meeting, there had been a lengthy discussion about possible courses of action, including not-so-subtle allusions to the stores of powder and guns Colonial inhabitants had hidden in these very woods in the weeks preceding that famous April morning. Presumably this was all in reference to the historic nature of Beecher’s Bog, but maybe Margaret hadn’t seen it that way. Maybe she took it as a call to action. What were the Batcheldors up to? Or Margaret on her own?
Faith had heard that Margaret ruled the roost at the Batcheldor house. It was entirely possible this very determined woman had decided to act solo.
Faith strode to the phone. The kids were not due home for another hour. She wanted to hear what Millicent had to say. Before she could get to it, it rang.
Tom’s voice sounded weary—more weary than simply from losing last night’s sleep. Sleep deprivation was something parents actually began to get used to, or at least pretended to.
“Somebody threw a brick and shattered Lora Deane’s living room window last night. She came home about midnight and found it. She’s pretty hysterical and has told her grandparents what’s been going on. She went there immediately.”
“I was afraid of this. It was only a matter of time before whoever’s been calling her would get tired of phone games and move on to more exciting stuff. So, she’s going to the police after all.”
“Her grandfather has taken charge and was trying to reach Charley when he got called out to the fire.
This morning, they’ve all been so upset about the house that the brick hasn’t seemed as important, but apparently Gus did tell the police. She said her grandfather was mad as hell that she hadn’t come to her own family right away.”
“Well, at least she’ll be safe with them.”
“I hope so,” Tom said glumly, and hung up.
Tuesday morning had dawned gray and gloomy. A fine rain was falling, which observers were sure would soon change to the kind of steady downpour that meant mud season. By midmorning, the few spring bulbs in bloom hardy enough to venture forth had been squashed back to the earth. Aleford was drenched. It was also scared. Rumors were flying faster than a speeding musket ball. Much faster. Not only theories about the fire and Margaret, but also word about the poison-pen letters. By the time Faith heard about them in the post office, the original seven recipients had grown to fifty and the relatively mild language had become Howard Stern material. She did what she could to correct the story, but no one believed her. No one wanted to believe her. They were battening down the hatches in the face of a storm and they didn’t want someone coming along telling them not to worry—especially an outsider, and a New Yorker at that. Probably didn’t seem like much to her, New York being the hellhole it was, but Aleford knew better.
They weren’t right about the letters—there were only five in all: Scotts, Batcheldors, Millicent, Brad Hallowell, and Pix—but they were right about the depth of the crisis. By evening, there wasn’t a house that had not both literally and figuratively set out the emergency candles and flashlights, and cooked up plenty of food—prepared for the worst. The thunder-storm had moved up the coast and more news had spread. Margaret Batcheldor might be a charred corpse, but she hadn’t burned to death. A ferocious series of blows on the back of the head had killed her, not the fire.
Margaret had been murdered.
Faith sat in the parsonage watching the lights flicker and listening to the hum of the refrigerator go on and off. She was alone with the kids, who had greeted the wind and rain with delight. Ben had been sorry that the power had managed to stay on through his bed-time. She knew he was upstairs trying to keep himself awake. She pointed out that going to sleep was just like a power outage. Dark was dark. But he failed to see her logic. In her heart, she agreed with him. As a child, it had always been thrilling to lose power during a storm. As an adult she only had visions of spoiled food. And at the moment, not too many of those. There were too many other concerns. Tom was at Nelson Batcheldor’s with Charley again, as he had been since late afternoon when the report of how Margaret had died came from the medical examiner’s office.
Faith realized she was feeling a little annoyed. Tom, by virtue of his profession, was getting in on all the action. And Charley was probably revealing far more to him than he ever told her. Male bonding or whatever. At least she’d be able to hear about it when Tom came home. Meanwhile, she was stuck with the threat of no electricity and a mind she couldn’t shut off.
Fortunately, they had gas heat. Still, she felt chilled.
But it wasn’t the kind of cold another layer of clothing would help. Margaret, sweet, dotty Margaret. Had she come upon the arsonist and been killed to prevent her from talking? Or was she setting the house on fire, and killed by whom? The only suspects who made sense were the Deanes. But why wouldn’t they put the fire out or at least call the fire department before the house was a total wreck?
Because Margaret was dead. It all came back to that. Maybe the blow was intended to stun her, stop her. Yet it had been more than one, Charley told Tom.
Someone had been extremely vicious.
Who had called the fire department? she wondered.
It hadn’t been important to know before; now it was.
The new house was wedged between two older houses. Someone must have seen something. Margaret would have had a flashlight. But then, this was a town that ate at six o’clock and was in bed no later than ten. No night owl looking out a window, no late-night dog walkers.
She heard the car in the driveway and rushed to the kitchen door. Tom came in and folded her in his arms.
“Kids asleep?”
“That or a good imitation on Ben’s part. Are you hungry?”
“Starving. You can’t imagine how much food there is at Nelson’s, but somehow you don’t like to interrupt a man’s grief and ask for some lasagna or a bowl of pea soup.”
These were Aleford’s standard funereal offerings, along with platters of small, triangular, spongy white-bread sandwiches spread with minuscule amounts of fillings Faith didn’t even like to think about—anchovy paste for one.
She started by slicing a large wedge of rosemary focaccia in half, then drizzled it liberally with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkling a combination of ground Romano and Parmesan cheese on top. She quickly layered thin slices of green and red peppers with cappicola and added more cheese. The whole thing went into the oven to warm while she heated up some soup—cream of broccoli with a dash of curry powder.
She placed the food in front of her husband and was rewarded with a big grin.
“Boy, did I marry the right woman.”
Faith loved to feed people, especially her family.
She sat close to him at the big round table that was the gravitational center of the house—the place where they ate most meals, the kids drew pictures, and friends automatically headed. Faith had religiously avoided anything suggesting either Colonial New England or neocountry in her kitchen, opting instead for the sunny colors of the south of France and bright Souleido cotton prints on the chairs and at the windows, with nary a cow or pewter charger in sight.
“Now tell me everything,” she demanded.
Tom’s mouth was full and she waited impatiently.
Maybe she should have grilled him before the sandwich.
“There’s not a lot to tell,” he said finally, and seeing the look on her face, he put the sandwich down for a moment. “Person or persons unknown killed her and left her in the fire. There’s no way of finding out whether she was setting the fire or whether the fire was set to cover up the murder.”
“And nobody heard or saw anything?”
“Ed Ferguson, who lives next door, thinks he heard a car around eleven. He’d gotten up to pee, but he’s not too sure about the time. It couldn’t have been Margaret’s car, because she didn’t take it. She was on foot.”
“Which seems to eliminate her as the arsonist.
Surely she couldn’t walk all the way from her house to Whipple Hill Road
lugging a can of gas without attracting some notice. Plus, it’s quite a distance.”
“Not if you cut through the woods, which of course she probably did. And even if she walked down Main Street at that time of night, nobody would have been around to notice.”
This was true. The woman could have been naked and on horseback without a single observer. And if she came through the woods, might she have hidden the gas in some thicket on one of her previous maneuvers?
Tom munched away.
“Who reported the fire?”
“The Fergusons again. I guess Ed gets up frequently. He saw the flames and by the time O’Halloran got there, it was the inferno you saw. The Deanes had planned to put in the insulation this week, so the place was filled with that, plus wallboard. It made for great fuel. Any more soup?”
Faith went to get the pot and ladled more into Tom’s cup, then decided to have some herself.
“What about the brick? Was there a note wrapped around it? Why throw it, unless you had a message to deliver?”
“Nope, nothing. Just a plain old brick. Gus went to the state police headquarters today. Told them about the calls, too, and is demanding police protection for his granddaughter. Charley says Gus seems to think it’s Millicent and her group.”
“Calling Lora?”
“Yes, Gus thinks they’re too cowardly to confront him or his grandsons, so they’re going after Lora.” Faith was thinking about the brick. Brad Hallowell had thrown a punch at his wall. A fist. A brick. She frowned. “The last time we walked by the construction site, there were a lot of bricks lying around.
They’d finished the chimney ages ago, but maybe they planned to use them for the steps or walk.”
“So whoever killed Margaret decided to pick up a brick and heave it through Lora’s window for the hell of it on his or her way home?”
“It’s not impossible. It’s certainly complicated things, and if I were a murderer, that’s what I would want to do.”
“Any victims in mind?” her husband asked, scrap-ing the last of the soup from his bowl.
“Well, you know what they say,” Faith replied.
“What do they say?”
“You’re much more likely to be done in by your spouse than by a random stranger.”
“I’ve already been done in by mine. Now let’s go to bed. The dishes can wait.”
The decision was made even easier. Outside, there was a sharp crack of thunder and the wind howled. All the lights went out and the parsonage fell silent. Hand in hand, they groped their way out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and didn’t even bother with the flashlight prudently placed by the side of the bed.
There was no question that Wednesday night’s selectmen’s meeting would make history as the highest-rated television show in Aleford’s history, and as the most heavily attended. People stood several rows deep in the hall, craning their necks for a view. Faith and Pix had arrived early and had managed to snare seats.
The meeting room looked like the partners’ conference room at an old established law firm: dark wood paneling and a gleaming semicircular mahogany table facing the audience. The selectmen sat in dark red leather wing chairs, the backs of which tended to rise thronelike above the members’ heads. Faith noted that Bea Hoffman’s feet didn’t touch the floor, but dangled, even though the small woman was perched as far forward as possible. The audience sat on folding chairs and whiled away the time before the meeting started by studying several framed prints celebrating Aleford’s glorious past and one photo enlargement of President Ford’s Bicentennial visit. Though there were bookcases filled with bound copies of town annual reports, they looked untouched.
Flanked by the state and American flags, Penny called the meeting to order sternly. Pix had heard that Penny had phoned Millicent earlier in the day and told her in no uncertain terms that the board would not tolerate a circus atmosphere. Millicent had been extremely offended, and it would probably be a while before the two friends shared mugs and muffins at the Minuteman Café.
“The first order of business is the presentation of an”—Penny paused searching for the right word—
“alternative view of the proposal Mr. Madsen has submitted to the board for the development of the area known as Beecher’s Bog. I understand that Miss McKinley will represent her group.”
Millicent was sitting in the front row, flanked not by flags but by Brad Hallowell and Louise Scott. She was wearing her red suit again. Faith gave a thought to the appropriateness of the color with Patriots’ Day almost upon them. It did make one stand out—just as it had the British officers, whose coats were more scarlet than the foot soldiers’ and made excellent targets for the militia who sensibly aimed at them first. But Millicent wasn’t a target, not tonight, anyway. She was the projectile.
Brad followed her to the front of the room, carrying a number of oaktag sheets that appeared to be POW!’s visual aids. He sat down and Millicent began to speak.
It was a repetition of Friday night’s meeting, except she had brought examples of all the places Aleford had lost. It was pretty impressive. She’d put up a picture of an old farm, a house in the center, woodlands, or some other open space, then show a picture of what was there today. The small strip mall at the Byford border. A housing development. With a flourish, she produced a map of Aleford from 1960 with all the open space colored green, then set a current one next to it. The audience gasped. The green spaces had shrunk by at least two thirds.
“We were a milk town, a farming community.
There’s precious little left of that, but we must preserve some of the character of this bygone era for future generations. Unless we act now, I foresee a time in the not-so-distant future when our children won’t hear songbirds or be able to go on nature walks. The only plants they’ll know will be the ones cultivated in their own backyards. The only wildlife they’ll see will be in sanctuaries and they’ll have no idea that Aleford was once a green and pleasant land.” Faith thought the reference to Blake stretching things a bit, although his “dark Satanic mills” might be invoked. But she agreed with the rest and hoped the board would. Millicent was building up steam.
“They’ll think the only old houses Aleford ever had are the ones surrounding the green, protected by the Historic Commission,” Millicent continued, empha-sizing the word “protected.” “What of Civil War Aleford? What of Victorian Aleford? What of—”
“This is all very interesting, Miss McKinley,” Sanborn Harrington interrupted, “But what exactly would you have the board do? Mr. Madsen owns Beecher’s Bog and as an owner it is his right to do with it as he pleases if he meets the town’s requirements for development, which he has.”
Someone hissed. Faith thought it might be Brad.
Millicent did not appear perturbed—of course.
“I’m glad you asked that question, Sanborn.
POW!—Preserve Our Wetlands!—which organized around this issue, has collected almost enough signatures to reconvene Town Meeting, where we intend to place two motions on the floor. Rather than take up the board’s valuable time, I’ve made copies for everyone of the motions involved and would respectfully refer members to the cited precedents, available at the library and in town hall.”
Millicent handed each board member a sheet of paper. She was smart enough to know that any proposal involving turning a page already had one strike against it.
Several members scanned the motions and looked up stunned. Sanborn looked angry. “I repeat, Miss McKinley, your research is an admirable foray into the town’s past, but as for the present—what is it you are proposing to the board?”
“What we are asking the board to do is”—She paused, and Faith thought what the stage had lost when Millicent had opted for lanterns instead of footlights—“nothing.”
“Nothing?” Penny asked.
“Nothing,” Millicent replied firmly. “We’d like you to postpone your decision on Mr. Madsen’s proposal until Town Meeting has considered the motions I’v
e described. I do not think this slight delay places an undue hardship on the petitioner in question.” Her voice dripped with scorn. “The bog isn’t going to vanish overnight.”
That did it. Whether it was the reference to one of the Deane properties vanishing overnight, as in houses burning down, or Millicent’s apparently successful blocking of a member of his family’s plans, Gus Deane had had quite enough. He came marching down the center of the room, pushing his way through the crowded seating like Moses parting the Red Sea.
He shook his fist at Millicent.
“I’ve had just about enough of you and the rest of your group. You may think you can destroy property and threaten innocent girls without anyone stopping you, but not while there’s a breath in my body.” Gus was not a tall man, yet there was clearly a great deal of breath in his massive body. His hair was completely white and the thick curls created a halo effect.
He did indeed look biblical—if not Moses, then one of the more wrathful prophets.
Penny was banging the gavel for all she was worth.
The room was going wild.
“Mr. Deane! Mr. Deane! I must ask you to resume your seat!”
“No, I will not. I have something to say. We’ve listened to her. Now you’ll have to listen to me.” Charley MacIsaac moved from the back of the room and stood to one side of the selectmen. Penny gulped down an entire glass of water and glanced from side to side at her fellow board members. Morris Phyfe broke the silence. “Let the man speak. Everyone else has had a say, and I expect we’ll be throwing out Robert’s Rules quite a bit in the next few hours.” Penny nodded at Gus and he stood and faced the room.
“Some of you are my friends. Some of you don’t know me at all. And some of you are my enemies. Not that I give a damn.” This last word was bleeped to those watching breathlessly at home but he might as well have said “read my lips,” so clear was the word.
“I want to clear the air; then we can get back to business—namely, approving a perfectly reasonable construction plan that will bring new taxpayers to town, to say nothing of jobs.
“Number one.” Gus held up his hand. Like Joey’s, they were huge—calloused, with fingers like knock-wurst. The room waited. He raised his index finger.
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