Cindy Shepherd had arrived in Aleford at age five, when her parents were killed in an automobile accident, to live with her aunt and uncle, Patricia and Robert Moore. Since that time, she had managed to antagonize the majority of the town's inhabitants by ferreting out the one weakness an individual most wished to hide and relentlessly bringing it forth into the light of day with her treacherously sharp tongue. Kids were easy prey and she honed her skills on them. Although she did have friends—anyone who preferred to be in the quiver rather than impaled on the target. These friends also helped in the information-gathering process and loyally elected her to anything she wanted to be—president, director, whatever was in charge.
Adults were not safe; in fact, she enjoyed the challenge. When she was younger she would adopt an air of youthful ingenuousness to deliver her remarks: "Oh, Mrs. Martin, did I see you in town last week ? Wasn't it on Tremont Street ? Near that cute shop where they sell the wigs ? " When she got older, she didn't bother with subtlety and adopted the simpler method of pretending not to see that the person was standing nearby before she aimed.
Her behavior was a terrific embarrassment to her aunt, who was acutely aware that, although her female friends pitied her, they were also extremely angry. Women tended to come in for more scorn than men, since as Cindy matured she began to like men very much and women not at all.
Patricia Moore had spent countless hours talking to Cindy about hurting people's feelings, hours that could more productively have been spent filling holes in a dike with sand. After one particularly trying day when Cindy, aged fourteen, referred to the Whipple sisters as"dried-up old maids who needed to get some," Patricia burst into tears while she was telling Robert.
“I know everyone blames me, but short of preventing the accident, I don't know what I could have done differently."
“Nothing, my dear, you have done more than enough. The only thing that could have happened that didn 't was Cindy's presence in the car with them," he said, sighing.
Faith had heard all these stories and new ones continued to circulate. They were all coming back to her now.
“Think, Tom. Even after eliminating one of the town 's most respected members of the clergy who clearly harbored ill will toward her, we can certainly list countless others. It 's not hard to come up with suspects, however unlikely. What keeps puzzling me is the timing. That's a bigger mystery."
“You're right," he agreed. "Who didn't want her to leave, absurd as that seems? Or had she done something recently to someone that was so monstrous he or she had to kill her and the fact that she was leaving is coincidental ? “
Tom was an inveterate mystery reader and he was beginning to enjoy himself too, especially as Faith, slightly flushed from the brandy, was obviously more than all right.
“This is good, Tom; let 's try to think of all the possible connections. How about someone who didn 't want her to get married—an old flame, her future in-laws, or maybe some secret girlfriend of Dave's?”
Cindy was engaged to Dave Svenson, much to the town 's surprise, although they had gone out together for years. The only logical explanation anyone had been able to come up with was that she had cast a spell on him.
It wasn 't a wedding Faith looked forward to. She had already attended one function catered by the firm hired for Cindy's reception and the pathetic attempt at "continental cuisine " in the form of Chicken Kiev with what Faith detected as Cheese Whiz in the center had convinced her that it wasn't a moment too soon for Have Faith, Benjamin permitting She was continually astounded at what her neighbors ate. Locating her business in Aleford would amount to an act of mercy. She herself drew the line at boiled dinners. Furthermore, if they were going to want beans it would have to be cassoulet.
“I've never heard of any other girlfriend. It's been my impression that Cindy and Dave have been going steady for a long time," Torn mused.
Faith had been delighted to discover that Tom was quite interested in gossip, unusual for a minister. Her own father could never get even the most straightforward scandals right and was apt to let his mind wander, presumably to a higher plane, whenever she tried to impart or extract any information. Tom spent a great deal of time with the kids in the parish. He was worried about the kinds of choices they faced, and was also aware that a congregation needed young people to keep going. If Dave Svenson had had another girlfriend, particularly one passionate enough to wield a kitchen knife, Tom surely would have known about it.
“It's more the kind of thing Cindy would have done rather than have done unto," he remarked.
“I 'm not sure of the grammar, but that 's what I've been thinking. If anyone was going to commit a murder in this town, it would have been Cindy, and I'm sure she would have thought she had a pardonable reason for it. That leaves us with an old boyfriend of Cindy's—of which there are legion—or a new boyfriend?”
Cindy was notorious for regularly staging scenes with Dave that, Faith correctly assumed, then gave her the excuse to go off with someone else for a while. Often she didn't even bother with the scene.
“Let 's see, it's hard to keep track, but it was about a month ago that she told me for the thousandth time that Dave took her for granted and needed to be taught a lesson. I believe that coincided with the Calthorpes' nephew 's visit," Tom recalled wryly.
“So maybe he fell desperately in love with her and d ecided if he couldn 't have her, nobody would.”
“That would solve things nicely, Faith, but he is presumably in West Germany for the semester. At least the Calthorpes drove him to Logan and put him on a plane for there. Still I know you won 't rule it out."
“If it's not sex, then it's money," she said, ignoring this last. "It has to be one or the other."
“Why ? There must be plenty of other reasons people kill other people. Anyway I thought that was why people got divorced."
“Virtually the same thing. Murder, divorce. Gone is gone." Faith waved one hand summarily in the air. "Now the money. Cindy was going to be rich, we know that.”
If Cindy Shepherd had lived to turn twenty-one, she would have come into a very tidy little fortune from her parents. Nobody had mentioned the exact figure, as Faith had discovered when once she had asked Tom just how tidy it was. She was always surprised how seldom anyone in New England ever mentioned actual dollar amounts and how much they appeared to think about them.
“She must have made a will. Maybe Pix knows." Faith furrowed her brow. Their neighbor Pix's husband, Sam Miller, was a lawyer and had been known to let harmless but tasty tidbits of information fall from the table.
“Please, Faith," Tom protested, "After all this mess with my mother 's family I don 't even want to hear the word will!"
“I'm sorry, sweetheart, just thinking out loud.”
Tom 's grandmother had died the previous spring and Marian, his mother, fully expected to claim the garnet brooch, wedding pearls, cameo, diamond lavaliere, and other mementos, which her mother had indicated were her birthright since she was a little girl. It had been a shock to discover that her mother had left her house and its contents to Marian 's brother, who had moved in with his wife to take care of her seven years earlier. Even then Marian had assumed they would share and share alike as was the right thing to do. Months of wrangling and eventually a hefty lawyer 's fee trying to prove undue influence had left her without so much as a jet hat pin.
Faith shook her head.
“No, I don't think it was money. If she had already inherited, then it would make sense. And anyway, given Cindy, sex is a more logical motive." She held out her empty glass. "Un peu more brandy, s'il vous plait," she said, slipping into Tom's eccentric French. (She had noticed that married people seemed to pick up each other 's habits, although so far she didn't see Tom adopting any of hers.) "It helps one think so much more clearly. Except that we should be drinking Scotch and calling for Asta.”