Body in the Bookcase

“What’s the matter?” The woman joined him.

“I dunno. Nothing, I guess.” They went in.

Faith started to stand up, about to sprint away.

She’d been crazy to come. The door banged open.

He was back. She turned her head to look. Was he looking at her? He was carrying a large green trash bag and walked directly around the house.

This time, he returned sooner. But again he paused. She buried her head; the muscles in her arms were straining and she tried to make herself smaller and smaller. He didn’t go inside. She imagined him peering about the yard. What had he heard? What had he sensed? She hadn’t made a sound, and if he had seen her at the window, he wouldn’t be acting this way. She knew what he would be doing, because in that first swift glance, she’d seen what he was carrying besides his trash.

A dog barked. Stackpole went into the house, letting the door slam behind him. The dog barked louder.

“What is it, George? What’s going on?” the woman said, her last words slightly muffled by the closing door.

This time, Faith didn’t wait. She raced around the house. Like his neighbors, George had put his Hefty bag of trash on the curb. Without breaking her stride, she grabbed it and made for her car, flinging herself and booty into the front seat. She sank down behind the steering wheel, groping with a trembling hand for the button to lock all the doors. She was breathless and the loud beating of her heart competed with her frantic audible gasps for air. She should have known better, and she could never tell anyone how stupid she’d been. How close she had come to danger.

The second time Stackpole had gone out his back door, he’d been carrying his trash, but when she looked up, she saw that he was also carrying a gun.

It took Faith a long time to get to sleep. Tom had still been working when she got home. Even when not preoccupied with “What Does Turning the Other Cheek Really Mean?”—this Sunday’s topic—he would not have been particularly interested in his children’s wardrobe, so her lack of tiny shorts and T-shirts went unnoticed. The last thing she wanted was to explain her agitation.

Later, she stretched out her ablutions until she heard his low, steady breathing, indicating he was asleep. She tried to read, then turned the light off, hoping the darkness would prove more soporific than her book, Beard on Bread.

Closing her eyes immediately brought the image she’d been trying to suppress into sharp focus, and opening them didn’t help much.

George Stackpole was in the shadows of the room. The scene played over and over again. She heard his back door open, darted a quick look at the stoop, and saw him. He was carrying the trash bag in one hand. His face was grim, alert.

His eyes, which had seemed bleary, hooded by his drooping lids, were sharp, intent on piercing the darkness of the yard. The gun was in his right hand. Faith didn’t know much about guns, but this wasn’t a toy and it wasn’t carved out of soap.

She remembered the smith & wesson sign at the Old Oaken Bucket, and the gun at the pawnshop, barely out of sight under a piece of paper. Charley MacIsaac had told her once that she’d be amazed at the people who kept a gun in the house. America was armed to the teeth. Everyone was afraid.

Afraid of being robbed, afraid of being hurt.

What they should be afraid of was having the gun in the house. She supposed a dealer like Stackpole would keep a weapon to protect his inventory, but why would he walk into his backyard armed? Who did he think was out there? The house was very obviously occupied. A thief would wait until it was empty. And George would be a target for pros. Nobody else would suspect a house like that contained items of so much value. He hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t called out a name. She knew she hadn’t made any noise, so he expected someone to be there. Who was George Stackpole so afraid of that he packed a pistol when he took out his trash?

Faith rolled to one side and pulled the covers up over her shoulder. She fitted herself close to Tom. She began to feel warmer. She’d been chilled since she got back into the car. Slowly, she began to relax, sleep stealing over her.

Would he have killed her if he had seen her? A shot in the dark? No questions?

She turned on the light and picked up her book.

As soon as the kids and Tom were out the door, Faith went to her car and opened the trunk, removing the bag of garbage she’d hidden there the night before. She knew it was legal to have taken it. Once trash is on the curb, it’s public property.

She spread newspaper on the kitchen floor and prepared to analyze the contents. Daylight had chased away most of last night’s fears and she was feeling like her old self again. Whatever that self was, she amended. It was a self that was gearing back into action, however. After this job was done, she planned to drive into town, go to the show at the Copley, and find Stackpole’s booth. It would be crowded and the only guns in evidence would belong to the security guards.

An overwhelming smell of coffee grounds greeted her as she opened the bag and dumped the contents out. She was surprised. From his appearance and the look of the house, she would have pegged George Stackpole as an instant coffee aficionado—or a devotee of those horrific coffee bags. Aside from this fact, there didn’t seem to be anything illuminating in George’s trash—for instance, a map and instructions on how to get to the various houses in Aleford that had been robbed or pawnshop tickets for their items. He and his lady friend seemed to subsist on pizza and grinders, with the occasional Greek salad—there were a couple of partially consumed containers of shredded iceberg lettuce coated with feta cheese. Eggs in some form supplemented this diet. There were a lot of shells. He used Colgate toothpaste, the kind with the stripes. She paid particular attention to any mail or scraps of paper, but there was remarkably little. Unopened fund appeals from things like the Jimmy Fund, a few envelopes marked “You May Already Be a Winner,” but nothing remotely personal. She picked up one of the empty pizza boxes. Crumpled inside, there were several Post-it slips. She carefully smoothed them out. One was a grocery list: “Coffee, eggs, butter, t.p.” The next was a telephone number, seven digits. It must be in this area code, Faith thought. Just the number, nothing else. But what was this? “Call Nan” and a number. The handwriting was different from the writing on the grocery list. Excitedly, Faith picked up the last piece of paper. “Nan called again. Call her.” It was the same handwriting. She studied the three slips of paper intently. The list was printed in block letters. Someone had borne down hard on the pencil. The other messages were in ballpoint pen, clearly a more feminine hand—script, the Palmer method. It was safe to assume the calls from Nan were for George and the messages taken by the woman who’d been in the house with him.

Nan. Was she in on all this? It would explain her obvious reluctance to talk about George Stackpole.

She’d characterized him as “volatile,” and it was this description that had added to Faith’s terror the night before. But why had Nan told her about buying the napkin rings at the Oaken Bucket? To cover her tracks? None of it made any sense. Faith decided to give the woman a call. She was in the shop and answered the phone on the first ring. Expecting a call?

“Hi, Nan, it’s Faith Fairchild. I’m off to the Copley in a little while and thought maybe I’d see you there.”

“I can’t get there until this afternoon. A decorator is bringing a client in, someone who was at the show house. But you’ll have fun. The organizer gets inundated with requests for booths and only picks the best.”

This didn’t exactly square with Julian Bullock’s description of George as a picker, but Faith tucked that away to think about later.

“I wondered if you’d had time to call George Stackpole and see if he would let us come by his house.” The notion of going back there was not a pleasant one, but she wouldn’t have to if what she was thinking about Nan was correct. She fully expected the woman to say it wouldn’t be possible, so the dealer’s next words took Faith by surprise.

“He said it would be fine. Would late Sunday afternoon be okay?”

“Fine,” Faith gasped. “We’ll talk this weekend and arrange where to meet.”

“Oh, here are my customers. Got to run. Bye.” Faith didn’t know whether to be pleased or frightened to death. If Nan and George were partners, she’d be walking into a trap. But if she asked Nan if she could bring a friend, Chief MacIsaac, for instance, that wouldn’t work, either. One thing at a time. She’d go to the show. Courtney Bullock hadn’t canceled the meeting, so Faith had to get back to Aleford, pick up the kids, and get everything ready