Katherine Page - The Body in the Cast

Besides the soup, there were individual tomato and onion quiches, couscous with grilled vegetables, a salad bar, assorted breads, and a savory whole pastrami keeping warm under the lights, which made it look all the more appetizing—not too fat, not too lean. Mr. and Mrs. Sprat would have had a tough time deciding.

“Stations, everyone," Faith called, and she tied back the tent flaps. The heaters made the inside a cozy contrast to what was yet another typically "brisk" New England March day. People were beginning to straggle across the Pingrees' lawn in search of sustenance when a call for help stopped them dead in their tracks.

“Fire!" somebody screamed. "Come on!”

Everyone, including the caterers, rushed off in the direction of the house. The clapboard would go up like the kindling it was. Faith grabbed one of the fire extinguishers she had on hand and shouted over her shoulder for someone to get the other one.

Once outside, they realized everyone was running toward the barn—the site of the fire made obvious by the thick cloud of black smoke billowing from the open door. It was mass confusion with a touch of mass hysteria. Two crew members—stuntmen, Faith discovered later—grabbed her extinguishers and disappeared into the smoke. The breeze spread the harsh odor of the fumes over the watching crowd. Inwhat seemed like several hours but was in reality no more than twenty minutes, the stuntmen and the others who had gone in immediately with extinguishers from the set emerged. They looked none the worse for wear, except for smudged faces, shiny with sweat and tears from the smoke.

“It's all over, folks. Oily rags. No damage, Max," one of them reassured the director, who was hastening toward them.

“How did it start?" he asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe somebody sneaking a smoke.”

Maxwell Reed had a hard-and-fast rule about smoking on the set—anywhere. He was fanatic on the subject. Not everybody was able to live with it, and the stalls in the honey wagon smelled a lot more like Luckies than Lysol.

“I hope not," Max said grimly, his eyes raking the group still assembled outside the barn. When he reached where she was standing, Faith felt instinctively guilty—for what, she knew not.

“It's out now, and that's the important thing." Alan Morris moved quickly to douse these new flames. "Let's eat, everybody.”

It was out. And out before both bright red Aleford fire engines tore into the yard, sirens blaring, carrying a full complement of the Aleford Ancient Order of Hook and Ladder Volunteers. Screeching to a halt behind these came the ambulance. Bringing up the rear, the chief's venerable police car sputtered to its own inimitable stop.

Faith hurried back to the tent to put out additional food.

“More mouths to feed," she instructed the staff, adding to Niki and Pix, "You know they're all kicking themselves for missing the action, and you can be sure they're not going to pass up the chance to hobnob on the set now that they're here." She looked into the soup tureens. There was plenty and it was steaming hot. "And, to be fair, they can't leave without checking things out, which just might have to take all afternoon. We can grab Charley later for coffee and doughnuts. I'd like to know myself how the rags caught fire."

“Is this the Faith Fairchild version of `inquiring minds want to know' again?" Niki asked. "I've heard stories about you. I'm sure it was a cigarette. You know they all go into the woods to smoke. It's a wonder we haven't had a forest fire."

“You're probably right," Faith agreed. "But why is it always a pile of oily rags? Do you keep oily rags around? I don't. What do you do to get them oily, anyway? If you were being terribly crafty and refinishing furniture or working on your car, why not throw the rags away? It's not as though you'd wash them and use them for oily things again. No, it all seems so--well, so convenient"

“You've obviously put a great deal of thought into the problem of oily rags and I'm sure you'd prefer a straightforward fire of suspicious origin in this case, but if you'd ever looked in the hayloft of that barn, you'd have seen there are piles of all sorts of junk, including oily rags created by God knows who for what purpose.”

Tucking the thoughts of what Niki was doing in the hayloft and why she, Faith, hadn't checked it out herself into a corner of her mind for later consideration, Faith got ready to serve the returning crew. "It looks like our purpose is coming in the door.”

They were followed by the Aleford brigade about thirty minutes later. Which is why Police Chief MacIsaac, Fire Chief O'Halloran, and their cohorts eagerly slurping down Faith's soup and clamoring for seconds in amiable company with the director, cast, and crew of A were all there to witness Evelyn O'Clair's possibly last dramatic entrance.

Clutching her stomach and moaning, she staggered into the tent. "I've been poisoned!" she cried. Then she vomited violently and collapsed.

Three

But who can see an inch into futurity beyond his nose?

If one has indeed been poisoned, having a large number of trained rescue workers and an ambulance close at hand may be regarded as something more than a happy coincidence. Evelyn O'Clair had been damned lucky indeed.

But not poisoned.

Or rather, not poisoned in the classical, even conventional sense. It wasn't strychnine or arsenic. Not even digitalis—admittedly difficult to cull from t he abundant foxglove still slumbering under the earth surrounding the old house.

It was Chocolax, a digestive aid, and it was in the black bean soup—a medium that unfortunately intensified the drug's effects. In addition, a substantial amount of a liquid laxative sold over the counter for use before certain X rays had been added.

“Why didn't anyone say anything!" wailed Faith when Charley MacIsaac stopped by early the next day to bring her the ill tidings in person. He had had a bad night himself after yesterday's lunch and was not in a good mood.

“We all thought it was some sort of new fool concoction of yours, that's why. And it wasn't bad. Just kind of unusual. Besides, there was so much smoke in the air, nobody could taste much of anything.”

Tom and Ben had departed for their respective morning activities—sermon writing and Play-Doh—and at least one of them wanted to switch. Amy was asleep.

Faith had offered the chief some breakfast, but he had declined with unaccustomed haste. He opted for the sofa instead of the large wing chair, his usual choice. His face was a study in contrasts: affection for the woman sitting next to him struggled with animosity. Faith watched in alarm.

“Charley! You know I wouldn't have put a laxative in any soup I'd made, especially Chocolax, which must bear no more resemblance to real chocolate than Styrofoam to meringue. That means somebody else put it in. The question is, who and when?"

“All right, let's start from the beginning." Affection triumphed and Charley managed a weak smile. He took a small, creased spiral notepad from his jacket pocket, along with a sharp number-two yellow Dixon pencil. Faith expected him to lick the tip before commencing to write, and he did.

“When did you make the soup?"

“Wednesday afternoon."

“And it sat in your refrigerator until you brought it to the set yesterday?"

“Yes, but ..."

“Hold your horses, Faith. Now who besides you and probably the Reverend has keys to the place?”

“Pix and Niki, but ..."

“No spares hidden under the mat or in a flowerpot?" he asked doggedly.

“Charley, I'm trying to tell you something! Nobody could have put anything into the soup at the kitchen. It was fine when we arrived at the set, because I tasted it to check the seasonings when we first heated it."