The Body In The Bog (14 page)

“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 observation 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 Jingleheimer 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 granola 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: Carlson, 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.

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.”

Charley had been silent. He'd already heard the same basic speech from Millicent Revere McKinley and Louise Scott. Ted wasn't home. He hadn't talked to Nelson or Brad yet, but he expected more repetition. Both men were members of the minutemen and participants in the reenactment. As for Millicent, there was no question that she believed Patriots' Day would be canceled if she wasn't there.