Body in the Bog

racing.

If only she could make it to the street! If only someone would come along! She opened her mouth to yell for help and at first no sound came out. Then she managed a strangled cry. She was getting breathless.

Who will be next? That’s what she’d wondered aloud with Tom. The question had been answered.

Faith was next.

Nine

To her left, she could hear her stalker coming closer.

Faith looked frantically ahead for the cross street. She had never run so fast in her life. She focused all her thoughts on her legs, pushing and straining to keep going. There was no hope of screaming now; she was gasping for breath. Any second, her attacker would be at her back. She heard a whooshing sound and turned her head, even as fear produced a fresh burst of speed.

It wasn’t an assailant. It was a bicycle. A venerable lady’s Raleigh with a wicker basket dangling from the handlebars.

It was Millicent Revere McKinley.

“Help!” Faith grabbed at the bike. “There’s someone in the woods. Someone’s after me!” Millicent reached into the basket and took out a pocket siren. She pressed the button and produced the desired effect. Faith put her hands to her ears and sat down in the middle of the path, panting. After a while, Millicent twisted the canister and the noise stopped.

“It’s not a good idea to sit there. You’re smack in the way of traffic,” she pointed out. “Now, what’s going on?”

Faith wanted to hug her and did. It was that kind of moment. Fleetingly, she realized that this was the second time Millicent had come to her aid in a time of great peril. Faith wondered if she would have to present the woman with her firstborn or perform some kind of Herculean labor such as cleaning the moss from all the headstones in the old burial ground to even the score.

It took a moment for her to get her breath and arrange her thoughts.

“Someone was stalking me. I could hear the person but couldn’t see who it was—not even if it was a man or woman. Every time I stopped, the noise stopped and whoever it was hid. But why wasn’t I attacked right away? Not that I’m sorry.” Now that the danger was passed, Faith was puzzled. There had been plenty of time before Millicent happened by. Had it been some sort of sadist who had been delighting in her terror?

“You’re sure it wasn’t an animal, a dog?” Millicent asked.

“I’m sure. An animal doesn’t increase speed when you do and slow down when you do. And whoever it was kept moving closer to the path. If you hadn’t come along, I don’t know what would have happened.” Faith’s last words were sticking in her throat.

They had moved and were sitting on the grass off to the side of the path. Millicent’s bike was resting ma- jestically on its kickstand.

“I use the bike path often. Much safer than the street, but I always carry my horn. You never know what undesirables could be lurking about, and I suppose that’s who it was—a tramp in the woods, some such person.” She looked Faith straight in the eye.

Neither woman believed for a second that it had been a tramp.

“Maybe,” Faith said. “I can’t imagine who else it could have been.” Which was the truth.

“I’ll see you home,” Millicent offered courteously.

Faith had almost forgotten she was not going straight home. “Oh dear, the children. They’re at the playground. I was on my way there.”

“Then we’ll go there.”

Millicent got back up on her steed and rode at a stately pace next to Faith, who was happy to trot rapidly alongside. She wanted to get off the bike path as soon as possible.

“Where were you going?” The last Faith had seen of Millicent, she was deep in conversation with those who lingered on after the meeting.

“I was on my way to see Chief MacIsaac. Right after you left, we realized that we can’t plan any sort of meeting until we know when the funeral will take place, and there are one or two other things I want to discuss with Charley in person. We would not want to offend anyone by having the meeting on the same day as the funeral. It would be in extremely poor taste.” Faith agreed. She was tempted to tell Millicent not to mention the incident on the bike path, but Charley might as well know sooner than later. Also, Millicent wouldn’t listen to her anyway.

They reached Reed Street and turned toward the playground. Faith felt as if she was stepping back into place, back into her normal life. Kids were running around like crazy; their mothers were sitting in small groups, talking and every once in a while retrieving an overly ambitious toddler from the big slide or settling a dispute about whose turn it was for the tire swing.

Amy was in the sandbox and Ben was on the mon-key bars. The sitter was halfway between, reading Hermann Hesse. Millicent bade Faith farewell, looked around at the scene with the air of someone visiting the zoo, and rode off. Without Faith beside her, she rode speedily and with expertise, negotiating hand signals and turns with aplomb. Speed. If she hadn’t ridden so fast . . . Faith didn’t want to think about it.

She paid the sitter, thanked her, and led the children home. Amy had collected as much sand in her shoes and clothes as a day at the beach produced.

Tom was waiting for them. “I finished my sermon.

It’s a gorgeous day and we need to go someplace.” He looked at his wife. “What’s happened? Are you okay? You look—”

She interrupted him. “Pas devant les enfants,” she said. Definitely not in front of the children. She put Amy in her high chair with a cup of yogurt and cut-up strawberries, then Ben at the table with the same. She drew Tom into the living room and told him what had happened.

He was terribly upset. As soon as she finished, he went to the phone and called Charley. Chief MacIsaac arrived in time for a bowl of squash soup, bread, and cheese.

“What do you call this? It’s good.”

“Butternut squash soup—good for us, too. I added lots of nutmeg and a little cream,” Faith told him.

She’d had some herself and was feeling better. She took the kids upstairs. Amy went down for her nap—

you could set the town hall’s clock by her—and Ben went to his room to “rest,” protesting vociferously all the way, “But I’m not tired!”

When she returned, Charley was eating some apple crisp Tom had dug out of the refrigerator. Tom had a plate of it, too. Both portions were crowned with a large scoop of ice cream.

“But you didn’t warm it up,” Faith protested. “The ice cream is supposed to melt.”

“Tastes fine. Now let’s talk about your adventure this morning. Millicent filled me in, but I want to hear it from you.”

Faith described what she now considered her marathon and ended with a new idea.

“It had to be somebody I know.”

Tom nodded. “I thought of that right away. Otherwise, why not come out immediately and why take so much trouble to hide each time you stopped? You didn’t even catch a glimpse of any clothing, right?”

“No, not even the size of the person, although to make that much noise, he or she couldn’t have been too small. But that doesn’t give us much to go on.”

Charley was getting depressed. Things were totally out of control. “I’ve called Dunne and should hear back from him this afternoon. What are your plans for today? Going to stay put?”

“No,” said Faith.

“Yes,” said Tom.

They looked at each other and smiled for the first time since Faith had come in the door.

“I have got to get out of the house,” she said. Out of the town, too, she added to herself. Aleford had lost some of its charm lately. “I want to go someplace with lots of people, where no one knows us. Someplace indoors. No nature walks.”

Tom nodded. Faith was right.

“The Boston Museum of Science it is, then,” he said. “I can’t think of anyplace more crowded on a Saturday