When Faith opened her eyes, it was almost noon. The phone was ringing. She jumped out of bed, forgetting for the moment that Tom must be home. It was answered on the fourth ring, which proved he was indeed downstairs and the children must be nearby, hence the delay. She grabbed her robe and went nobly to his rescue.
“Mommee!' Ben shrieked, 'Amy keeps bothering me!”
It was hard to figure out how, since the baby was in her infant seat, peacefully batting at a toy bar with pastel-colored bunnies and other mutants of nature.
Child Number Two occupied for the moment, Faith turned her full attention to Child Number One. It was the ever-present threat to this position that she suspected was really bothering him. She picked him up and kissed the top of his head. His hair smelled like baby shampoo. Tom must have bathed him. Ben hugged her tightly and she hugged him back. She'd been missing both kids terribly.
“Honey, she's so little. She doesn't even know what bothering is.' But she'll find out, assured a voice from within. 'Show me what you've been doing. Have you had lunch yet?”
Ben wasn't sure. Tom shook his head from his position by the phone, where he was engaged in a remarkably one-sided conversation.
“Do you want to help Mommy make toasted cheezers?' The chance to reduce a slab of cheddar to crumbs with the cheese slicer was always a winner, and Ben nodded enthusiastically. 'Amy can't do it. Amy can't do anything,' he happily explained to his mother, who was getting out some sliced ham and tomatoes to add to the sandwiches.
Tom hung up and came over. He wrapped his arms around his wife and said, `Boy, am I glad you're awake. The phone has been ringing all morning. That was Millicent.' He raised his eyebrows. 'Our friend regards last night's incident as some kind of divine retribution. Her first words were, in fact, `Isn't it wonderful for the town' '
“I don't think it's that she's insensitive—well, maybe she is—but in this case, it's simply the old McKinley tunnel vision at work. She sees the goal, her goal, and nothing else.'
“You may be right. At the moment, she's looking for Penny'
“What! You mean she didn't go home after leaving last night?'
“She may have gone home, but she wasn't there by the time Charley got there.'
“Maybe she decided not to answer the door.'
“They thought of that. Charley knew Millicent had Penny's spare key and went back to the Town Hall to get it. Millie insisted on going back with them to make sure Penny was all right, but she was gone. Millicent had some idea we knew Penny's whereabouts, and you know how Millie is. The more I said I didn't have a clue, the more she seemed to think I had secreted Penny in the attic.'
“There's certain to be a lot of publicity. Maybe Penny wanted to avoid it. She's definitely of the `a lady only appears in the newspaper three times: birth, marriage, and death' school. Given the way she felt about Alden, it doesn't seem as if this is a crazed grief reaction.'
“It's troubling, whatever her reasons. And speaking of publicity, you're in great demand—we've heard from every newspaper, TV, and radio station on the East Coast. Charley's holding a press conference at three o'clock, so maybe you can'get away with a statement there.'
“Good idea.' Faith removed the nicely browned sandwiches, slightly oozing with the melted cheese, from a large cast-iron frying pan, cut them in half, andarranged them on a platter. She poured milk in a pitcher and set both on the table. All this publicity wouldn't hurt business. Her conscience immediately snapped to attention. What kind of person could even think of something like that!
When she got back from delivering her brief statement about finding the body, it was almost five. Amy was up from her nap. Ben had stoutly refused one, Tom reported. Both Fairchild men looked beat.
“Why don't you lie down before supper and I'll read to Ben?' Faith suggested. 'There's some chili and I'll make a salad. Nothing much.'
“Sounds wonderful. All of it. Don't let me sleep too long, though. I have a ton of work to do. Nobody mentioned anything about when they would release the body for the funeral, did they?'
“No, but Alden's lawyer from Boston was there. You could call him.”
Tom nodded.
“Oh, I almost forgot, two other things,' Faith told him. 'They've issued a description of Penny statewide and asked that anyone seeing her contact the police.'
“The poor woman. What can be going on?'
“Everyone is as puzzled as we are'
“And what's the second thing?'
“Alden was killed with a piece of wood from the pile of old lumber in the storeroom, so it may not have been premeditated—unless the murderer was extremely familiar with the Town Hall's basement.”
Tom, his eyes drooping, was clearly not as fascinated by all this as she was.
“Go to sleep, sweetheart, and we'll talk later when the kids are in bed.”
After they had finished eating, it was time to tuck Ben and Amy in. When Faith came back downstairs, Tom had started working. She decided to leave him to it. She had work of her own. She got one of his yellow legal pads and sat down at the kitchen table.
Alan Morris had been at the press conference, representing the movie company, and Faith had feared he would avoid her. In a way, she had once more brought the production to a screeching halt. Instead, when the press left, he had greeted her warmly, expressing concern over her gruesome discovery and asking whether she was all right. She'd thanked him, then wondered if she should ask him about plans for the shoot. Were they going to continue—and, if so, would her services be required? The police hadn't said anything and Alan's own statement to the press had been a short expression of sympathy for the victim's family. Just as she started to say something, he did. She let him go first.
“Evidently, the police have decided there is nothing to be gained by keeping us captive in our hotel rooms, so we're going to be shooting again tomorrow night. With that area in the basement roped off and an officer at every door, I'm told. Will you be able to supply the same sort of provisions?”
Faith had assented emphatically. And she'd be sure they brought their own extra tables this time.
They would have all day tomorrow to get ready and maybe even sneak in a nap, since it would be a late night again, she thought as she began to make a list on the paper in front of her.
It wasn't a shopping list.
Somewhere, somehow, there had to be a connection between the two deaths besides their occurrence during the shooting of A. f she wrote down everything she knew, that connection might become clear.
She folded a sheet in half and neatly labeled one column 'Death One' and the other 'Death Two.' Approaching the whole thing as a kind of social studies report helped. These were events, not people. The first thing to determine was who was present at both times. This neatly enabled her to eliminate all of Aleford save her own catering staff and self. The day Sandra died, there had been no extras around. She had to assume the cast and crew were the same at both, except for Caresse. She hadn't been on the set during the prison cell scene. But everyone else who was at the Town Hall had been.
So where did that leave things? Plenty of suspects, yet no apparent motives. She let her imagination roam free over the landscape of her mind. What possible connection could Sandra have to Alden? They were an unlikely couple, although Alden might have harbored certain fantasies. Besides, Sandra was so besotted with Max that she wouldn't look at Greg Bradley, certainly a more suitable choice than portly, pretentious Alden. Maybe Sandra was Alden's long-lost illegitimate daughter and she was blackmailing him. But Alden hadn't been anywhere near the set of A when she died. His presence, even before, to doctor the drink, would have been noted. And, if he'd killed her, then who'd killed him? Sandra's mother, a possible avenger, was already dead. According to the police, Sandra's closest connection had been her roommate, who was in California at the time, and Greg Bradley had not given Faith the impression of an impassioned lover. His relationship to Sandra had been mostly wishful thinking.
But was it so improbable to assume that Alden had been on the set when she died? He'd certainly been there, lurking in the woods, during the shooting of the forest scene. Alden with his binoculars. Faith hadn't ac- tually seen them, and she suddenly realized she'd been barking up the wrong tree. It wasn't a pair of binoculars that Alden had been trying to hide, but a camera. Alden had had an interest in photography—'art' photography. Now where did this take her?
f the slides he was showing at the Town Hall were nude shots of Sandra, who would have been there
