The Body in the Cast

watching with him? The most logical choice was Sandra. He might have tried to blackmail her in some way with them. But she was dead.

Faith decided to approach the subject from another angle: timing. She scribbled away. The neat columns had long gone by the board. Alden had not been killed during a general break, which meant it couldn't have been anyone actively involved in the scene being shot. One of the townspeople would have been able to slip away, but this didn't link up with Sandra's death. Were there any cast members peripheral to the scene? She made a note on a separate page to ask Dunne, who was no doubt going over the footage and might let her have another peek.

She started to gnaw on the pencil eraser, then got herself a large ruby comice pear instead. It was a juicy one and she stood up to eat it over the sink. Her meanderings had touched upon Sandra's mother, which reminded Faith that neither victim had had many family ties. This was invariably the first place to look for a perpetrator, since every third grader knew from constant repetition on TV and in the press that you were much more likely to be bumped off by blood than water.

The pear finished, she rinsed her sticky fingers and sat down again, the sensation that she wasn't getting anywhere increasing steadily. Her interesting but admittedly tenuous theory about Max/Chillingworth did not apply to Death Two, unless—going back to the purported photos—Max was enraged by Alden's voyeurism. Yet unless Max had some well-concealed reason for wanting to sabotage his own film, she was forced to eliminate him from her suspects. But it could be someone else wanting to sabotage the film. Someone who had it in for Max or one of the other actors?

She thought of Alan Morris, the ever-present, loyal assistant director. He seemed devoted to the movie, and especially its director; however, it was possible he was secretly jealous of Max and resented all the credit Reed got. Certainly, Alan worked incredibly hard. Maybe the one line he got on the screen wasn't enough. Maybe he wanted to move up. He'd been in medical school and might have known Sandra was asthmatic.

She went back to Alden and Sandra. What in their past lives could have connected the two? They lived a continent apart, but she had been born in Boston. Or was it something completely separate in their pasts that led to their deaths happening coincidentally close together? Was Alden's a copycat crime? The two methods were so different: one quite subtle and obviously premeditated; the other brutal and impulsive.

She wrote 'Find out more about Alden and Sandra's past' on the page with 'View footage.' Her head was starting to swim. She had two possible leads. It wasn't much.

Then she added: 'Alden on set last Friday? Saw something? Blackmail?' f this was true, she could put Max, Alan, and virtually everyone else at the Pingrees' back in the running. She thought about what Greg Bradley had said: '... a lot of everyday rules get turned upside down.' Maybe a lot of those rules got broken, as well.

What else? There was the question of the soup. It had never been answered. Was it safe to assume Caresse added the Chocolax in a moment of pique, or was it some kind of rehearsal for Sandra's poisoning? She made a note to suggest to Dunne that he press the little girl—oh so gently, of course—to confess to her prank.

She tried to picture a piece of blank paper. Someone had once told her this was a way to cure yourself of insomnia—or trigger something you were trying to remember. It seldom worked for Faith in either case, not that she'd had much trouble sleeping since Ben was born. The problem was staying awake.

The sheet stayed snowy white, then a single word appeared: suicide. 'Suicide,' she wrote down. Not Alden. That would have been quite a feat, but Sandra. There was the slim possibility she had been despondent enough over her hopeless crush on Max to want to kill herself. Or drugs may have been involved. Faith needed to think it through some more.

Tom came out to the kitchen in search of nourishment.

“What are you up to, honey?' he asked.

“I thought if I got something down on paper, I might be able to make more sense out of all of this.'

“And have you?'

“I've written a lot, but it's mostly gibberish.' Faith was disgusted.

“Well, you can't expect to solve a crime sitting at your kitchen table.' Tom was sorry the moment the words left his mouth. 'Not that you're involved in solving these.' He had been understandably very upset about Faith's near tete-a-tete with Alden's murderer.

“Why don't I make you a big sloppy sandwich with the entire fridge in it and we can talk.”

“Swell,' said Tom. 'I know when I'm being sidetracked. But be sensible, Faith—and haven't I said this before recently?—you have two kids to think of, and me, by the way.'

“Don't worry, love, you won't be stuck with them.”

“That's not what I mean and you know it.' Tom was clearly not in a jovial mood.

He seemed to feel better after starting to consume a bottle of Samuel Adams Boston Lager and the sandwich of roast beef, red onion, broiled peppers, tomato, lettuce, Swiss cheese, and mayo on sourdough bread his wife set before him. They talked over the various possibilities on Faith's list, but the combined Fairchild forces didn't get much further than she had alone. They were about to give up and go to bed when the phone rang.

“I'll toss you for it,' Tom suggested.

“No, I'll get it. You had to deal with all those calls this morning. Besides, I'm curious to find out who could possibly be calling at such an unfashionably late hour. What is it? Almost ten o'clock? It can't be anyone from Aleford.”

Faith wasn't to know where the call came from. 'Faith Fairchild?”

She didn't recognize the voice. Whoever it was had a heavy cold.

“Yes,' she replied, ready for a fund appeal.

“Keep your fucking nose out of other people's business.'

“Who is this! Hello! Hello!”

The line went dead.

She hung up and immediately dialed the police. Charley was on duty. She realized she was shaking. The voice—she couldn't be absolutely sure whether it had been a man or a woman—had sounded so venomous. The warning was clear.

Charley said he'd be right over and would get in touch with Dunne. Faith went back to the kitchen. It seemed as if she had been gone for an hour. Tom was still contentedly munching.

“Who was it, honey?”

Faith's call to Chief MacIsaac had calmed her down. The last thing she wanted was to upset Tom, but it was inevitable in this particular situation.

“It was a crank, an obscene phone call. Whoever it was told me to mind my own business, essentially.'

“Faith! I knew it! We have to call the police!' Tom looked stricken, the remains of the sandwich in his hand suspended between his plate and mouth.

“I've already called and Charley is on his way. Honey, don't worry. Nothing is going to happen to me.' Faith knew she could take care of herself. It was harder to convince her husband.

Charley was more agitated than usual, and as they sat debating the ways someone could disguise his or her voice, Faith realized the chief's mind was elsewhere.

“Charley, is something more bothering you? Because if it's just the call, please trust me. I know it was a warning and I'll be careful. Very careful.'

“I hope so. You're right. The call was the last straw, but frankly, I'm worried sick about Penny. No one's seen hide nor hair of her since last night after I announced that Alden was dead.'

“I wish we could help you, except we haven't heard a thing, either. Millicent's been calling, too. She thinks Tom is hiding Penny.”

There was a short pause.

“And of course he's not.' MacIsaac's expression turned the statement into a question.

Faith hastened to defend her husband, who appeared startled.

“Charley! First of all, Tom is a man of a very high quality of cloth, and they don't do things like that, unless the Nazis or whatever are at the door. And second of all, why on earth would he—we—hide Penny? And why would she need to hide? Do you think she's in some kind of danger?'

“You tell me. We searched the house from top to bottom today. Every time I opened a closet, I got the