Katherine Page - Body in the Bog

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 opened 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.”