trouble to pour the beer from the bottle—and stood up. It was stil light and she hated to go indoors, but she told Samantha, 'I real y have to cal Faith. The kids should be asleep by now'
“I can't wait until they come. I miss seeing Ben and Amy. By August, they're going to be al different. Amy probably won't even remember me.' Samantha had gone straight from passionate involvement with horses to smal children, and now, it appeared, to soignee thirty something women, as wel .
“I'm sure the Fairchilds can't wait to see you, either,'
Pix assured her, silently adding, Especial y Faith.
“So what's going on? No more bodies I trust.' Faith felt she could be flippant. If another corpse had turned up, in their wel , say, surely Pix would have cal ed her at once.
Besides, she knew every nuance of her friend's speech.
From the moment Pix had said hel o on Sunday, Faith had known something was disastrously wrong on Sanpere.
Tonight's greeting had been cheerful, everyday Pix.
“No, not human ones, anyway.' Pix hadn't intended to start the conversation by tel ing Faith about the mice, but here it was.
Faith's reaction was similar to Pix's. 'It seems unlikely that the two events have anything to do with each other, except proximity in time, and the use of knives. But why three mice? Were they blind?'
“I imagine they weren't taking in any movies,' Pix said.
'I've tried to think of a connection with the rhyme, but Valerie Atherton isn't a farmer's wife, nor are you, and there aren't any other wives involved.'
“That we know of,' Faith reminded her.
“That we know of. Besides, if it was meant to il ustrate the nursery rhyme, their tails, not their heads, would have been cut off.'
“Maybe the person has a bad memory and thought it was `cut off their heads with a carving knife.' “
This actual y made sense. Pix often misremembered childhood ditties, much to her mother's dismay. Her mother was supposed to be in the time of life when one's gray matter retreated into the shadows. Ursula's was a veritable Costa del Sol.
“What kind of mice were they?' Faith asked.
“Common field mice, I suppose. They're al over the island, you know.”
Faith did not know and wasn't sure she was grateful for this new information.
“Not white mice, the kind kids keep as pets?”
“Samantha didn't say, but I don't think they were; otherwise, she would have mentioned it.'
“Wel , it is odd. Let me know if anything of a nursery-rhyme nature occurs again. There isn't anything in Mother Goose about a body in the basement, is there?'
“Probably. Some of the rhymes were pretty violent. I'l ask Mother.'
“Speaking of violence, what's happening with the investigation?”
Pix told her everything she knew, including Mitchel Pierce's present whereabouts.
“I agree with you. It is sad. And it certainly gives new meaning to the phrase on the shelf.' If no one has claimed him by August, he should be interred someplace on the island. Tom can do the service,' Faith said, cavalierly offering her spouse. 'If relatives or friends haven't turned up by then, they would be unlikely to later.'
“As soon as they calculate his estate, they're going to advertise—not the amount, of course, although Mitch couldn't have had much just that you could hear something to your interest. If this doesn't bring someone forward, nothing wil —or there's no one to be brought. I'm not saying it wel .'
“You're saying it wonderful y. Why, I don't know, but the whole thing reminds me of the time I went in the backyard and saw this man scattering ashes on the rosebushes. It must be the ashes,' Faith added parenthetical y.
“You never told me about this!' Pix exclaimed, surprised at the incident and even more at the fact that she hadn't known about it.
“It was shortly after we were married, and I didn't know you as wel then as I do now. I probably thought you'd be scandalized, because I was furious with him. I mean those were our roses! He could at least have had the decency to ring at the front door and ask permission. It turned out that he was a former parishioner who was passing through and just happened to have his aunt Til y in the car and thought she'd like literal y to be pushing up roses.'
“Her name wasn't real y Til y.'
“Possibly not. I don't remember. Of course I ended up feeling sorry for him. He finished his sprinkling and I gave him something to eat. I think it was some leftover blueberry tarte.'
Faith's food memory was flawless.
“I want that recipe, remember. We're going to have a bumper crop this year and the wild strawberries in the meadow are already ripe. I should have plenty for jam.'
“Don't make me jealous. I wish I hadn't accepted al these jobs for the Fourth. I'l never do it again.”
Pix got her chowder advice; it wasn't complicated, simply good old multiplication. Faith suggested she might like to sprinkle fresh dil on top, but Pix told her this was a chowder purist crowd, eschewing even oyster crackers.
Faith then asked Pix's advice on how to stay sane while Amy was determinedly learning to walk, reeling around the house on feet that looked too tiny to support any kind of movement, let alone something as complicated as standing erect unaided.
“I want to give her knee and elbow pads, plus a helmet.
Ben never went through this self-destructive phase. Sure he pul ed himself up on things a lot, but he basical y just sat, then started walking when he was about fourteen months.'
“You just don't remember. It's a merciful forgetting. Al that fal ing down”
They talked and laughed about the kids some more.
Pix had yet to receive one of the stack of self-addressed stamped postcards she had sent off to camp with Danny.
She had wanted to do the same with Mark but dared not.
She'd have to pray for col ect cal s. She told Faith about Samantha's Valerie worship, was reassured—and realized she needed it—by Faith's own loyal remarks as to Pix's superiority, despite her lack of a subscription to Vogue.
“It wouldn't hurt to put on a little lipstick occasional y, though. I know what happens to you in Maine. Squeaky-clean is not al that intriguing. And leave a fashion magazine or two around the house with your cow- manure manuals or whatever you're reading these days'
“I'd rather have manure on my roses than what's on yours,' Pix retorted.
“That was years ago. Besides, they've bloomed like crazy ever since.”
It was very difficult to get the last word with Faith. Pix said good-bye and went to bed but not to sleep. They were showing movies at the old Opera House in Granvil e again and Samantha had gone with a group of friends.
As she lay listening for the sound of a car door, she thought about putting up another trel is in the garden for morning glories, across from the one that now sported a lush purple clematis. Building. House building. Earl wasn't sure when Seth could get back to work again. Bang.
Samantha was home. Pix turned out her light and was almost startled into wakefulness by remembering.
She'd forgotten to tel Faith what she stil didn't know—
that Seth hadn't done anything at al since May. Forgotten to tel her again.
The Sanpere Stitchers, which was what the Sewing Circle had decided to cal itself about twenty-five years before, was meeting at The Pines this month. Many island routines were disturbed by this sacrosanct meeting. Louel a closed the bakery for the afternoon; Mabel Hamilton left a cold dinner for the camp; and Dot Prescott's daughter went over to fil in for her mother. Anyone in residence at Adelaide and Rebecca Bain-bridge's bed-and- breakfast would find the doors locked. A note affixed to the shiny brass front knocker announced their return at five and suggested a long walk or drive to Granvil e until then.
When the ladies convened at her mother's house, Pix's life was not her own for about twenty-four hours. She
