“I was wondering if you could follow me into Granville tomorrow and bring me home. I have to leave my car at the garage to have the brakes checked, and they're going to get rid of all this grime for me. I don't think it's been washed since last year."
“I have to go tomorrow anyway, so I'd be happy to help you out. Morning or afternoon?" '
“Let's be optimists and say morning, around nine o'clock? Maybe it will be done sooner that way. Oh, and this is foryou. Some things from my garden that I don't think you're growing."
“Or if we are, they're nowhere as good as yours. Thank you and I hope you tucked some of that white eggplant in." Faith had learned that Bill Fox's garden was famous on the island. It was beautiful to look at. Flowers, fruits and vegetables were planted together in seeming disarray. Scarlet runner beans on tepee trellising were bordered by beds of white phlox and deep-blue bachelor buttons. But the garden was not only a feast for the eye. Bill delighted in producing new and unusual varieties—all the things that were not supposed to grow in this climate. Radicchio, arugula, and baby vegetables had all been in his patch of earth long before they had inhabited Balducci's bins and Manhattan's menus.
“Faith and I were just about to have lunch, Bill. Would you care to join us?"
“Delighted." Faith studied him as they entered the kitchen. He really did look delighted. Surely his glowing expression could not simply be due to the prospect of a ride and a roast beef sandwich?
It wasn't.
They were sitting on the deck in the back of the house. Benjamin had eaten two bites of his sandwich, thereby covering himself from head to toe with peanut butter and jelly, then had promptly fallen asleep.
Two great blue heron were slowly flying across the cove, long legs streaming straight behind them, and enormous wings moving gracefully through the air, like an early flying machine. Their shadows rippled the water, until they landed on the top of an ancient black oak along the shore.
“`A dusky blue wave undulating over our meadows' is how Thoreau saw them, and I've never read a better description," Bill told them. "They're favorites of mine. I could watch them for hours. Ardea Herodias, the tallest bird in New England, the royalty of the shores and marshes.”
He took a big gulp of lemonade as if to fortify himself and abruptly changed the subject. "Nothing official yet and I know I can rely on you both to keep this under your bonnets, but I'm getting married."
“Married!" gasped Pix as Faith quickly covered her overabundant surprise with congratulations and best wishes.
“That's wonderful, Bill. Whoever she is, she's a very lucky person. It was my childhood dream to marry Prince Herodias, and in a way she is.”
He smiled. It was such a happy, calm smile. The smile of someone who feels completely fulfilled, who lets out that anxious breath he's been holding for thirty years and knows he's going to live happily ever after. After all.
“Is it someone we know?" Pix asked.
He appeared to find the question irrelevant. "It's Bird, of course."
“Bird!" Pix gasped again, and again Faith covered her confusion with happy noises about how lovely she was and now her baby would have a good home. She would have burbled on further, but Bill interrupted. He was obviously eager to share his news and tell his tale.
“I met her last winter, and it was the proverbial falling in love at first sight. I knew I didn't have a chance, but I was happy to be her friend and she enjoyed coming to the house. She's a very bright woman, you know.”
Since they had never heard her open her mouth except for that anguished outcry in the cemetery, Faith and Pix did not know.
“She has been desperately unhappy with Andy, but felt she had to try to stay with him since he was the father of her child, and they also shared a commitment to living in the natural, or rather primitive, way they did. And they are both macrobiotics. Although I have been able to get her to eat chicken and fish on occasion. What I do is put lots of sprouts on everything, and she thinks she's eating salad.”
Faith was appalled. What a way to start a marriage. This must be what was meant by living on love alone.
“I don't pretend to think I'm Bird's first or only choice. I'm quite certain that had he lived, she would have married Roger. She's marrying me because he wants some stability in her life and she wants to stay on the island." He paused and colored slightly. "Of course, she does have some affection for me too."
“Of course she does, Bill. If she didn't, she'd be out of her mind. She's the lucky one here." Pix was getting a bit irritated at all the self-deprecation. Trading life in a fisherman's bait shack with no amenities and a quixotic, perhaps abusive, would-be rock star for Bill's beautifully designed modern house and unswerving love and devotion wasn't exactly a step down.
“We're both lucky, Pix," Bill smiled as he put his hand over hers. "One of those serendipitous blinks where two people find themselves in the right place at the right time. And Zoe makes it even more perfect," he added.
“Zoë?" asked Pix. "Oh, the baby, of course. I never knew her name."
“Well, her name has actually undergone several transformations that are too embarrassing to reveal, but it's Zoë now for keeps. Zoë Fox."
“I like Zoe. I think it means `life,' doesn't it?”
While Pix was musing on Zoe's name, Faith was concentrating on Bird's. Bird Fox? Better than Bird Dog, but still ludicrous. If Bill could get her to eat meat and change the baby's name, maybe he could convince her to go back to her original name, whatever that was. More important, maybe he could get her to stop tie-dyeing her clothes.
A lobster boat returning from a long morning of hauling made its way across the inlet. The herons rose up and flapped off in the opposite direction.
“I have to be going," Bill said. "Bird and Zoë had fallen asleep when I left, and they must be up by now." And he didn't want to miss a single waking moment, Faith surmised.
They walked him to his car and returned to the job of identifying the quilt squares.
Pix took a sheet of paper and was making a list.
“Why don't we give them numbers starting at the upper left-hand corner and going across each row. So far we know number one, Old Maid's Puzzle, number five, Mariner's Compass, and this one, number seven, is Crossroads or something like that."
“And Louise said this was Fern Berry, number sixteen. I remember, because it was an interesting name."
“Right, and in the next row, number eighteen is Shady Pine.”
Pix stood back, regarding the quilt intently. "Number thirteen is obviously Schoolhouse, or Little Red Schoolhouse, I think it's called. And number fourteen is Jacob's Ladder."
“Pix, this is great. We've already named seven, almost half."
“Make that eight, because number ten has to be some kind of tree design. See the trunk and the leaf pattern?"
“I've been stupid about this. Of course the squares are pictures. Look at number nineteen. It looks like a chest or a trunk."
“I know what you're thinking and it may be crazy, but I think you're right. The quilt does have some kind of message."
“Matilda may have been religious, but I'm sure 'Seek and Ye Shall Find' meant something else. Something like 'God helps those who help themselves.' And what else is there to seek but the gold?" Faith was definitely getting excited.
“Naming the first block Old Maid's Puzzle is too much of a coincidence to be one, together with the quotation and that square at the bottom with the chest or whatever on it."
“Exactly. Now all we have to do is solve the puzzle."
“And to do that, we have to find the names of all the squares. Not an easy job. But we can start by figuring out if the squares are four-patch, nine-patch, appliqué, what have you."
“And what have you? What's all this patch business?"
“Many blocks are made up of four, six, or nine, etc. smaller squares sewn together, and the books list the patterns this way, so we don't have to go through every category searching. We
can narrow it down a little.
“Wonderful. Appliqué is in my vocabulary, but I don't see any here, except maybe this schoolhouse." Faith was down on her hands and knees, looking closely at each square. "No, it's your little nine, ten, whatever blocks too.”
Pix had started to open a book. "Ickis's Quilt, Making and Collecting is a Bible for quilt makers, and Matilda is sure to have had it. Let's see.... "
“Pix!" Faith interrupted. "There's something peculiar about some of these squares. Look—on Mariner's Compass she only embroidered one point, and E for East. And in this one, number three, the top triangle is red and all the others are blue. It's not a code. Pix—the quilt is some kind of map!”
Pix knelt down next to Faith. "You're right! Look at Crossroads. The calico for the one on the left is different from the rest."
“And number nine has the same thing—the fabric in the upper right is different from the rest. She's telling us which way to turn. What a smart lady. I'm really sorry I never knew her," Faith said with regret in her voice.
“I have a feeling you're going to be a whole lot better acquainted with Matilda by the time we ever figure this out," Pix commented.
They pored over the books, taking turns at amusing Ben, who awoke and vociferously demanded some entertainment. After an hour and a half, they had identified four more squares: Harbor View, number two, Weather Vane, number three, Odd Fellows Chain, number six, and North Star, number eleven.
“Harbor View is the name of the Prescott house. It's painted on a board over the barn door. So that means the map must start there and we must read across the rows, not down."
“Then Weather Vane refers to the ship weather vane. Which way is north?"
“Toward this side of the island, but we don't know what the square in between is—before Mariner's Compass.”
Faith had been scanning the designs in one of the books. "It looks like this one, Pullman Puzzle, but that doesn't make sense. There aren't any train tracks on the island."
“I should have told you," Pix said apologetically. "Many of the same squares have different names depending on what part of the country you're in."
“Wonderful. All right, we'll put a question mark next to that one. And in any case we may not have to identify all the squares to figure it out. The most important ones have to be the last few. Why don't we concentrate on those, now that we know the starting point?”
Another forty minutes yielded only two squares: number nine, Winding Ways, and number twenty, Prosperity, which Faith noted assured them they were on the right track, but gave no clues. Ben had had more than enough of sitting indoors. Eager as she was to figure out the quilt, Faith was glad to take a break.
“I think I'll take Ben home the shore way, and he can explore to his heart's content."
“Leave the quilt and I'll keep trying. It's addictive. Besides, I'm dying of curiosity." Pix was standing on the floor with a stack of Quilter's Newsletter Magazines to her side. "Look at this quilt. Can you imagine the work that went into it?" she asked Faith.
Faith took a look at the magazine. "It's gorgeous and could not possibly have been accomplished by human hands." She paused, then added, "You know we could be at this until Christmas, especially if we get sidetracked like this."
“Don't worry, I'm working. That was just a momentary aberration."
“Speaking of which, was Matilda the type to go to all this trouble for an empty box? Some kind of joke from the other side?"
“I don't know. It's an awful lot of work to do for a joke.”
“On all our parts," Faith agreed.
Before she left, she jotted down the names of the quilt squares they had identified. They were assuming the clues were in sequence from left to right across, but they could be wrong. She wanted to look at it all again when her mind was clearer and see if she could figure anything out.
“Call me if you find any more names," she said as they left.
Faith and Ben took their time following the shoreline between the two cottages, stopping to watch some eider ducks bob about in the water. Faith's pockets were heavy with all Ben's treasures: assorted shells, sea urchins emptied of their contents by the gulls, and rocks. he had finally pried him away from a boulder almost as big as he was that he seemed to want to add to the collection, and they climbed up into the meadow in front of the cottage. The landscape had that peculiar flat, intense light it sometimes assumes in the late afternoon, or just before a storm. Everything was absolutely still and light flooded into every corner. It was like a stage set. Ben and Faith stopped for an instant.
“I'm going to get you!" Faith cried and reached out for him. He squealed in happy terror and ran for the house. It worked every time.
The door was open. Faith thought she had closed it. When she walked into the living room, she was sure she had.
But the person or persons unknown who had been in the house since and torn it apart hadn't bothered.
She didn't linger to see if Goldilocks was sleeping in Ben's bed, but grabbed her car keys and child, drove straight to Pix's, and called the police.
Faith hung up and turned to Pix. "He's going to check it out and then come by here. It's very strange. There's absolutely nothing of value in the house that people know about. Not even a TV set. What could someone have wanted?”
Which was Sgt. Dickinson's question as well. The house was empty, and he asked Faith to come back with him to try to figure out what was missing. Pix jumped in next to Faith.
They stood and surveyed the living room in silence. It wasn't as bad as Faith had first thought. Drawers were pulled out and cushions from the couch strewn around, but nothing had been smashed or broken, thank goodness. Short of haunting every yard sale on the Maine Coast for the rest of her life, she would have had no idea how to replace the vintage noncollectible cottage furnishings. The other rooms showed the same regard for property, but not order. Things were messed up, particularly the beds, but intact. Sgt. Dickinson showed special interest in the beds, examining the sheets with care. He was a medium-sized, well-built man with aspirations toward a Burt Reynolds mustache, the whole effect only slightly marred by a persistent cowlick.
“They might have done a little rolling around in here, but nothing else," he reported to Faith and Pix. "If you catch my meaning," he added solemnly. They nodded vigorously in unison and Faith felt slightly relieved. The sanctity of the cottage beds had been preserved. It had been plain to her from the start that all those hours of exercise and masochistic dips in the ocean by the previous inhabitants had been to quell certain urges. And as for the current inhabitants—well, they were married.
Ben had sensed something was amiss and had clung to Faith since they had entered the house, refusing even Pix's familiar arms. Trying to remember whether she had brought her Hermès scarf with the boat design or not was made more difficult by Ben's anguished cries whenever she tried to set him down for a moment. Pix had told her life was simple on the island, and Faith hadn't brought any good jewelry. Nor, she finally recalled, the scarf. But Pix was wrong. Life on the island was certainly not simple. Yet it wasn't something for which one dressed. She'd been right about that.
An hour's careful inventory revealed only a few items missing: some bottles of scotch, gin, vermouth, and wine Faith kept in the pantry; and a cuff bracelet Tom had bought for her from a silversmith on the island when they had first arrived. The wine in the basement had not been touched. Possibly, the fear of Faith and Ben's arrival had driven the miscreants away before they had had a chance to get to it.
They assembled on the porch to hear Sgt. Dickinson's parting words.
“Looks like kids, Mrs. Fairchild. No tire marks, except yours going out. I expect they were out in a skiff, saw you leave, and decided to have a party. Or at least get the makings of one. This happens a lot in the winter. But they're getting pretty foolish lately. I have an idea or two who they might be, and I'll keep an eye out for that bracelet of yours."
“It wasn't worth that m
uch, but my husband gave it to me.”
He took a small memo pad out of his pocket and made a note, as he had been doing every time Faith opened her mouth. He was nothing if not thorough.
“I don't think they'll be back to bother you, but I'll make it a point to check by here for the next couple of days."
“I think you're right, Sergeant. There's really nothing for them to steal. But thank you all the same. It's reassuring to know you're around." Faith gave him one of her more radiant smiles and he was properly impressed. He blushed and left.
“Do you think this is some sort of record, Pix? For summer people, especially?"
“What are you talking about, Faith?"
“Making the `Police Brief' two weeks in a row, of course.”
Pix patted her on the shoulder and they went in to start cleaning up. Ben had fallen asleep—he hadn't slept long enough earlier—and Faith had put him in his crib. His room was untouched. Evidently these were not teenagers who collected stuffed animals.
“Faith, why don't you come and stay with me until your sister gets here? There's plenty of room and we'd love to have you," Pix offered.
“That's very sweet and thank you, but I'm not nervous. Whoever it was has had a look around and won't be back, and I know how to make sure of it.”
They were stripping the sheets off the bed.
“What do you mean? They'll probably watch you the next time you go to the state liquor store. You know there's always that line of teenagers sitting on the stone wall next to it."
“Oh Pix, don't tell me you think it was kids who broke in here! It wasn't booze and bangles our thief wanted. It was the quilt."
“The quilt!"
“Of course. Look at the way the beds are messed up and which drawers are open. No small ones, only those big enough to hold the quilt." Faith stood for a moment, her arms filled with bedding.
“And we have to do something about it as soon as possible, because if we don't he, she, or they will try again.”
6
Despite her brave words to Pix, Faith spent a sleepless night. She was jolted to full consciousness by each noise outside and inside the cottage.
The Body in the Kelp ff-2 Page 11