The car was moving steadily down I-95 in the darkness. There weren't a lot of other cars, not like in the summertime when you inched along at the Portsmouth Bridge. It was quiet and Tom took so long in answering that Faith thought he hadn't heard her. Then he spoke.
“I can 't believe otherwise, Faith. It's too difficult. My intellect tells me all is possible, but my heart and my faith dictate otherwise and for the moment I'm going with them.'
“Well, then I'm coming too,' said Faith and wished she didn't know how dangerous it was to travel with your head on the driver's shoulder.
The next morning in church Faith found it hard to stick to her promise. Her eyes kept scanning the congregation and her thoughts were sinfully secular. The weather had turned colder, but the sun streamed in the high arched windows, making the mums on the altar shimmer like gold. She tried to find a comfortable spot on the thin scarlet padding that was all that separated one from the austere wooden pews. The Women's Alliance had a slowly growing fund for new cushions, but Faith had a suspicion that they felt uneasy spending money for the comforts of the flesh when there were so many more important projects to support. At the moment, with a growing numbness au derriere, Faith would have liked to donate the whole sum herself—anonymously, of course.
They stood up to sing a hymn—what blessed relief ! The church was almost full. Whether this was a tribute to Tom 's popularity and a growing congregation or an unusual number of uneasy souls, Faith did not know, but church was where she wanted to be today. She needed to think.
She knew Tom was right and they couldn 't allow themselves to believe it was someone they knew. She scanned the upturned, open-mouthed faces once more
But if not someone they knew, then who ?She felt hopelessly confused as she sang, 'Amen,' sat down, and bowed her head.
The afternoon passed busily. Tom had calls to make and Faith took Benjamin out into the sunshine while shetidied up the garden. He practiced his baby push-ups on a blanket under one of the maple trees and shrieked with delight every time a leaf fell. It felt good to be outside and have the cobwebs blown away.
They didn 't talk about the murder at all on Sunday, and when Faith 's mother called that night to find out how they were, Faith realized with a start that she had almost forgotten to tell her the latest developments.
She was up early on Monday, resolved to do
Tom was walking out to the Parish Office and Faith went down the front walk with him to get the mail out of the box. Monday 's mail was usually a bit sparse and there was only a flyer from Sears and a plain envelope that had not gone through the post with Faith's name rather childishly scrawled on it. She opened it with a smile, thinking one of the children from the Sunday School where she sometimes helped had sent her a drawing.
Tom had gone through the gate and was suddenly startled to find Faith grabbing him desperately, barely able to speak.
“Tom, look!' she cried in horror.
He looked.
Inside the envelope folded in a sheet of white paper was a pressed rose. A pink rose. Just like Cindy's.
7
Faith looked out the window and watched Boston rapidly assume the look of one of those relief maps made for a school project : the Charles River carefully painted brownish blue by unsteady hands and Beacon Hill a glorious wad of papier-mache crowned by the State House 's golden dome. Afterward there would have been an argument over who got to keep it, or rather which attic, closet, or basement it would grow dusty in before someone's mother heartlessly threw it away.
It seemed only seconds had elapsed between Faith 's finding the rose and finding herself enveloped by a Newark—bound 737 securely buckled in with Benjamin clutched on her lap and a scotch and water clutched in her hand. Normally she didn 't drink on planes, or rathernot since Benjamin was born. She liked to keep alert, and after discovering that parents traveling with small children were not allowed to sit next to the emergency exits, there was all the more reason. As a matter of course she further protected her urchin by sitting one row back from the door and explaining to one of the people in the row ahead that if they had to evacuate the plane Faith would be passing her baby to him or her. The few startled looks she got were worth the peace of mind and possibly Benjamin 's life, she repeatedly told Tom, who always pretended not to know her at these times and flatly refused to sit ahead of her himself and be the receiver. Anyway all this had been accomplished and Benjamin 's rescuer was a rather serious-looking young man who was reading Kierkegaard, so Faith was pretty sure he wouldn 't be too caught up in the plot to notice the plane was on fire or crashing.
She leaned back, put one of those tiny cushions stuffed with plaster of paris behind her head, and let the reel of the day 's events pass before her eyes.
After she had handed him the envelope with the rose, Tom had been like a maniac. He dragged her into the house, shielding her with his body as if there might be an army of machine gun—toting assailants in the shrubbery. He slammed the door, locked it, and called the police all in one motion. Detective Dunne, this time without Charley MacIsaac, was there in minutes.
Faith remembered sitting bolt upright in the wing chair and agreeing automatically that now was a good time for her to visit her parents. She heard herself speaking in a normal tone of voice and wondered why she wasn 't screaming. After all, someone seemed to want to kill her.
She decided to mention it to Tom and Detective Lieutenant Dunne, who seemed unduly preoccupied with flight times and at that moment were arguing over New- ark versus Kennedy as an airport. They stopped and looked at her in amazement.
“ Faith, sweetie, we just finished talking about all that. Don 't you remember ? Oh, my God, I'd better come with you for a while,' Tom had cried.
Faith honestly could not remember the discussion. She knew they had all been talking for what seemed like years, but somehow the gist of it had passed her by. So they started again. This time with hot coffee and sandwiches quickly thrown together by Tom. Faith noted that somewhere along the line, it had become 'Tom' and 'John,' but she was still 'Mrs. Fairchild.”
Dunne took a bite out of his ham sandwich, thereby consuming all but a small part of the crust, ' Now, Mrs. Fairchild, this business could be any number of things—a prank by someone with a very warped sense of humor or a forcible hint from someone who genuinely cares about you and is afraid you might be too involved.
“However, we can't rule out that it could be from the murderer, who may also think you are too involved, but who might possibly not have your best interests at heart.”
Faith appreciated the attempt at humor and also the way Dunne 's voice dropped several octaves, putting it somewhere in the basement of C below low C, when he mentioned the last possibility.
He continued, ' It has not escaped our notice that you have been asking people questions and in general hinting around that you'd like to find the murderer yourself.”
He looked at her sternly.
Not another talking to, thought Faith, I just can't take all this advice.
Dunne 's expression lightened up to a mere threat of showers, “ Not that I'd mind someone else solving this. It's no secret that we aren't satisfied with the case against Sam Miller and even if we were, the entire lawprofession of the Greater Boston area has been bombarding us with so many calls, threats, and writs that it would take years to try the damned thing. But I'd prefer the someone else to be a police officer. It looks bad if the Spensers, Peter Wimseys, and Miss Pinkertons of the world show us up too often.”
Faith was surprised. ' I never would have guessed that you read mysteries, ' she said, momentarily diverted by the idea of John Dunne tucked up in an emperor-sized bed eagerly trying to figure out whodunit.
“I don 't, but my wife does. She says it's more interesting than my job and she thrives on crime.”
Tom jumped in. He knew his Faith and the moment Dunne had said 'wife' her eyes lit up. The next question was bound to be size-oriented or worse. ' Faith, you see why it makes sense for you to leave now, don't you ? Aside from easing my mind about your safety ? “
Faith knew what he was doing and shot him a glance that said 'later' all over it.
Now that she was calmer and fed, parts of the previous conversation were coming back to her. She agreed.
