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 Queen Mary, and the other from Caesar's Palace. "A widely traveled family with broad tastes and maybe a sense of humor."

Sam and Fix 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.e.xual acts he may or may not have performed with Lora Deane, although given Lora's transformation on Sat.u.r.day, 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 Maclsaac, 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?

139.

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, the others only the second time. It suggested a precise person, someone who said only what he or she meant. A friend the first go-round, now a foe. But enmity toward Brad from the beginning. That could mean one of the Deanes, especially Lora's grandfather or brothers, but they hadn't known about the calls when the first letters were received.

The Deanes. Who lived in the apartment on Chandler Street? The letters and Lora seemed to be unconnected, but she kept popping up.

Faith tore a piece of paper from a pad on the counter and wrote: "apartment," "signature," "other letters?" and then "Brad." She paused and after a moment jotted down "Margaret-meeting whom?" This last was a reminder to find out whether the police had located Margaret's birding companion. Nelson had said she was going to meet someone. Who? She tucked the paper in her pocket. She knew she wouldn't forget it.

Faith looked at the phone hanging on the wall and willed it to ring. It was one of the ones they hadn't replaced. A dial phone. Ben viewed it as a priceless antique. So did Tom.

She gazed, unseeing, out the window again. The same names kept coming up over and over. A couple of these people were turning up on both her suspect and victim list: Lora Deane, Brad Hallowell. Lora's family. And they had all been together this morning at the breakfast and on the green.

The phone rang at eleven. Faith was cleaning out the pantry by now and Sam owed Fix two thousand dollars. Dale and the kids were watching the Marathon.

This time it was Tom. He started speaking right away.

"He's alive. He's still in danger, but there's hope."

"Oh, Tom, thank G.o.d! What was it?" All morning she'd held on to the slim possibility that Nelson had had a heart 140.

attack or something else natural, however unwelcome. Then the whole affair could be a ghastly coincidence.

It wasn't.

"He was poisoned. They've pumped his stomach and are a.n.a.lyzing the contents."

"Poison!" A crystal clear picture of her husband giving the victim mouth-to-mouth flashed into Faith's mind. "Tom, is there any possibility that you ..."

Tom had had his own uneasy moments. "I'm fine. They won't even tell me what they think it is, not yet anyway, but the doctor said he didn't believe I was in any danger. Whatever it was, you had to have had a lot of it."

"But how could he have been poisoned right before our eyes?"

"Exactly," Tom said grimly.

"His flask. He was carrying one of those pewter flasks!"

"I'm sure the police are checking it. I've been out in the waiting room. I haven't even seen Charley since we came in. Dunne arrived a couple of hours ago and then left. There have been cops in and out ever since. They took everything Nelson was wearing or carrying away, including his musket"

"Maybe Charley will tell you more when you do see him."

"Possibly. I'm going to stay a bit longer. Nelson's still unconscious, but he could come around in the next few hours, and I want to be here." Tom had been feeling a bit incongruous sitting in the hospital in his Minuteman garb, but he didn't want to take the time to go home to change. It wasn't important enough for Faith to bring him his clothes, either. They'd been listening to the Marathon at the nurses' station near the waiting room too. Everyone knew it was Patriots' Day. He prayed for it to pa.s.s swiftly and safely.

Faith hung up the phone and went to tell the others. How were they ever going to get through this long, long day? Waiting for the call had given them some focus. Now there were only empty hours ahead.

141.

"Poisoned?" Fix said, shocked. "When would someone have had the opportunity? Unless it was extremely long-acting. But he would have been showing some symptoms. Did he look any different to you, Faith?"

Faith thought for a moment. "He looked tired, but not really any different from how he's looked since Margaret died. I can't imagine that he's been sleeping well. Yet he was definitely moving more slowly." Nelson, and Margaret, too, walked with brisk, purposeful strides-the strides of people who have feeders to fill, bookshelves to build. She remembered watching him leave the hall at St. Theresa's, and while not exactly dragging his feet, he wasn't rushing off to battle as were some of his fellow militiamen. She hadn't been feeling especially perky herself at that hour in the morning, so she'd taken no notice of it until now.

"But he didn't seem to be in pain, particularly gastric pain?"

"No, I would have noticed that."

"Did you see him eat anything?''

Faith started to answer, then stopped herself. Who was supposed to be asking the questions here, anyway? After solving two murders, Fix had returned from Sanpere Island last summer ready to tackle anything from the case of Judge Crater to what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. Faith loved her friend dearly, but she wasn't about to hand over her magnifying gla.s.s.

Fortunately, Samantha came into the room, effectively stopping her mother's persistent line of inquiry. Faith half-listened to the teenager while thinking about Fix's question. She had not, in fact, seen Nelson eat or drink anything, but there were several rooms off the main hall and she had been in and out of them. It was possible he'd taken a doughnut, some coffee, or juice, all of which were in the main hall. He wasn't at St. Theresa's when she'd arrived and she never saw him with eggs and sausage later, so if the flask wasn't poisoned, it was most probably one of those three. Pretty hard to poison a doughnut, particularly one fresh 142.

from a box from a national chain. Coffee or juice, but again how, with a cop next to him and Nelson himself presumably keeping a close watch?

"It will be perfectly safe! Anyway, they're after you, Mom, not me," Samantha's voice penetrated Faith's speculations. Whoever said children were honest was right. Ruthlessly honest.

"I just called Jan and the car will pick me up here or at home. No one will even open a window, and the driver's an auxiliary policeman anyway," Samantha was pleading. She turned to her father. "Please, Dad, this is the last parade I'll ever be in."

"I certainly hope not," he said dryly.

"You know what I mean!"

Fix sighed. "The whole thing is so crazy. I can't imagine that anyone could want to harm us, but we-or, as you aptly point out, sweetheart, I-did get the letter. I'd like to a.s.sume Nelson was his or her intended victim and get on with my life, and my family's, but my correspondent does not strike me as a particularly honorable or trustworthy person. What's to prevent him from striking tomorrow or the next day or the next? Can we keep living like this-in hiding?"

The Scotts could be out of town for quite a while, Faith reflected, because of course Fix was right. Murderers did not follow rules. Honorable, trustworthy-no, these were not words that sprang to mind.

"So you're saying I can go, right?" Samantha was surprised. She'd expected a lot more opposition, especially from her mother. For a moment, adolescent that she was, she wondered if she ought to go if her mother thought it was okay.

"Sam?" Fix walked over to her husband and took his hand.

"Closed car, comes here, brings her back. A cop at the wheel. Probably as safe as the yard," he answered. "But no getting out of the car. Anybody. Go to the bathroom before you leave."

143.

"Daddy!" Patrolman Dale Warren was in the room again and Samantha was mortified.

Danny came running into the room. "You're letting Samantha be in the parade and not me! It's not fair! You let her do everything!"

It was Sam's turn to dig his heels in. A closed car was one thing. A three-mile march straight up Main Street, even in the DARE contingent, was another.

Help came from an unexpected source. "Couldn't he come with me? There's plenty of room, and one of our cla.s.s projects was peer counseling with kids at his school. He could even wear his DARE T-shirt."

Everyone looked at Danny to see if he'd accept the compromise. Faith was getting a glimpse of a future she'd just as soon learn about when she got there-many years from now.

"Okay," he said. "Those cars are cool. Wait till I tell Mark. He's gonna wish he was here, too."

" 'Going to,' dear," Fix said automatically, thanking G.o.d her oldest son was safely in New Haven.

"This solves one problem, anyway," Sam commented as the kids left the room for the phone.

"What?" Fix asked curiously. Something his lawyer's mind had picked up on that she'd missed?

' 'Now we have something to do this afternoon. We'll be glued to the TV, watching the parade to make sure the kids are all right. Can we stay for lunch, Faith? I think we're going to need nourishment.

The parade started from East Aleford at about two o'clock and usually reached the green about three. Promptly at 1:30, a gleaming turquoise-and-white 1955 Chevy Bel Air picked Samantha and Danny up. Amy had gone for her nap and Ben was complaining about missing the parade. They usually watched from the front steps of the church.

"I'll take you out when the clowns come," Faith promised.

"And I want to see Samantha and Danny. I want to be 144.

in the parade. Why can't I be in the parade?"

"You can when your legs get a little longer," Faith answered. The Aleford Minutemen marched, all in their proper uniforms for the parade, wives and children behind them.

Tom had called again to report that there was nothing to report and said he'd b& home soon. That had been an hour ago.

Faith looked in the refrigerator and decided on big overstuffed sandwiches. She had some dark rye and piled thick slices of smoky Virginia ham, sharp cheddar cheese, lettuce, with some spicy chutney on the bread. She set the table, putting out bowls of cherry tomatoes and Cape Cod potato chips-an indoor picnic.

Sam was starting his second sandwich and finishing his first beer-Sam Adams lager, in honor of the day-when Tom walked in the back door. They all started talking at once.

' Til tell you everything; just give me a minute. If I don't get out of these clothes, I'm going to develop a serious rash. Even with my long underwear, this wool itches like crazy. Now I know why our ancestors all have such pained expressions in their portraits. I thought it was ill-fitting teeth, but they were merely waiting for a break to scratch."

From the way Tom was speaking, Nelson must be out of danger, Faith thought.

' 'Do you want a sandwich?'' she asked.

"At least two," he called back over his shoulder.

When he returned, the first person to demand his attention was Ben, who had been doing Legos in a corner of the kitchen.

"Mom says we can't watch the parade from the church," he told his father woefully.

Tom and Faith looked at each other over the little tyrant's head. Guilt, guilt, guilt.

"I told him I would take him to see the clowns-and Samantha and Danny, if the senior-cla.s.s car isn't too far away from the clown contingent," Faith explained.

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"That's going to have to be it for this year, Ben. You know Mr. Batcheldor is sick and we have a lot of grownup worries right now."

This plus a promise of cotton candy appeased the boy enough to send him back to his construction. Faith set Tom's food on the table and all of them looked at him expectantly.

"Chloral hydrate. But that's not to leave this room." Everyone nodded solemnly.

"A Mickey Finn," Sam said. "Of lethal proportions." He liked to read mysteries from the thirties and forties.

"Exactly. Nelson was regaining consciousness and I went in to see him. Charley and Dunne were both there asking him questions, which is how I found out. It must have been put in something he ate at the breakfast, because it acts quickly and there was no trace of it in his flask. They were trying to get him to remember what he'd had, but he was pretty out of it."

"It is still used to help people sleep, though," Fix said. "My mother had some in the medicine cabinet from my father's last illness, until I made her throw it out. It was in a brown bottle, a red liquid. Father used to complain about the cherry taste. That would be pretty easy to put into Nelson's juice."

Faith thought of Ben's bright red mustache. The cloy-ingly sweet juice would have masked the flavor of just about anything.

"But pretty hard to top up the man's drink in a crowded room without attracting some attention," Sam said.

"It also came in capsules, but those were too hard for father to swallow at that point," Fix remembered. She also remembered her children and jumped to her feet. "It's after two o'clock; maybe the cable company will be televising the beginning of the parade."

They all crowded into the small room with the TV to watch. At first, all Faith could see were fezzes. The Shriners made up a good fourth of the parade-Shriners dressed as Minutemen, Shriners in tiny Model T Fords, Shriners play- 146.

ing bagpipes, Shriners on floats, Shriners on motorcycles, and her own favorite-Shriners playing snake charmer's flutes dressed in Arabian Nights costumes with gold leather shoes that curled high in the air at the toe. A huge model of the Shriners' Burn Inst.i.tute adorned yet another float. The fezzes were mingling with huge bunches of balloons carried by vendors, banners, musical instruments, and flags-so many that at times the screen was filled with nothing but red, white, and blue.

"There they are!" Fix cried. They had a fleeting glimpse of the car, now decorated with blue and gold streamers and other Aleford High insignia. Danny and Samantha were just visible, wedged in the midst of the other occupants. Everyone was smiling. The camera panned to the Aleford High Drum and Bugle Corps behind them and a group of pint-sized twirlers. Two of them dropped their batons. The Patriots' Day Parade had started. The screen went blank for an instant and then the morning's reenactment appeared.

"They won't show any more until they reach the center," Faith said, staying to watch the reenactment, as she hadn't earlier. She'd been too eager to tell the police to get a tape. Everyone else stayed, too.

It was like watching something that had occurred months or even years ago, Faith thought. Just as it had been that morning, the figures on the green were scarcely visible in the darkness; then as the day dawned and the action started, the players appeared. Nelson had answered in the roll call, but the camera was on Gus Deane, so it was impossible to see how Nelson looked. His voice sounded a bit reedy and weak, but the sound quality was not the best. Faith saw him take his place in the line; then the musket fire started and it was impossible to see anyone. She wished she had thought to tape it herself. She wanted to go back over it.

Nelson didn't look well when the smoke cleared and seemed to stumble as he obeyed Captain Sewall's commands.

She left the room to call the cable company to find out 147.

when it would be broadcast again. She had a feeling it would be replayed often today.

Ben was sitting in the corner. With Tom home, she could take her son out to the celebration for a while. Not that she felt like celebrating, but she definitely felt like getting out.

They walked across the green toward the reviewing stand, stopping to get Ben his cotton candy. He pulled gauzy pink pieces of it away from the cardboard tube it was wound around. Some was already in his hair. Faith pulled a piece off, too, and for a moment the grainy sweetness on her tongue tasted good, a reminder of family outings-carnivals, the Jersey sh.o.r.e. She swallowed. It was enough.

"Come over here by the curb. We'll be able to see them and wave when they go by," Faith told Ben. They hadn't missed the clowns, more Shriners. They hadn't missed something else, too.

Millicent Revere McKinley, flag in hand, waving the other with practiced, stately mien, was standing on top of the reviewing platform. She was flanked by two state policemen and there was no mistaking the look of triumph in her eyes.

148.

Seven.

It had been a long day and it was a long night. The Millers and escort went back home after the parade, only to return for supper at Faith's insistence. She would have liked to have stayed by Fix's side until midnight, but Fix had declared that doing nothing was exhausting and she wanted to go to bed early. Devoted friend that she was, Faith could not see herself lying across the bottom of the Millers' connubial four-poster. In any case, one or more of the dogs usually occupied that position. Dale was relieved by someone from the state police, and Faith tossed and turned all night, afraid the phone would ring.

Somehow, she got everyone off to work and school the next morning, then presented herself at Millicent's for the meeting to compose the letter for POW!'s town-wide mailing. She felt even more bedraggled when Millicent opened the door, starched, every hair in place. The exultant look Faith had seen on her face the day before had, if anything, intensified. And she not only had energy; she was raring to go. Faith considered leaving, pleading a sudden indisposition. Then Brad appeared at the end of Millicent's walk and Faith felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. She had work to do.