Body in the Bog ff-7

by Katherine Hall Page

  Bea Hoffman, the only other woman and a moderate, seconded the motion. She felt sorry for Sanborn, who was almost always all by himself when he voted, so whenever she found justification to join him, she did, thus unconsciously fulfilling her Aleford-appointed role. Occasionally, the system worked.

  The ayes had it, and if Aleford was slightly disappointed, they were mollified by the prospect of another great show next week. It could have been sweeps time.

  Faith was drifting off to sleep after running the scenes through her mind. Millicent had handed her a flyer as she’d left. Millicent had handed one to Joey, too, who’d torn it up into confetti, throwing it into the nearest wastebasket with what could only be described as a snarl.

  The paper was still in Faith’s coat pocket. Miss Lora and later dear Tom had driven thoughts of what Millicent and her supporters might be up to from Faith’s immediate consciousness. She resolved to retrieve it immediately in the morning, or else she’d come across it in a few weeks, the way she did with shopping lists or coupons long expired, similarly shoved away. She also decided to take the kids on a nice long nature walk through the land surrounding the bog—while it was still there.

  A spring walk. An April walk. Her mind would not shut down and she was wide awake. April. Chaucer may have thought it “perced the droghte of March” with its “shoures soote,” but around Aleford, the month stood for something entirely different.

  For those U.S. residents not fortunate enough to live in Massachusetts or Maine, the third Monday in April, Patriots’ Day—if it means anything at all—is connected to the Boston Marathon. Since 1896, runners have gathered for the 26-mile 385-yard race from Hopkinton to Boston. Aleford residents, although taking note of the race, especially if someone from town was competing, focus instead on the past. While the runners load up on carbohydrates and listen intently to the weather reports, hoping to hit Heartbreak Hill under sunny but cool skies, Aleford goes to bed content in knowing there has never been a downpour on Patriots’ Day and never will be so long as God’s in his heaven. The only food crossing local minds is breakfast, specifically the pancake breakfasts run by various churches and civic groups after the reenactment.

  The reenactment. That’s the whole point of Patriots’ Day, a day marked in some way each year, with only a few exceptions, since the whole thing kicked off in 1775, assuring Aleford a place in history, not merely as a footnote but worthy of entire books. The local Patriots’ Day events meant many things to many people: a tribute to those fallen on the green that famous morning, a reminder of what they were fighting for, a celebration of continuity and survival, and, to people like Millicent, a great big thank-you for putting Aleford so deservedly on the map. Literally and figuratively, the town was swathed in bunting days before, flags lining Main Street, the green, and hanging from every patriot’s window.

  Faith had heard of the Boston Marathon before she moved to Aleford, but Patriots’ Day itself had come as a surprise and was certainly not something she had associated with other major holidays, such as Thanks-giving. Tom had been quick to fill the gap. For weeks before Faith’s first celebration, he primed her with detailed accounts of the battle, names of the participants—with which she was already familiar, since they tended to be on streets, schools, or town buildings, as well—and accounts of the parade in the afternoon. Faith shelved her skepticism and looked forward to waving the red-white-and-blue along with the rest of the town.

  That is, until Tom told her she would have to get up at quarter to four in the morning.

  “You can’t be serious. No one gets up at four o’-clock in the morning unless the house is on fire. Are you telling me all Aleford turns out at this hour to begin the revelry?”

  “In a word, yes. We Minutemen have breakfast together over at the Catholic church’s hall while we’re getting ready. The British troops join us there; then we head over to the green around five. The bell in the old belfry starts to ring at five-thirty. We muster and everything gets under way at six.”

  Tom was a member of the Aleford Minutemen, playing the role of the Reverend Samuel Pennypacker for the reenactment. Faith had been relieved to discover he was not one of the ones killed, although for some time, Samuel had risked being blown sky-high during particularly inflammatory sermons, since a sizable cache of gunpowder was secreted below the pulpit—the same pulpit over which Tom now presided.

  The reenactment had been the idea of several history buffs in town some twenty-five years ago, Millicent prominent among them. It had become such a popular event in the Boston area that Chief MacIsaac had to call in his auxiliary police to help with crowd control.

  “If the whole thing doesn’t start until six, why can’t I come a little before then?”

  Tom had been crushed. “I thought you’d join me.

  After the battle, our women and children rush onto the green to tend the wounded, weep, and wail. You have to be in place ahead of time. And you could also ring the bell.”

  Faith had already rung the historic bell, cast by Millicent’s great-great-great-grandfather Ezekiel Revere, in real alarm. It had seemed the sensible thing to do upon finding a still-warm dead body in the old belfry, but many in the town did not agree. The last thing Faith wanted to do was ring the bell, even on the proper occasion. One not-so-sotto voce “Look who’s at it again” might send her packing, and she was becoming, if not fond of, accustomed to Aleford.

  She focused back on Tom. “All right, I’ll be your camp follower.”

  Tom appeared slightly scandalized. “You’ll be my wife, Patience Pennypacker.” He leaned over to kiss her. “It’s fun. You’ll have a great time. Then later we march in the youth parade and the big afternoon parade.”

  March. Parades. “Period dress, right?”

  “Of course. By the end of the day, you’ll actually feel like Patience.”

  Faith knew what she was going to feel like, and it wasn’t Patience.

  Yet she had done it every year since, dragging out the multitude of petticoats, full-skirted dress, and scratchy linsey-woolsey cape. She’d better check to make sure the moths hadn’t gotten to it.

  Before she could say “Yankee Doodle,” she was asleep and dreaming.

  Two

  It was after ten o’clock when Faith remembered to go into the coat closet to retrieve the piece of paper from her pocket that Millicent had thrust at her the night before. Mornings had a way of slipping out from under Faith, despite the fact that the Fairchilds, particularly the children, were all up and about at an ungodly hour. First, Amy would appear, her sleeper bulging with what Faith knew was a sodden night diaper. Tou-sled, smiling, cute as a button, their daughter at this moment held little charm for her parents and their first words of the day tended to be, “I did it yesterday; it’s your turn.” It had been Faith’s turn this morning and returning to snatch a few more minutes in the cozy warmth of bed, she had not been surprised to find Ben with roughly forty of his stuffed animals occupying her space. Tom was sound asleep.

  “Mommy!” he cried in delight. “Can we have waffles for breakfast?” Thoroughly awake now, “Mommy” managed a weak smile. Food. At least he had his priorities straight.

  Breakfast over, Tom out the door to the church office, kids dressed and deposited at school and play group—Faith reminded herself it was her turn Monday, another task that had been known to slip her mind—she stood still and savored the moment. The house was quiet. She could have a peaceful cup of coffee. She could read the newspaper. She could phone a friend. Instead, she went to the closet.

  She’d worn her pale gray shearling—a Christmas gift from Tom. The night air had been cold and she was as tired as everyone else in Aleford of bulky down parkas. The House of Bauer and Bean tailoring left much to be desired on Faith’s part. Its resulting fashion statement looked more like the House of Michelin. She’d tried to get through her first winter in something less warm and more chic, but she had given in around January, before doing permanent damage to her circulatory sys
tem.

  The paper she retrieved was bright orange. Its message was spelled out in a variety of eye-catching fonts, complete with shadowing and clip art. What did people do before the advent of computers, Faith wondered, when mere words had to convey one’s passion?

  She regarded Millicent’s work. It had all the subtlety of a punch between the eyes.

  POW!

  PRESERVE OUR WETLANDS!

  Aleford, arise! Over two hundred years ago, our ancestors risked their lives for independence. They were not afraid to stand up for what they knew to be right.

  Desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Once again we face a crisis. Aleford, are you ready!

  The area known as Beecher’s Bog is under attack.

  Only we can save this historic habitat from destruction by greedy land gobblers. Only we can preserve what’s left of Aleford’s natural beauty for future generations before it’s too late!

  POW! will have its first meeting on Friday, April 5th at 7:00 P.M. in Asterbrook Hall. Call Independence 2-7840 for more information.

  You couldn’t help but admire the woman. As incen-diary literature, the broadside was pithy. No names were named, yet Millicent’s John Hancock was all over it—as was her phone number. She and several other diehards still used the exchange’s full name rather than simply the letters IN or the numbers 46.

  Faith knew New Yorkers like this—stubbornly cling-ing to Algonquin and Murray Hill. Millicent also hadn’t named Joey Madsen, but the “greedy land gobbler” appellation, identifiable to all, was bound to in-furiate him. For vastly different reasons, each of them was the self-proclaimed guardian of Aleford: Aleford’s quality of life. Whatever that meant. Faith noticed whenever people used the term, it tended to mean the quality of their own particular lives—backyards, streets, wallets—and not necessarily their neighbors’, next-door or global.

  Still, she’d see if Samantha Miller could baby-sit.

  Tom wouldn’t want to miss the meeting, and Faith had already decided to become a charter member.

  Fonts or no fonts, POW! had a point. The bog was a wonderful place.

  Plus, the access road would most assuredly wipe out the parsonage lilac hedge.

  An hour later, Faith turned from her recipe notebooks.

  Have Faith was catering a large dinner party on the

  “real” Patriots’ Day, Friday, April 19, and she had been instructed by the hostess to prepare traditional New England favorites. Favorites of whom? had been on the tip of Faith’s tongue, but she bit it and was now searching through her files to find palatable fare. A region best known for baked beans, boiled dinners, and scrod was not exactly a culinary paradise on a par, say, with Provence, Tuscany, or New Orleans.

  Baked beans—what could she do with them? (See recipe on page 335.) Sweeten them with the thick grade B maple syrup she preferred for its strong flavor? She’d give New England maple syrup. Also Maine lobster.

  Or should she spice up the beans with a kind of mustardy barbecue-type sauce? The dinner was to be a buffet, and she’d already decided to serve her version of Yankee pot roast (see recipe on page 334) as the main course. Desserts. She sighed. They no doubt expected Indian pudding, a concoction that always tasted like porridge to Faith no matter how much vanilla ice cream she heaped on top. Besides, it should probably be called Native American pudding, and someone at the party was bound to object. Fortunately, Tom, partial to everything else springing from the rockbound soil of his birth, did not care for it.

  “Cornmeal does not leap to mind when dessert is mentioned,” he’d observed. “Chocolate does.” Faith had never heard of any New England chocolate desserts. It was time to get out her venerable 1915 Fannie Farmer, a volume she normally reserved for light reading in bed due to its wonderful photographic illustrations—a doily for every dish—and the recipes.

  She never tired of reading about things like Syracuse Five o’clock Tea (five o’clock tea sweetened with red or white rock candy—was Syracuse known for its sweet tooth?), Mock Sausages with Fried Apple Rings (the sausages were made of lima beans), and Lobster Boats (complete with instructions for sails made of rice paper). Then there were Little Brahmins—cooked rice flavored with catsup, shaped into the form of chickens, crumbed, and deep-fried. The photograph showed them nestled on a bed of parsley.

  One is facing in the opposite direction from the rest, the poultry equivalent of a black sheep, or an obscure reference to J. P. Marquand? Faith also ardently subscribed to Mrs. Farmer’s introductory quotation: “We grow like what we eat; Bad food depresses, good food exalts us like an inspiration.” Usage aside, Faith found comfort in the words and had suggested more than once to Pix, who did things like this, that an embroidered hanging for the Fairchild kitchen would not be ill received. Fannie would have something Faith could use for dessert.

  She’d been completely concentrating on her work, or so she thought, but she hadn’t accomplished much and was feeling out of sorts. There really wasn’t any reason why she should be. Her life was going well.

  Second children were supposed to be more easygoing than firsts, although Faith had greeted this remark with the same skepticism she’d rightly reserved for second deliveries being easier. But this maxim was proving true. Amy slept through the night—technically, it was morning when she got up and out—as opposed to Ben. He had nearly sent them round the bend with his nocturnal wanderings once he’d mastered the parent-defying art of climbing out of the crib.

  Amy had also virtually toilet-trained herself, needing only the diaper at night, and was thereby saving them enough money in Huggies so that college tuition was once more a possibility. She had an interesting and sunny temperament, although, as Ben had been at the same age, she was a child of few words—approximately fifteen at the moment. Faith attributed this to her own parental failure to offer adequate stimulation. She could read to her children endlessly, but talking to someone who did not talk back or replied with one word, occasionally two, as in “Want Daddy,” was not her idea of stimulating conversation.

  She firmly classified it with playing most games.

  Happily, Tom was good at that and could spend hours spinning spinners and moving brightly colored pieces about in circles with Ben. Watching them, Faith had had to concede that there are some things that passeth all understanding.

  No, it was not her family. Like Amy, Ben was as easy as a child could be, which is to say he had the capacity to consume most of the oxygen in the room yet was willing to share when reminded. As for Tom, husbands are never easy, but she loved him very much and that went a long way, especially when the seat was left up in the middle of the night.

  The scene with Miss Lora flashed in front of her.

  What would she do if Tom really did have an affair?

  Never mind the logistics. He barely had time to brush his teeth, what with parish duties and family life.

  She’d warned him once when Amy’s bout with colic coincided with Ben’s discovery of how to release the car’s emergency brake that if they ever divorced, he’d have to take the kids, any pets they might acquire, as well as the cottage in Maine. If she was getting out, she wanted out. He’d laughed, but not heartily. He knew she meant it.

  But she had been jealous when she’d seen another woman in Tom’s arms. And Lora Deane was not exactly a threat. When Faith had dropped Ben off this morning, the teacher had a voluminous smock over what appeared to be adult-sized Osh-Kosh overalls and an old turtleneck. No, Faith wasn’t seriously worried about Tom and any possible dalliance along Sesame Street. She was, however, worried about Lora herself.

  Stalked, being harmed, or even being murdered by an ex turned up in the news every day. She hoped that Lora really was going to speak to her half sister immediately. If Joey was eliminated, as Faith suspected he would be, then they could turn their attention to Brad Hallowell before it was too late. It might make sense to find out more about him now. Faith remembered she’d said as much to Lora last night.

/>   Brad had been at the selectmen’s meeting, standing in the back of the room. Faith had wondered what he was doing there. Joey’s presentation had been the third and last item on the agenda. Brad had certainly not come to hear the Minuteman Café’s request for permission to change the color of its awning from green to maroon when it ordered a new one. Nor would he have been interested in Norma Parkington’s spirited reading of the most recent letter from Aleford’s sister city in Iceland, Hafnarfjördur. So far, Hafnarfjördur officials had been to Aleford, but Town Meeting systematically voted down a request for funds for a similar junket by Aleford officials. Said officials did not seem to mind much, although, as Millicent tartly observed, if Aleford were twinned with Paris, France, they’d find the money. She was of the belief that an exchange meant an exchange and Aleford should return the call, albeit at said officials’ personal expense.

  Brad must have been at the meeting to hear Joey, but didn’t the young man have better, more interesting things to do with his time? Faith certainly had had at his age, which, after all, wasn’t that long ago. She closed her recipe books and decided to talk to Pix. Pix had grown up in Aleford and was seemingly born with all ten of her capable fingers in various town pies.

  Millicent might know who everybody in town was, and their mothers and fathers before them, but Pix knew what they were doing. Faith went to the phone.

  “Faith! I’m so glad you called. I was about to call you. Can you come over for a quick cup of coffee? I know you have to pick up the kids soon.”

  “I’d love to—and I have something to ask you, too.” Faith wanted to be sure she got equal time. Pix might be her dearest friend, but she could exhibit a single-minded sense of purpose that sometimes prevented getting a word in edgewise.

  When Faith arrived at the Millers’ doorstep, it appeared that today might be one of those days. Pix, normally unflappable, was in a quandary about not one but two of her children. The oldest, Mark, had been safely launched, a college sophomore majoring in political science, with his sights set on Washington.