“I’m going to see where they went,” Faith told Tom as she slipped out of the car.
She walked past the building to make sure they weren’t lingering in the vestibule, but they had apparently gone straight in. It must be where the Miata owner lived. Faith dug in her purse, a large Longchamp drawstring bag whose French styling masked its contents. These ranged from small toys, boxes of raisins, crayons, Handi Wipes, and other necessities for child rearing to blush and lip gloss. She pulled out a pen and her own Filofax—John Dunne’s was a little less scratched, but he wasn’t packing gra-nola bars—then walked purposefully down the short walk to the entrance of the apartment building.
The outer door was unlocked. It wasn’t a large building. There were only five mailboxes and five buzzers. She started to write down the names: Carl-son, Macomber, Smith/Pearson, Bridey Murphy—Bridey Murphy? Obviously, someone with an interesting sense of humor and a desire not to be found. Deane. Deane!
Was the man with Lora one of her half brothers?
One to whom she was very close? Very, very close. Or maybe the outfit was meant for someone else, someone who was meeting them here? Brothers and sisters did sometimes walk arm in arm, though this seemed unlikely.
Deane. But which Deane? She was tempted to ring the buzzer, or another one, to try to figure out which apartment it was, but if Lora saw her, even Faith could think of no plausible excuse for being there.
Reluctantly, she returned to the car and told Tom.
“I don’t know where the other Deanes live. I guess I assumed it was Aleford, since Bonnie lives there, Lora herself, and, of course, Gus. It’s possible one or more of the brothers isn’t married and could well live in town. I’ll have to ask Pix.” Faith was thinking out loud. To herself, she added, Before I come back here to check things out. Lora Deane’s transformation from country mouse to city vixen had been amazing.
It was one thing to whip together a batch of play dough with numbers of children trying to help; quite another to put on makeup in a moving vehicle. What other tricks did the young woman have up her sleeve?
The noise level at the Children’s Museum always left Faith with a headache, and her own kids were so wired when they emerged that all she could think of was home, food, and bed. After enough time had passed, she’d be eager to take them again. The place was wonderful, but all those cries of delight . . .
Back at the house, Faith was preparing dinner while Tom was giving Amy hers. As soon as Faith’s headache had disappeared, on Storrow Drive somewhere around the Harvard Business School, she’d gotten hungry and told Tom they needed a good supper. Nourishment to try to make sense out of the day, out of all the days recently. They’d stopped at Bread and Circus in Fresh Pond for some striped bass. Not that she particularly subscribed to the theory that fish was brain food. All food was brain food.
Now Faith was quickly making polenta, which she poured into a pan to stiffen. When it did, she’d cut it into wedges and fry it in olive oil. She had a pan of sliced onions, garlic, tomatoes, and red and yellow peppers sautéing on a low flame. She gave it a quick stir before checking the fish she was poaching in some stock and a little vermouth. Ben had been trained to eat anything and did—so long as Faith remembered to call rabbit lapin and mushrooms champignons.
“Pour us a glass of the Puligny-Montrachet that’s in the fridge, would you, honey, and slice some bread.
There’s a baguette on the counter,” she called to Tom, who was enjoying the sight of his daughter’s attempts to feed herself string beans. They kept slipping from her fingers. He popped the last one in Amy’s mouth and went to the fridge. Soon they were sitting down to the fish that Faith had placed on top of the polenta, the sauce covering both.
“Aaah.” Tom rubbed his hands together, noting there was plenty more. There was always plenty more.
The phone rang.
“Damn—I mean darn.” He corrected himself for the benefit of his children and to avoid the annoyance of being imitated—something that always managed to occur in the presence of one or more of his parishioners.
Faith was up. She hated it when people had to eat her food cold. “You start. I’ll get it.” She shoved her plate in the oven and picked up the kitchen phone.
It was Pix. But from the sound of her voice, Faith knew immediately it wasn’t about where Samantha was going to college.
“What’s happened?” Faith asked. The phone had a long cord and she walked as far away as she could.
“More of those letters. Only this time, they’re all the same.” Pix stopped. Faith was tempted to run next door. This could take forever. But she waited.
“What did they say?”
“We all got them again.” Pix was answering another question. “Same post office. Today’s mail. Millicent called me to see if I had one. She’d already talked to the others.”
“And they said . . .” Faith prodded.
“They said, ‘Be careful on Patriots’ Day.’ ”
“That’s all, nothing about place or time?”
“That’s all, just ‘Be careful on Patriots’ Day.’ And not signed ‘A friend’ like the last one. I’m frightened, Faith—and mad. Who could be doing this!”
“I wish I knew.”
Faith hung up and went back into the kitchen. Tom looked at her quizzically.
“More of those letters. I’m going next door.” He nodded. “I’ll put the kids to bed. You can tell me about it later.”
She completely forgot her dinner was still in the oven.
Pix and her husband, Sam, were sitting in the kitchen when Faith arrived. Pix had a baby quilt in her lap she was not working on, although there was a threaded needle in her hand. The door had been open, as was the custom in Aleford, and Faith had come straight in.
She locked it behind her.
“I suppose we’ll have to start doing this sort of thing now,” Pix said mournfully.
“For the time being.” Sam was trying very hard to resist the impulse to move his entire family to a new, undisclosed location.
“Why don’t I make some coffee?” Faith offered, and hearing no refusals, she went ahead. She’d grabbed a tin of the cookies she’d made with the kids as she was leaving the parsonage. Even if they didn’t want them now, they would later.
“I can’t believe it’s Joey Madsen—or any of the Deanes. He’s mad about what we’re doing, but he’d be more apt to lose his temper the way Gus did and let us have it at one of the meetings,” Pix said.
Faith agreed—in part. The fact that Joey had not been heard from had been troubling her. It was his habit to rant and rave. So why wasn’t he doing it now?
With so much money at stake, maybe Joey was trying another tactic and keeping his natural impulses in check. Or, to be fair, his lawyer could be advising him that flying off the handle wouldn’t move the project along and could have the opposite effect.
“Were they written the same way? Cutout letters, ballpoint block letters on the envelope?”
“Exactly the same. The police have mine, otherwise, you could see for yourself.”
So much for a possible copycat theory, Faith thought. But that wouldn’t have made much sense, anyway. It was difficult enough to believe that someone had sent one set. That there would be another poison pen aimed at these same people was beyond all imagining. The only difference was in the omission of the signature, and it was an omission that alarmed her.