Not that you know much, Faith said to herself, but she had no intention of holding out on John Dunne. There wasn't any point, except for the fun of it, and that seemed a bit immoral.
Dunne walked into the kitchen, rubbing his hands together. Faith expected to see sparks. His dark curly hair had a few more strands of gray than the last time she'd seen him—he was in his early forties now—but otherwise he appeared much the same. He'd bowed to the season and traded his Burberry for an elegant, three-quarter-length dark-brown shearling—much like the one Faith was giving Tom for Christmas. He was wearing a well-cut Harris tweed jacket underneath and an old school tie far from De Witt Clinton in the Bronx, where Faith happened to know he'd prepped. She'd often wondered where he got his taste for elegant attire and decided it must be due to his size. If one was going to cut such a large figure, let it be in style. Besides, looking at his clothes kept people from looking at his face.
The Fairchilds had become close to Dunne during the investigation of Cindy Shepherd's murder. Faith felt an odd sense of kinship with this fellow New Yorker who also admitted to being still homesick after all these years, although it was corned beef, egg creams, and Orchard Beach he longed for. Faith liked a good egg cream herself and headed straight for the Carnegie Deli and corned beef sandwiches whenever she was in town, but she had a few more items—all located on the isle of Manhattan—on her list. She liked to think they were things such as the Metropolitan Museum, Lincoln Center, and MOMA. In reality she often skipped a visit to these venerable institutions in favor of a quick trip to Bloomie's, Bal- ducci's, and friends' galleries in SoHo or NoHo, or a few on Madison.
“Just what I had in mind. Breakfast.' Dunne sat down at the table and had the grace to grin. 'You can tell me everything while I eat. And you do make the best coffee I've ever had.'
“Is that a hint?'
“Yes, even though I've consumed several gallons of Mrs. Pendergast's brew in the last couple of hours.”
Faith put a gigantic stack of waffles on a plate and poured him a cup of coffee. She settled down across from him. Ben had finished his waffles and was trying unsuccessfully to engage the detective's attention by waving his syrup-covered hands at him. Tom took a last mouthful, scooped his son up, and took him out of the room.
“All right,' Faith said. 'But if I tell you everything I know, will you tell me everything you know?'
“Probably not.'
“Oh.'
“Do I have to remind you that this is a murder investigation, not a game, Mrs. Fairchild?' Dunne assumed Faith had had enough of semiprofessional sleuthing after coming perilously close to being a victim the last time. Apparently not.
“Don't worry, even if you won't share, I will.”
Faith started with Chat's call and Howard Perkins' letter, then described how she had started working at Hubbard House and Farley Bow-ditch's death. She finished up with her impressions of various family members, Hubbard Houseresidents, and Eddie Russell from the Holly Ball. 'Do you think there's any possibility that he knew you were sleeping in the guest room and was waiting for you?”
This had not occurred to Faith and she swiftly considered it.
“Somehow I don't think so. I hadn't gotten into bed, so unless he opened the closet and saw my clothes, he would not have known I was there. The room would have appeared unoccupied. And I didn't see him again after he came into the kitchen for coffee at around ten o'clock in the morning. No, I think he was waiting for someone, but not me. Besides, he couldn't have tied himself up.'
“True, it would have been quite a trick, yet we can't rule any of this out completely.' John paused and polished off the stack of waffles in a few bites. His teeth looked sharp and his mouth cavernous. 'You still haven't told me where you went.'
“I thought I might as well look around a bit so long as I was stuck there,' Faith admitted. 'I thought there might be something in Dr. Hub-bard's or Donald's office that might help me figure out what was bothering Howard.'
“So what did you turn up?'
“Not much. Donald's office was locked and Dr. Hubbard's mostly ran to vintage copies of the New England Journal of Medicine. I did find out there is another child, though, a son—James. He was in one of the pictures on the wall.'
“Dr. Hubbard mentioned him. He's the youngest. Works in Arizona. Okay, what else?”
Faith sipped her coffee. There really wasn't anything else, except James. And Leandra Rhodes, but she didn't think the poor woman's kleptomania was relevant.
“Nothing I can think of. Now it's your turn. What do you make of it?'
“Not much, yet. The guy had a reputation with the ladies—that's clear—and he may have been involved in some other enterprises. We're running a check on him in Florida. There's nothing on his sheet here. But screwing around doesn't usually get you killed, especially with two knives.'
“Maybe whoever it was wanted to make sure he was well and truly dead.'
“Oh, he would have been truly dead with one at least—the one in his throat—right through the trachea to the spine, according to the M.E.'s quick and dirty first look. I haven't heard about the other one in the chest yet. Two knives may have been insurance or—'
“It could have been two people!' Faith exclaimed excitedly. 'Like what was it, Murder on the Orient Express?'
“As I was saying, it could have been insurance, maybe two people, which is getting pretty exotic, or some kind of message—like that damn rose you found the last time.'
“Was there anything special about the knives? They looked like the kind hunters use to skin their prey.'
“Among other uses, yes. Puma knives—available in every Army-Navy store from here to California. Don't suppose you have any more waffles?'
“No, but I can make some more, or I have some walnut bread.'
“Jam?”
Faith brought the whole loaf to the table with butter and a full jar of Have Faith damson preserves. It was easier.
John sliced off a piece and slathered it with jam and butter.
“They were all there, you know.'
“Who?'
“The family. Donald came over to check on things after he'd finished at the hospital. Had a patient in bad shape. Charmaine didn't want to be alone. In case the lights went out, she said. Once they were there, they decided to spend the night. Stayed in what used to be Donald's old room on the third floor and is always kept available for him.'
“Did they know I was in the guest room?'
“Muriel said she had heard something about it, but the rest said no. Mrs. Pendergast thought you were staying on the other side of the house near the Cabots.' He ate his bread in a ruminative manner. Faith was reminded of a cow. A whole herd of cows. 'You know, what makes it tough is that there were so many people around. Usually someone gets killed in less crowded circumstances.”
It was true. There was an embarrassment of suspects.
“What about the towel? Did you find it? Was there blood on it?'
“Yeah, we found a bloody towel—five of them to be exact, mixed in with a couple of hundred others in the basement the laundry didn't pick up because of the weather. The lab will go over them, but I doubt they'll come up with much since they were with all the others and any hairs or whatever could have come from others on top of them. Not the kind of evidence the DA shouts hallelujah about. Anyway, if one matches Russell's blood type, we'll have something.”
Faith was disappointed. She'd considered the towel one of her contributions to the case and pictured it hanging on somebody's towel rack or stuffed at the bottom of a closet.
“Still, those might not be the right towels,' she reminded him.
“Don't worry, we haven't stopped looking.' Tom came in.
“Ben's watching 'Shining Time Station.' I get a shock every time I see Ringo Starr in that train conductor's uniform and about five inches tall, but then Ben didn't know him when. What about it—have you two solved this thing?' He sat down and sliced himself some bread.
“Not yet,' John replied.
