Katherine Page - The Body in the Cast

“Now"—Millicent had determinedly wedged a chair between Pix and John Dunne—"what have I missed?”

Tom dished up the pear crisp while Niki added a generous amount of whipped cream to each serving. Those at the table took turns relating the story so far.

“How did you know it was all right to get Penny?" Faith asked, digging into the portion of what she knew to be a scrumptious dessert. She had assumed that after the police were informed of Penny's whereabouts, they would have picked her up.

“Well, we heard the woods near the Pingrees' were on fire and Ed Hayes, who's one of the volunteers, called his wife from some sort of phone in his car he seems to think he needs in order to be a good plumber. He told her you'd been locked in the RV and had set the fire to get somebody to let you out, which was extremely foolhardy, I must say, Faith. You know that's conservation land." Millicent actually shook a finger at Faith.

Faith had known it would come up sometime. She hadn't thought it would be so soon.

“You were tampering with a protected area. Thank goodness merely a few alders and some brush were destroyed." The way Millicent was talking, one might have assumed this particular area was the last remaining stand of virgin timber in New England. In fact, it was a reclaimed swamp.

“So, we all knew something was going on and I went down to the police station. Dale told me this actress had been arrested, and I went straight to Penny.”

Pix, God bless her, hastened to direct the subject away from another tirade regarding protected areas that seemed to be swelling from Millicent's direction. "It's wonderful to see you, Penny. Have you heard? James has withdrawn from the race, so we should be toasting you as Aleford's newest selectwoman.”

Penny looked very surprised. "Why on earth did he do that?”

Faith did not have the heart—or the strength—to go into the subject at the moment. "I'll tell you tomorrow," she promised.

Millicent beamed. This was a victory party. Her victory party.

The actual election victory party Faith attended was a quiet, extremely select one, held at the Town Hall after the ballots had been counted.

The police chief had ceremoniously unlocked the old wooden box and the town clerk started the count promptly at eight o'clock. Aleford, typically, was one of the Massachusetts communities that still clung to its paper ballots. Who would be so madcap as to put all one's trust in a machine? Even though there was no race, the electorate had turned out in full force to cast their votes. It didn't matter how many candidates there were. Voting was a sacred civic responsibility. The predictable result was a landslide for Penelope Bartlett with three write-ins, obviously the work of some of the younger members of the voting population: two for Jason Priestley and one for Mr. Ed.

Penny had asked the Fairchilds to come watch the count, then return to her house for coffee. Having exhausted all available baby-sitting options, they were forced to refuse. Tom convinced Faith to go for a little while, however. "I know you want to, honey. See the thing through" She'd kissed him gratefully and walked over just for a minute.

An hour later, she was sitting in the Town Hall's kitchen with Charley MacIsaac. He'd brought a bottle of champagne to celebrate Penny's victory and perhaps to make amends for the dressing-down he had given her in private on Sunday for running off and not calling on him. Penny had taken a sip, given him a hug, then dashed off with Millicent to put out the coffee cups for the supporters she expected at her house. Charley had motioned to Faith, "I've got to lock up here, but let's kill this bottle first. Phone Tom and tell him I'll see you home.”

Tom was amused, and grateful for the call. He was pretty jittery about his wife's whereabouts these days. "Don't you and Charley start stealing street signs or whatever. Remember the old saying, `Burgundy makes you think of silly things; Bordeaux makes you talk about them; and Champagne makes you do them.' "

“Remember it! I told it to you," Faith said. It was one of the gastronomist Brillat-Savarin's oft-quoted remarks.

The champagne wasn't prompting them to particularly outrageous behavior, although it certainly hadloosened their tongues. There were no proper champagne flutes in the Town Hall's cupboards, but Faith had unearthed some dusty coupes, washed them, and put aside the jelly glasses Charley had set out.

She held her glass to the light and regarded the pale golden sparkling liquid intently. "These were supposed to be made from a mold of either Helen of Troy's breast or Marie Antoinette's. I've always favored the latter legend." Faith pronounced the last two words very distinctly. "Helen was more of a mead drinker, I'd say. Marie probably had champagne coming out of the taps of her bath.”

Charley thought the whole thing was very funny. "I never thought I'd be sitting in the Town Hall's basement listening to a slightly tiddley minister's wife tell stories about historic bosoms."

“Life is like that," Faith said solemnly. "I never thought I'd be locked up in a burning trailer by a crazed, Oscar-wielding murderess. I've been saying to Tom ever since this thing started that it was getting pretty hard to draw the line between art and reality. f you filmed all this, Siskel and Ebert would definitely turn their thumbs down." Faith demonstrated with hers after carefully placing her glass on the counter. "Two thumbs down. Totally implausible."

“I agree" Charley was infinitely more sober than Faith but was having just as good a time. "Still, it is an amazing coincidence that Reed was filming a movie all about jealousy and meanwhile another story with the same theme was going on right in front of all our noses.”

Faith had been right all along with her theory, she thought to herself. She'd simply miscast.

“You are so insightful, Charley." Faith was im- pressed. "Professional jealousy and sexual jealousy—a real double whammy."

“I'm going to escort you home now, Mrs. Fairchild, before you start seeing double. The night air will do us both good"

“Good. That reminds me. I was good, wasn't I? Admit it. You and John were stumped."

“You were not good. You held out on us—but yes, we were stumped."

“Thought so." Faith smiled. She knew her feeling of well-being was not due to the moderate amount of champers she'd imbibed. It was because Penny had won, Evelyn been caught, Have Faith's black bean soup forever vindicated, and her current job over. Max was going to shoot the rest of the movie in California, making even further alterations in the story line to account for Hester's abrupt disappearance. Faith would be able to become reacquainted with her family. She had a great deal of quality time to make up.

But what was really making her want to crow out loud into the quiet of the night as she and Charley walked past the sleeping houses along Aleford's green was the realization she was getting better and better at this detection business. Not that she was going to go around searching for bodies, yet if another one happened to come her way .. .

“What are you looking so darned pleased about?" Charley asked. "No, wait, I don't want to know, do I?"

“Probably not," Faith Sibley Fairchild concurred. "Probably not.”

It wasn't foggy. It wasn't an airport. It wasn't Casablanca. But she took Charley' arm, anyway.

Twelve

If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this.

Alan Morris had been to more Academy Award ceremonies than he cared to remember, and mostly they were a bore. The real action was at the parties afterward. He'd start at Swifty Lazar's and go on from there, depending on his mood—and who had won. A lot of business took place at those parties once it had been established on worldwide television who was in, who was out; who was hot, who was not.