placed a large order with Gutmann several weeks ago.'
“Poor Muriel wasn't very smart about all this.'
“Oh, she was. f it hadn't been for the knives, we wouldn't have had much to go on.' He smiled and took another cinnamon roll. 'Want to hear how she did it? It's pretty funny in a weird sort of way.”
Faith waited politely for him to finish the roll, which took several seconds.
“She went to the guest room stark naked under the robe she was wearing in case she bumped into anyone. He'd been asking her to get into a little bondage, and she hadn't wanted to, but this time she said she would—told him it was a bon-voyage gift. The cords were his. He had a lot of stuff like that in his room. To continue—she told us she went into the bathroom, to pee I guess, and saw your watch and toothbrush by the sink, so she knew she had to kill him and get out of there quickly. She was pretty annoyed about that. I think she blames you for her not getting one last good lay. Although of course at the time she didn't know it was your watch. Just figured it must be someone stranded by the weather. She didn't know where that someone was—and wouldn't she have been surprised—but she ran from the bathroom, threw her robe or whatever off so she wouldn't get blood on it, and stabbed him before he had a chance to think what hit him. Then she ran back to her room. She had taken a towel from your bathroom in case she needed it, but she didn't. None of the blood on the other towels matched Russell's, incidentally. Lot of unsteady shaving hands at Hubbard House. Anyway, she put the towel with the rest of hers in her own bathroom. She never got a drop of blood on her and didn't leave so much as a hair on him. She used those thin disposable rubber gloves, which she flushed down the john back in her room. Pretty good thinking and a whole lot of luck, all in all.'
“And she knew exactly where to put the knives from her nurse's training. But why two? One for her wrongs and one for James'?'
“Nothing so poetic. The first one in the windpipe was to shut him up and the second was the insurance. She said she was pretty sure one would do it, but she was afraid to take a chance.'
“Was her father there during the confession?'
“No, he waited outside. It was just the lawyer, Muriel, Sully—Detective Sullivan, that is—and me. Fortunately we managed to lose Coffin on the way.”
Faith felt very tired. 'I'm going to make some more coffee. Want some?'
“No, much as I'd like it. I have to get back to the store. Somebody found a body in the woods near Ashby when they were looking for a Christmas tree to cut down.”
He went over to Ben, who was sufficiently in awe of Dunne to look away from 'Sesame Street.' Dunne patted him on the head. Faith hoped it would not stunt his growth. 'Say hi to Santa for me, kiddo.”
At the door, he gave Faith a kind of hug. 'Put it behind you now. It's over. It's sad as hell, but it's got nothing to do with you. Throw a log on the fire, make Tom some wassail, and be merry.'
“I will,' she promised. 'It's just that it's been so involved and it seemed relatively simple at first.' At first— Chat's call seemed months ago.
“You did a good job, Faith. All the bad guys are rounded up. You'll probably get some sort of citation from Boston for getting Stanley Russell's license plate number. They've been trying to nail him for years and now they've got him on vehicular homicide, hit-and-run, you name it. He must have been pretty desperate to shut Hubbard up to take a chance like that. Whether we'll ever establish any connection between him and our friend Charmaine I doubt. In any case, there'll be no more blackmailing of the elderly by any of them. Hubbard House is safe.”
She closed the door behind him. He was right. This was where Howard Perkins' initial suspicions had led, and she knew he would have been pleased that the place he had grown to love was battered and bruised, but not broken. Chat, who was arriving on Saturday, would be pleased too.
Everyone was pleased, so she should be pleased as well and she would be if only she didn't feel so terrible.
The show was over. She flicked off the set, grabbed Ben before he could protest, and tried not to feel guilty at how often she had been resorting to the electronic baby-sitter lately. 'Time to make the gingerbread house, my little gumdrop.”
The Hubbard House Christmas party was held right on schedule. Faith had been fairly certain it wouldn't be canceled. She hadn't lived in New England for this long without learning a few of the mores, and one of the biggies was 'On with the show, keep dancing even though the ship has struck an iceberg, and above all, don't let the sun catch you crying.”
She planned to stay for only a short time—nibble a cookie, drink some punch, then race home to watch Tom watch the Celtics. It was amazing how frequently they seemed to play. When she told him her plan, he approved, except for the racing part.
“It's getting cold out, and the roads may ice up. And—'
“I know, I know. No more snowbanks. No more bodies. Don't worry, darling. See you soon.' - She left him happily ensconced in what they called the 'comfy chair'—virtually the only one in a parsonage filled with an orthopedic army of straight-backed, hard-seated varieties bequeathed by Tom's predecessors. Ben was snuggled in Tom's lap and Faith was sorry she had to leave.
As she drove up the winding drive, the twohouses sparkled ahead—lighted from top to toe. Inside, someone had completed the decorations started earlier in the week. There was an enormous tree in the living room covered with gold balls, a few discreet strands of tinsel, and small white lights. A large silver bowl of holly sat on the mantel and more sprigs of holly were tucked on top of the pictures on the wall. Faith could hear the sounds of merriment from the dining room, left her coat in the closet, and hastened in. A fire was crackling in the large fieldstone fireplace at one end of the room, and Faith felt drawn by its warmth.
Mrs. Pendergast, resplendent in a long dress of royal purple velvet, was presiding over the punch bowl. Faith was relieved to see it wasn't eggnog. One cup a season was plenty and she always had that at the Millers', where Sam ladled out a robust version for all the neighbors on Christmas Day.
“Faith, I'm so glad you came. Have some claret cup? It's one of Dr. Hubbard's family recipes.' She handed her a brimming cup.
“Thank you and Merry Christmas, Violet. Your dress is beautiful.'
“I wear it every year and have only had to let it out three times. It's my favorite color. Now do you think Mother knew somehow and named me after it, or did I get to like it because of the name?”
It was one of those metaphysical questions Faith preferred to avoid.
“Probably both,' she answered, and took a sip of punch. 'It's delicious.'
“Now I want you to go over to the buffet and try my cream puffs—Dream Puffs, I call them. Even if you don't eat anything else, have one of those. I know you young people are always on a diet.' She eyed Faith's slender figure, not in her red Mizrahi tonight but in a Scott McClintock Little Women update—midnight-blue velvet bodice and puffed sleeves with a short, full taffeta skirt. Faith thought it was very regional and felt she ought to have had a fitted coat, tippet, and muff to match for the sleigh ride home.
She left Mrs. Pendergast, got a Dream Puff—there was no way to avoid it—and strolled over to the windows. The lights in the room had been dimmed and candles were everywhere. Winston's and Sylvia Vale had done beautiful things with white roses, red amaryllis, boxwood, more holly, and yards of gold and silver ribbon. Carols were playing softly. The whole effect was of a beautiful stage set. Faith expected the woman sitting on the window seat to turn and start singing 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' to Margaret O'Brien. The figure turned, but it was Julia Cabot, not Judy Garland, and she didn't sing but waved. Faith sat down next to her.
“Merry Christmas, Faith. Ellery will be down in a moment. He always has trouble with his studs and insisted I go ahead.”
Most of the men were in black tie, elegant, courtly, and like the women in the pretty once-ayear Christmas gowns, very well preserved.
“Merry Christmas, Julia.' Faith paused. It was hard to know what to say next. Since she hadwalked into the room, she'd had an odd sensation that none of the events of the past week had occurred. That Eddie, Leandra, Muriel—and maybe even James, the prodigal, would come through the door and it all would have been a dream. Something to mention briefly in the golden glow of the room, so whoever you were speaking to could laugh incredulously at such a phantasm and make it disappear.
Julia didn't laugh. She spoke into the pause. 'It seems so odd to be here like this, yet there isn't anything else to do but go on. This is what Roland wants—and all of us agree. He spoke to Ellery and told him what had
