Dunster Weald in time to pick her daughter up, but she didn’t want to stop what she was doing to speed home, perhaps just missing the clue she was seeking.
She felt better than she had in days. Things
There were any number of excuses that she could think of to be out in Concord the day before the rehearsal dinner, but she wanted the run of the place. The first step was to call there. On the fourth ring, Julian’s plummy voice announced,
“So tiresome, I’m missing your call. Do leave word.” Faith didn’t.
Stephanie, happily, was home.
“Nothing’s wrong, I hope?” she said crisply as soon as she heard Faith’s voice. Forget “Hello, how are you?” Miss Manners was not on Miss Bullock’s bookshelf.
“Not yet, but I’m terribly concerned about the oven at your father’s house. I should have thought of it before.” Faith was prepared to de-base herself in any number of ways. “It must be cleaned before the dinner, and there won’t be time tomorrow.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting
“No, of course not,” Faith reassured her. “I’ll do it myself, but it must be done or what’s been burned onto the oven walls will impart a distinct aroma to the duck, and I don’t even want to think what it will do to the chevre for the salads.” Julian Bullock’s oven was filthy—and tiny.
Faith was sure it had not been used since the divorce several years ago. It would stink if lighted and probably set off the smoke alarms. She’d be bringing a portable convection oven, but Stephanie didn’t need to know that.
“I’ve called your father, but there’s no answer.”
“Daddy went to an auction in Maine. We’d better hope there isn’t one he wants to go to on Saturday. Otherwise, I’ll be walking down the aisle alone. He wouldn’t think twice about skipping the wedding if he thought somebody else was going to get a stupid piece of furniture away from him.”
“What can we do?” Faith asked plaintively.
“You’ll have to come in here and get the key—and the alarm code. Can’t you take that girl who works with you along to do the scrubbing?” Vowing never to reveal Cinderella’s stepsister’s suggestion to Niki, Faith replied, “She’s taking a course in Cambridge and isn’t free.”
“Whatever.” Stephanie was ready to hang up.
“You’d better come soon. I have to go over to Mummy’s. She picked up some more bathing suits for the honeymoon. In fact, why don’t you go straight there? Then you can see them, too, and you won’t hold me up.”
Faith had very little interest in Stephanie’s honeymoon garb. The blissful couple intended to cruise the coast of Turkey—“everybody does Greece”—on a seventy-foot yacht complete with crew of six to see to their every whim. But she didn’t care where she picked up the key—just so she got it.
“Fine, see you at your mother’s.”
Courtney Cabot Bullock had returned to her roots on Beacon Hill, presently living on Chestnut Street, a cobblestone’s throw away from her childhood home. The first meeting about the wedding had been at the town house and it took Faith no time to get there. The problem was parking. She finally circled around to the Boston Common garage, left the car, and walked rapidly down the brick sidewalks on Charles Street to Chestnut.
A servant showed Faith into Courtney’s office.
She was sitting at a small Victorian ladies’ desk placed squarely in the center of the bow window, some of the panes amethyst, that overlooked the street. Unlike Julian’s house, the room was not crowded with furniture, but each piece was perfect. The walls had been painted a deep apricot and the trim glossy white. Faith recognized a Childe Hassam over the small marble fireplace.
She was sure it wasn’t a reproduction.
“Stephanie’s upstairs trying a few things on,” Courtney said. “I’m grateful you thought of the oven before it was too late.” The criticism implied—You should have thought of this earlier—was scarcely veiled.
“I am, too. We would have worked something out tomorrow, but it would have rushed other things.”
They spent a few minutes talking about the flowers. Faith was anxious to be on her way, but Courtney was in a chatty mood.
“A daughter’s wedding. Every mother dreams of the day, plans for it. I may not have a chance to speak to you after it’s over.” No more jobs here, Faith thought. The door would be closing. “But you’ve done a superb job. Stephanie’s nuptials will be everything I’ve hoped and more. I’ve been telling all my friends, and you must be sure to mail me plenty of cards.” Maybe not. This was a pleasant surprise. “You’ve handled things so discreetly, too. I know my ex has been a bit of a bore about the money.” Any more scorn in her voice and there would have been spontaneous combustion.
What about Stephanie’s dreams? Faith thought fleetingly, but then mother and daughter were so in sync, one pronoun could serve for both.
“Thank you, I’m glad you’ve been pleased.” She decided to avoid any mention of Julian. “It’s going to be wonderful.”
“Well, of course it is!” Stephanie walked into the room wearing two wisps of shocking pink fabric that Faith knew for sure cost more than the average family of four’s food bill for a week. She pirouetted. “Like it?”
“Divine—and better than the other one, I think.
Navy blue is so neither here nor there.” This was all getting to be a bit much, and just as Faith was trying to think of a way to ask for the key and alarm code to a house worth millions, Stephanie walked over to her mother’s desk and picked up an envelope. She flipped her hair back over her shoulders.
“This opens the kitchen door and the alarm keypad is in the first closet.” Faith had seen it.
“Punch in the code, and when you leave, do the same thing, but don’t do it until you’re absolutely sure you’re leaving. I set it off all the time, and Daddy’s tired of paying the false-alarm fines to the police.”
“It won’t take long. I use an industrial-strength cleaner.”
“You know the trash is out in the barn, right?
There are some old rags, too, if you need more,” Courtney said, “but don’t touch anything that looks like a mover’s quilt. Julian hides his best pieces out there under the rattiest ones until he’s ready to sell to some poor unsuspecting soul. Waits for the value to go up.”
Or the piece to cool off, Faith thought as she walked back to the parking garage.
It took only thirty minutes to get out to Concord from Boston, since it wasn’t rush hour. Faith put on a Mary Chapin Carpenter tape and consciously willed herself to relax. Stephanie and Binky were both getting massages Saturday morning to ease any prematrimonial stress. Faith wouldn’t mind someone working on the knots in the back of her neck that had taken up permanent residence since she’d found Sarah Winslow’s body. Unlike that morning, today was gray and the sky threatened rain. She pulled into the curved drive to Dunster Weald. The Bullocks had never even considered an outdoor wedding, although Julian’s house was made for one. Depend on meteorology? Absurd. Besides, Binky’s family had the perfect spot, with a more dramatic view than horses and trees, according to Stephanie.
Nature girl, she was not, unless the nature included someone to bring her a strawberry daiquiri or wrap her in seaweed. Faith would have opted for Concord, though. The drive up to the house was lined with copper beeches, planted as a gift for future generations by someone who saw them only in his mind’s eye. The formal English garden, white wisteria cascading from a long trellis in the center, would have been perfect for the ceremony. But then, Faith thought as she parked the car and scooted into the house, clutch-ing her cleaning supplies, it might have rained.
Like now.
She found the alarm and punched the code in.
The high-pitched signal stopped. Quickly, she preheated the oven, turned it off, and coated it with the cleaner, leaving it to do its magic. She couldn’t not clean the oven now that she was here. Courtney might check up on the quality of the job. Not Stephanie. Too, too disgusting—
opening the door, looking in.
Faith stripped off her gloves, washed her hands, and set off down the hallway to the library at the far end of the house. Her footsteps were soundless on the series of Oriental runners that lay on the floor. Outside, the pelting
