Body in the Bookcase

violence.

Pix continued thinking out loud. “Of course, they probably didn’t intend any harm. I mean, they weren’t murderers in that sense. They couldn’t have known Sarah would die.” Faith agreed with Pix, yet it was hard to accept.

Intentioned or unintentioned, Sarah was dead.

And Faith was sure the life of one old woman was not something that mattered much to these people one way or another. They hadn’t put her nitro pills within reach. Faith was sure they were sleeping soundly, unlike the community they’d turned upside down.

Pix and Faith climbed the granite church stairs, each step worn in the middle from centuries of feet making their way into the sanctuary. Sanctuary. It was exactly what Faith needed. A moment out of time to sit and pay tribute to a life worth living. A moment of peace and calm to recall her friend as she had been, not as she was on Tuesday.

Faith slipped into the pew reserved for the minister’s family, Pix squeezing in next to her on the thin, somewhat faded dark red cushions, insufficient buffers against the hard wooden benches. When church services had lasted the entire day on the Sabbath, it must have been almost impossible to move afterward, Faith often thought. Upon her arrival at First Parish, she had opted for a pew in the rear of the church, near the door, for unobtrusive late entries and possible early exits. She had been politely but firmly informed that the minister’s family had always occupied the second row, right pew. The member of the vestry who had apprised her of the fact stopped before saying “and always will,” but Faith got the idea.

As Sarah had the knack of matching fact to seeker, book to reader, so, too, did the Reverend Thomas Fairchild fashion his service to the individual memorialized. He started his eulogy with William Ellery Channing’s words:

God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levelers. They give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our human race.

“God be thanked for books.” The sentence echoed in Faith’s mind throughout the rest of the service. Sarah had left her books to the Aleford and Wellesley College libraries, with a few set aside for particular friends. She had left Tom a signed edition of Emerson’s Essays and Faith an original Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Manage-ment in perfect condition. These two volumes would always retain Sarah’s imprint, as well.

“God be thanked for books.” Books had been Sarah’s life, yet they had not replaced life, replaced friendships. Faith glanced about the church. People were standing in the rear and some had not been able to get in at all. The reception at the Wellesley College Club that Sarah had planned would be crowded. Neatly attached to her will, there had been a letter detailing her wishes, this one in a separate paragraph: “I like to think of my friends having a good—but perhaps not too good—time in my absence and have therefore arranged for a luncheon at the College Club to follow whatever service the minister deems fitting. Nothing maudlin, please. Just a simple farewell.”

They sang “I Cannot Think of Them as Dead,” and Faith noticed that Pix’s normal hymn-singing voice—firm, not too loud, not too soft, not off-key, not exactly on—gave out at the last line: “For God hath given to love to keep Its own eternally.” Faith’s voice faltered, too, but she made it through and sat down to listen to a final tribute from one of Sarah’s friends. It was almost as if Sarah were standing before them as the woman reminisced. Then it was “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God”—Sarah’s own favorite, also noted in the letter—and the service was almost over.

Faith always felt slightly guilty when she came to the rousing refrain of this hymn: “And I mean to be one too.” She wasn’t sure about a lot of things, but about her own lack of qualifications for any kind of sainthood, intent not withstanding, she was definitely certain. Saints didn’t make the kind of snap judgments she did, have phobias about certain prepared foods, or depend on a big purple dinosaur to mesmerize their children when the patter of tiny feet began to sound like a regiment in full gear. A saint would have been able to deal a whole lot better with Stephanie Bullock, for instance. Faith rephrased the thought: Only a saint could deal with that girl.

Stephanie Bullock was getting married in June and Have Faith was catering the affair. The contract had been drawn up and plans made almost a year ago. The contract stood. The plans had been altered more times than Faith could count, even after she started charging for changes. In the week following Sarah Winslow’s death, as Aleford went on grieving—and double-locking its doors—the Bullock wedding continued to occupy an inordinate amount of Faith’s time and energy.

“How many Stephanies does it take to change a lightbulb?” Niki Constantine, Faith’s assistant, asked as she reported for work the Monday following the funeral.

“I have no idea, and besides, why should I spoil a joke you’ve obviously been waiting to tell me?”

“One,” Niki announced gleefully, “and the whole world revolves around her!”

Faith had to laugh. It was a perfect description of twenty-three-year-old Stephanie, sole offspring of Courtney, nee Cabot, and Julian Bullock. Mummy and Daddy were divorced, “and it was all Daddy’s fault,” but they had declared an uneasy truce for the nuptials. Courtney’s family was the subject of John Bossidy’s famous toast,

“And this is good old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells talk to the Cabots and the Cabots talk only to God.” Stephanie embodied the snobbishness implied, but she was more voluble—way more voluble.

Her education had consisted of years at a genteel boarding school, followed by several obligatory, desultory semesters at a college where she majored in social connections.

“She hasn’t called yet, has she? Or dropped by?” Niki asked. Stephanie had taken to using the catering firm as a kind of club, running in whenever she was in the neighborhood, snatching food from carefully counted items on trays and platters, literally sticking her fingers in the pies. “Put it on the bill—Daddy’s paying,” she’d airily instruct them.

“No, I haven’t had the pleasure, but if it isn’t today, you can be sure it will be tomorrow. We’re getting down to the wire, as she constantly says, and that no doubt means at least one complete menu change.”

“Wires can be used for all sorts of things,” Niki mused, “like garrotting.” She tied her apron and went to wash her hands. “I’m going to make the caponata for the Lexington job. It’s so much better a day ahead. Okay?”

“Good idea. I did the phyllo cups for the wild mushroom filling. Besides the caponata, we can make the other toppings for the crostini today, too. The dessert is set, so we’re in good shape.

The gallery has plenty of room, so we’ll be able to have two tables. The only drinks they want are a May-wine bowl and bottled water. I can cover the front desk and use that. The owner says she only needs the one in back. She’s hoping to sell a lot of the artist’s work during the opening, but she wants it all to be unobtrusive. ‘A party should be a party,’ she told me, which is good to hear for a change.”

The two women got to work, Faith blessing the day she hired Niki and cursing the day, which would inevitably come, when the talented young woman with a highly irreverent sense of humor would leave to start a business of her own. The good ones always did. But so far, Faith’s tentative probings about Niki’s future plans had been met with firm denials. Faith had an alarming thought.

Up to this point, Niki had dealt with Stephanie by exploding in either laughter or rage, but what if the prima donna was really getting to Niki? It was time to make another foray.

“Have you been to that new Italian restaurant in Woburn? It got written up in the Globe’s

“Cheap Eats” column, and I hear there’s a mini-mum of an hour’s wait, even on a weeknight. It’s just a storefront with only a few tables. They started it with very little capital.”

“ ‘And have you ever thought of doing something like that yourself, Niki?’ ” She stopped peeling eggplant and looked at Faith. Her short, dark curls—wiry like one of the pot scrubbers they used—quivered as she mimicked her employer’s studiously nonchalant tone. She added,

“Jeez, Faith, you’re getting as bad as my mother.” Niki had grown up in Watertown, closer into Boston, the oldest girl in a large Greek family.

Niki continued: “The only difference between you two is what you see in my future. She pictures me floating down the aisle of St. Irene’s dressed in white—not because it’s traditional, but because she believes my virginity is still intact.