They were about to take the kids to the Boston Children’s Museum. Should it be raincoats or not? Pix seemed to have acquired this meteorological knack at about the same time as she had learned to walk, and Faith had noted other Aleford residents who would touch their tongues to index fingers, test the air with great deliberation, then matter-of-factly tell you the temperature, barometric pressure, and the precipitation for the next several days, with an occasional reference to what was rolling in from Canada.
“Raincoats?” she asked Ben and Amy. Maybe they’d picked it up, too. Ben was already adding
“It’s not going to rain, Mom. It’s warm. I don’t need a jacket,” Ben said firmly. So firmly, Faith was tempted to believe him, except he never wanted to wear a jacket.
“We’ll throw them in the car. I wonder what’s keeping Daddy.” Tom had been at the church office since early morning, taking a sandwich with him.
After her husband had left, she’d reported in to Detective Lieutenant Dunne. It had been a brief conversation and the only item that really seemed to interest him was the anonymous five-hundred-dollar donation. It was the only thing that had interested her the night before, too. She told him that she had volunteered to be on a committee, and he told her to keep in touch, but she could tell his heart wasn’t really in it.
She returned to peer out the window like Sister Anne, but it wasn’t her brothers she saw. It was Miss Lora. Miss Lora was getting out of a very new, very jazzy bright red Miata convertible—a car Faith herself coveted. Miss Lora? Sports cars? She was carrying a carton and called something back over her shoulder to the driver. Faith strained to see who it was, but he was too far away and the top was up. She quickly grabbed her purse, got out the keys to the extremely practical familial Honda, and prayed for Tom to return quickly. Maybe not prayed as such, but wished hard. It worked. As soon as he was in earshot, halfway across the cemetery, she opened the door and called out, “Tom, could you hurry up? The kids are really eager to get going.” It was true. It was also true that so was she—eager to follow Miss Lora and see who was behind the wheel of the car.
Reverend Fairchild walked through the door, expecting a hug and a kiss. Instead, Faith pulled him to one side. “Did you see Lora?”
“Lora? No. Why? Was I supposed to?”
“No, no,” Faith said impatiently. “But she just got out of that sports car in the church driveway and went inside. Did you recognize who was driving the car?” Tom had finished his sermon. While not a cloudless blue sky, it was a washed-out watercolor approxima-tion. He was on his way home to spend a pleasant afternoon with his wife and children. There was a spring in his step. He’d had a good run that morning.
He hadn’t, in short, seen the driver—or the car.
“Car?”
“Look out the window! That red sports car—you didn’t notice it?”
“Not really. Is this important?” He loved his wife, yet there were definitely times when their worldviews diverged, and this was one of them.
“Lora got out of the car, carrying a cardboard box, said something I couldn’t hear, and went into the church.”
“So long as she wasn’t taking things out of the church in a box, I’d say there’s nothing here to be concerned about. Why don’t we get going? I just need to go—”
“She’s back! Tom, come on, we’ve got to find out whose car it is. She seemed so edgy yesterday when I picked Ben up, and she looked terrible. You haven’t forgotten how frightened she was that night in the study? I just want to know what’s going on.”
Tom hadn’t forgotten how terrified the young woman was and he became infected with Faith’s sense of urgency.
“You’re right. Let’s go.”
They strapped the kids in their car seats. Tom backed out of the garage and drove down the street to a spot with a clear view of the church.
“Why are we stopping? I thought we were going to the museum? I want to climb on that big phone and make bubbles. Why—” Ben was puzzled.
“Hush, sweetie. We need to stay here for a minute and think. Maybe you could think of some other things you want to do in the museum.”
“I want to play with that computer and—”
“Think, Ben. Think. Quietly,” Faith said, then patted his sleek blond head affectionately. She was trying very hard to save him a fortune in future therapists’ fees. Amy was taking her shoes and socks off. No problems there.
Tom started the car.
“She’s coming out. Good girl. She’s locking up.” The Miata pulled out of the church driveway and turned right along the north side of the green, then left onto Main Street. Tom followed. The Honda was a silver-gray one and he hoped it would be inconspicuous. He’d never done anything like this before, but he’d seen enough movies. He let two cars get between him and the very conspicuous sports car as they passed the library. The Miata was traveling at an overly respectable twenty miles an hour.
“Not speeding through town. Think that means it’s someone who knows Charley usually has a car on Parker Place?” Chief MacIsaac was proud of this extremely lucrative source of revenue for the town, revenue from nonresidents, of course. Everyone local slowed to a crawl.
“Lora’s with him, so we can’t assume anything.”
“True.”
As soon as the posted speed limit went to 40 mph, the Miata jumped forward. With one car between them, Tom followed suit. They were heading straight down Main Street, away from Aleford and toward Arlington, Cambridge, and Boston.
“I’ll bet he turns toward Route Two.”
“Too easy.” Faith only bet when she knew she would win. “Lora lives in the opposite direction, so they’re not going to her place. Why would they be going to Arlington? The car has bright lights, big city written all over it, and the fastest way to get there is on the highway.”
At the small, treacherous traffic circle down by the Woodrows’ farm stand—a family operation that had mushroomed from bins of tomatoes, lettuce, and corn in season to arugula and jicama—the small red car made a sharp right. The Fairchilds were slowed down by their attempt to enter the circle, something akin to Russian roulette, except with cars, when all the Saturday shoppers were leaving the stand.
“Don’t worry. We won’t lose them. We were right.
They have to be going to Route Two.” Tom turned down the ramp and they spotted the car farther along the highway, not too far ahead of them.
He speeded up.
“Hey, Dad, this is fun. Go faster!” Ben called out.
Tom grinned. He had no idea anymore why he was doing this, but it
The highway stopped and they followed the car around two more traffic circles, less lethal because of the perpetual construction occurring outside the Alewife Transit Station and Fresh Pond Parkway. It slowed everyone to a crawl. Finally, at the Charles River, the road divided definitively. The left would take them down Memorial Drive past Harvard; the right led to Storrow Drive and Boston.
“Don’t lose them. Don’t lose them!” Faith cried.
“Don’t lose them, Daddy!” Ben echoed.
Tom could just see a patch of red that he assumed was their quarry. Traffic was heavy on this Saturday afternoon and there was no way to stay closer to the car. He tried pulling into the next lane and was rewarded with both an obscene gesture and the blast of a horn. He wished he’d worn his work clothes.
The light changed and he pulled forward. It was no good. He couldn’t see which way they’d turned.
“We have a fifty-fifty chance. Quick, tell me what to do,” he said to Faith.
“Take Storrow. We’re going that way, anyway.” The red car was stopped at the next light. Tom grinned triumphantly and pulled up behind them.
There were so many cars now that looked like the Fairchilds’ that he felt safe. Besides, he didn’t want to lose them again. Faith put on her dark glasses. She wished she had a scarf to tie around her hair like Garbo or Madonna, but Faith wasn’t the type to tie scarves around her hair. The sunglasses would have to do.
