Brad had his laptop. They were all sitting around Milli- 149.

cent's dining-room table. She'd pointedly got out the table pads when she'd seen the computer.

"Don't want to mar the surface. Mahogany, you know."

Faith looked at the highly polished surface. Millicent's whole house reeked of beeswax. Mahogany veneer, maybe.

After this operation, Millicent sat at the head of the table and opened a bulging folder.

"Now, we want to be forceful, but we don't want to alienate people."

"Before we get to the letter, how did you convince the police to let you onto the reviewing stand yesterday?" Faith couldn't help herself. She knew she was playing right into Millicent's crafty little hands, but she had to ask.

Millicent gave Brad a slight smile. There was a trace of pity in it. She'd arranged for him to be on the platform, too, in recognition of all the work he'd done on the parade and other events. Unfortunately, Brad had had to contend not only with the police but his mother. He'd been lucky to go to the bathroom unescorted and he'd had to sneak out the back door this morning for the meeting.

Yet mostly, Millicent's smile conveyed superiority. a.s.suming her rightful place on the platform in the face of all obstacles was one of her more minor accomplishments-a piece of cake.

' 'I called the state police and talked to that nice Detective Dunne. He understood completely. I also mentioned I was leaving the house and the young man they'd sent would have to forcibly restrain me to keep me here."

Faith could imagine the scene. Millicent could match wits but not muscle. She was thin and had those angular bones that looked as if they would snap in a strong wind. And she would have put up a fight. No doubt about it. Dunne had obviously pictured the ill-matched pair rolling about the well-worn Oriental, dodging furniture and knick-knacks, the poor officer trying not to do any damage to them or their owner.

"So you just left?"

"No, I didn't have to. John very nicely sent a car for 150.

me, which was ridiculous. It was only across the green, but he insisted. He also sent another policeman. I promised him I would return home immediately afterward and that seemed to satisfy him. 'Millie,' he said, 'we just don't want anything to happen to you.' So thoughtful."

John Dunne was also in the select group that was permitted to shorten Millicent's name.

Having cleared this up, Millicent got back to business.

"Now, as I was saying, we need to find the right approach. Our original broadside was effective, but this occasion calls for greater subtlety."

After several tries, they came up with an acceptable letter. It was straightforward, avoided inflammatory statements, but was strong, ending with the warning: "If we do not act now on behalf of Aleford's future inhabitants, they may not have an Aleford to inhabit."

Brad had thought of the phrase and he was enjoying the sound. He repeated the words several times like a mantra.

Faith had been struck by two things about Brad during the meeting. First, he was clearly very bright. The other feeling she had about him was harder to define. He had mentioned that he spent a great deal of time playing certain Dungeons and Dragons-type games with fellow enthusiasts on the Internet. He seemed to regard POW! as another kind of game, talking about strategies for winning, tactical maneuvers, and referring to those not in agreement as opponents. He cautioned Faith not to talk about what was in the letter. It would lessen the impact, he'd said, but she felt that was a ploy. Secrecy added drama. Millicent played right along.

"I certainly wouldn't want Joey Madsen and his people to find out what's in our mailing. They'd be certain to send out one of their own contradicting everything and getting everyone all muddled about the facts." She gave Faith a piercing look.

Faith had every intention of telling Dunne and maybe Tom, yet kept quiet. Word wouldn't get to Joey from them.

"I'm sure Joey will be sending out a mailing, or at least 151.

will write to the Chronicle. And since he's a Town Meeting member, we can expect a good floor fight" Brad was relishing the moment.

He's immature, Faith thought suddenly. That's his biggest problem. It is all a game to him. He likes to pit the grown-ups against one another and watch. She didn't doubt his sincere commitment to the environment, but something else was going on-intrigue, danger, real threats. The monitor screen come to life. He'd spoken of the letters with the same enthusiasm he'd reserved for his computer games.

"If whoever it is had used e-mail, I could have cracked this thing by now. The person may not have it, or may have known what I would do." He seemed to think the first possibility absurd, despite sitting in the same room with two people who still licked stamps.

Faith was getting a little tired of him. He was so single-minded. Maybe Miss Lora was a better judge of character than Faith had previously given her credit for-judging her primarily on the depth of her relationships with preschool children. Maybe his boyishness had attracted her, besides his obvious good looks, then she'd gotten bored. Certainly the looks were here, though. His dark hair curled damply obviously fresh from a shower and he smelled like Ivory soap. His shirtsleeves were rolled up. Those muscles didn't come from keyboarding.

"I think we all deserve a good hot cup of tea after this work," Millicent offered. Faith accepted. She wanted the caffeine and she wanted some time alone with Brad.

He sat. fooling with his laptop. He didn't appear to be in need of conversation. Faith plunged right in.

"My son, Benjamin, is in Lora Deane's preschool cla.s.s. She's a wonderful teacher. I understand your anonymous letter referred to her." Faith watched his expression closely and saw his surprise. Whatever he had expected her to introduce as a topic of conversation, it was not Miss Lora.

"Yeah, well," he stammered, and looked about the room. There was no help forthcoming from the breakfront or the row of extra chairs, each at exactly the same distance 152.

from the wall. "I mean, we went out for a while, that's all. The letter was pretty crude." He grinned, then re-collected himself. Faith was a minister's wife. "Filthy lies, all of it."

Faith waited. Sometimes this worked. It did now. He started talking again, filling the empty air between them. His fingers were still hovering over the keyboard.

"She's the one who broke it off. Just left word on the machine that she didn't want to go out anymore. No discussion. Nothing." His anger was evident. "I pity the next guy who gets involved with that-I mean with her."

He remembered Faith's original remark and added, "Oh, she's good with kids." It was not something he seemed to feel was especially noteworthy. He began to drum his fingers on the table. He was a nail-biter. Lora would have cured him of that, Faith thought. A few applications of some nasty-tasting stuff-but her mind was wandering.

"So you wouldn't want to get back with her?"

"Did she ask you to speak to me?" His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Anyway, it's too late. Way too late."

Before Faith could ask him why, Millicent appeared with the tea tray. For three meager cups, she was as loaded down as for a banquet. There was a pitcher of hot water, a smaller one of milk, a plate of thinly sliced lemons, a strainer and stand, two sugar bowls-one for white, one for unrefined- tongs, cups, saucers, linen napkins, a cozy, and the pot itself.

"Now," she said brightly, "how do you take it?"

Faith wasn't altogether sure.

She had hoped to get some more time alone with Brad Hallowell, so Faith had consumed more tea than she wanted. But finally she had to leave to pick up the kids. Brad showed no intention of following her example. It had been foolish to think they would discuss the inner workings of POW! in front of her, if there were any. Keeping Brad by her side was more likely Millicent showing off and a reluctance to return home on his part. She stood up to leave and Millicent's phone rang. When 153.

Miss McKinley excused herself to answer it, Faith sat back down, hoping for a long conversation. Picking up where they had left off, she had just started to explain to Brad that no, Lora had not sent her and to ask why he'd said it was too late to get back together with such finality, when Millicent came through the doorway. Brad looked relieved. Millicent stood behind her chair, her hands clenched around the back. There was a grim set to her mouth.

"This is not good news, I'm afraid. Not good for POW! at all."

"Nelson! Is he dead!" Faith cried.

"No, nothing like that." Millicent waved her hand dismissively. "Apparently, over the weekend one of the Deanes' pieces of heavy equipment was vandalized-an excavator. Someone cut the hydraulic hoses on the boom. I gather it's a very expensive repair. They're blaming us, of course." Millicent seemed extremely conversant with the technical jargon relating to construction work, Faith thought. She did get the idea, though. Person or persons unknown had sliced the things that made the steam shovel lift its load.

Brad leaned forward and pounded the table so hard his computer shook. Millicent looked askance. "And you know the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds did it themselves! Probably was one that didn't work anyway and they're out to collect more insurance money!"

Faith doubted this. Gus Deane did not strike her as the type of man who would cripple the way in which he earned his living. If a machine was broken, he'd fix it. She'd often heard him extol the virtues of owning your own machinery, being your own boss.

But it was getting late. She had to get Ben and Amy.

As she walked back along Main Street, she tried to think what connection this new piece of the puzzle had to the others. Tampering with the steam shovel was an indirect attack on POW!-which would, it was true, be suspected immediately. The letter writer was also attacking the group in writing and for real. Did this mean the same person? At 154.

least the latest attack was on an inanimate object.

She'd left Millicent and Brad earnestly discussing POWI's response-ignore it or issue a statement? Neither of these two anonymous-letter recipients seemed in the least bit nervous about their own well-being, or perhaps they a.s.sumed since Patriots' Day was over, the threat was gone, too.

Millicent had told them Nelson wasn't being allowed any visitors. She had called the hospital and she reported, "He's out of danger and should be at tomorrow night's meeting." Faith didn't let on that Tom had seen him yesterday. Millicent liked to be the bearer of tidings, not the recipient.

Faith crossed the green, avoiding the spot where Nelson had fallen. How did this attack fit into the puzzle? And Margaret, the first death. Had Nelson discovered something about the ident.i.ty of her killer? But if he had, he wouldn't have kept it to himself, would he? Unless it was someone he knew, knew well. Faith felt depressed. Things seemed to be turning out like one of those bargains you picked up at a yard sale-a gorgeous, expensive jigsaw of the cathedral at Chartres that, after many hours of hard work, you'd find was missing the last few pieces of the rose window.

The sky was gray and it looked like rain was on the way again. She'd hoped to check out the bog today, maybe taking Fix and the dogs along with the kids. The weather would make it impossible. Nor could she return to the Chandler Street apartment and make discreet inquiries. Children did not know the meaning of the word discreet and tended to get in the way. She'd try to go into town tomorrow morning.

Any question of whether Miss Lora had heard about the latest attack on her family was answered by the teacher's first words to Faith, whispered furiously after the precaution "Little pitchers have big ears." And what did that mean, anyway? Faith wondered. "I know you weren't involved or Reverend Fairchild, but you have got to tell your group to leave us alone. I don't know what my grandfather's going to do, and Joey is ready to kill somebody!"

155.

Faith didn't doubt it. "I was just with Millicent McKin-ley and Brad Hallowell. They are as shocked and upset as I am. I'm sure POW! didn't have anything to do with this. Does the construction company have any enemies you can think of? Another company that wanted a particular contract? Or maybe it was kids, too many beers on Patriots' Day weekend?"

Lora stared at Faith in disbelief and forgot to whisper. "Give me a break! POW! is the only enemy we have and the only group nutty enough to do all this. Besides, a bunch of loaded teenagers would try to start the thing for kicks or spray-paint it."

Faith quickly bundled Ben away, picked Amy up, and tried to reach Tom. He wasn't in his office and she a.s.sumed he must have gone to the hospital to see Nelson.

It wasn't a day for a walk in the bog, but it was a good day for work. She was not going to be at POW!'s meeting tomorrow, Wednesday night-a meeting that had a.s.sumed dramatic proportions. Have Faith was catering dessert and coffee for a library-endowment-fund function. Besides that, there was the real Patriots' Day dinner party they were preparing for on Friday night-April nineteenth.

When she opened the door at the company kitchen, she found Niki busy making pastry cream for the following evening. It would fill small tarts topped with raspberries. The former premises of Yankee Doodle Kitchens that Faith had taken over was large and well equipped. She'd added a play area for the kids at one end and had managed to convince Ben that coming to work with Mommy was an extraordinary treat. There were toys and books here he didn't have at home; plus, he might sometimes get to lick a spoon. Niki held out one to him now.

"Pretty sucky weather," she commented glancing out the window at the sheets of rain pouring down. "Oops, forgot the kids were here. Should say, Pretty inclement today, what ho."

"What ho," Faith said. She thought it was pretty sucky weather, too, and wondered if she was one of those people 156.

who suffered from light deprivation. There hadn't been much sunshine so far this spring. But then, there were plenty of other things to account for her mood. She took Ben and Amy to their corner, depositing her daughter in the playpen for a nap and settling Ben with his Lincoln Logs. She looked at the two of them and tried to remember what Ben had been like at Amy's age. Same, silken flax-colored hair and same sweet baby smell. It went so fast, too fast. She gave them each a kiss.

"Is Fix coming?" Niki asked when Faith returned.

"No, she has a conference with Danny's English teacher. It seems he's adopted the role of cla.s.s clown and the teacher doesn't find it amusing. Fix doesn't, either, but she also thinks he's bored. If anyone can handle this, Fix can- simultaneous curriculum revamping and humble-pie consumption."

"Speaking of which, what are we serving for dessert Friday night? Have you decided?"

"Yes. A plate of three sorbets: cranberry, apple, and blueberry-New England fruits, garnished with fresh fruit. And since people want something decadent for dessert, even here, those chocolate crunch cookies. We can do half with white chocolate."

"Yum," Niki said. "They're toothsome, and speaking of toothsome morsels, I saw your Miss Lora at Avalon Sat.u.r.day night. And she wasn't wearing a smock."

A week ago, Faith would have dismissed Niki's observation, yet now she knew it was entirely possible that Miss Lora was spending her free time dancing at this Boston hot spot and not doing the loopty-loo at home.

"You're sure?"

"Of course I am." Niki was always sure. "At first, I didn't recognize her without her gla.s.ses and those Mr. Green Jeans outfits she usually wears, but it was her, or she, whatever. Cool dress, ended just below her a.s.s, Mylar or something shiny. Definitely spandex."

Faith was going to Chandler Street even if she did have to tote her offspring.

157.

Early the next morning, as soon as the kitchen door closed behind Tom and her brood, Faith grabbed a light jacket and got in the car. She followed the same route they had taken on Sat.u.r.day, slowed now by morning commuters. She turned down Clarendon and started searching the side streets for a parking place. Every empty s.p.a.ce was either resident permit only or a tow zone. Finally, she spotted one on Tremont by the Boston Center for the Arts, pulled in seconds before the car behind her could cut her off, and got out.

Niki had described the man Lora Deane had been with at Avalon and it sounded like the same person she'd been with earlier on Sat.u.r.day. When Faith had asked Niki if he could possibly be Lora's brother, Niki had had a hard time stopping laughing. "If it was her brother, they're giving new meaning to 'incest is best,' " she'd told Faith wickedly. Hiring Niki had been one of the smartest things she'd ever done, Faith thought as she walked back toward Chandler. Work was never dull.

She did have a plan for this morning, and to that end, she had brought her clipboard. Today she'd be a graduate student doing research on feelings of community in Boston's neighborhoods. How well do you know, say, the person downstairs? Whom can you turn to for help? That sort of thing. If she couldn't find out anything about the apartment by the end of an hour, she'd have to try another approach. But it was bound to work-if anyone was at home.

She pressed the buzzer of the apartment on the floor below. No answer. Then she tried the one above. Again nothing. She pressed the buzzer for Bridey Murphy, who was on the top floor. Her curiosity about this occupant was almost as strong as it was about Lora. Her ring was answered and she quickly pushed the front door open before it locked again. She walked into a neatly carpeted hall and up the stairs. The Deane apartment had the same hand-lettered sign on the door as on the mailbox. She went up two more flights. Bridey Murphy's door was ajar, chain in place.

158.

"Yes, what do you want?" a voice quavered.

Faith went into her routine.

"Well, I don't understand all you're saying, but I've lived in Boston neighborhoods my whole life. You'd better come in."

Bridey Murphy was a little old lady.

Faith resisted the temptation to say, So this is what became of Bridey Murphy-hoax or no hoax. Instead, she started to explain why she was there, or ostensibly why she was there. It really wasn't necessary. Bridey was obviously lonely and ready to talk to anyone about anything.

Her apartment was s.p.a.cious, although crowded with furniture-a large couch, easy chair, ottoman, end tables, bookcases, a formal oak dining-room set, the china closet crammed with plates, figurines, and cups. Lace curtains hung at the windows, doilies were in abundance, and hand-colored family photos from the twenties and thirties decorated the walls. Over the small fireplace, there was a large, elaborately framed chromolithograph of a little stone cottage nestled in the green hills of County something.

"I grew up in the West End. It's gone, of course. They just leveled it for the hospital, you know. Ma.s.s General. But that would be before your time. Now, the West End- that was a neighborhood. If you had a sc.r.a.pe and your own mother wasn't home, you could go into anyone's apartment and they'd give you a bandage and a cookie. Not like today."

She was off and running. All Faith needed to do was direct the course toward the present.

"So, you don't feel that close to the people around here? Even in your own building?"

"Not close, no. I know them all right, but that's not to say I know them. Sounds silly-"

Faith interrupted her. "They're just people you say h.e.l.lo to in the hall?"

"Exactly. Would you like a cup of tea, dear? And I've got some nice Irish soda bread. I'm Irish, you know, both sides. I guess you could tell from the name. I've gotten a 159.

lot of comments on that over the years, but I just say, 'Bridget-Bridey-Kathleen Murphy. That's the name I came into this world with and it's the one I plan to have when I go out.' Not that I didn't have my chances."

Faith looked at the woman's softly lined face and bright blue eyes. Her hair was still thick, although the curls were pure white now. She was sure Bridey had had her chances. She must have been very pretty.

"Never found anyone I thought I'd want to wake up to every day, and then, my own parents fought like cat and dog. Couldn't see living the same way. Maybe I'll be sorry when I'm older, but not so far. I like my independence."

If Bridey wasn't sorry yet, Faith doubted she ever would be. The woman was close to ninety if she was a day. The cane leaning against her chair was the only sign of any infirmity.

"Tea would be fine, but please let me make it."

Over the woman's protests, Faith got the tea and soon they were sitting at the kitchen table over their cups like two old friends.

"After I lost my apartment in the West End, I moved farther up on the Hill-Beacon Hill. It was a nice place, but I hated what was happening all around me. Thank the Lord my parents didn't live to see it. They loved the West End. Everyone together. It wasn't just the Irish. All races, all religions, you name it. Everybody got along. We never thought not to.

"I was working at Chandler's in those days, the bookkeeping department. Now, that was a lovely store. When they went out of business, I went over to Filene's, but it wasn't the same." Bridey sighed deeply.

This was a woman who still wore a hat and gloves to church, Faith thought. Bridey was neatly dressed in a navy skirt, white blouse, and pink cardigan with a little enameled forget-me-not brooch at her collar.