rose.
Pix ? It just didn 't seem to be her style.
Style was the key to it—style and personality. It was someone who read too many bad novels. Someone with time on his or her hands. Someone like Cindy or someone who liked Cindy ? Faith was playing around with the words. Someone like Millicent Revere McKinley ?
As Faith brought this to the front of her mind, she realized it had been lurking behind the parlor curtains for a while. Millicent was the type, all right. She didn't like Faith and certainly wouldn 't mind alarming her, but was it such a strong dislike ? And how to classify her ? Murderer ? Worried friend ? Nut ?
Faith couldn 't believe Millicent was the murderer ; she had been one of Cindy's few supporters, but as for sending the rose, it seemed just up her white-picketfenced alley. And not because she was worried about Faith. Nor did Faith think she was nuts—well, maybe a little nuts. No, Millicent resented somebody else having a poke in her pond. This conclusion made Faith feel a lot better and she resolved to call Tom as soon as she got to the apartment and ask him to tell Dunne—somehow she still couldn 't think of him as 'John.' It was too simple.
Faith 's father was waiting for her at the gate and until she saw his tall, calm figure looking completely out of place in the airport chaos, she hadn 't realized how happy she was to be out of things for a while. To let go and be a child again. He caught her up in a bear hug that threatened to squish Benjamin and said, 'Faith, what on earth is going on up there ? “
She spent the trip into the city filling him in on the Peyton Place details that had become everyday life in Aleford, while also keeping a sharp eye on his driving. The Sibley car stayed in the garage for weeks at a time, since they didn't use it in the city, and Lawrence had a tendency to forget that he was driving and not riding in a cab.
They swung down the ramp approaching the Lincoln Tunnel and Faith feasted her eyes on the skyline, now becoming sadly crowded with banal glass and concrete boxes, but still the most exciting sight in the world. The Chrysler Building, her favorite, was gleaming like something from Oz in the late afternoon sunshine. At the bottom curve of the ramp there was the same enormous billboard that she remembered from her childhood. It always seemed to be advertising some kind of alcoholic beverage related to outdoor activities totally inappropriate to the surroundings—alpine skiing or Hawaiian surfboarding.
They pulled into the tunnel and Faith automatically looked for the tiles proclaiming the New York/New Jersey line. When they had gone to the Sibleys, it had been a contest with Hope to see who would spot it first. Were all children so competitive or just in her family, she wondered ? There were the tiles now. She had seen them first.
She continued talking to her father. Some of their best and/or most momentous conversations had taken place in the car as he either drove her to or fetched her from the airport. They seemed to be able to communicate best when not face to face, yet still in some physical proximity. Faith had asked her psychology professor at school about this one time, prodded no doubt by finding herself in an elevator with her. The class they had just left had touched upon father/daughter relationships and, carefully couching her question in nonidentifying terms, she revealed herself in the elevator. Her professor had smiled and remarked that many of her closest conversations with her father had been on similar occasions, something about a captive audience and enforced closeness. That made sense, but it also had to do with the lack of interruptions—Hope, her mother, the phone. Her father had always been a very busy man, except when he picked her up or drove her to the airport.
Before long they were at the apartment. Her mother had just gotten home from work and she folded Faith in a long, close embrace that left Faith smelling slightly of Arpege. Hope arrived a few minutes later. She had moved into her own apartment the summer before and from the contented look lurking below the expression of concern, Faith suspected she might have a 'fella' at last. She resolved to get her alone for a sister-to-sister talk after dinner.
It was lovely to be back in the apartment with everyone wrapping her in cotton wool, admonishing her not to talk about “ it' unless she felt like it, and then asking a lot of questions. She began to cheer up.
Just before dinner, Faith called Tom to tell him about Millicent.
“ I really don't know why it didn't occur to me before, Tom. But it could be tricky getting a handwriting sample. Maybe Dunne could get his wife to pretend to be doing a survey. They could also check the envelope for her perfume, Mary Chess. There can't be too many people wearing that anymore. She must have bought a crate of it.”
Tom had been equally enthusiastic, but he quelled the suggestion about the survey by saying that the police had their methods.
“Honestly, Tom,' Faith retorted, 'you're beginning to sound just like them.'
“Glad you are feeling so much better, dear,' he had replied sweetly.
“At least tell them about the perfume,' she pleaded. 'That I will and I'm sure they will be very grateful for your highly educated nose.'
“I miss you, Tom. This is our first long separation. Did you realize that?' said Faith, just realizing it herself.
“Of course, and you can't imagine how empty the house feels, not to mention how empty the bed is going to be. '
“And better be.'
“Actually this would lie a good time for me to fool around. Everyone's so caught up with the murder that they wouldn 't notice if I had twenty chorus girls living in the parsonage.'
“I don't think men fool around with chorus girls anymore, Tom. They'd be pretty hard to find, and I wouldn 't sell the town so short. I think the residents of Aleford are more than capable of concentrating on several scandals at once, so give it up.”
And after some more nonsense and a good-night gurgle from Benjamin, they hung up.
After dinner Faith went into her old room to nurse Benjamin. He had taken wholeheartedly to solid foods and she knew she would be weaning him completely soon. He loved his little 'teacher beaker' cup and it would not be long before he would use that full time. Then he'd be off to college.
She looked around at the familiar surroundings. The walls were a soft gray, the trim white, and the carpet one of her grandparents' cast-off Orientals with beautiful shades of rose. Rose ! She shook her head—better make that pink. The room had gone through several metamorphoses from a Laura Ashley bower in her childhood to an ascetic black, white, and chrome cell in adolescence to its present incarnation, which had been gently demanded by her mother after Faith had been at college for a year and which was spurred no doubt by the nightmares of the guests who occupied the room in her absence.
She thought she had taken all her books with her to Aleford, but on the top shelf of the bookcase a few still lingered, an incongruous mixture : Judy Blume and C. S. Lewis, Camus and Agatha Christie. There was a thickvolume of Jane Austen, which she thought she might take to bed that night as a pretty poor second best to Tom. Faith had always found Jane Austen 's heroines comforting in times of physical illness or when her mind was diseased. Wondering whether the army was going to stay in town for the winter season, deciding what to wear at the Pump Room in Bath, or the gentle settling of all the complications and humiliations of matchmaking always made Faith feel her problems were small stuff. It also tended to put her to sleep.
She did miss Tom, though, more after speaking with him, and she wondered if he had spoken with Dunne or Charley MacIsaac yet.
She had her answer an hour later. Hope had gone home early, after arranging to meet Faith for lunch the next day. She said she was tired, but Faith thought it more likely a late date with whoever this new man was. Her parents always went to bed early and she was just getting ready to settle down with the Bennets when the phone rang.
It was Tom. He had not been able to reach Detective Lieutenant Dunne, but Charley was at the station. He had listened to Tom carefully and thanked him, but expressed a cautious disbelief.
“I've known Millicent for over thirty years,' he told Tom, 'And I'm not saying she doesn't have a few screwy ideas—hell, a lot of screwy ideas—but this isn't like her. She'd be more likely to write to
He said he 'd get through to Dunne at home and be in touch in the morning.
“And tell Faith to go to bed,' MacIsaac added before he hung up, 'You too, Tom.”
