The Body in the Bouillon

After this burst of speech, she scampered out the door and Faith and Mrs. Pendergast stood eye to eye for a moment.

“Did Miss Vale tell you what was needed?”

“Not exactly,' Faith responded. 'Some kitchen help, I gather.'

“Help is right. My lunch regular and her backup have both come down with this flu, and the volunteers so far stay long enough to learn what to do, then leave to finish their Christmas shopping or some such thing. I finally told Miss Vale that if she couldn't find somebody to stay for the next two weeks, they'd have to start sending out to McDonald's. Oh, that got her, you can imagine. Most of these people think a Big Mac is a large truck.”

Faith shuddered. She was an angel of mercy.

“Miss Vale'—for apparently that was the redhead's name—'didn't say anything about two weeks, but I'll help all I can.'

“It's getting the food ready and into that contraption there'—she pointed to a dumbwaiter. 'You don't have to do pots or dishes. The wheelchair boys and girls do those.'

“Wheelchair boys and girls?'

“The college kids who work here and go get the people in wheelchairs who live in the cottages for meals or take others out for a spin around the gardens. They serve the meals and clean up.'

“I think I'll be able to help you, but most days only until eleven thirty, because I have to be home when my little boy comes back from nursery school. And only weekdays, I'm afraid.'

“That will have to do it and it may not be two weeks, but Dr. Hubbard is very particular about the food preparation, and if he thinks there's a chance of passing the flu around with the food, he'll have them stay home longer. Not but that I agree with him. Of course, I'm never sick myself.”

It would take a mighty germ to fell Mrs. Pendergast, Faith thought, and found herself nodding solemnly—in tacit agreement, she supposed, or just to have some participation in the conversation that continued its one-sided course.

“Now, don't worry about the cooking. I do all of it. Have been for thirty years—the last fifteen righthere. I need you to chop things, help me get organized, and dish it all out.'

“Like a sous chef,' Faith commented.

“I don't know any Sue chefs. Like another pair of hands is what I mean.'

“Fine.' Faith reached for an apron. 'Why don't you tell me where to start.' She was a firm believer that a woman's kitchen was her queendom. Still, it might be possible to introduce some flavor into the cuisine after a few days. The only cookbook she could see was an ancient edition of Fanny Farmer, and while it made for wonderful bedtime reading—caramel potato cake, and her own personal favorite, Canapes a la Rector: caviar on toast sprinkled with diced cucumber pickles and red pepper, divided into sections, by anchovy fillets—she hoped the inhabitants of Hubbard House weren't subsisting on macaroni and chipped beef and the book's other stick-to-the-ribs staples.

“We're giving them fish today—scrod and some greens and potatoes. The first thing you could do is start peeling these with this contraption while I trim the beans. The soup's all made and on the back burner.' She gestured toward the stove. 'There's always some who want soup first, or they can have juice. Then we give them a salad. And I've got last night's pot roast for those who don't want fish.'

“How many people are there?' Faith asked.

“One hundred and fifteen total, but we never get that many for lunch. The cottages have kitchenettes and some people make their own lunch. And there's usually a few who are traveling or eating out. They mark their meal choices in the morning on those little sheets. There's sixty today and seven trays.'

“Trays?'

“Yes, for the people in the annex. The wheelchair kids come for those first.”

Faith worked quickly, but it took a while before the potatoes were on. She looked around to see what was next and clamped her mouth shut as she watched Mrs. Pendergast with an ancient canister of paprika, liberally sprinkling the fish before putting it into the oven to bake. They were assembling salads and Faith was about to start priming the pump to get information more relevant to her investigation than the merits of V-8 juice versus tomato when the door swung open and she heard the click of high heels on the kitchen tile.

“Do you need some more help, Mrs. P.? I have a spare half hour and it's all yours.”

The voice belonged to a tall, languid-looking young woman with, depending on one's frame of reference and charitable inclinations, a long Modigliani or Afghanhound-like face and black hair cropped close to her head. As she spoke, she took off the jacket of her suit, an Anne Klein Faith had considered herself last year, and rolled up the sleeves of her silk blouse. She wasn't beautiful, yet everything about her was—the way she walked, her voice, and all the separate parts: luminous gray eyes, smooth glowing skin. It didn't add up, but came close enough.

“I can always use help, Denise. Grab an apron from the closet and you can finish these salads with Mrs. Fairchild here while I scoop out the Grape Nut pudding for dessert.' Mrs. Pendergast spoke in tones bordering on affection.

“Are you a new Pink Lady?' Denise asked Faith as she slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and grabbed a handful of lettuce.

“A what?'

“A Pink Lady. That's what we volunteers are called because of the pink dusters we're supposed to wear. I told them I was happy to come and do whatever they wanted, but nothing could induce me to put that thing on.'

“I don't think I'm one. Nor,' she added, 'have I ever drunk one. I'm just helping here until the lunch crew recovers from the flu.' Faith hoped Miss Vale wouldn't suddenly decide to fling a duster her way to wear in the kitchen. She'd have to be firm and cite Denise as precedent.

“Do you live in Byford, Mrs. Fairchild?' Denise asked.

“No, I live in Aleford, and please call me Faith. My husband is the minister at First Parish, and we have a two-and-a-half-year-old boy. How about you?'

“I live in Byford—for the moment. Try prying a teenager away from the friends he's made. I decided it wasn't fair for Joel to lose both his father and friends, so we're here for at least two more years.'

“I'm sorry to hear about your husband. Was his death recent?' Faith asked, switching into the empathetic minister's wife voice she thought she ought to be cultivating. It was a slight shock to watch Denise explode into laughter. Hysteria?

“I should only be so lucky. No, the creep is very much alive and living in L.A. with wife number three, formerly mistress number three hundred and three, who didn't want wife number one's kid around. Wife number one didn't want him either. I'd been raising Joel pretty much alone anyway, and I wasn't going to back out on him. Plus we got the house, no problem, and actually both of us have never been happier.'

“It sounds like you didn't exactly have a match made in heaven,' Faith commented.

“I was just plain stupid and not young enough to have age for an excuse—but maybe not that stupid. I never had my wedding silver or towels monogrammed, for instance.”

Faith laughed. She hoped Denise would be around a lot in the next two weeks. Besides being entertaining, she might have picked up what was going on at Hubbard.

“What do you do here—as a volunteer?' Faith asked, also wondering why?

“I started by driving some of the residents to temple for services on Friday nights —the rabbi had asked for volunteers from the congregation, and then when one of the people I drove, Mrs. Rosen, broke a hip and was recuperating in the nursing wing, I visited and read to her. One thing led to another and I became a volunteer. I love being adored and I don't have a whole lot else to do with my time. If I weren't so selfish, I'd go out and get a job, but I don't want someone telling me what time to be there and what to'do.”

Obviously she didn't need the money, Faith ob- served, looking at her neat little Patek Philippe watch and the heavy gold necklace she wore. Her fingers were conspicuously bare of rings.

“How about you, Faith, why are you doing this? Christian love?'

“Nothing so selfless, I'm afraid,' Faith answered. 'I was on my way to visit a parishioner and Miss Vale mistook me for someone coming to volunteer and brought me here. But since Ben is in nursery school in the mornings, I can help for a while.' She decided not to tell Denise about Chat's letter. Until she had more of an idea about what was going on, she wasn't going to mention it to anyone even vaguely associated with Hubbard House.