Body in the Bog ff-7

by Katherine Hall Page

  “I’m going to see where they went,” Faith told Tom as she slipped out of the car.

  She walked past the building to make sure they weren’t lingering in the vestibule, but they had apparently gone straight in. It must be where the Miata owner lived. Faith dug in her purse, a large Longchamp drawstring bag whose French styling masked its contents. These ranged from small toys, boxes of raisins, crayons, Handi Wipes, and other necessities for child rearing to blush and lip gloss. She pulled out a pen and her own Filofax—John Dunne’s was a little less scratched, but he wasn’t packing gra-nola bars—then walked purposefully down the short walk to the entrance of the apartment building.

  The outer door was unlocked. It wasn’t a large building. There were only five mailboxes and five buzzers. She started to write down the names: Carl-son, Macomber, Smith/Pearson, Bridey Murphy—Bridey Murphy? Obviously, someone with an interesting sense of humor and a desire not to be found. Deane. Deane!

  Was the man with Lora one of her half brothers?

  One to whom she was very close? Very, very close. Or maybe the outfit was meant for someone else, someone who was meeting them here? Brothers and sisters did sometimes walk arm in arm, though this seemed unlikely.

  Deane. But which Deane? She was tempted to ring the buzzer, or another one, to try to figure out which apartment it was, but if Lora saw her, even Faith could think of no plausible excuse for being there.

  Reluctantly, she returned to the car and told Tom.

  “I don’t know where the other Deanes live. I guess I assumed it was Aleford, since Bonnie lives there, Lora herself, and, of course, Gus. It’s possible one or more of the brothers isn’t married and could well live in town. I’ll have to ask Pix.” Faith was thinking out loud. To herself, she added, Before I come back here to check things out. Lora Deane’s transformation from country mouse to city vixen had been amazing.

  It was one thing to whip together a batch of play dough with numbers of children trying to help; quite another to put on makeup in a moving vehicle. What other tricks did the young woman have up her sleeve?

  The noise level at the Children’s Museum always left Faith with a headache, and her own kids were so wired when they emerged that all she could think of was home, food, and bed. After enough time had passed, she’d be eager to take them again. The place was wonderful, but all those cries of delight . . .

  Back at the house, Faith was preparing dinner while Tom was giving Amy hers. As soon as Faith’s headache had disappeared, on Storrow Drive somewhere around the Harvard Business School, she’d gotten hungry and told Tom they needed a good supper. Nourishment to try to make sense out of the day, out of all the days recently. They’d stopped at Bread and Circus in Fresh Pond for some striped bass. Not that she particularly subscribed to the theory that fish was brain food. All food was brain food.

  Now Faith was quickly making polenta, which she poured into a pan to stiffen. When it did, she’d cut it into wedges and fry it in olive oil. She had a pan of sliced onions, garlic, tomatoes, and red and yellow peppers sautéing on a low flame. She gave it a quick stir before checking the fish she was poaching in some stock and a little vermouth. Ben had been trained to eat anything and did—so long as Faith remembered to call rabbit lapin and mushrooms champignons.

  “Pour us a glass of the Puligny-Montrachet that’s in the fridge, would you, honey, and slice some bread.

  There’s a baguette on the counter,” she called to Tom, who was enjoying the sight of his daughter’s attempts to feed herself string beans. They kept slipping from her fingers. He popped the last one in Amy’s mouth and went to the fridge. Soon they were sitting down to the fish that Faith had placed on top of the polenta, the sauce covering both.

  “Aaah.” Tom rubbed his hands together, noting there was plenty more. There was always plenty more.

  The phone rang.

  “Damn—I mean darn.” He corrected himself for the benefit of his children and to avoid the annoyance of being imitated—something that always managed to occur in the presence of one or more of his parishioners.

  Faith was up. She hated it when people had to eat her food cold. “You start. I’ll get it.” She shoved her plate in the oven and picked up the kitchen phone.

  It was Pix. But from the sound of her voice, Faith knew immediately it wasn’t about where Samantha was going to college.

  “What’s happened?” Faith asked. The phone had a long cord and she walked as far away as she could.

  “More of those letters. Only this time, they’re all the same.” Pix stopped. Faith was tempted to run next door. This could take forever. But she waited.

  “What did they say?”

  “We all got them again.” Pix was answering another question. “Same post office. Today’s mail. Millicent called me to see if I had one. She’d already talked to the others.”

  “And they said . . .” Faith prodded.

  “They said, ‘Be careful on Patriots’ Day.’ ”

  “That’s all, nothing about place or time?”

  “That’s all, just ‘Be careful on Patriots’ Day.’ And not signed ‘A friend’ like the last one. I’m frightened, Faith—and mad. Who could be doing this!”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Faith hung up and went back into the kitchen. Tom looked at her quizzically.

  “More of those letters. I’m going next door.” He nodded. “I’ll put the kids to bed. You can tell me about it later.”

  She completely forgot her dinner was still in the oven.

  Pix and her husband, Sam, were sitting in the kitchen when Faith arrived. Pix had a baby quilt in her lap she was not working on, although there was a threaded needle in her hand. The door had been open, as was the custom in Aleford, and Faith had come straight in.

  She locked it behind her.

  “I suppose we’ll have to start doing this sort of thing now,” Pix said mournfully.

  “For the time being.” Sam was trying very hard to resist the impulse to move his entire family to a new, undisclosed location.

  “Why don’t I make some coffee?” Faith offered, and hearing no refusals, she went ahead. She’d grabbed a tin of the cookies she’d made with the kids as she was leaving the parsonage. Even if they didn’t want them now, they would later.

  “I can’t believe it’s Joey Madsen—or any of the Deanes. He’s mad about what we’re doing, but he’d be more apt to lose his temper the way Gus did and let us have it at one of the meetings,” Pix said.

  Faith agreed—in part. The fact that Joey had not been heard from had been troubling her. It was his habit to rant and rave. So why wasn’t he doing it now?

  With so much money at stake, maybe Joey was trying another tactic and keeping his natural impulses in check. Or, to be fair, his lawyer could be advising him that flying off the handle wouldn’t move the project along and could have the opposite effect.

  “Were they written the same way? Cutout letters, ballpoint block letters on the envelope?”

  “Exactly the same. The police have mine, otherwise, you could see for yourself.”

  So much for a possible copycat theory, Faith thought. But that wouldn’t have made much sense, anyway. It was difficult enough to believe that someone had sent one set. That there would be another poison pen aimed at these same people was beyond all imagining. The only difference was in the omission of the signature, and it was an omission that alarmed her.

  If the others were ostensibly sent in a friendly manner, dropping it underscored the seriousness of the threat.

  She took a cookie, bit into it, and realized she was hungry.

  Sam was proposing that they leave town on Patriots’ Day and go someplace safe—Faith suggested Manhattan—when there was a noise at the back door.

  All three of them jumped.

  “Get down on the floor and don’t move,” Sam ordered. “I’ll call the police.”

  But it was the police. Seeing Chief MacIsaac’s puzzled face through the glass, Sam immediately open
ed the door.

  “Forgot you’d be bolting things up and thought it was open as usual,” Charley said.

  Pix stood up and dusted herself off.

  “This is getting ridiculous. I refuse to be a prisoner in my own house or scared to walk around in my own town. I haven’t missed Patriots’ Day once. Mother says they started taking us as soon as we were born, and I’m not going to miss this one.” Pix also had her Sunday school pin with a cascade of bars for perfect attendance hanging from it. Faith had seen it. Pix’s family, the Rowes, were known for showing up.

  Faith handed Charley a mug of coffee.

  “I understand how you feel and I’d probably do the same, but wouldn’t it be more sensible to skip the celebrations just this once? Or you could go to Concord for theirs.”

  “Concord!” From the tone of Pix’s voice, Faith might have been suggesting London, England, for Patriots’ Day.

  “I agree with Faith,” Sam said firmly.

  “No.” Pix folded her arms across her chest. She could be very stubborn, and the set of her mouth and the gesture told the assembled company that this was going to be one of those times. “Our forefathers and foremothers didn’t run on April nineteenth and neither will I.”

  Charley had been silent. He’d already heard the same basic speech from Millicent Revere McKinley and Louise Scott. Ted wasn’t home. He hadn’t talked to Nelson or Brad yet, but he expected more repetition. Both men were members of the minutemen and participants in the reenactment. As for Millicent, there was no question that she believed Patriots’ Day would be canceled if she wasn’t there.

  “The state police have been notified. We’re taking this very seriously. They’ll provide extra coverage and someone will be with you at all times. Now, don’t say anything.” He held up his hand as Pix began to protest. “No choice here. Nothing’s going to happen and we want to make sure it doesn’t.” Faith was relieved by the illogic of the statement.

  She planned to be at her friend’s side every waking minute of the day, too—no matter how early that minute was.

  “What about the kids? I haven’t told them. I don’t want them upset.” Having given in on one thing, Pix was taking a stand on another.

  She was going to lose this one, too.

  “We don’t know anything, so we have to assume all of you are targets. If you don’t tell your children, they’re not going to be able to look after themselves—or accept our looking after them.”

  Faith remembered that Samantha, a class officer, would be riding in one of the classic convertibles.

  Charley had used the word and it had stuck in Faith’s mind: Target. Sitting duck.

  “Can we move the senior class officers to a closed car?” she suggested.

  Pix winced. They were right. These were her kids.

  Charley nodded and took out his scruffy spiral memo pad. “Okay, let’s get it all down. They’re in the youth parade and the big parade, right? And what about Danny, is he marching with anything?”

  “DARE, but that’s just the big parade. He’ll want to ring the bell at the belfry in the morning, though.

  He always does. And we all go to Millicent’s pancake breakfast. I’m in the kitchen and Sam passes out the food. The kids help clear and set up.” The Millers’ Patriots’ Day routine was unvarying—and exhausting.

  “Well, at least when he’s marching with the DARE group, he’ll be surrounded by cops,” Faith observed.

  DARE was the drug education program the police ran for the upper elementary and middle school kids.

  Charley took some more notes. Pix appeared to feel better. She was quilting. Chief MacIsaac stood up to leave and Pix had a sudden thought.

  “I can see how you’ll be able to cover us, but how on earth are you going to keep track of Millicent?” It was just what Charley had been thinking, too.

  Faith sat in church the next morning wondering if they would ever get back to normal. Once again, the peace of the sanctuary was gone, replaced instead by a tension so palpable, you could taste it. A kind of a morning mouth taste, a taste even a good toothbrushing couldn’t entirely dissolve. Last Sunday, it had been the first letters. Today, Margaret’s death—and more letters. Plus the undercurrents—Lora’s calls, the brick through her window, and Lora herself. Faith tried to find a spot on the pew cushion that still had some stuffing.

  She planned to spend the afternoon with Pix. They were going to take all the kids up to Crane Beach in Ipswich to fly kites. Tom had calls to make, but Sam was coming. Faith had already packed a picnic. They needed to get away, and the idea of sitting and watching a large expanse of water appealed to her. Pix had agreed.

  Faith stood up for the last hymn. Yes, it would be good to spend the day outside—and away from Aleford. Aleford—overnight it had become a place of danger. They’d be away, but they’d be marking time.

  As they sang “Amen,” the bells rang in the steeple. It was noon.

  In twelve more hours, Patriots’ Day would begin.

  Six

  The sky was pitch-dark when Faith woke. Unlike other Patriots’ Days, this morning she had no trouble getting out of bed. The trouble had been getting to sleep at all. She felt muzzy. She needed some coffee, a lot of coffee.

  “Tom, Tom, wake up.” She leaned over her husband. He smiled and reached for her, then remembered the day and what it might bring. The smile faded and he kissed Faith hurriedly.

  “I’ll get Ben dressed while you get ready. Mrs. Hart should be here soon,” Tom said.

  Amy was at the age where any change in routine produced disastrous results. Eloise Hart was a parishioner who’d agreed to stay with the toddler until a more reasonable hour.

  When Faith returned from brushing her teeth, she found a gleeful Ben bouncing on their bed in his Minutechild garb.

  “Did you remember his thermal underwear—and yours?” she asked Tom. “It’s freezing out, as usual.”

  Faith most enjoyed Patriots’ Day after the sun rose and her toes thawed.

  Tom was struggling into his homespun frock coat and Faith took his mumbled reply as a yes. She looked at her own costume and pitied those poor women who had had to struggle through their onerous chores weighted down by layers of heavy petticoats and coarse woolen hose. Normally, Tom delighted in his role as the Reverend Samuel Pennypacker. Aleford tradition more or less demanded that whoever Samuel’s modern-day counterpart was at First Parish join the Aleford Minutemen Company and participate in the reenactment. Star of several college productions and George in Norwell High’s staging of Our Town, Tom hadn’t needed any urging, and he read Samuel’s diaries in the Aleford Room at the library each year to get into the role.

  Faith played his wife, Patience. Patience didn’t leave any diaries, nor did she figure in her husband’s except for an occasional reference, “Patience with child again.” Faith had seen both their headstones in the cemetery and noted that Mistress Pennypacker had outlived her husband by fifteen years. Maybe Patience was a virtue. Patience didn’t have to do much at the reenactment except rush onto the green when the smoke cleared and tend the wounded. Faith didn’t do anything to prepare. This was Ben’s first reenactment.

  He was little Elijah Pennypacker. Faith reminded him that children in those days were extremely obedient and that he must stay by her side at all times.

  The bell rang and Faith went to answer the door, nearly tumbling down the stairs, encumbered by skirts as she was. It was Mrs. Hart. As Faith let her in, the lights in the Millers’ kitchen went on. None of the Millers were participants in the reenactment, but they all took turns ringing the alarm bell in the old belfry and would join the spectators lining the green. Faith wondered if they had company for breakfast, company who might be packing something more modern than a musket. Charley had promised protection, and if there wasn’t anyone there yet, Faith herself resolved to stay by Pix’s side. Patience might miss the battle this year.

  Each year, the Aleford Minutemen met for breakfast before the event, gather
ing at the parish hall of the Catholic church. This third Monday in April was always a very ecumenical day. Besides the DAR pancake breakfast, the Baptists and the Episcopalians hosted them. Faith made coffee for Mrs. Hart and put out some apple crumb cake, bagels, cream cheese, and lox. Let her choose from these all-American favorites. Hastily drinking some coffee herself, Faith went into the living room and called softly up the stairs, “Tom, Ben, we have to be going.” They came immediately, Tom’s heavy boots clumping noisily.

  “Sssh, you’ll wake Amy!”

  Ben was so excited, he was hopping from foot to foot.

  “Go pee, Ben. One more time,” Tom instructed.

  “I don’t have to,” he protested—one more time.

  Faith was anxious to get over to the Millers’. She needed to see Pix.

  “Come on. They have bathrooms at the church.

  And it’s getting late.”

  They said good-bye to Mrs. Hart and put on their woolen cloaks. Tom draped a plaid blanket over his shoulders. He’d seen a print of a New England minister of the time so attired and had adopted the garb himself. It meant he was the warmest person on the Common, too.

  They stepped outside. The moon, full two days earlier, was still large and bright. The cold early-morning air seeped through their clothes. Faith was chilled. It was 4:15.

  The Millers were ready to leave, too. You had to get in line early if you wanted a turn at pulling the bell rope. Faith was relieved to see Patrolman Dale Warren was with them. As she did every year, Pix was urging her family to pretend that they actually were on their way to sound the alarm.

  “It was cool, maybe not as cool as today, but definitely not warm. Everyone who lived close to the green, the way we do, would have been gathering at the tavern, waiting for information about the British troops. Keyed up—something was finally happening—but scared, too.”