically. He’d be back, unencumbered. If he looked sideways, he’d see her. She slid off the bulkhead and crouched down beside the small back porch, putting her head down, her arms clutched tightly around her knees, compressing her whole body into as small an object as possible. The smell of dirt filled her nostrils. It wasn’t the smell of new earth and growing things. It stank of mold, of decaying garbage—of fetid waste poured out the back door: oil, and something sharper, vomit. She started to gag.
He was back, walking up the stairs, inches away. He stopped before he opened the door.
“What’s the matter?” The woman joined him.
“I dunno. Nothing, I guess.” They went in.
Faith started to stand up, about to sprint away. She’d been crazy to come. The door banged open. He was back. She turned her head to look. Was he looking at her? He was carrying a large green trash bag and walked directly around the house. This time, he returned sooner. But again he paused. She buried her head; the muscles in her arms were straining and she tried to make herself smaller and smaller. He didn’t go inside. She imagined him peering about the yard. What had he heard? What had he sensed? She hadn’t made a sound, and if he had seen her at the window, he wouldn’t be acting this way. She knew what he would be doing, because in that first swift glance, she’d seen what he was carrying besides his trash.
A dog barked. Stackpole went into the house, letting the door slam behind him. The dog barked louder.
“What is it, George? What’s going on?” the woman said, her last words slightly muffled by the closing door.
This time, Faith didn’t wait. She raced around the house. Like his neighbors, George had put his Hefty bag of trash on the curb. Without breaking her stride, she grabbed it and made for her car, flinging herself and booty into the front seat. She sank down behind the steering wheel, groping with a trembling hand for the button to lock all the doors. She was breathless and the loud beating of her heart competed with her frantic audible gasps for air. She should have known better, and she could never tell anyone how stupid she’d been. How close she had come to danger.
The second time Stackpole had gone out his back door, he’d been carrying his trash, but when she looked up, she saw that he was also carrying a gun.
It took Faith a long time to get to sleep. Tom had still been working when she got home. Even when not preoccupied with “What Does Turning the Other Cheek Really Mean?”—this Sunday’s topic—he would not have been particularly interested in his children’s wardrobe, so her lack of tiny shorts and T-shirts went unnoticed. The last thing she wanted was to explain her agitation. Later, she stretched out her ablutions until she heard his low, steady breathing, indicating he was asleep. She tried to read, then turned the light off, hoping the darkness would prove more soporific than her book, Beard on Bread.
Closing her eyes immediately brought the image she’d been trying to suppress into sharp focus, and opening them didn’t help much. George Stackpole was in the shadows of the room. The scene played over and over again. She heard his back door open, darted a quick look at the stoop, and saw him. He was carrying the trash bag in one hand. His face was grim, alert. His eyes, which had seemed bleary, hooded by his drooping lids, were sharp, intent on piercing the darkness of the yard. The gun was in his right hand. Faith didn’t know much about guns, but this wasn’t a toy and it wasn’t carved out of soap. She remembered the SMITH & WESSON sign at the Old Oaken Bucket, and the gun at the pawnshop, barely out of sight under a piece of paper. Charley MacIsaac had told her once that she’d be amazed at the people who kept a gun in the house. America was armed to the teeth. Everyone was afraid. Afraid of being robbed, afraid of being hurt. What they should be afraid of was having the gun in the house. She supposed a dealer like Stackpole would keep a weapon to protect his inventory, but why would he walk into his backyard armed? Who did he think was out there? The house was very obviously occupied. A thief would wait until it was empty. And George would be a target for pros. Nobody else would suspect a house like that contained items of so much value. He hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t called out a name. She knew she hadn’t made any noise, so he expected someone to be there. Who was George Stackpole so afraid of that he packed a pistol when he took out his trash?
Faith rolled to one side and pulled the covers up over her shoulder. She fitted herself close to Tom. She began to feel warmer. She’d been chilled since she got back into the car. Slowly, she began to relax, sleep stealing over her.
Would he have killed her if he had seen her? A shot in the dark? No questions?
She turned on the light and picked up her book.
As soon as the kids and Tom were out the door, Faith went to her car and opened the trunk, removing the bag of garbage she’d hidden there the night before. She knew it was legal to have taken it. Once trash is on the curb, it’s public property. She spread newspaper on the kitchen floor and prepared to analyze the contents. Daylight had chased away most of last night’s fears and she was feeling like her old self again. Whatever that self was, she amended. It was a self that was gearing back into action, however. After this job was done, she planned to drive into town, go to the show at the Copley, and find Stackpole’s booth. It would be crowded and the only guns in evidence would belong to the security guards.
An overwhelming smell of coffee grounds greeted her as she opened the bag and dumped the contents out. She was surprised. From his appearance and the look of the house, she would have pegged George Stackpole as an instant coffee aficionado—or a devotee of those horrific coffee bags. Aside from this fact, there didn’t seem to be anything illuminating in George’s trash—for instance, a map and instructions on how to get to the various houses in Aleford that had been robbed or pawnshop tickets for their items. He and his lady friend seemed to subsist on pizza and grinders, with the occasional Greek salad—there were a couple of partially consumed containers of shredded iceberg lettuce coated with feta cheese. Eggs in some form supplemented this diet. There were a lot of shells. He used Colgate toothpaste, the kind with the stripes. She paid particular attention to any mail or scraps of paper, but there was remarkably little. Unopened fund appeals from things like the Jimmy Fund, a few envelopes marked “You May Already Be a Winner,” but nothing remotely personal. She picked up one of the empty pizza boxes. Crumpled inside, there were several Post-it slips. She carefully smoothed them out. One was a grocery list: “Coffee, eggs, butter, t.p.” The next was a telephone number, seven digits. It must be in this area code, Faith thought. Just the number, nothing else. But what was this? “Call Nan” and a number. The handwriting was different from the writing on the grocery list. Excitedly, Faith picked up the last piece of paper. “Nan called again. Call her.” It was the same handwriting. She studied the three slips of paper intently. The list was printed in block letters. Someone had borne down hard on the pencil. The other messages were in ballpoint pen, clearly a more feminine hand—script, the Palmer method. It was safe to assume the calls from Nan were for George and the messages taken by the woman who’d been in the house with him.
Nan. Was she in on all this? It would explain her obvious reluctance to talk about George Stackpole. She’d characterized him as “volatile,” and it was this description that had added to Faith’s terror the night before. But why had Nan told her about buying the napkin rings at the Oaken Bucket? To cover her tracks? None of it made any sense. Faith decided to give the woman a call. She was in the shop and answered the phone on the first ring. Expecting a call?
“Hi, Nan, it’s Faith Fairchild. I’m off to the Copley in a little while and thought maybe I’d see you there.”
“I can’t get there until this afternoon. A decorator is bringing a client in, someone who was at the show house. But you’ll have fun. The organizer gets inundated with requests for booths and only picks the best.”
This didn’t exactly square with Julian Bullock’s description of George as a picker, but Faith tucked that away to think about later.
“I wondered if you’d had time to call George Stackpole and see if he would let us come by his house.” The notion of going back there was not a pleasant one, but she wouldn’t have to if what she was thinking about Nan was correct. She fully expected the woman to say it wouldn’t be possible, so the dealer’s next words took Faith by surprise.
“He said it would be fine. Would late Sunday afternoon be okay?”
“Fine,” Faith gasped. “We’ll talk this weekend and arrange where to meet.”
“Oh, here are my customers. Got to run. Bye.”
Faith didn’t know whether to be pleased or frightened to death. If Nan and George were partners, she’d be walking into a trap. But if she asked Nan if she could bring a friend, Chief MacIsaac, for instance, that wouldn’t work, either. One thing at a time. She’d go to the show. Courtney Bullock hadn’t canceled the meeting, so Faith had to get back to Aleford, pick up the kids, and get everything ready at work before three o’clock.
She parked at the Prudential garage and walked down Boylston Street into Copley Square. The square was the kind of place that made you feel like a walking Fodor’s. It was anchored on two sides by architectural landmarks: H. H. Richardson’s Romanesque-style Trinity Church and McKim, Mead & White’s glorious Medici palazzo of a library—the BPL, translated for outsiders as the Boston Public Library. New Old South Church—not to be confused with the Old South Meetinghouse downtown—hovered majestically on one corner. The Copley Plaza Hotel, her destination, sat next to I. M. Pei’s sixty-floor column of glass—the John Hancock Building. The contrast was enormous and incongruous—a grande dame, spreading a bit with age, beside her chic, slightly anorexic Kate Moss of a granddaughter.
Copley Square was in Boston’s Back Bay section—literally a bay before the 1850s. The new Hancock Building had caused the older ones, especially Trinity, to sink significantly into the squishy soil beneath, creating slightly tipsy angles here and there. Boston’s city planners were notorious for egregious mistakes, such as the destruction of the West End and the creation of Storrow Drive along the Charles River, turning Olmsted’s green necklace into an add-a-pearl. In the same spirit of progress, the lush lawn in the middle of Copley Square had been extensively paved. Still, it was one of the loveliest sights in town, and Faith slowed her steps in enjoyment. She walked into the Copley, patting one of the gold lions that regally flanked the entrance for luck, and soon found herself in one of the ballrooms, elbow-to-elbow in a throng of treasure seekers.
Clutching the ticket that allowed her to come and go the entire day, she wandered about the room. Many of the booths had been set up to look like rooms. Shaker simplicity vied with Louis Quatorze curves. The room’s cream-colored walls, gold trim, and deep rose draperies added significance to the wares, burnishing their luster. Setting is everything, Faith thought. A booth filled with an assortment of Kirk silver, Bavarian china, and sentimental genre oils in enormous gilt frames looked completely at home. In a flea market or antiques co-op, they would have appeared a tawdry mishmash and suspect.
The size of the room helped keep the noise level down, but there was a steady drone of conversation—or rather, negotiation. It was hard not to be distracted by the merchandise, but Faith didn’t have much time. She began to comb the aisles systematically There was no sign of Stackpole. Had Nan Howell been mistaken?
There were booths on the balcony that encircled the room and it was here that she finally found him. He was having a heated argument with someone over the price of an Art Deco diamond brooch.
“Look, I don’t need your business, Arnold. I don’t even want your business. Buy from somebody else. You’ve gotten plenty of bargains from me over the years, and you’re not going to find a piece to equal this anywhere else in the show. Take it or leave it!” He snatched the brooch from the man’s hand and put it back in the glass showcase.
“Calm down, George. I just said I thought the price was high, not that I wasn’t interested. We’re still talking here.”
Stackpole glowered at him. “Talk is cheap. Come back when you’re serious.” He turned away and lifted another of the heavy flat showcases onto the table next to the one he’d just opened.
The man appeared to take no offense. “See you tomorrow night at Morrison’s. You consigned some lots, right? I did, too. If you haven’t sold the pin, bring it along and we’ll talk some more.”
George totally ignored him. The man shrugged and left.
“Gloria,” Stackpole called to the woman who’d been at the house the night before and was now sitting in the back of the booth, sipping a cup of coffee. “Gloria, get your keister over here and help me make room for this case. Get your stuff out of the way.”
Faith trained her attention on the goods before her. There was a long row of glass cases, all locked, filled with jewelry and silver. Costume jewelry had been spread out on a piece of velvet at one end of a table. These were presumably Gloria’s things. Gone was the spandex of last night. Today, she was dressed conservatively in a beige linen pantsuit and was wearing only a few gold chains. Her hair had been tamed by a scrunch. The whole idea appeared to be to attract as little attention as possible. Let the customers concentrate on the goods, not her goodies, was the message. George was wearing what he’d worn the night before, but he’d shaved. It didn’t make a whole lot of difference.
Faith’s recent visits to the pawnshops and antiques marts had perfected her technique. Her eyes were minesweepers and rapidly trolled the merchandise for anything remotely resembling one of her possessions. They locked on the third case. It contained a Victorian gold pendant watch that Tom had given her when they were first married. A lovely ladies’ Waltham watch, still on the gold watch chain he’d bought to go with it, and still—she was sure—with the inscription inside: “F.S.F. Always, T.P.F.”
“May I see that watch, please?” Faith asked. She’d expected to be more nervous, more apprehensive in Stackpole’s presence, but instead she was reacting to him as a kind of Jekyll and Hyde. He seemed harmless, even pathetic—an ill-tempered, seedy, aging wreck of a man.
He put the watch in her outstretched palm. She opened the lid. The initials were there. It was her watch. “What are you asking for it?”
“I can do two hundred.”
Faith forced a smile, although she doubted charm of any kind made much impression on Mr. Stackpole. “Could you do a hundred and fifty—cash?”
“You a dealer?”
“No.”
It seemed to be in her favor. “All right, one seventy-five, but I’m losing money here.”
Faith knew better.
“I’m also looking for cameos—pins or rings. Do you have any?”
“Do you see any?”
“I thought perhaps you might have things you haven’t put out yet.” There were plenty of boxes piled behind the tables and they appeared to be unopened.
Stackpole walked over to the next table to kibitz with the dealer. He’d made a sale and wasn’t interested in Faith anymore.
“You come back later, honey.” It was Gloria. “George’s bark is worse than his bite. Nobody puts all their stuff out at once. He’ll be filling in as he sells, and I think I remember seeing some cameo earrings.”
“Thank you.” Faith smiled warmly at the woman. What was she doing with a man like George Stackpole? Could he really be a teddy bear? An armed teddy bear? “I’ll try to get back tomorrow.”
“You do that, honey.” Gloria returned to her costume jewelry. She was painstakingly arranging it in glittering rows.
There was nothing else in the rest of Stackpole’s cases. After one last look, Faith left the hotel and drove back to what had once been her nice safe home.
The back door had finally arrived with hinges and been replaced the day before. In this respect, life was settling down to some semblance of normality. It would be physically complete when they replaced the sideboard. She let herself in to check the messages before getting the kids.
“Why, Mrs. Fairchild. I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“Nor I you,” Faith said, startled. It was Rhoda Dawson, emerging from Tom’s study with a sheaf of papers in her hand and a book.
“The Reverend asked me to get these things. He’s a bit pressed for time.”
“Of course.” Faith didn’t know what else to say. My house is your house? Drop by anytime? How often have you been here before? Tom, are you crazy? marched through her mind in succession.
“Well, I’d better get these over to him.”
“I’m sure he’ll be happy to see them.” Faith showed the secretary out, then leapt for the phone.
“Honey, your Ms. Dawson was just here.”
“Great. I’m terribly far behind, and she offered to get what I needed. So, she’s on her way back?”
“I suppose so. How many times has she come here without you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe three or four. Why?”
“Come on, Tom. We’ve been robbed. Why do you think! And what did you do, give her your keys?”
“It’s ridiculous to think she had anything to do with that, but if it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t ask her again. You never minded when my former secretary went into my study at home.”
“That was before we were broken into, and besides, she was about a hundred and ten years old.”
“Calm down and we’ll talk about this later. She’ll be back any minute. Maybe I’ve been insensitive, but I think you’re overreacting. We can’t let the robbery take over our whole lives, getting suspicious of totally innocent people. Bye, sweetheart.”
“Totally innocent people tell you where they live, whether or not they have a family, and they don’t use a post office box for an address,” Faith sputtered. She was determined to have the last word and almost did.
“Hi, Rhoda. I’ll be with you in a minute. Thank you,” she heard Tom say as he hung up.
Easy enough to get a key made on your lunch hour, Faith speculated. Or make a wax impression if there wasn’t time before returning the keys to Tom. She was furious as she walked across to the church to get Ben. Tom really didn’t understand what she was going through. She’d forgotten to tell him about finding her watch. She felt lonelier than ever. Yet, maybe he was right. Maybe this was taking over her life.
She returned to the house with Ben. She hadn’t checked the messages before. There weren’t any. The meeting with Stephanie and Courtney was still on.
The man at George Stackpole’s booth had mentioned he’d see him at Morrison’s. It must be an auction. She grabbed the Yellow Pages and found “Morrison and Son” under auction houses. It only took a moment more to call and find out when and where the auction was being held.
Tomorrow night at eight o’clock, preview starting at six. A VFW hall in Walton. She’d be there.
Ben had learned a new song and entertained Faith with a spirited rendition of “Inch by Inch” as they drove to get Amy and then to work. The Bullock women, mother and daughter, were on time, much to Faith’s amazement. Making people wait was such an essential component of maintaining one’s position in society.
“Your children?” Courtney asked in a somewhat dubious tone, as if Faith might have rented them for the afternoon to add a note of authenticity to her role as working mother.
“Yes, Ben is five and Amy will be two in September.” True to her schedule, Amy was conked out in the playpen. Ben, humming steadily, was constructing a giant block tower. He’d barely cast a look their way, but Faith was eager to get the Bullocks in and out. Blocks captivated for only so long.
“I’m eager to see what you’ve picked for the tablecloth and I have some suggestions for the flowers. Would you like to sample the avocado bisque we talked about for the first course of the rehearsal dinner?” She knew enough to stop before saying, “I’m sure you’ll like it.”
“That would be lovely,” Courtney said graciously. She sat down and opened her briefcase, extracting the leather-bound wedding planner, thick as a dictionary now, and a fabric swatch.
“This will be striking,” Faith said appreciatively, fingering the charcoal gray heavy silk covered with tiny stars embroidered in thin gossamer gold thread. The woman did have good taste. The china was Wedgwood cream ware. Have Faith’s food would look gorgeous. Now, to decide on the flowers.
“This tastes better than it looks,” Stephanie said, scooping up the last drop of soup in her bowl. Faith reached for it to give her seconds and added some more puff pastry cheese sticks to the plate in front of them.
“Nonsense. The color is divine. Very primavera. I see ranunculus—and masses of fringy parrot tulips in exotic colors. We can put them everywhere. Julian has tons of vases. We don’t want things to be too bridal. We need color.”
Faith agreed with Courtney. This was going to be easier than she’d thought. She could do small nosegays to tuck into each napkin for the rehearsal dinner—maybe a few brilliant silken-petaled Icelandic poppies. But not tied with raffia. As far as Faith was concerned, raffia was the rubber band of the nineties and about as attractive. Call her old-fashioned, but she stuck to wired gauzy French ribbon and reels of satin.
“The word bridal comes from ‘Bride-ale,’ the brew the Britons drank at wedding celebrations,” she told them to pass the time. “Rehearsal dinners used to be more colorful in earlier days. The noisier the better to drive evil spirits away and ensure good luck for those about to be married. All the plates and glasses were smashed at the end and people got roaring drunk.”
“I don’t think Daddy would go for that—the smashing part. He’s very attached to his possessions,” Stephanie commented, gracefully flipping her long flaxen hair back over her shoulders, a habitual gesture that palled in repetition.
“More attached to them than his family,” Courtney observed acerbically. “Now, shall we start making lists?” Business was business.
Forty minutes later, the menus were etched in stone, the flowers near enough, and Faith was beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.
“I’m so sorry for your loss. Stephanie told me about your unfortunate experience.” Courtney had been delighted with Faith’s suggestions and was now in a cheerful-enough mood to chat up the help.
Faith knew Courtney was talking about the burglary, not a bereavement. Her ex-husband was not the only one for whom objects and individuals were interchangeable.
“Thank you. It has been a difficult time. I haven’t seen you since we’ve started turning up some more of our things, and that’s been encouraging, to say the least. Everything points to one antiques dealer in particular and I’m hopeful we’ll be able to use this lead.”
“That’s amazing. Congratulations.” Courtney was sounding positively human. “So few people ever find any of their lost valuables. You really have done a remarkable job—or I should say the Aleford police? I never would have thought it.”
Faith felt a glow of pride. “I’m afraid the police have very little to do with it. Break-ins are all too common for them to try to track down individual items. I’ve been checking out this dealer’s various outlets, an antiques show at the Copley this morning, and tomorrow night he has some lots in an auction I plan to attend. I haven’t turned up much, considering what was taken, but at least we’re getting some of our own back.”
“Was Daddy any help?” Stephanie asked in a bored tone of voice. She was ready to leave.
“Yes, he told me a great deal about the way the business is structured, but he didn’t know much about the dealer in question, George Stackpole.”
“George Stackpole?” Courtney said. “Why, that’s absurd. Julian has known George for years. They were partners in the old days.”