suggested to Charley that the police make a search and he’d said they would, but from his slightly skeptical tone of voice, she wasn’t sure he’d follow through with the kind of diligence the task required. He’d probably have Dale check the Dumpster behind the market and call it a day. She decided she’d better do it herself. She also wanted to check out a wooded area on the Aleford-Byford line where kids hung out. The police had said “pros,” but Faith didn’t intend to eliminate any possibilities at this point, when the trail was so fresh. Hey, let’s ditch school and hit a house or two. The woods were a favorite drinking spot, and if she wanted to get rid of a drawer and maybe a charm bracelet or other less valuable jewelry, the woods would be where she’d go. A nature walk, as far as the Fairchild children were concerned. The start of her own sleuthing for Faith.
Many Dumpsters later and after combing the woods for an hour, the Fairchilds pulled back into their own driveway. They’d gone straight to the farm for ice cream first, but it had disappeared quickly and the kids were tired and cranky. Tom had gently suggested to his wife that they give up, and she had been forced to agree. It had all seemed so simple, yet she’d come up with nothing.
When they got home, the light on the answering machine was blinking. Faith listened to several heartfelt messages of commiseration accompanied by promises of yet more food before Charley’s voice pumped fresh adrenaline into her weary system. “Call the station as soon as you come in.”
The chief answered the phone himself.
“Oh, good, you’re back. Now don’t go getting your hopes up, but we called around to some of the places in the area that buy gold and silver, and a coin shop in Arlington said someone had come in with a bunch of gold jewelry this afternoon.
They bought the lot. I can’t leave the station now, but when Dale gets back from supper, I’ll drive over so you can look at it.”
“I’ll be right there,” Faith said, and hung up.
Calling explanations and instructions to Tom, she grabbed her purse. By the time she reached the police station, she was testifying in court, identifying her property, Exhibit A, for the judge.
But it wasn’t her property. Not even close.
Charley spread out the contents of the Ziploc bag on top of his desk. Faith felt a dull, leaden sensation start in the pit of her stomach and in-vade the rest of her body. She pawed through the tangle of gold chains, dented hollow bracelets, and assorted charms for form’s sake. She was examining a large pendant with a diamond chip and the word
Extremely disappointed didn’t even come close to describing how she felt. She supposed it would have all been too easy. But then, why not?
Dale came back, looked at Faith’s face, and knew enough to keep his mouth shut, nodding solemnly in her general direction. Charley walked her to her car. “Look, it may not be today, or tomorrow, but we’ll get them. I’m sorry, Faith. I wish these had been your things. We do find things sometimes, you know,” he added in what Faith later described to Tom as “a fart in a wind-storm kind of way.”
“Don’t tell me this. I have to think it’s all gone, get used to it. I know how rarely stolen goods are recovered.” She felt a sudden rush of contrition. If the pendant fit . . . Charley was doing everything he could. His big, square, kind face was crumbled in concern. “Thanks for calling us, and anytime you get anything for us to look at—I don’t care if it looks like a bag of lanyards somebody made at camp—let me know right away. You’ve been great, Charley.” She gave him a swift hug. He wasn’t the hugging type.
“I’m just glad you didn’t walk in on them, when I think about it. . . . Anyway, they’re only things. Take it from me—in the long run, things don’t matter at all.”
She nodded and got in her car, closed the door, and waved good-bye. It wasn’t until she was pulling into her drive once again that she softly whispered her reply, “But they do, Charley. Unfortunately, they do.”
By eight o’clock, all the Fairchilds were in bed.
One bed—Tom and Faith’s. The room had been cleaned and straightened. If it had not been for the fact that several of the surfaces had empty spots, no one would have suspected that anything untoward had happened. Faith tried very hard not to picture hands pulling drawers open, feet walking down the hall. Running down the hall. The police said they had probably been in the house for a very short time. Faith’s unimaginative hiding places and lack thereof—a silver chest out in the open, for example—had made their job simple and quick. Not like Sarah’s house, where objects obscurely hidden suggested more to find. Faith shuddered and pulled the blanket covering the four of them up over her shoulders. She was lying on her side, the two children nestled close. Tom was reading a book from Ben’s current favorite, the Boxcar Children series.
She could use those little Sherlocks now, Faith reflected, although they’d probably make her crazy.
They were so good, even the mischievous one, Benny, whatever his name was. Tom’s voice was soporific. Amy had been asleep for a while and Faith knew she should put her into her crib. It was late for Ben to be up, too, but it wasn’t inertia that kept her from moving.
She didn’t want to let them out of her sight.
Rational or irrational, one thought seeped its poison into every corner of her brain, driving all else away: Person or persons unknown had entered their house with intent to harm—and they could be back.
“It’s the little things, things that weren’t valuable.
Not that we had diamonds and emeralds lying around—more’s the pity—but all the jewelry I’d saved from when I was a kid and planned to give to Amy when she was older, like a little coral-bead necklace that was my grandmother’s. She gave it to me because I was ‘the careful one.’ ” Faith’s tone was mournful and bitter.
Patsy Avery nodded and poured Faith some more wine. It was Wednesday and she’d stopped by on her way home from work, bearing char-donnay for what was quickly becoming a wake, as Faith bade final farewells to the coral necklace, her Cinderella watch, and other treasures. Tom wasn’t home yet and the two women had settled into the kitchen to talk while Amy sat in her high chair, content for the moment to pick up Cheerios one by one and, alternately, turn the pages of a new Beatrix Potter board book—also a gift from Patsy. Ben had raced off to his room with his present, yet another Lego. A shaft of late-afternoon sunlight crossed the table, sending reflections of their glasses glimmering against the wall. Faith noted the tiny dust motes lazily drifting in the light and felt she should be sitting with Patsy in two rockers on a front porch.
“Girl, I don’t know anybody with their original jewelry. I kissed all that stuff good-bye years ago when we were broken into, but I still look for a little fake pearl bracelet with a poo-dle charm my daddy gave me every time I’m in a flea market or at a yard sale.” Patsy didn’t mention the number of times she’d had to kiss subsequent stuff good-bye. When you are in the middle of a tragedy, you don’t want to hear how often somebody else has been through the same thing. You want to talk about your pain and you want to talk about it now.
“Aunt Chat, that’s my father’s sister, Charity . . .” Faith paused and added parenthetically, “They were either devoid of imagination or had too much. The Sibleys named the boys in each generation Lawrence or Theodore and the girls Faith, Hope, and Charity as they came along. I’ve always suspected my mother stopped with two rather than have to saddle a child with Charity.” Patsy gave an appreciative chuckle. She could never get enough of these WASP folktales, especially when the teller appreciated them, too. It was hard to keep a straight face when the speaker was a believer.
“Anyway, Aunt Chat used to bring my sister and me a charm from every place she went—all over the world. She had her own ad agency. We were on bracelets number three by the time she retired.” Faith sighed, knowing she’d never see them again—or any of her other treasures. She thought about the other things entrusted to her, especially by her maternal grandmother. It wasn’t that her sister, Hope, was reckless, strewing her possessions about, but rings had a way of slipping off her fingers when she skated and thin gold chains snapping when she climbed trees, lockets disappearing. So Faith had always been the recipient because, unfairly, she was older; and, fairly, she did take better care of them.
“I know it wasn’t my fault, but I can’t get over feeling guilty. I didn’t just lose a gold watch or drop a silver teaspoon down the garbage dis-posal. I lost
