Or evil before good.
Then before she thought about it, she blurted out the question that had been nagging at her all night, ' Eleanor, was the gun loaded ? “
Eleanor acknowledged her presence with a look one might have given an adult asking who was buried in Grant's Tomb. 'Of course the gun was loaded,' she snapped, ' What on earth is the use of an unloaded gun?”
Faith 's legs gave way under her and she heard John Dunne say, 'Get that woman out of here. What are you all waiting for?”
After that Faith knew she was in a police car and that Jenny was being taken home in another. She also knew she was pulling into the parsonage driveway, but she didn't really believe she was home until Tom flung open the front door and crushed her in his arms. Oxygen and Tom. That was all anyone needed. She wouldn't have believed a few hours ago that she would ever feel this way again. Alive. Just plain alive. Then Benjamin in the Snugli, whom Faith had begun to think of as a somewhat smaller Siamese twin, was detached and taken upstairs by Pix.
Tom and Faith hugged, kissed, and cried, then hugged, kissed, and cried some more. After a while Faith found her legs, and other parts of her body seemed to be under her control again, and she said plaintively, 'Tom, darling, I'm so hungry ! “
He beamed. Faith was back.
Before Tom could answer, Dunne's deep voice called out from the kitchen, 'I don't know how to cook any of the stuff in here, so I sent one of the guys for pizza. I told them to put everything on it and you can pick off what you don't like.'
“Tom,' said Faith, 'that man thinks of everything.'
“ And so,' replied Tom steering Faith through the kitchen door, 'does that woman. Thank God for us.”
It hadn 't really occurred to Faith to wonder what Millicent was doing with John Dunne at Eleanor Whipple 's house. But it did occur to her to wonder why Millicent was sitting with Dunne so chummily at Faith's kitchen table. As was most of Faith 's known world. Her parents. Tom's parents. Hope. Dave Svenson. Tricia. And last but not least, Scott Phelan.
After another round of hugging and kissing and crying and hugging and kissing and crying some more, Tom returned to the point, ' It was Millicent who figured out where you were, Faith.'
“Millicent ! ' Faith was stunned. It wasn't that long ago that she had tapped Ms. McKinley as suspect number one.
Millicent smiled wickedly. 'Yes, dear, and I suppose now you're going to tell me you thought I killed Cindy and Patricia.”
Really the woman was as irritating as ever, but Faith began to think she might come to like her someday. In ten or twelve years maybe.
Faith sat down next to her and Tom hovered above with his hands anchoring her shoulders, just in case.
Pix walked in and reported that Benjamin was playing happily with Samantha.
“Now,' she said, 'why don't I get a bottle of champagne and you can tell all.'
“The telling is a great idea,' agreed Faith, looking hard at Millicent, 'but champagne and pizza?'
“ Why not ? ' asked Pix. ' I thought champagne went with everything.”
Faith looked at her affectionately. There was a lot of work to do in this town. Maybe she'd add cooking lessons to the business.
“There's beer in the fridge, let's start with that.”
Charley MacIsaac brought the pizzas, practically a carload.
“ I knew half the town would be here,' he said.
Finally they were all settled around the pizza-laden table either adding the virgin olive oil, grated cheese, and other things Faith had directed Tom to set out for their slices, or just methodically consuming them au
“You should try the pizza in the Bronx sometime,' he told everyone reminiscently, 'Now that 's real pizza.”
Faith was happy to sit there safe, warm, and just about fed, but there were too many missing pieces.
“ All right. Who goes first ? How the hell did Millicent figure out where we were ? ' She knew she was swearing ; she figured she had the right.
Millicent looked over at Detective Dunne. They seemed to have developed their own special brand of communication. Faith wondered what the odds at Vegas might be on Millicent's joining the force. Like some sort of Yankee Miss Marple.
“You start, John. After all, you had figured it out, too, and it was only a question of time before you would have found the closet.”
John, was it ! ? This was worse than Faith thought. Dunne gulped the last of his pizza, reached for another beer, and leaned back in his chair.
“ I have never felt so helpless about a case before. Suspects seemed to be literally jumping out of the bushes.' He shot a friendly glance at Sam, who had come in shortly after Charley. Sam managed to return a smile still fraught with guilt.
“That damn box was taking us up one blind alley after another,' he continued, ' We managed to identify some of the gentlemen, but they weren't leads worth pursuing, although it was probably one of them who broke into the Moore's. Pearson didn't have much of a motive either.
Nothing made sense. And if Svenson had wanted to kill her, why didn 't he wait until after they were married and do it in some less obvious way ? I figured he would have inherited the money, too. Of course now I know about the will, but even so he would have come away with something. The condo, car, whatever they bought together.
“And there was another thing. Her murder was planned. Dave may have hated her enough to think about murder, but if he had actually done it, I was convinced it would have been on the spur of the moment. One of the times she was goading him. He'd just reach over and choke her to death to shut her up. Plus he didn 't have any medical training and the way the knife was angled, just under the fourth rib, whoever did it knew precisely where to stick it. Now Dave is mostly interested in trees or tomatoes or something, I understand. Still,
“That is until Sam here very conveniently entered the ring, entered, that is, with just about every member of the Massachusetts Bar.' He swung around to look at him. 'Say, Sam, is it true that they were starting a defense fund for you at Lock-Ober's?'
“No, it was at the Last Hurrah,' Sam retorted. Dunne nodded. 'Much more appropriate.' Everybody laughed.
“Anyway, Sam had too much to lose. Not that a murderer doesn 't, but somehow I didn 't see this guy giving up home, job, not to mention the Porsche for the satisfaction of doing away with an adolescent, but pretty professional, blackmailer.”
Sam spoke up, ' I had just about decided to tell Pix, then explain as best I could to the kids. Cindy did have me rattled, but I know what happens with blackmail. I've seen enough of it. The ante keeps going up and up. I like to think I would have been able to say no.'
“Of course you would have!' exclaimed Pix. 'And ifI hadn't been so dimwitted, I would have figured out that something terrible was bothering you and we would have taken care of her, believe me.”
Sam looked at her gratefully. Faith was glad that neither one of them knew that in fact almost every teenager in town had known of Sam and Cindy's affair. They might never get ice cream at Friendly 's again.
Dunne 's deep voice resumed, 'So that left Robert Moore. He had been in medical school before he went to law school. Bet you didn 't know that, Faith. And he didn 't have much of an alibi. I began to sniff around for a motive. Everyone has money troubles, so why not him ? He wasn 't exactly going to starve, but he had put a lot of money in the house in New Hampshire and the boats, plus the kid's college expenses. Things were a bit tight just at a slack time at work.
“ I had checked with the lawyers and they said the money went to Patricia, a lot of money. Unfortunately they didn 't tell me about this fool thing with the female descendants of the Captain and Persis. I had to read the books to find that out.”
Faith was annoyed. So that was who had taken the books out. She might have guessed. If he had left them where they should have been, she wouldn 't have had to go to Eleanor 's for them. But then she might have gone
