technology makes it easier or harder to write. You can move things around so fast that it’s tempting to cut and paste, instead of chucking the whole thing and starting over, which is what I would have done before.” Faith had a vivid recollection of Tom sitting in the middle of a sea of crumpled lined yellow legal paper.
It was an endearing one.
“Do it anyway. Delete and start from scratch.” He wasn’t listening. He was already intent on the screen again. The tea would get stone-cold.
“I’m going to run out for a few things.” Something in her tone made him look up.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine, but, unlike you, I’m having trouble concentrating, so I might as well get some shopping done. The kids need summer things. I guess I’m excited about finding a sideboard—and everything else that’s been going on. It’s distracting me from anything that requires more than a small fraction of my brain.”
“We’ll go out to see the sideboard on Saturday.
I hate looking at the other one, and if you liked this one so much, I’m sure I will, too.” He reached up an arm and pulled his wife close for a kiss.
“Don’t forget your tea,” she said as she left the room. “Or the kids.”
He picked up the mug and took a sip. “Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “I’ll check on the tea and won’t let the kids get cold.”
Framingham along Route 9 was one big mall—
mile after mile of stores surrounded by acres of cars. And consumers, weary of winter’s depreda-tions, were out searching for bargains in droves this Thursday night in May. Faith hated malls, even the upscale ones, and preferred to do her shopping in places where she could tell the weather and time of day as she went from establishment to establishment. Then there was the driving—no, she corrected herself, the parking. It wasn’t so much that you had to drive to get to these places; it was that you had to circle end-lessly, waiting for a spot to open up, pathetically tracking shoppers, car keys in hand as they emerged from the mall.
As soon as she put the keys in the ignition, she’d admitted to herself what she’d known all along. The car had headed for Route 128 south as if it were on automatic pilot. She was going to Framingham. She was going to drive by the dealer’s house. She had figured she’d shop on the way, easing her conscience. But she couldn’t.
Now that she was here, it was too depressing and she was too tense. Instead, she pulled into a gas station and asked for directions to Stackpole’s street.
It was dark by now and maybe she’d be able to see in his lighted windows, she reasoned as she drove the short distance to his address. She had a sudden fantasy of seeing her goods spread out on his dining room table, then calling the police to nab him.
George Stackpole lived on a small side street lined with rows of identical ranch houses. Over the years, various owners had strived to achieve some vestige of individuality—trees, hedges, garages replacing carports, new entryways, an addition here and there. But the houses still managed to look the same. She slowed down, trying to read the numbers on the mailboxes. Several of the streetlights were broken—or had been turned off in a cost- cutting measure. Aleford’s board of selectmen had proposed this recently, and the following week they faced a room packed with angry citizens recommending that the lights on the selectmen’s streets go, but not on theirs. The measure had been shelved.
Number 47. Stackpole’s was 51. She pulled over and parked. There were other cars on the street, but none in front of his house. A car had been pulled up under the carport. Scattered residents had put their trash out and their recycle bins. All very normal. She began to wonder why she’d come.
Number 51 was certainly a modest house. Very little had been done to it. The grass needed mow-ing and there were a few straggly arborvitae under the front windows. If he was making a lot of money, it was not obvious from his dwelling place. The car was a Mercedes, though. Only a few years old. It looked totally incongruous next to the house, with its slightly peeling paint and plastic shutters—
Faith got out of her car. When she’d left the parsonage, she’d slipped on a dark raincoat over the black slacks and sweater she’d been wearing. It didn’t make her invisible, but it helped. Now she covered her light hair with a navy silk scarf she’d brought along. If she was going to make a habit of stakeouts, she’d have to invest in a proper surveillance outfit. Black jersey. Maybe Eileen Fisher would have something appropriate.
The lights were on in Stackpole’s house, so he was home. Yet, she couldn’t merely walk up to the front door and pretend she was collecting for the March of Dimes at this time of night. Besides, she didn’t want him to see her, since she hoped to be able to buy some more of their things back from him the following day at the Copley Plaza show.
What happened next wasn’t so much a decision as a reflex. She slipped into his side yard and flattened herself against the house, peering through the lower part of a window. She was looking into the dining room, where stuff was piled all over. There was no room to eat on the large round oak table. It was covered with stacks of china, a box of what looked like old Lionel trains, and a pile of damask table linens. None of it looked familiar. And no one was in the room.
Faith moved around to the back of the house. By standing on the bulkhead, she had a clear view of the kitchen.
A man, whom she presumed to be George Stackpole, was packing a carton with silver spread out on a 1950s Formica table—the kind of retro set New Yorkers were paying high prices for in SoHo. A woman was helping him. They weren’t talking, just packing. They must be getting ready for the show. Stackpole was the an-tithesis of Julian Bullock. Unkempt, unshaven, he wore a rumpled brown suit that appeared to have come from a vintage clothing store. He was short, paunchy. His red face looked oily and the broken veins across his nose and cheekbones betrayed years of drinking. The one indication of vanity was the attempt to cover the vast expanse of his baldness by combing the few remaining strands of hair over it, slicking them into place with some kind of gel that fossilized the whole attempt.
Should George ever be sucked up into a tornado, all three hairs would stay put.
The woman at his side appeared to be a few years younger, but not much more than that. All Faith’s notions of what antiques dealers looked like had been undergoing rapid revisions lately.
The establishments she’d frequented in the past had tended to be run by women of a certain age in twin sets and tweeds or men in sports jackets, suede patches at the elbows. Maybe dapper sus-penders. Like the proprietor at the Old Oaken Bucket, this woman looked as if she should be sitting on a bar stool. She was wearing a short, tight turquoise spandex skirt and matching top that was being stretched to its limits, the fabric straining over her midriff and breasts. She had big hair and it had been subjected to a serious henna treatment. Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes—she was covered with jewelry, most of it apparently fake, but the huge diamond solitaire on her ring finger sparkled as only the real thing could. There was no wedding band.
As Faith watched them work, she felt chilled to the bone despite the mildness of the evening.
These could be the people responsible not simply for the house breaks but also for Sarah’s death.
She stared at George’s hands. They didn’t match the rest of him—well formed, nails trimmed, long, tapering fingers. He was deftly wrapping objects, placing them in the cases and boxes that filled the floor space. Hands that could tie an old woman up, an old woman who would have been no match for him. And the woman with him. Had she played a part in all that? The fact that they weren’t talking made the scene unreal and even sinister. There was no indication of companion-ship, pleasure at what they were doing, doing together. They worked methodically, wrapping item after item, eyes on their work, eyes on the merchandise. Merchandise belonging to whom?
The silence gave no cue. No time for Faith to get away. Suddenly, the woman reached for the back door, opening it, anticipating George’s action.
Loaded down by two boxes, he was on the back stoop, a few feet away from Faith, heading for his car before she had any notion that he might be leaving the house. She didn’t dare move, dare breathe. She heard the beep as he unlocked the car automatically. He’d be back, unencumbered. If he looked sideways, he’d see her. She slid off the bulkhead and crouched down beside the small back porch, putting her head down, her arms clutched tightly around her knees, compressing her whole body into as small an object as possible.
The smell of dirt filled her nostrils. It wasn’t the smell of new earth and growing things. It stank of mold, of decaying garbage—of fetid waste poured out the back door: oil, and something sharper, vomit. She started to gag.
He was back, walking up the stairs, inches away. He stopped before he opened the door.
