He had, and they decided to go to the Audubon Society's Drumlin Farm in nearby Lincoln after Amy's nap. Ben brightened up at the prospect of pigs and Faith was able to settle him in his bed with a book after lunch. She went back downstairs and found Tom putting the food away.

"I still can't figure out what Margaret and Nelson were up to," she said. The encounter with the Batcheldors had been the prime topic of lunch conversation, introduced by Ben as soon as he saw his father emerge from the study. Faith had endeavored to downplay the whole event, while punctuating the salient details with various dramatic facial expressions whenever the kids became distracted by the tri-colored fusili with Gorgonzola sauce she'd made, Ben's totally unaccountable favorite.

"Are you sure they were ski masks, not woolen hats pulled down low?" Tom asked.

"Of course I'm sure. I thought we had stumbled into the middle of some crazed neo-n.a.z.i maneuvers. When they got close, I could see they weren't wearing fatigues, but they were all in green. Now knowing how nuts Margaret is, I wouldn't put it past her to dress up like a particular bird she was hoping to add to her list, the olive-colored, black-capped bog sucker or some such thing. But given the mood of the meeting last night, I don't think they were birding today."

"But what?" Tom looked extremely troubled. Nelson Batcheldor was a member of the Vestry.

"Maybe they're planning some way to blow up the bog if Joey goes ahead with his plans."

"How would that help them?"

"I don't know, Tom. This is all supposition, and as far as I could tell, the only thing resembling a weapon was Margaret's heavy set of binoculars. Unless Nelson's camera is one of those James Bond types."

"You were in the woods, so they were coming from the bog itself. Maybe they're stockpiling things. Oh, this is too crazy. We know they're a little eccentric." Tom looked at

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Faith and amended his words, "Well, very eccentric, and they probably dress like that for bird-watching all the time. We've just never seen them before. And it was cold early this morning. I would have worn a ski mask, too, if I'd been out."

"You don't have a mask like that. Only robbers do. In fact, I wonder where you'd even get one." Faith was getting sidetracked into a realm of speculation she'd explored before. You're about to engage in criminal activity. Where do you shop? Walk into housewares at Jordan Marsh and ask for a good, long, sharp kitchen knife? And these masks. Soldier of Fortune mail order? For those necessities not covered by the Victoria's Secret catalog? She was about to expound on all this when the phone rang.

Faith answered it, and whatever she had planned to say about the Batcheldors' proclivities went clear out of her mind.

It was Fix and she was definitely agitated.

"Faith, is Tom home? I've got to talk to you both right away! You know Sam's in California; otherwise I wouldn't bother you."

This didn't sound either college- or middle school-related.

"What is it? What's happened?" Faith asked anxiously.

"I've just gotten a poison-pen letter," Fix answered, and burst into tears.

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Three.

Fix Miller was not a woman who cried without provocation-funerals, illnesses, seeing The Yearling once again. As soon as Fix had arrived, Faith put her arm around her friend and led her to the couch with only a fleeting thought to the number of females who seemed to be drenching the parsonage with their tears lately.

"It's the shock, I suppose." Fix reached around in her pocket, produced a crumpled handkerchief, and dabbed her eyes. "I was opening the mail and there was this thin envelope, and at first I thought, Oh dear, Samantha's been rejected. Then I noticed there wasn't a return address, and I opened it and ... well, here it is."

She handed the envelope, which she had clutched in her other hand, to Faith. Tom leaned over the back of the couch, reading over his wife's shoulder. It was a plain white business envelope addressed in ballpoint pen, block letters, to "Mrs. Samuel Miller," with the address.

Faith paused and put the envelope down. "It's hard to get prints from paper, but I think we should be careful anyway." She went into the kitchen and returned with a clean dust cloth, which she used to hold the paper by one corner as she eased it out of the envelope.

There was no doubt. It was venomous-a cla.s.sic of its sort, the letters neatly cut from magazines and newspapers.

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Occasionally, the writer had been fortunate enough to find an entire word. A few of the pieces were colored type, producing a collage effect. But it was not a work of art.

"CINDY" 's NOT DEAD. SAM is BETRAYING YOU.

DON'T TRUST YOUR HUSBAND.

A FRIEND.

"I know one thing"-Fix had given her eyes one final swipe and was giving an award-winning performance of her old self-"whoever wrote this horrible letter is certainly not a friend. The idea!"

Faith was staring at the letter.

"It really is strangely worded-'A friend' . .. 'betraying.' As if the person has some sort of quirky Victorian manual on how to write nasty letters-or watches a lot of daytime TV. And of course you don't believe it," Faith quickly rea.s.sured Fix.

Sam Miller had, in fact, had one brief, disastrous affair during his particularly b.u.mpy ride into middle age, but that had been several years ago. The young woman, Cindy, with whom Sam had chosen to dally had later ended up as a corpse in Aleford's own historic belfry, discovered, in fact, by Faith. The suggestion of current adultery was horrible by itself. Bringing up the murder was particularly loathsome.

"Not for a minute," Fix said staunchly. "Still, I wish he was home." Fix was incapable of lying. Coupled with her tendency to speak her mind, it often resulted in revealing self-confession. Faith did not have this problem.

Tom sat down on Fix's other side and took her hand. "There's no question that Sam is totally devoted-and faithful-to you. But letters like this are intended to plant seeds of doubt. It's only natural to want him right here. When will he be back?"

"Tomorrow night. But don't worry. Of course I want to look him straight in the eye, but even more, I just want him home. Who would do this to us?"

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"That's what we should be talking about." Faith thought it was time to get down to business. If they began to dwell too much on Sam, Fix would get weepy again and water those malicious seeds Tom had mentioned. "Do you have any idea at all?"

Fix shook her head slowly. "I never thought I had any enemies. You know, Tom, when you preached that sermon, 'Who Is My Enemy?' I thought it was going to be about what we fight against in ourselves. Oh, I agreed with what you said, that we can become our enemy-the thief, the slanderer, now the poison-pen wielder-if we don't forgive him, yet I truly can't think of anyone who would want to harm me."

Faith had to agree. Fix was one of the best-liked people in Aleford and one of the few about whom Faith had never heard a negative word. It was astonishing. Still volunteering in all sorts of organizations her children had outgrown- Fix had only recently stepped down as head of the cookie drive for the Girl Scouts, even though Samantha's uniform probably wouldn't even fit over her head-Fix was the person Aleford called for help, ideas, and comfort. Which reminded Faith, who said, "I heard you were running St. Theresa's blood drive this year? Are you switching pews?"

"My friend Martha Stanley was doing it, but you know she's scheduled for a hip replacement and she couldn't-"

"Find anybody else." Faith finished it up for her and they laughed. It was a welcome diversion.

Tom moved them back on track. Although he'd been pleased that someone not only remembered the t.i.tle of one of his sermons, but had listened. Still they were ranging a bit far afield. "The point is that although we'd be hard put to come up with anyone who had a grudge against you, or Sam, you did get the letter, and the first thing we have to do is tell Charley. Do you want to call him or would you like me to?"

The offending object was on the walnut coffee table in front of them, next to a clear gla.s.s vase of anemones just past their peak-elongated stems with petals splayed out in

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bright silk colors. A bowl of pears completed the still life. The letter looked as out of place as a p.o.r.no magazine.

"You, please," Fix said promptly, eyeing the missive with extreme distaste. "I don't mind Charley knowing. I suppose it is a police matter, but I'd just as soon not talk about it."

Faith thought it impolitic to mention that the moment Charley was on the scene she'd have to do a lot of talking. "How about a cup of coffee or tea while Tom is calling. Or are you hungry? Did you have lunch?"

Fix, a tall woman with a healthy appet.i.te looked surprised. Certainly she'd had lunch, as had the rest of Ale-ford-at noon when you were supposed to, but coffee sounded good. "I'd love a cup of coffee, if it's made."

Faith went out to start a fresh pot and put some mola.s.ses spice cookies on a plate while she was waiting for the water to get hot. Chief Maclsaac might come here rather than meet them down at the station. She added more cookies.

"Charley's on his way," Tom told her when she brought the tray into the living room.

Fix bit into a cookie, "Where are the kids?" she asked. She'd been so involved in her own problem that she'd forgotten about the younger Fairchilds, as much a part of the parsonage landscape as her children-and she counted the dogs-were of hers next door.

"Amy's still taking a good long nap in the afternoon and Ben's upstairs resting. He's been awfully quiet, which either means he's dropped off, too, or he's taking apart the VCR." At the moment with no audible sounds, Faith was letting well enough, or the opposite, alone.

The doorbell rang. Charley must have left as soon as he hung up the phone.

"So you've gotten one, too, Fix," he said as he walked toward the plate of cookies.

Faith was oddly relieved. Fix wasn't the only one. Find the common thread linking the recipients and they'd have their noxious correspondent.

"Who else?" she asked.

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"Now, Faith, you know I can't tell you that," Charley said, looking around for a st.u.r.dy chair. Unfortunately, the parsonage ran to spindly Hitchc.o.c.ks. He lowered himself into one of the wing chairs flanking the fireplace. He was a large man, brought up on the stick-to-your-ribs traditional fare of his native Nova Scotia. Food had been sticking to his ribs ever since, although he carried it well. As usual, he was in plain clothes, very plain clothes. His Harris tweed jacket was due for a good pressing and it was doubtful his shirt ever had.

"Let's see it," he said.

Tom motioned to the coffee table. "We didn't want to add our prints; that's why the cloth is there."

"Hard to get good ones from paper, but we'll try."

Faith shot a forgivably smug look at her husband.

Charley read the words slowly, looked at the envelope, and, using the cloth, put them in a plastic bag he'd pulled from his pocket.

"They were mailed from Boston-Post Office Square, to be precise-and at the same time-Thursday afternoon. The miracle is that they all arrived yesterday or today and didn't take several weeks as usual. Maybe we should be looking for a postal worker." Charley was not above a little government-employee chauvinism.

"Post Office Square is in the business district. Who do you know who works there, Pix?" Faith asked.

"Could also be that our writer has a sense of humor," Charley interjected, on a roll. "Post Office Square, poison-pen letters-get it?"

They did.

"Every lawyer, CPA-all those kinds of people-not working here in town works there, as far as I know. Including Sam." Pix was depressed.

Faith forgot that Sam's law offices were on Congress Street. Yet surely he'd have no reason to mail a letter like this to his wife. Plus, he'd been out of town. Somebody in his office? But was there anyone who was familiar enough with Aleford to send the others, hoping maybe to divert

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attention from the intended target, if indeed Fix, or Sam himself, was it? It seemed unlikely.

"Does anyone else from town work with Sam?" she asked Fix.

"Only Ellen Phyfe-you know, Morris's wife. She's been the office manager for years. They moved to Aleford because she'd heard such good things about it from Sam."