“Terrific! Who is he?”
She placed her finger on the man’s forehead.
“James Green,” Charley read out loud, “and his last address was in Revere. I’ll run a check and get in touch with the police down there.”
“Sounds like an alias.”
“Go home, Faith. Get some rest. You’re looking a little peaked these days.”
“Thanks, Charley.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll let you know what I find out from this Mr. Stackpole.”
Charley was as good as his word, calling late that afternoon, as soon as the dealer left the station.
“He had receipts for the gold watch and some silver things. He says he buys at yard sales often and they don’t give receipts. He has no idea why your things have turned up in his booths, but he says this can happen. He suggests you keep checking the big co-ops and something called Brimfield.”
“It’s a huge outdoor antiques sale a couple of times a year in Brimfield, Massachusetts—hundreds of dealers. I went once. It was a mad-house.”
“He’s an old guy, Faith. Took this up in retirement, he says. Doesn’t make a whole lot. Very cooperative and pleasant.”
Faith was afraid of this. George, shaved and pressed, but not too much, had pulled the wool over Chief MacIsaac’s eyes.
Of course, she hadn’t told him what had happened Thursday night in Framingham. Hadn’t told anybody.
“I know what you’re thinking, and don’t worry.” Charley seemed to be saying this with some frequency to Faith lately and it was making her worry all the more. The phrase joined the others whose constant repetition brought her close to screaming. Charley was amplifying his remarks.
“I know you saw the man at work and how he was when he was selling. Now today was different. He was putting his best foot forward with me.
I’m sure he makes more than a nice little living from all this, but one he’d rather keep from Uncle Sam, so that’s one lie for starters. You also said he’s been in this business a long time, and that’s easy enough to check, so maybe lie number two.
Anyway, I’m going to be keeping tabs on him and he knows it. He said he had some more receipts and he’s coming back tomorrow afternoon.”
“Thanks. Any word from the police in Revere?”
“They know Green. And by the way, it’s not an alias. Nothing big-time; penny-ante thug. We sent them the prints we lifted from your house and Sarah’s. We should know more tomorrow.” Tomorrow is going to be a big day, Faith thought.
George Stackpole called in sick on Monday, much to Faith’s disgust. “How can you let him get away with that? He was perfectly fine when I saw him on Friday and I’m sure he was all right yesterday, wasn’t he?”
Charley replied patiently, “We’re not arresting the man. He can come when he wants. This is the United States, remember? And he did look a little under the weather.”
“That’s how he always looks,” Faith snapped back. “He probably has a prior engagement—breaking into some houses in Concord.” Charley hadn’t heard anything more about Green from the Revere police. So far, Monday was a washout.
She groused some more at work to Niki. The day’s only notable event was the absence of a single call or visit from any of the Bullocks.
“Come by and see my table. It’s glorious!” It was Patsy Avery. The phone had been ringing as Faith walked in the door with the kids late in the afternoon and she lunged for it, expecting MacIsaac.
“I’d love to, but I can’t come now. You’d have little handprints all over that nice shiny surface.
It’s the children’s hour. Tom’s in Chicago until tomorrow night and I’m operating as a single parent.”
Patsy laughed. “I must be getting maternal.
The idea of the paw prints is appealing—but definitely not single parenthood. I want all the help I can get. You could bring the kids, you know, but we’ll make it another time if you’d rather. Did Tom like the sideboard?”
“He loved it as much as I did. Now we have to figure things out with the insurance company. Julian’s holding it for us.”
“He’s a good guy. Stuck on himself, of course, but a lot of that is Harvard. Still, I enjoy doing business with him.”
“You’ve never heard that he might be picking up items of dubious origin?” Faith asked.
“I wouldn’t imagine he’d do anything like that knowingly. He has too much to lose. Not just his business but his TV appearances, too. You know he’s a regular on PBS and his expertise has made him a kind of celebrity nationally, although only in the uppermost echelons, my dear. He sells to museums and the stars.”
They made a date for lunch and table viewing the following week. As she hung up, Faith wondered what Julian had put in place of Patsy’s table. She desperately hoped it was the same size as the one that had been there or there would be hell to pay. Courtney was spending a fortune, and her own, she’d pointed out, on the star-covered tablecloth. The rehearsal dinner was only four days away and Faith didn’t want anything to go wrong. But she knew in the pit of her stomach there was bound to be something. In fact, the tablecloth would be manageable. It was the fear of the unknown that gnawed at her, like those monsters under the bed in childhood, just waiting to grab your ankle.
She didn’t know if it was a good sign or a bad sign that Charley was putting in a personal appearance late Tuesday afternoon, tapping on the glass at her kitchen door. It meant he had something to tell her that he didn’t want to communi-cate on the phone. Of course it could also mean he was hungry, was in the neighborhood, and wouldn’t mind the spare crumb or two.
“What’s up? News?”
“A couple of things, and I thought I’d drop by and tell you myself.”
“I have some of those sour cream brownies [see recipe on page 341] you like. Why don’t we sit in the kitchen.”
“Maybe later,” he answered, walking straight through the kitchen into the living room. He sat down in one of the wing chairs, kinder to his ample frame than the spindly Windsor chairs that had spread throughout the parsonage over the years like topsy. “I’m not hungry now. Tom still in Chicago?”
Charley MacIsaac turning down brownies. Not hungry. Faith steeled herself.
“He’ll be back late tonight. Let me make sure the kids are okay and you can fill me in on what’s been happening. I take it Mr. Stackpole is enjoying good health again?”
“Yes, he came by this afternoon—with his lawyer.”
Faith dashed into the den, made sure Amy was still in her playpen and Ben still enthralled with the Tintin tape. All was well, and if Amy’s vocabulary was being supplemented by Captain Haddock’s colorful phrases —“blistering blue barnacles”—
Faith would have no one to blame but herself.
“Why did he bring his lawyer?”
“A lot of people do when they come to a police station. I was a little surprised he didn’t have one the other day. We live in a very legalistic society, you know.”
Faith was surprised to hear Charley wax philosophical—and political. It was completely out of character.
“But before I go into all this, you’ll be happy to know James Green’s prints matched the ones we found in your house and in Sarah Winslow’s. An arrest warrant has been issued and we’ve informed the police in New Hampshire and Rhode Island as well. We’ll get him.”
Faith was stunned—and nauseated. She’d been sitting next to the man who broke into her house, the man who tied Sarah up, the man who killed Sarah.
“It was a great break, Faith. You did a good job.
I know how much Sarah meant to you, meant to us all.”
“The Revere police didn’t have any leads about where he might be?”
“He left his apartment early Sunday morning, according to the landlord, and hasn’t been back.
They’re staking it out anyway, also a sister’s place up in Billerica. He’s not going to get far. They never do, the dumb ones. He’ll come back to see his girlfriend or get some clothes.”
“What about Stackpole? Maybe that’s why he brought a lawyer. Because he thought you could connect him to
