190.

Brad Hallowell and Ellen Phyfe disagreed. Faith had expected it from Brad, but she was surprised at Ellen.

"We've worked so hard," Ellen said. It must have been all those envelopes she'd stuffed. "Don't you think we should see it through just in case?"

Brad seconded her vehemently. "Everything's in place. We can have this thing nailed down by this time next week, and I wouldn't put it past the Deanes to use Joey's death to get everybody on their side-a big play for sympathy. Then zap, we've got Alefordiana Estates and the bog is literally history."

Tom stood up. "I, for one, will have no part of any further efforts of POW! I can't condone taking advantage of a man's death, even for a cause I may have thought was worthwhile. I strongly advise you to hold off. The town is divided enough-and frightened."

"I agree with the Reverend," Millicent declared. "Nothing's going to happen overnight, and we are ready if something does. As you point out, Ellen, we have worked hard, and much of that is due to the efforts of those in this room."

"Margaret wouldn't have wanted us to stop," Nelson said in a surprisingly strong, firm voice from the corner of the room where he'd been sitting silently since the meeting began.

"Are you sure?" Faith asked. "Don't you think the murders-and the attack on you, her own husband-would have led her to the same conclusion most of us have reached? My own feeling is that we have to find out who's behind all this and solve the crimes before doing anything else. That's what I intend to concentrate on."

"Margaret hated Joey Madsen. I can't say she would have mourned him too much."

Tom was quickly losing patience with the gathering. "Margaret was a member of our church, and as a woman of faith, I would not have expected her to like the man, but I know she would not have taken any pleasure in his death. Particularly in a case where murder was involved."

191.

Nelson seemed to come to. He looked chagrined. "Of course she wouldn't. I don't know what I've been saying."

Faith felt a stab of pity for the man.

The meeting ended with a unanimous vote to suspend activities for the present, a grudging a.s.sent on Brad's part. " Everyone else seemed convinced. There was one amend- i ment. Instead of a telephone tree, Millicent decided it was ' only fair to hold one more meeting to put the matter before the full membership. Faith thought she probably enjoyed these get-togethers and wanted one last night onstage. It could be a long time before POW! met again. t She stood up and pulled on the denim Comme des Gar- I gons jacket she had worn. "The sitter is taking the kids to r the big playground and I said I'd meet them there, so I have to run." It was almost noon.

The room emptied, leaving Millicent, Brad, and the Scotts to set up the agenda for Monday night. Tom was , returning to his sermon. He was pleased with the way things were turning out. Faith was pleased, too-plus, she ' had a plan she was beginning to mull over. *

The quickest way to the playground was on the new bike r path. The old tracks from the commuter train that had gone to Boston's North Station had been taken up and replaced ! with macadam. It was so new that few Alefordians had started to use it. Any innovation, no matter how useful or pleasurable, took a while to catch on. She went through ! Depot Square and entered the path. Any bikers, or walkers, ; were busy eating lunch. She felt hungry herself and began to think what she should make. Croque-monsieurs, the French version of toasted cheese sandwiches, weren't the most healthy choice-cheese, b.u.t.ter, smoked ham-and if ' they had croque-madames, a fried egg, too-but it was what she wanted to eat today. They'd have a big salad too.

She'd come to the part of the bike path she liked best. < the="" trees="" on="" either="" side="" would="" be="" covered="" with="" blossoms="" soon.="" it="" was="" the="" wildest="" part="" of="" the="" byway-no="" houses="" and="" no="" entry="" on="" or="" off="" the="" path.="" it="" was="" wooded="" on="" both="" sides;="" the="" children="" liked="" to="" explore="" here="" and="" they'd="" discovered="" a="">

ft small pond with ducks one day that had now become a frequent destination. She began to walk more rapidly. The sky was growing overcast and she didn't have an umbrella. It had been sunny and warm when she'd left the house.

There was a sudden rustling sound in the trees to the left of her. She knew it was absurd, but she felt nervous and picked up her pace even more. The rustling increased and followed suit. She stopped. It stopped. Now she was panicky. There was no way out. No houses. No way to get off the path until the next cross street-a long distance ahead. She couldn't run off into the woods on the right side. If someone was following her, there was nothing to stop the pursuit and she'd be even farther away from help. She looked into the woods, venturing to take a step closer, but she could see nothing beyond the trees. Whoever it was stayed hidden, taking great care not to be recognized. The thought chilled her.

Faith started walking again, then ran. Ran flat out. The watcher in the woods increased speed. When and where would the attack come? Her heart was 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.

193.

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 a.s.sailant. 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 b.u.t.ton 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.

194.

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 pa.s.sed, Faith was puzzled. There had been plenty of time before Millicent happened by. Had it been some sort of s.a.d.i.s.t 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 gra.s.s off to the side of the path. Millicent's bike was resting majestically 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."

195.

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 Maclsaac. 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 monkey 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.

196.

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 Maclsaac arrived in time for a bowl of squash soup, bread, and cheese.

"What do you call this? It's good."

"b.u.t.ternut 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.

197.

"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 Sat.u.r.day afternoon than that, except the Children's Museum maybe, but we were just there, or the Aquarium, only I'm not in the mood for sharks."

"Neither am I," his wife agreed.

It was late, but Faith and Tom were still sitting up in the kitchen. They'd eaten at Figs in Charlestown, great thin-crust pizza-tonight's the house specialty: figs and pro-sciutto with Gorgonzola cheese.

There wasn't a sinkful of dirty dishes staring them in the face, but that was the prevailing mood in the room. The kids were finally asleep-wired after the museum, even Amy.

"Hungry?" Faith asked in a desultory voice. She knew the answer.

"No, thanks. Want anything to drink?"

Faith thought for a moment. The occasion didn't call for champagne. "Pour me some seltzer, will you? The pro-sciutto made me thirsty. I'm going to get some paper. Maybe if we write this all down, we'll be able to make some sense out of it."

"I doubt it, but you get the pad and I'll pour the libations."

Faith was a great believer in organization. She couldn't cook in a messy kitchen, and while she didn't always measure ingredients, when she committed a recipe to print, 198.

everything was precise. She approached crime the same way.

"All right, let's list the targets. In some cases, he or she was successful; in some, not."

"Thank G.o.d," Tom said. "But shouldn't we list suspects? Isn't that the way it's usually done?"

"Do you want to help or not?" Faith was understandably abrupt after the day she'd had.

"I want to help. It was only a suggestion. Targets it is. Much easier, too."

"That's the idea." Faith patted his hand. "Now, the first was Margaret, then Nelson, then Joey, then me."

"What about the people who received the letters, and Lora?"

"For now we'll start with bodily harm, known attempts; then we can add all the other information." She folded the paper into columns and wrote each name at the top. ' 'Think suspects, means, motive, opportunity-all the stuff you read about. Also, anything else that comes to mind. For instance, Margaret got one of the letters." Faith wrote "letter" in the column, followed by "threat"-that "if you want to stay healthy" business. The Batcheldors' letter had been the only one to contain a threat. Faith put an asterisk next to the threat and wrote, "Same wording as Lora's calls" at the bottom of the page, after another asterisk.

She continued. ' 'Now, in terms of suspects, it could have been anyone in Aleford. Maybe we can get at it through motive."

"The only scenario I can think of is that Joey, or someone else in the family, came across the arson attempt too late to do anything about saving the house, hit her- maybe not with the intent to kill her-then got panicky and left when it became clear she was dead."

"I agree, and therefore, the likeliest suspect is Joey."

"Okay, but what about the attack on Nelson? Let's a.s.sume it's the same person. Nelson has said over and over that he has no idea who would have wanted to harm Mar- 199.

garet, so what would the murderer gain from Nelson's death? Nelson doesn't know anything."

"Gain-that's what's missing. Usually there's a common link there. Who would profit from Margaret's death? n.o.body. The same with Nelson's. Unless the Batcheldors have all sorts of hidden a.s.sets. Certainly they spent a fortune in bird seed, but apart from that, they never threw money around."

' 'True, but the link may not be gain. It could simply be to avoid exposure."

"You certainly seem to have the lingo down, darling."