an anonymous tip and they’ll be swarming all over the place soon. I’ve never been in trouble in New Hampshire and I plan to keep it that way. Besides, Tricia would kill me.” Scott took Faith by the arm, firmly steering her toward the door.
“I want to check his case. He may have left something.” Faith wasn’t budging an inch. She dug into her pocket for the Penlite she’d shoved in when she left the car.
“Okay, but quickly. We don’t have a lot of time here.”
Faith went straight to case number four, following the tiny pinpoint of light. As they passed the other booths, objects took form, eerie outlines of bygone days. One case was filled with dolls.
Their glass eyes glittered like demonic children.
The rows of tools in another looked like medieval instruments of torture. Ordinary objects in the light; frightening ones in the dark.
“Watch out for the glass and don’t, I repeat, don’t touch anything!” Scott warned.
Faith had no desire to touch anything. There were shards under her feet, shards sticking to the soles of her shoes.
But George Stackpole hadn’t driven away and he wasn’t making any calls, anonymous or otherwise.
George Stackpole was dead—his throat slit from side to side. The Fairchilds’ missing carving knife was lying on the floor next to his lifeless body, the monogram completely obliterated by blood.
“The way I see it, we have two choices here. We can get the hell out and if the cops nail us, it will look bad. Or we can report the crime and when the cops arrive, it will look bad.” Scott was pacing up and down, running his hand through his hair, talking loudly. They had moved simultaneously to the front door as soon as Faith’s Penlite had illuminated George’s gory corpse.
Scott made a decision. “There’s nothing to connect us to this. Let’s go. Now!” He pushed her toward the door.
“Maybe not you, but certainly me,” Faith protested. “They’ll find out that MacIsaac had Stackpole in for questioning at my insistence. I don’t think I can tell that many lies to cover up going to his house and coming here.” She was speaking in a dull, leaden voice. Nobody deserved to die this way. She’d been having nightmares about George Stackpole when he was alive. Dead, he would become a permanent fixture of horror in her worst dreams— and for the near future, her waking moments, as well.
“If we call,” she continued, “at least we can try to explain why we’re here. And what kind of murderer phones the police, anyway?”
“A very clever one?” Scott was not convinced, though. Every bone in his body was telling him to get in his car and put as much distance as possible between himself and the Old Oaken Bucket.
He’d seen death before, but never like this. And he was scared. He knew a whole lot more than Faith did about the kind of assumptions the police would make—especially about him.
“There’s a pay phone in the parking lot. We can call, then wait for them there. There really is no other choice.”
He knew she was right, but he wished he didn’t.
She made the call, then said in a sudden burst of excitement, “Wait a minute. There’s no reason you have to be involved. I didn’t tell them anyone was with me. We should have thought of this right away. You’ll have to leave the car; otherwise, how would I have gotten here? Certainly not with George.” The dealer’s Mercedes was parked in front. “You start walking. Maybe somebody will give you a ride. Make up something about your car dying.” Poor choice of words, she thought instantly.
“Slow down.” Scott put his hand on Faith’s shoulder. Now that they’d called, he wished the police would get here soon. She was obviously in shock. “I’d never leave you here alone, for starters, and when they begin investigating this thing, don’t you think a lone hitchhiker in the middle of the boonies in New Hampshire would arouse suspicion? We’re seeing this through together, Faith.”
“I’d better call home while I can. I have the feeling this is going to be a late night,” Faith said ruefully. She was glad Scott wasn’t leaving. Under the lone lamppost, she could see his tense, serious face. “I’m sorry I got you into this.” He smiled. “Next time you need transporta-tion, call a cab.”
“If you’ll just get in touch with Detective Lt. John Dunne of the Massachusetts State Police, he’ll vouch for us.”
She had expected an equivalent of Chief MacIsaac in rural New Hampshire and was surprised by the age and demeanor of the cops—
young and ultraprofessional, complete with state-of-the-art cars and equipment that arrived in a screaming tumult of flashing blue lights the moment she hung up the phone with Samantha.
The kids were asleep and Tom wasn’t back yet.
Maybe she could get home without revealing any of tonight’s escapade. Maybe she’d win Mass Millions. The odds were about the same.
“Let me see if I have this straight.” Scott was being questioned separately and Faith hoped he was having better luck making his interrogator believe him. So far, the police had a body and two people on the scene, ready- made perps. It was enough for them, but Faith was persisting. After all, the lack of blood on their clothes, when you would have had to have been laminated to avoid being splattered, was a major drawback in their case.
The cop was going over what she’d told him again—and again. “The victim’s name was George Stackpole, an antiques dealer. You think he either broke into your house or had somebody else break in for him. So you follow him here—” Faith interrupted. “No, we arrived first. We had no idea he was coming here tonight. He came right afterward and opened the door. That’s how we got in without setting off the alarm. Either it wasn’t set to begin with or he knew the code.” The man sighed. “You followed him inside to see if he had any more of your stolen items in the case he rented. Exactly how did you think you were going to do this in the dark?”
“I wasn’t really thinking too clearly,” Faith admitted. “I don’t know if you’ve ever had anything stolen from you, but you can do some pretty crazy things trying to recover what you lost.” He looked at her across the desk. Something as crazy as murder? Minister’s wife, suburban lady with kids, catering business, big blue eyes—plus, she’d made the call; but generally speaking, murderers fit any profile. Girl next door, boy next door, head lying on the pillow next to you at night. They weren’t drooling maniacs with eyes too close together. Yet, he knew what she meant about getting ripped off. He’d had a rowboat stolen from his parents’ place up on Winnipesau-kee and he was a raving maniac trying to track it down, checking every inlet, every dock for weeks.
She was speaking to his thoughts. “Obsessive things, not something insane like killing someone. I never wanted to do that. I just wanted to catch him, make him pay for what he did.” She told him about Sarah Winslow.
This was a whole lot more complicated than somebody surprising a B and E, which was how he’d pegged it in the beginning. Stackpole comes along and finds these two. They ice him. Then phone the police?
He sighed again. “All right, I’ll call this guy Dunne. Since Stackpole is from Massachusetts, they’re going to be involved anyway.” He knew exactly who John Dunne was, yet he wasn’t about to tell Mrs. Fairchild that.
It took John Dunne less than an hour to get there. Scott and Faith were in the waiting room, eating cardboard sandwiches and drinking weak coffee; at least Scott was.
“I thought you were just going to check out some pawnshops!” Dunne exploded.
Faith was tired, definitely frightened—and cranky.
“This was not exactly the kind of thing anyone could have predicted. First our carving set is stolen and now it’s a murder weapon. Not
“Hi, Phelan,” the detective said. He had told the New Hampshire police on the phone that the two could be ruled out as suspects, but he’d still wanted to question them. He had no doubt that Faith had inveigled Scott into all this, whatever this was.
“Come on, let’s find a room. You can tell me all about it; then they should let you go home.” With John Dunne’s arrival, the waiting room was suddenly packed with police. Local, state, men, women—they had all responded to the homicide and now they all wanted to see the detective lieutenant, who’d become famous in law- enforcement circles over the years. He was as tall as they’d heard, and his face was as homely—
