Katherine Page - Body in the Bog

Hastily buffing some brass candlesticks while Amy occupied herself in picking out all the raisins from her bran muffin, Faith hoped Charley could get Joey to admit that he’d authored, if that was the correct word for the method employed, the “friendly” letters. Madsen was the most obvious suspect.

As they sat in church the day before, it was apparent that the word had been spread—and not the word Tom was preaching. The pleasant buzz of conversation and greetings before the service was missing. It seemed as if everyone had waited until the last minute and then hastily filed in just before the stroke of eleven. What talk there was tended to be furtive and hushed. It was the same at coffee hour. The Millers and the Batcheldors were there, but people were avoiding them, giving them a sympathetic nod in passing, yet unsure of what to say. It wasn’t a death—or a birth. It was perhaps something they weren’t even supposed to know about.

Faith wondered if the letters had stopped. She’d call Charley later and tell him what Pix had said—that whoever it was was writing about things everybody knew, indicating it had to be someone living in town, but maybe somebody who didn’t know its deepest, darkest secrets—or was too polite to mention them. Not that the letters showed an excess of good manners. In exchange, Charley might tell her what he’d been doing.

Had Millicent read Charley her letter? She’d been vague about it. Faith couldn’t think of anything about Millicent that you’d bother cutting up a magazine for.

Overweening pride? Ancestor worship? Maybe she really wasn’t a descendant of the midnight rider through his fourth cousin once removed and her whole life was a sham. But Millicent lectured all over the state on virtually every aspect of the Revere family, from what they ate to what they wrought. She was the pillar of the DAR, Historical Society; anything remotely connected with the glorious past, as her parents had been and so forth. Faith wondered why Millicent had never married. Surely she would have considered it her obligation to carry on the line.

Maybe there was something there. Millicent left at the altar—but who would dare? Or maybe Millicent wasn’t the end of the line—but again, who would dare? Besides, wed or unwed, if Millicent had produced any progeny, she’d have raised her child herself and done the job thoroughly. Goodness knows, she had opinions enough on the way others raised theirs.

Millicent may not have literally taken to the rod, but she would definitely not have spoiled the child.

Faith looked over to see how her own child was doing. She had managed to cover herself with a layer of fine crumbs and there was a raisin pasted to her cheek with spit. Faith grabbed a cloth. Romper Room would be starting any minute. Everything was ready. The only thing Faith had to remember was to keep on eye on little Jeffrey, who ate the play dough, yucky as it was. He ate paste, too.

She scrubbed at Amy’s sticky cheeks and brushed some of the crumbs from her fine blond hair. She wished she could tell Charley about Lora Deane’s calls and see if he thought there was any connection to the letters. The next selectmen’s meeting was Wednesday night. It hadn’t even been a week since Faith had walked in on Tom and the nursery school teacher. All weekend, she and Tom had taken turns calling Lora to find out what her sister, Bonnie, had said. Contrary to the advice of the police, and common sense, Lora had left a cheery message on her machine informing callers that she was out of town, presumably having fun, and to please leave a message. They did, but Lora hadn’t called back.

“At least we haven’t had to worry about her. If we’d been getting no answer all weekend, I’d have had to go over there and check up on her,” Tom had said at breakfast. He was leaving early in hopes of getting a word with her when he dropped Ben off.

“True, but it is pretty silly to advertise the fact that your place is empty.”

“I doubt she has much, honey. What do stuffed animals bring on the street these days?”

Faith hadn’t heard from Tom this morning and assumed this meant he hadn’t been able to get the teacher alone. She resolved to pin Miss Lora down herself after school and bring her back to the parsonage for lunch.

The morning went by with blessed speed. The toddlers had left the place relatively intact, although it was going to be a job getting the play dough from behind the kitchen radiator.

Everything was going according to plan. Lora accepted the invitation eagerly—maybe she was getting tired of peanut butter and jelly—and Faith was able to get her alone after lunch. Amy had nodded off into her tapioca pudding and Ben was sequestered with Tin-Tin on Nickelodeon, Lora having promised to take him for a walk afterward all by himself. He could hardly contain his excitement and after interrupting them for the third time, asking, “Is it time yet?” Faith had snapped at him, “No, and it isn’t going to be if you come in once more,” thereby revealing in front of her child’s teacher what a bad mother she truly was.

Miss Lora did, in fact, look a bit sorrowful. Faith couldn’t wait for her to have kids of her own—kids in residence.

Over a second helping of tapioca, which Lora seemed to enjoy as much as the Fairchild children, she confided that Bonnie had not responded exactly as Lora had hoped. Faith was annoyed with herself for not having predicted the outcome, or at the least its strong “kill the messenger” possibility.

“She was ripping,” Lora said. “Now she won’t even talk to me. Everyone in the family’s going to find out, if they haven’t already, and it’s going to be all my fault.”

“Did she come right out and deny it, or didn’t you get that far?” Faith asked.

Lora obediently started from the beginning. “I called her up and asked if I could go over there to see the baby. He really is the sweetest thing, little pudgy cheeks, the kind you just have to nibble.” Faith added Cabbage Patch dolls to what she already knew to be a sizable collection of teddy bears.

Miss Lora told the kids stories about them.

“We spent time with little Joey; then she put him down for a nap, so I figured it was a good time to talk.

I told her about the calls and she was very sympathetic at first. I was kind of embarrassed to bring it up, but I said straight out, ‘You know, Bonnie, Joey has been pretty upset because I wouldn’t lend him the money for the Estates. You don’t think he’s doing this to kind of get back at me, do you?’ ” Faith could picture the scene. She’d been in Bonnie’s kitchen once, dropping off some large containers of Have Faith eggplant lasagna Bonnie had ordered for a luncheon her women’s club was having. The room was so clean, you wondered if it had ever been used, but Faith could see plates of cookies and brown-ies that surely had not come from boxes. The house was only a few years old and still looked like a model home. There wasn’t any clutter, not even the kind Faith tolerated—out of the way in baskets or behind closed cabinets. No sign of a morning paper, no pictures except one that perfectly picked out the color of the tile floor and matching curtains. It was of a large fish surrounded by either offspring or prey, depending on one’s point of view. There wasn’t even a Post-It next to the phone or on the gleaming fridge. Bonnie kept her life in absolute order without reminders.

Faith knew instinctively this was a woman who used leaf polish on her houseplants.

“I didn’t know how mad she was at first, because she didn’t say anything. Just sat there. I started to tell her I was sure I was wrong. I mean, she was beginning to scare me. Staring off into space, with her hands folded on the table. Then she stood up and told me to get out of her house. I couldn’t believe it. Bonnie, my own sister—well, half sister. So I tried to tell her that this was all crazy—to forget I’d said anything and let bygones be bygones.”