it—plus, she’d already had one breakfast. The pancakes were good. She ate some more.
Then they waited. Pix was uncharacteristically restless.
“Couldn’t we call the hospital?”
“I doubt they’d give us any information. Especially considering the circumstances.”
“Can’t you call, Dale?” Pix had been his sister’s room mother in fifth grade and she thought the young man ought to be able to find something out, given his position.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you anyway, unless the chief said so. The last thing he told me was he’d be in touch and only to call if there was an emergency.”
A grim reminder, and everyone in the room felt it.
From upstairs, Amy started crying. She was awake and hungry.
It was seven o’clock.
Faith felt as if it should be at least the afternoon and Amy rising from her nap. The hours since they’d first left the house were moving as slowly as the thick maple syrup that the kids coaxed from the jug for their pancakes.
At nine, the phone rang. Faith picked up before the second ring.
“Tom? Is he alive? What’s happened?” But it wasn’t Tom; it was Millicent.
“And how are you, Faith? I understand Pix is at your house and I’d like a word with her, if it’s not too much trouble.” Her tone clearly indicated she did not think much of Faith’s telephone manners.
“Of course, I’ll get her right away.” Faith was tempted to explain, yet it wouldn’t make any difference. Yes, this was a crisis, but that was no excuse for letting standards slip.
Pix went to the phone. “Probably wants to yell at me for not being at the breakfast,” she whispered to Faith.
“She’d better not,” Faith replied. At the moment, she deeply wished Millicent had never asked Pix—or any of the rest of them—to sign that letter. Had never started POW! So what if Joey Madsen wanted to put up a bunch of big houses?
She went into the living room. Dale was reading the latest issue of
Danny was watching the Boston Marathon on TV.
“What do you think our friend Millicent wants with my wife?”
“And badly enough to track her down here, although that would be child’s play for Millicent. But I have no idea. The two are involved in just about every activity in town, so it could be POW! business or the Garden Club plant sale. Or Pix could be right and Millicent is calling her on the carpet because you didn’t show up to help at the breakfast.”
“They couldn’t have had much of a turnout. People were leaving town as fast as they could,” Sam commented.
Their speculation was stopped by Pix’s return. She was laughing.
“She’s under house arrest, too, or whatever you call this. Charley won’t let her do anything in public today and she’s furious. She wanted my support to complain to the police. I think she’s planning to call the Middlesex County DA’s office to register a formal complaint.”
“Protective custody,” Dale piped up, “That’s what I’d call it.” He returned to his magazine.
“In a way, I don’t blame her,” Pix continued. “Not that I’m leaving the premises, but Millicent works all year on this day. I think they should at least let her review the parade. That’s her favorite part.” Every year, Millicent, town officials, and other favored individuals—the closest egalitarian Aleford got to royalty—sat on a specially constructed platform near the green and watched the parade pass by, award-ing the prizes for best float, best band, and so forth.
Sat high up, out in the open. With hundreds of people strolling around below, cotton candy and fried dough in hand. But there might be a hand holding something else. Faith shivered. She was with Charley. She didn’t want Millicent to put one foot out of her clapboard house. She fleetingly wondered what Millicent’s bodyguard was doing. Probably helping her wind wool.
“Did you tell her that?” she asked Pix.
“Not exactly. I certainly wouldn’t advise the woman to defy the police. I told her what I was doing, but of course said I could not presume to make up her mind.”
“What did she say?”
“Thanked me and said it was exactly what she wanted to hear.”
“Great,” Faith said. Now she’d have to worry about Millicent, who was probably tying bedsheets together at this very moment while the police officer was trapped downstairs, his hands bound by the skein of wool.
She had an idea. “What about the Scotts? Maybe they could wait together? They’re such sane people.”
“The Scotts, very sane people, have left town. Ted told Charley they’d check in with him to find out when it’s safe to come back,” Sam told her. “I tried to get my wife to do the same, but obviously it was no use.” He shot a somewhat-sour look at Pix.
They settled down to wait again. The kids were in the backyard on the swing set. The yard was fenced, but Dale moved over by the window anyway. He’d finished the magazine. Another half hour passed.
Unaccustomed to inactivity of any sort, Pix was clearly getting restless.
“How about cards? Bridge?” she suggested.
Faith only knew how to play poker and Go Fish and was about to say so when Dale muttered something about being on duty, which immediately limited the choices.
“Double solitaire?” Pix said. Clearly the woman was getting close to the end of her tether.
“Sure,” Sam said. He knew his wife. “Have you got two decks of cards, Faith?”
Looking for cards proved a welcome time killer.
Pix went with Faith as she searched through various junk drawers and boxes of games that Tom was wont to buy at garage sales and auctions. The Fairchild clan were inveterate board game players, and when Tom came across a vintage set of Monopoly or Clue, he acted as if he’d found the Grail.
Triumphantly, Faith held two decks aloft. “I remember these because of the labels.” One was from the
“A widely traveled family with broad tastes and maybe a sense of humor.”
Sam and Pix started to play. Faith, odd woman out, went into the kitchen to think. She sat by the window, idly watching Samantha swinging with Amy on her lap. The toddler laughed uproariously every time they swung gently forward. Faith stopped focusing on the scene outside and tried to sort through the thoughts elbowing one another for space in her mind.
Someone in Aleford wrote those letters. No one else would have known the poison involved. But whoever it was wouldn’t necessarily have had to have lived in town too long. It was only five years ago that Sam had had the affair with Cindy. Brad’s letter had been obscene, referring to certain sexual acts he may or may not have performed with Lora Deane, although given Lora’s transformation on Saturday, anything was possible. Their relationship was even more recent. Louise Scott’s alcoholic father and his accident dated further back, but it was something that might have come up in a certain kind of conversation about either drinking problems or car crashes. And the Batcheldors’. Faith searched her memory for the exact wording. Their letter had been the least specific—although no one, with the possible exception of Chief MacIsaac, knew what was in Millicent’s. The Batcheldors’ said they should stay out of the woods if they wanted to stay healthy. Almost the same words used on the phone to Lora. It was the only one that contained a direct threat. And now Margaret was dead; Nelson might be. What was in the woods? Why the Batcheldors?
All the POW! letter signers had received both letters, except Margaret, of course. Were there other recipients—too frightened to go to the police? And why the pointed omission of the signature—on Brad’s both times,
