The moment came late in the meeting. It had been an acrimonious one at times and the lawyer would have plenty to report. Distrust of the entire Deane family was in the air. Although no one actually attacked the company, the innuendos were less than subtle. One of the things that was making the majority of the people in the room uneasy was the fact that the Deanes had started renovating the old Turner farmhouse on the property—the house Joey had referred to as “the jewel in the crown” at Alefordiana. He had told the selectmen the house would be “lovingly restored” and promised that not an inch of original clapboard would be sacrificed to a Palladian window or any other anachronistic architectural detailing.
“I want to know why they’ve started to work on the house when they haven’t received the permits for the rest of the plans. What do they know? Have the selectmen given a secret go-ahead behind our backs?” Ellen Phyfe’s voice was shrill as she raised these points.
Several people in the audience clapped. Angry faces turned to confront the lawyer, who remained impassive. The seats to either side of him were empty, as if he carried some dread disease. But it wasn’t contagion that the Aleford residents at the meeting feared; it was association.
“Fortunately, we have a member of the board here tonight. I asked Penelope Bartlett to come as a personal favor. Mrs. Bartlett?”
“ ‘Personal favor’—I’d say more like arm twisting,” Pix whispered to Faith. Indeed, Penny did not appear overjoyed to be there.
“Come up here, so everyone will be able to hear you,” Millicent directed. Penelope Bartlett was made of stern stuff, however, and whatever means Millicent had used to get her there did not extend to Penny’s performance once she was in the hall.
“Everyone can hear me perfectly well from where I am, Miss McKinley. Let me start by saying that I am saddened and appalled that any citizen of Aleford should think the board of selectmen would make secret agreements with anyone! This indicates a serious lack of trust and I intend to bring it before the board at our next meeting and hope that Mrs. Phyfe and others who share her views will be in attendance.” Since Ellen Phyfe’s husband was a member of the board, everyone immediately began to look forward to another good episode.
Penny continued. “The late Mr. Madsen applied for and was granted permits to restore the old Turner farmhouse earlier this winter. The planning board, the Historic Commission, and the building inspector all advised the board to approve his plans, which we did.
The meeting was open, of course, and some of you who are here tonight were there then, so I’m surprised this has come up. Obviously, the Deane-Madsen Development Corporation, to whom we granted approval, had to wait for the weather to improve, and this was our understanding at the time.” Penny sat down. Millicent smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Bartlett. I believe that clears things up.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Sherwin Greene jumped to his feet, no easy task for a man carrying as much weight as he did. “Why were they starting work before the rest was approved? And why are they continuing?” Ellen called out, “That’s right. I saw the trucks there today.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask those wishing to speak to wait to be recognized,” Millicent said. She had thought Penny’s presence and reply would do the trick, but more was needed.
Help came from an unlikely corner. The lawyer had languidly stretched his long arm into the air. Millicent recognized him immediately. He didn’t bother to stand.
“The Deane-Madsen Development Corporation is undertaking the restoration of the property known as the old Turner farmhouse because it owns it and has received the appropriate permits. The company intends to sell the property irregardless of the outcome of the plans pending for the area known as Beecher’s Bog.”
“Thank you very much. Now I think we’re all clear on this matter.”
Of course “we” all weren’t and there was further discussion that went around the same circles in endless and boring detail. “I’ve lost all feeling in my right buttock,” Pix whispered. “If I don’t get out of here soon, the left one is going to go, too.” Faith bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She was getting punchy—and numb.
Finally, Millicent offered a compromise.
“It’s clear that there are two very distinct posi-tions: those who feel we should dissolve the organization and those who oppose that. I’d like to put a motion before the group that we effectively disband but keep a core executive committee who will monitor all matters dealing with the disposition of Beecher’s Bog and activity at the old Turner farmhouse. This group shall be composed of the original signers of the letter in the Chronicle and those who worked on the mailing, to be more specific: myself, Nelson Batcheldor, Louise and Ted Scott, Pix Miller, Brad Hallowell, Ellen Phyfe, and Faith Fairchild. I will now take five minutes of comments from the floor in favor and five minutes opposed.” Surprisingly, there was almost no opposition.
Maybe everyone was getting pins and needles. Sherwin Greene got up during the time allotted for the opposition and everyone expected a blast. Without naming the Deanes, he had repeatedly referred to “un-trustworthy, greedy, bloodsucking land developers” during the previous debate.
“I assume you will keep the membership’s names and other information on file, as well as other material we might need to make a sudden response to an attack?”
“Certainly,” Millicent replied. “Perhaps Brad could speak to this issue.”
Brad Hallowell stood up. He had been strangely silent all evening; then Faith realized that of course he’d already known about Millicent’s watch-and-wait motion. She’d presented it as a compromise, yet it had been the plan all along. Brad had no quarrel with it; he’d still be in the game.
“Everything’s on my computer with backup discs.
We could get a mailing out or start a telephone tree of the membership for a meeting in no time at all.” Sherwin stood up again. “That’s all right, then, but what about reconvening Town Meeting? Would we have to collect the signatures again?” Millicent had been doing her homework. “Since we did not actually set a date, the signatures we have will suffice. I checked with Lucy Barnes yesterday.” Lucy Barnes was the town clerk.
Sherwin sat down, Millicent took the vote, and the motion passed.
“If there is no further business, I declare this meeting a—”
Faith’s hand was up. Millicent looked peeved.
“Mrs. Fairchild?”
Mrs. Fairchild rose and addressed the room.
“I’m afraid I will have to decline the position on the executive committee, honored as I am. My work has recently increased. We’re moving into the wedding and graduation season. I’m also shorthanded at present because my assistant is taking a pastry-making course, so I’m alone at the company. Tomorrow night, for instance, all by myself I have to make beef bourguignon for seventy-five and bake a hundred meringue shells—some always break.” Faith was deliberately rambling. She knew she sounded nutty, but she didn’t care. She was speaking loudly and clearly.
“I won’t even be able to get there until seven because of the kids. . . .”
Millicent had had enough. “I’m sure this is all very interesting”—her tone suggested “interesting to persons totally unknown to Millicent Revere McKinley”—“and we are sorry not to have your”—there was a pause, Faith waited—“help.” There was no adjective in front of the word, such as competent, able, invaluable. Miss McKinley gathered the papers in front of her into a pile. “I now declare this meeting adjourned.” So much for Faith.
Pix was giving Faith a funny look as they filed out of the room and up the aisle. “Now what was that about?”
“You know how stretched I am without Niki. I don’t have time to be involved in POW!”
“But POW! isn’t doing anything right now,” Pix pointed out logically.
This was why Faith had been glad Tom had stayed at the parsonage. She was beginning to wish Pix had stayed home, too.
“Millicent and Brad, probably th
e others, too, are going to want to have a meeting every time the Deanes replace a piece of rotted board. There’ll be meetings of the inner circle all the time.”
“I hope not,” Pix said. “I’m busy myself.” She seemed to have dropped the subject and began to discuss Danny’s problems at school. “I know next year will be better. We just have to get through these last few weeks.”
But when she left Faith at her door, it was clear she wasn’t dropping the subject. “Do you want me to help you tomorrow night? I’m not sure what I could do—beat egg whites?” She sounded willing but dubious.
“It will take you twice as long as it takes me. Don’t even think about it. Besides, it’s nice to be by myself sometimes. It happens so rarely.”
“Pretty soon, Ben and Amy will be off to college and you’ll wish for less time alone,” Pix commented sadly, although even with a future empty nest, all of her volunteer activities made time alone a remote possibility.
“Good night,” Faith said, then, for the second time that evening, added, “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” And she was sure she would be.
*
*
*
Niki was taking a pastry course and Faith did have to work Wednesday night making beef bourguignon and meringues. Faith spent the day making sure as many people in town knew these two salient facts. She even managed to work it into the conversation when she picked Ben up at school. Miss Lora, the professional that she was, had not let her personal grief intrude on her classroom demeanor and the children had spent a happy morning with papier-mâché. The large room smelled of wet newspaper and wallpaper paste. Ben was encrusted from head to toe and displayed a huge creature of some sort, sadly too wet to take home; besides, he had to paint it.
“It’s a triceratops, Mom.” At last, something she could recognize.
“He has a very serious interest in prehistoric life,” Lora Deane told Faith, indicating that it was past time for the Fairchilds to get the brilliant child whatever encyclopedia and computer software he might need to further his study.
With children in tow, Faith spread the word at the library, the market, Aleford Photo, and ultimately the post office. If the post office didn’t do it, nothing would.
Tom surprised her by coming home early. “The Lord does work in mysterious ways. A meeting I had to attend has been canceled. If you want to take off, go ahead. I’ll handle things here. I know you’ve been stressed about getting everything done without Niki.”
Guilt, guilt, guilt.
“Oh, Tom, that would be great.”
“I also have an ulterior motive. This way, you’ll be home sooner.”
Faith sincerely hoped so.
Have Faith’s kitchen was on the outskirts of town.
She drove over, parked the car in front, then unlocked the door to the premises and went in. It was five o’-
clock. She’d told the world she was getting there at seven. That gave her two hours to get some work done. It was true. She was concerned about doing the work herself. Niki’s class was three nights a week for the next month, and Niki had always had a part-time day job at a restaurant in Watertown.
But before she did anything else, Faith made her calls. First one to Charley.
“I’m going to be working at the company tonight and think you should be here at six-thirty.”
“What’s going on, Faith?”
“I want to talk to you about the murders, you and John. Be sure he’s with you. Something’s come up and we may be able to solve this thing.” She liked the collegial way that all sounded.
“All right, I’ll meet you there,” Charley said. “I’ll call Dunne, too.”
“Six-thirty. Don’t be late. I have to get home.” Faith didn’t want to give Charley any more hints of what she was up to. He’d be over in a minute and mess things up.
Satisfied, she started separating dozens of eggs, reserving the yolks and putting the whites into a large copper bowl. She hummed to herself. The meringues would be heaped with her homemade vanilla ice cream, then topped with a boysenberry puree and fresh raspberries. It was one of the desserts she’d created for the Patriots’ Day dinner, then had abandoned when she couldn’t get boysenberries last week.
She began to beat the egg whites with a balloon whisk. It was a satisfying job. Soon the white peaks began to stiffen. Things were going along beautifully.
The door opened. She heard footsteps. Charley hadn’t waited. She looked up in annoyance. But it wasn’t Charley.
Faith gasped. “You’re not supposed to be here yet.” It was the murderer.
It was Nelson Batcheldor.
Ten
Nelson?
Faith would have assumed he had stopped by for a cup of sugar, except for the fact that he was pointing a gun at her chest.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you,” he said in an almost-jovial tone. Where was the bereaved widower?
“I should think not! Please put that gun away right now and tell me what you’re doing here. I’m afraid I don’t have much time to talk; I’m very busy,” said Faith, trying to bluff her way out.
“Oh, I do have to kill you, just not shoot you.” Nelson showed no inclination to follow Faith’s request or lead.
There was a stool next to Faith. She grabbed it.
Nelson?
Nelson Batcheldor had killed his wife—and Joey Madsen?
“I’ve always been so fond of you and Tom, but you’ve been seriously interfering with my plans. I had hoped to get everything settled last Saturday on the bike path, but then Millicent had to come along and stick her oar in.” Nelson was annoyed. Nature lover, bird-watcher, vestryman, librarian, handy-man—these were naught compared to the dramatis personae unfolding.
“And tonight I have a POW! meeting at seven-thirty. I was afraid I was going to have to be late, since you told us you wouldn’t be here until seven. Then I said to myself, Nelson, why don’t you take a little run over there and see if she started work early. You never know. So I did. Your car was out front, and here we are.”
Faith had been right. POW! was having meetings all the time, but that did not seem important at the moment, since, as Nelson had so aptly put it, here they were.
“Nelson, sit down. Why don’t we both sit down?
I’ll make some coffee and you can tell me what’s going on. You seem upset, and of course I want to help.
All this talk of killing. Haven’t we had enough? Think of poor Margaret.”
Two thoughts were pounding in her brain. The man was completely insane and the police wouldn’t be coming for almost an hour. Insane. An hour with a homicidal maniac—Aleford had been right. Her head was close to bursting.
“I did think of Margaret. Often. I’ve wanted to get rid of her for years,” he said peevishly.
Faith felt incredibly stupid. Where is the first place you look for a suspect? The face on the pillow next to the victim—or, in the Batcheldors’ case, on the pillow down the hall. But they’d all been deceived by the attack on Nelson, staged by Nelson himself in some way. The man had been extremely clever and a con-summate actor.
He was facing her across the broad metal counter where she’d been working. Nelson was slender and tall. His large, round, black-framed bifocals and the tufts that sprouted from his eyebrows gave him an owlish look. Perhaps this had attracted Margaret. He was dressed, as usual, in baggy tan pants and a rumpled button-down oxford-cloth shirt. In the winter, the shirts were covered by ancient Shetland pullovers, much mended, but inexpertly. Faith had always assumed the man was simply wearing his college wardrobe until the threads gave out, a common practice in Aleford and one from which she had had to wean her own husband.
Except for the gray in his bushy hair and the line through the middle of his lenses, Nelson Batcheldor had probably looked much the same at eighteen as he did now at forty-nine. He did not look like someone who had killed two people and was preparing to do away with a third. But then, murderers seldom did look other tha
n completely ordinary. Few drooled or rolled their eyes.
Nelson was speaking very matter-of-factly about his desire to rid himself of his wife. “There were all sorts of opportunities, but I kept putting it off. I’m afraid I have a tendency to procrastinate,” he said apologetically. Faith hoped this tendency was rising to the surface now. “I never had a pressing reason until last fall, and it also seemed sinful to take her life before it was really necessary.”
“Necessary?” Faith had missed a chapter.
“I couldn’t remarry with Margaret alive,” Nelson explained patiently, much the way he’d explained the mechanics of a drill to Ben during the work on the classroom. Faith broke out in a cold sweat and the inside of her mouth got dry.
“Margaret wouldn’t give you a divorce?”
“I don’t know. I never asked her. No one in either of our families has ever been divorced,” he said with pride.
“Look, let me make the coffee.” Faith was sure Nelson would want to tell her all about it, and if she could keep refilling his cup, she had a chance of either being rescued or thinking of some way out of the situation herself.
“I don’t have much time. Millicent doesn’t like to start the meetings until everyone is present, and it’s also going to take a while to set up your suicide.”
“My suicide!” Faith screamed.
Nelson jumped. He cocked the trigger. She realized she mustn’t startle him.
“What suicide? I’m not planning on killing myself,” she said in what she desperately hoped was a calmer tone of voice.
“I know,” he whispered, “but I’m planning on it. I have to.” He raised his voice slightly. “You were bound to find me out sooner or later. You said so at the meeting, and that would have spoiled everything. Destroyed my only chance for happiness. I think we’d better get down to it right away. You’ve been over-whelmed by work. The whole town knows it. You simply cracked.”
No problem with procrastination tonight.
“Now wait a minute,” Faith said, relying on whatever natural authority her position as his spiritual leader’s wife might give her. At the moment, she was grasping at anything. “First, I think you owe me an explanation before I die. And second, I believe I’m also entitled to a last request. And I want a cup of coffee.” Nelson wasn’t your run-of-the-mill criminal.
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