Katherine Page - Body in the Bog

“We have a fifty-fifty chance. Quick, tell me what to do,” he said to Faith.

“Take Storrow. We’re going that way, anyway.” The red car was stopped at the next light. Tom grinned triumphantly and pulled up behind them.

There were so many cars now that looked like the Fairchilds’ that he felt safe. Besides, he didn’t want to lose them again. Faith put on her dark glasses. She wished she had a scarf to tie around her hair like Garbo or Madonna, but Faith wasn’t the type to tie scarves around her hair. The sunglasses would have to do.

The light changed and Tom trailed the car to Copley Square.

“It’s a clear day. Maybe we should take the kids to the top of the John Hancock Building,” Tom suggested as they passed the tallest building in the city, sheer glass jutting up to the sky, and now that the windows had stopped popping out, perfectly safe. He liked going up there. You got a great view of the city, and while you couldn’t see as far down the South Shore as Norwell, where he grew up, he could point in the right direction for the kids.

South Shore childhood memories receded rapidly, replaced by Boston’s South End. They drove down Clarendon, across Columbus, and then the Miata turned left and pulled into a parking place on Chandler Street, a legal one—something of a minor miracle.

“Over there! Across the street!” Faith gestured in front of Tom’s nose, causing him to step on the brakes.

“Honey, there’s a hydrant. We can’t—”

“We’re not getting out. If we see a—” She had started to say the word cop , then recalled Ben had un-happily reached that age where you could say virtually nothing in front of him—had reached it a long time ago.

“If we see a person with a notebook in hand, we’ll leave. We’re not getting out of the car. At least not all of us.”

“This isn’t the museum.” Ben offered the observa-tion as a flat statement of fact.

“We know that, but we need some more thinking time. You do that, too, sweetheart, and we’ll be at the museum soon.” Amy was attempting to remove her sweater and overalls.

“Are they waiting for someone, do you think?” Tom asked. No one had moved from the Miata.

“Possibly.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes more. A young man dressed in black jeans with an A/X T-shirt, spotlessly white except for the logo, came strolling down the block. He paused at the car. Faith rolled her window down. He looked at his watch, glanced at the sports car, and moved on.

“Some kind of code?” Tom asked.

Faith reminded herself that Tom read a great many more mysteries than she did. She’d like to humor him, but years of sleuthing, amateur though she was, told her the guy was probably merely stopping to check the time.

She shook her head, then put her hand on Tom’s arm. The door was opening. She turned around to face the backseat and put her finger to her lips. “It’s a game,” she whispered. “Quiet as mice.” The driver got out, closed his door, and walked around the front of the car to put money in the meter.

He was a total stranger. She looked over at Tom. He shook his head.

Whoever it was matched the car well. The look was Louis, not Brooks. This was someone who paid attention to labels. Someone who thought clothes were important and a reflection of self. Someone not unlike Faith herself. For this spring Saturday afternoon, he was wearing a soft cream-colored silk shirt, light brown cotton slacks, tight, but not too tight in the rear—enough to show, not show off—and a cotton sweater the color of perfectly poached salmon, flung casually around his shoulders. No gold chains or an earring, just a simple watch that Faith was pretty sure even at this distance was a Piaget and tasseled loafers for decoration. He was fairly tall, lean, and his blond hair was at a length about halfway between Fabio and Macaulay Culkin.

Miss Lora with this guy ? Faith and Tom didn’t have to speak. Each face mirrored the other’s surprise.

Then Lora got out, on her own steam. Whoever he was, he was either too conscious of women’s rights to open the door for her or did not have any manners.

Faith reminded herself that Lora had struggled with her carton unaided.

She wasn’t carrying anything now, except one of those funny little knapsacks made of clear vinyl. Faith focused on the bag. It confused her. The whole thing confused her. Where was Lora Deane? Whoever had gotten out of the car did not look anything like the person who had gotten in. Had some sort of switch been made? During the brief time they had lost track of the Miata? But why? And with whom?

Tom was quicker, although apparently equally stunned. “Just like Betty Grable.” He was smiling.

“You know, ‘Why, Miss Jones!’ ”

And Faith did know. The old “take off your glasses, remove the bobby pins, shake out your hair, perch on the desk, and cross your shapely legs” number.

Like Miss Jones, Lora had ditched her glasses—contacts? She’d also pulled her hair from its habitual ponytail, applied makeup—skillfully—and taken off the loose-fitting jacket she’d had on earlier. Underneath it, she’d been wearing a very short plum-colored jersey dress that showed what the jumpers and overalls had been hiding all this time. Miss Lora had a great body. She was wearing fishnet stockings, and Faith would have been happy to take the bet that they weren’t panty hose. Respect might be the watchword at school, but today’s word was more like garter belt .

Faith quickly turned around, ready to clamp her hand over Ben’s mouth, yet he very obviously did not recognize the woman who had taught him to make macaroni necklaces and sing “John Jacob Jingle-heimer Schmidt.” It appeared to Faith that as far as Ben was concerned, the Miss Lora across the street had nothing to do with his beloved teacher. This other Miss Lora might just as well be from another planet.

The second Miss Lora, the faux Miss Lora—or was it the real Lora?—had looped her arm through the driver of the car’s and the two of them walked down the block, turning into one of the old redbrick apartment buildings that lined the street. This part of the South End had gentrified early, so the neighborhoods looked much as they had originally. Trees and other plantings had grown up. The renovations weren’t sparkling with newness. There was a slight patina of age.

“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.