Body in the Bog

Faith had one last question. Ben would soon cross the line between anticipation and frustration. The last thing his mother wanted Miss Lora to witness was a full-blown Fairchild fit.

“And the other calls? They’ve stopped? I know you weren’t there, but was there anything on your machine?”

“Nothing, except a lot of hang-ups. But people don’t like to leave messages. My mother is the worst.

You know, clears her throat several times, then whispers, ‘I’ll call you back. It’s Mother’—like it’s a deep secret—and hangs up fast. That’s if she leaves anything. I’ll call her tonight. Maybe she’s been trying to reach me.”

Faith nodded. The parsonage machine offered a sample of virtually every message-leaving style.

“Mom?” a little voice called out tentatively. “I’m getting overwaited.”

“It’s time, Ben,” she called back, and sat well out of the way. If she’d had a stopwatch handy, he might have made the record books.

Play-group days always left Faith fatigued, and she’d gone straight to sleep, despite all the thinking she’d planned to do. Those minutes between head touching the pillow and oblivion tended to be her most productive time of day and she kept a pad and pencil next to the bed to scribble notes for recipes or other projects that every once in a while seemed just as brilliant in the morning. So when she was awakened by the scream of the sirens, she was more than usually cranky. From the sound of them, they were converg-ing in the Fairchilds’ driveway.

Closing her eyes tightly, she tried to summon sleep again. Tom, who only woke if one of the children sneezed or whimpered, had not moved a muscle. She hitched the comforter over her ear and then sat up.

She wasn’t in Manhattan. She was in Aleford. Sirens in the night, especially this many—the noise was continuing unabated—were not a common occurrence.

Now, in her old apartment, a night without sirens would have been the exception.

She went over to the window and looked across at the green. No activity there and nothing seemed amiss.

She walked down the hall and crept into Ben’s room, which was at the rear of the house. She could hear shouts from a bullhorn, but not the words. And she could see bright orange light at the end of the block.

The whole sky appeared to be in flames. Two figures were in the Millers’ backyard, and as she watched, they ran toward the street. Obviously Pix and Sam. She ran, too, back to her room, where she threw on some clothes.

“Darling,” she whispered in her husband’s ear. Getting no response, she shook him slightly, then harder.

“Darling!” she repeated, and Tom woke up all at once.

“What is it? What’s happened?” He reached to turn on the light and the glare flooded the room. He rubbed his eyes. “Faith, what’s all that noise?”

“There seems to be a huge fire at the end of the block. You can see it from Ben’s room. I’m going to find out where it is.”

“Wait, I’ll come with you. No, the kids. But be careful.”

Tom was in a slight state of confusion and had pulled out one of his black clerical jackets instead of his bathrobe from the closet. Faith took it from his hands and effected the change. She left him sitting on the bed, looking at his slippers.

“Go to sleep. I’ll come back and tell you what’s going on as soon as I can.”

It was cold, yet the color of the sky gave an illusion of warmth as she walked rapidly down the block, joining others similarly awakened from their beds. There was an air of excitement. She had started smelling the smoke as soon as she stepped out the door. Cold was no longer a problem as she got closer. The heat was intense and companies from all the surrounding towns were fighting the blaze. The new wood crackled and went up like the proverbial matchsticks. But no need to be concerned about life or property. This house had never been lived in, and never would be. It was the new spec house the Deanes had almost finished—the house on Whipple Hill Road that the neighbors had often wished would disappear. And now it was—right before their startled eyes.

Faith looked around at the faces in the flickering light. A fire, especially a large fire, has a peculiar effect on people—mesmerizing, fascinating, beguiling. It brings out the pyromaniac in everyone. The flames were magnificent, beautiful. They shot high up into the night sky; torrents of sparks cascaded to the ground.

Faith found herself almost enjoying the spectacle—that is, until Fire Chief O’Halloran’s voice shouting instructions to Aleford’s Ancient Order of Hook and Ladder Volunteers reminded her that this was real and not Backdraft at Universal Studios. The firefighters were struggling desperately to keep the blaze from spreading to the surrounding houses; the street was a river of water as the hoses drenched trees, walls, and chimneys.

How had it started?

Faith knew there would be no answers tonight.

The smoke was filling her lungs. She had to leave.

The house would be a total loss. But the Deanes would be insured. Insured. Insurance. How much and to whom?

She turned to go home. She could see some of her neighbors gathered in small groups, but she didn’t feel like talking to anyone, even the Millers. Fortunate or unfortunate—which was it? The neighborhood would be happy, although the Deanes still owned the land. The Deanes couldn’t be, even with insurance. All that work. She looked around to see if any members of the family were here. They would have to be. And they were. Gus and his grandsons were standing with Charley MacIsaac by one of the trucks.

They were watching in silence, their faces grim.

How had it started?

A few steps toward home, she was stopped by a loud shout. It was one of the firemen from Byford. He was directing his hose into one of the windows on the first floor. Faith paused. He shouted again.

“Jesus Christ! There’s somebody in here!”

Four

Nelson Batcheldor did not find out he was a widower until 4:30 A.M. It had taken that long for the fire to be extinguished enough to recover the body. There had never been any hope of survival. And the only reason a positive identification was made so quickly was that Margaret had died as she’d lived—binoculars in place.

Chief MacIsaac appeared at the parsonage, where the Fairchilds were waiting. As soon as Faith heard that someone had been trapped inside, she’d hurried home and the two of them sat together, waiting to hear who the victim was. At one point, Tom had walked down to the fire, but soon returned. There was little he could do there, he’d told Faith, except get in the way.

She remembered her own first moments of fascination at the sight of the fire and felt sick.

Charley was wearing a heavy firemen’s raincoat and his face was streaked with grime. He refused Faith’s offer of coffee. He’d been drinking it for hours.

“It was Margaret Batcheldor, and we have to tell Nelson.” Charley seemed to break down for a moment. He cleared his throat, swallowed hard, and went on. “Damn nice woman, even though she did go over-board with the birds. What the hell could she have been doing in the house? No birds there. Unless she thought one was trapped or something. . . .” He sounded utterly defeated.

Tom and Faith were listening intently, but it took a moment for them to register.

“Margaret? Margaret’s body?” Tom asked.

Charley nodded and Faith started to cry. “Poor Nelson. What’s he going to do without her?” It was impossible to think of one without the other.

“I thought you ought to be there when I tell him, Tom. He’s going to need you.”

Faith gave her husband a fierce hug. He and Charley left immediately and she wandered about the house, unable to settle down to anything, certainly not sleep. She had a fleeting impulse to call the Millers, but then decided not to. She didn’t feel like spreading this kind of news. Aleford would know soon enough.

Margaret Batcheldor trapped in a fire in the house the Deanes built. Margaret and Nelson, the recipients of a poison-pen letter. Margaret and Nelson, pillars of POW! Finally, Margaret and Nelson in ski masks and out of mufti, emerging from Beecher’s Bog. Aleford had had its ups and downs, serious tragedies, a feud or two, but nothing like this. The smoke from the fire seemed to have seeped in through the walls of the house. It was as if some noxious gas were permeating their lives, carrying distrust and now death throughout the village.

She began to long for the children to wake up. Her thoughts were beginning to terrify her. She picked up a book, a new Barbara Kingsolver, but the words swam in front of her eyes.

“Momeee!” a frightened voice called out, “Where are you? Where’s Dad? You’re not in your bed? I want to know. Where are you?” It was Ben, and she rushed upstairs to reassure him. Holding him close, reassuring herself.

Nelson answered the door. He was in rumpled striped pajamas and had obviously been sound asleep. He seemed extremely surprised to see the two of them and his mouth dropped open at the sight of Charley in his raincoat and Tom clad in dog collar and jacket at such an ungodly hour.

“I’m afraid we have bad news,” Charley said. “Can we come in?”

“Of course, of course,” Nelson said, bewildered.

“I’ll get Margaret.”

Tom and Charley looked at each other. This was not going to be easy.

“Why don’t we sit down over here,” Tom suggested, and led the way to the couch and chairs comfortably arranged in front of a large fieldstone hearth.

Bird plates and bird pictures adorned the walls.

Carved birds and porcelain birds perched on every surface. Needlepoint bird pillows were carefully arranged wherever one might think to sit.

Charley came straight to the point. “Margaret’s had an accident. I’m afraid she’s dead, Nelson.”

“Dead! Margaret! That’s impossible!” Nelson’s voice rose to a high-pitched screech and he jumped up. “She’s asleep in her bed. Nothing’s happened to Margaret!” When he ran out of the room, they followed. Could he possibly be right?

He wasn’t. They found him in a small bedroom crammed with more bird artifacts and shelves of guides and photographic essays. There was a single bed beneath the window, its spread stretched taut. A bed that no one had slept in.

“But I don’t understand. Where is she?” He grabbed Charley by the shoulders, and although Nelson was much the weaker man, Tom had all he could do to pry him away. Then Charley took one side, Tom the other, and they forced Nelson to sit on the bed between them.

“When did you last see her?” Charley asked.

“When I went to bed last night. I was tired and went up first. She was going to sleep in here.” For a moment, he seemed embarrassed. “I guess I snore sometimes, and anyway, she was getting up early to go birding and didn’t want to disturb me.” He began to sob. “Why didn’t I go with her? What was it? Her heart? The doctor said she would be fine if she took her medication. Outlive us all.” He put his face in his hands and let go. Tom and Charley waited a while.

“Is there anyone you want us to call? A relative or neighbor?” Tom asked.

Nelson shook his head. “We’re the only family we have, except for some cousins we haven’t seen for years. But friends. Everybody was her friend.” His voice broke.

Charley put his hand on Nelson’s shoulder. “Want some coffee? Or maybe a shot of something?” Nelson shook his head again. Charley took a deep breath. “She didn’t have a heart attack, or at least we don’t know that yet. There’s been a fire at the new house the Deanes have put up over on Whipple Hill.

Margaret was inside.”

“You mean she burned to death!”

Charley kept his hand on Nelson’s shoulder. “There was nothing anybody could have done. By the time she was discovered, it was too late. It was a very bad fire. The whole house is just about gone.”

“But what was she doing there?” Nelson was truly dazed now.

“We were hoping you might have an idea.” Nelson shook his head. “She was going to leave early and she did say she was meeting someone. But that was normal. I can’t imagine why she would have gone into that house. It’s not even near any of her spots.” Tears were running out of his puffy red eyes and dripping off his nose. He made an ineffectual wipe at them with his pajama sleeve.

“Did she say who she was meeting?” Tom asked.

“No, but it was probably one of our usual group.

They all want to go with Margaret. She’s so knowl-edgeable.”

Tom noticed Nelson was still speaking in the present. For a moment, the three men sat in a row in Margaret’s room. Nobody said anything. Charley stood up.

“I have to get down to the station and file a report.

Believe me, I realize how painful this is for you, but you’ll have to wait for the body to be released before you can have a service. There has to be an autopsy.” Nelson winced.

“As soon as you feel up to it, we’ll talk about plans for the funeral,” Tom said. “Meanwhile, I’m going to go downstairs and get us some coffee, maybe a little breakfast. Come and show me where things are.” Nelson shuffled off obediently, a pathetic figure in his nightclothes.

“I’ll be in touch,” Charley said quietly to Tom. “Let me know if he thinks of any reason at all, however far-fetched, why she could have been there, and get him to give you a list of the names of the people who went birding with her.”

“Okay. One question, though. Is an autopsy really necessary? I would have thought he could have been spared that when the cause of death is obvious.”

“We all know it’s Margaret because of the binoculars, but the state doesn’t, and there could be other things.”

“Like what?”

“I’d rather not say unless I have to,” Charley replied in an uncharacteristically cryptic manner, and Tom had to be satisfied with that.

By dawn, word of Margaret’s death had spread as rapidly as the fire had through the fresh lumber the night before. It wasn’t long before friends and neighbors were appearing at Nelson’s door with food and words of comfort. He’d changed out of his pajamas, and Tom left him sitting in the kitchen with the Scotts, the Batcheldors’ closest friends. Nelson continued to have no idea why Margaret had been roaming about the Deanes’ house in the wee hours of the morning.

He did give Tom a list of the names of habitual birders, though. He was obviously still in shock, breaking down when each new arrival offered condolences.

Tom left, secure in the knowledge that Nelson would be as fine as circumstances permitted now that the well-oiled machinery of care in a small place like Aleford had slipped into gear. By sundown, Nelson Batcheldor would have enough food in his freezer for the rest of the year.

The town had just started to react to the shock of Margaret’s death and the fire when word leaked out that in addition to Margaret’s remains, the police had found remnants of a sizable container of gas by the body.

Margaret Batcheldor, an arsonist!

Tom called Faith from the church office with the news. A parishioner had called him with the rumor and he’d checked it out with the police. Faith was stunned, yet as she hung up the phone, she couldn’t help but remember Margaret’s odd attire in the woods, as well as her obvious militancy at Friday’s POW!

meeting. Fighting fire with fire? Could she have intended to destroy one of the Deane properties as a warning against further development? Margaret always made it absolutely clear that she thought birds, and the other inhabitants of Aleford’s woods, pas-tures, and ponds, were just as, if not more, important than people. She certainly thought them more valuable than property. But if so, the gesture had gone wrong—very, very wrong. Faith imagined Margaret, perhaps in her ski mask again, dousing the beams with gas and then igniting them. Unaccustomed to an activity of this sort—it was not like rubbing two sticks together—she must have been terrified by the ferocity of the blaze, then overcome by it. It was too tragic.

Faith suddenly felt angry. Why hadn’t Margaret’s husband or her friends realized how close to the edge she was? Surely Millicent, of all people, must have known.

Millicent. All this business of taking a stand, the constant invocation of the sacred past. Faith had heard that after she and Tom had slipped out of the POW!

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’ve 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.

“Number one. Don’t think we haven’t been hearing all day that we set the fire ourselves for the insurance money and that Mrs. Batcheldor got herself killed when she wandered in on us. Now this is bullshit”—

another bleep—“and you all know it. There’s no way the insurance is going to cover our loss. And as for the poor woman, why not ask what in God’s name she was doing there? And who put her up to it? So, number one, I don’t want to hear any more about the Deanes setting fires or knocking people off. If the police were doing their job, they’d have figured out the facts by now. I have.”

Charley’s expression didn’t change a bit as the camera panned slowly over his face.

“Number two.” Gus raised his index and middle fingers. Somehow it seemed as if only one was up.

“Whatever scum is bothering my granddaughter—and you know who you are—is going to answer to me, and I will find you.” No one watching doubted otherwise. “Until I do, I am holding the Aleford Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police responsible for her safety and for the safety of her property.

“Now.” He seemed to be winding up for a big finish. His broad forehead was so furrowed that the white bristles of his eyebrows jutted out toward the group in one defiant straight line. “None of these things happened until the formation of this cockamamy POW! group. It seems to me”—he turned to address Charley—“this is no coincidence. They’ve got it in for us and we’re not going to turn tail. We have as much right to be here as they do, even if we didn’t step onto Plymouth Rock or whatever.” Brad Hallowell jumped up from the front row. Millicent, to her credit, futilely grabbed at the back of his sweatshirt. “But you don’t have the right to rape the land! You don’t have the right to destroy the earth for a few bucks! You don’t—”

It wasn’t clear what Gus roared out. Some said it was “You little swine”; others opted for a more color-ful expression. What was clear was that Gus lunged at Brad, who met him, fists raised. Charley moved rapidly toward the pair, surprising those who thought Chief MacIsaac was less nimble than he used to be.

Nimble or not, it was all over before he reached them.

Millicent placed her skinny but resilient frame between the two men and Penny pounded the gavel so hard, the handle broke and went flying across the room, missing Cheryl Hardy by a few inches. Cheryl looked stunned, got up, and left, vowing to watch the meetings on TV in the future—at home, where she would be safe and might even finish the elaborate argyle sweater she had started for her husband when they were courting ten years earlier.

“This meeting is adjourned. Please clear the room,” Penny shouted above the din. “Clear the room immediately!”

Several people had come to Charley and Millicent’s aid. Gus was being pushed out one door, still yelling at Brad. Brad was being detained in his seat.

“I guess he’s blown any chance he might have had with Lora,” Pix commented to Faith. They were staying put.

“I think those chances went out the window long ago, but if I were he, I’d make that visit to Nepal or somewhere farther away about now.”

“He can’t. Millicent’s got him so busy doing things for Patriots’ Day that it would take more than Gus Deane to convince her to let Brad leave town. And he’s the only one the Minutemen have at the moment who can drum the call to arms.”

“But Gus Deane plays Captain Sewall! And isn’t he the current company commander?”

“Yes, but don’t worry. They really do become the figures they play. And Captain Sewall has no quarrel with young Tom Havers. It’s 1775 for a brief moment.

You’ll see. Nothing will happen.”

Looking at the glowering youth sitting with his arms stiff at his sides, clenching the chair, eyes straight ahead, apparently oblivious to Millicent’s soothing words, Faith sincerely hoped Pix was right.

Patriots’ Day was less than a week away. Not much time to cool off.

Margaret’s funeral was held Friday morning. Nelson had spent time with Tom the day before going over the service. It was surprising, he told Faith, how many references to birds there were in the Bible. They had settled on Psalm 104, some appropriate hymns, and Margaret’s favorite poem, Shelley’s “To a Skylark,” to be read at the graveside. This had been the only request her husband remembered that she’d ever made about her funeral.

Faith took out her funeral dress, a black Ralph Lau-ren wool knit she’d bought when she’d first arrived in Aleford and assumed the duties of a ministerial spouse. Before they were married, Tom had been insistent that she would be able to go her own way. “It’s my job, not yours,” he’d told her. So sweet, so naïve.

She’d kissed him and gone out to buy the dress. It had since witnessed so many obsequies that she could never wear it anyplace else without instinctively looking about for a casket.

She slipped the dress over her head and stood by the window. It was pouring—not a drizzle, not a sun shower, but a steady curtain of solid precipitation that obliterated the landscape, turning the early spring into a monochrome. There had been so much rain this year after a curiously snowless winter. So much rain, but not on Monday night. Not on the fire.

Ben was at school and Amy was at a friend’s house.

There would be the funeral, the interment, then back to the house for thimbles of sherry and lots and lots of those triangle sandwiches.

Was this what Margaret would have liked? It was going to be pretty sedate, although not without tears.

What would Faith herself want? Faith pictured her own funeral and wished for some serious wailing and gnashing of teeth. Tom had promised to go at the same time, so presumably the kids, elderly people themselves by then, would be pretty broken up. Faith wanted a funeral where people would feel free to throw themselves on the thin red carpet that went up the center aisle of the church. Maybe roll around a little. She wanted hymns that could be belted out. She wanted “Amazing Grace” the way it ought to be sung.

It wasn’t very likely, particularly if her sister, Hope, outlived her, as she no doubt planned. Hope would not be scandalized by such a display of raw emotion; she would simply say it wouldn’t do, and that would be that. At least Faith could leave instructions about the food. Maybe champagne and caviar. We die as we live. Or was it the other way around?

As she searched for some dark hose, she realized she hadn’t known Margaret very well. Such different interests. Such different schedules. Margaret, a murder victim. So unlikely. This friend of feathered friends. Tom had mentioned that neither Nelson nor Margaret had any family to speak of. She wondered why they hadn’t had children. Margaret had spoken of her mother with obvious affection, a mother who set those feet, so sensibly clad in sturdy brown Oxfords, on the path through hill and dale in search of birdsongs. A pretty picture. Wouldn’t Margaret have liked to perform the same role? She remembered seeing Nelson installing some shelves at the preschool one morning. Miss Lora and the children were at his side.

Faith had never seen the man so animated, so obviously happy.

There was always something a bit wistful about the Batcheldors. Margaret had not had a career, but she’d been born in that sliver of time between the assump-tion that a woman’s place was in the home and the exodus into the workforce. She would have had a foot in each era, and that must have been confusing, as indeed such a picture presented. Faith tried to think about what Margaret actually had done. Nelson was more active in the church than she’d been, although she was a member of the Alliance. She’d done some volunteer work and was prominent in the Aleford Conservation Commission. She’d definitely had organizational skills, but seemed content with her life out-doors, field guide in hand. Tom had told Faith that a signed photo of Roger Tory Peterson was hanging on the wall in Margaret’s room. Maybe Nelson didn’t want her to work. Fortunately, Faith wasn’t married to someone with this problem.

She was going to the funeral with Pix. Pix would have a hat. So would Millicent and most of the other women. Faith looked in her closet. A large Virginia Woolf straw was certainly not suitable, nor a floppy velvet beret, even though it was black. Besides, it was raining. She got out her umbrella, raincoat, and a pair of gloves. Pix would appreciate the effort and Aleford would have to lump the hat.

“Poor Margaret! Such a terrible day,” Pix remarked after they had shaken the water from their coats like spaniels and assumed their seats in one of the First Parish pews.

Faith knew what her friend meant. It was bad enough to have died the way she did; the least God could have done was to make the sun shineth upon her.

“Not too many people. Maybe the weather has kept some of their older friends away,” Pix commented, turning around to scan the mourners. She had the uncanny ability to estimate a crowd, and Faith pictured embedded in Pix’s frontal lobe one of those little de-vices the Museum of Fine Arts had at the entrance to count people. “I’d say there can’t be more than twenty-three people, maybe twenty-four.” Faith looked, too. She would have thought more would have come, if only out of ghoulish curiosity.

There were people she didn’t recognize, but some of them were probably from the library where Nelson worked.

“Her world was pretty small—the bird-watchers, the members of the Conservation Commission. I’ve never even been inside their house,” Pix said. Now this was a surprise. Pix under the aegis of one organization or another, or simply for pleasure, had been in and out of most of the homes in Aleford. Her tone of voice indicated she was mildly surprised herself.

“Well, you didn’t miss anything.” Faith had been there with Tom on parish calls. “Lots of knotty pine, bird things, of course, and that’s about it. We had Triscuits and tomato juice.” Faith tended to remember what she had been served even more clearly than where.

The organist began to play the first hymn. Everyone stood up. Tom mounted the pulpit and they began to sing, “Where ancient forests widely spread.” By the time they got to “Till death the gates of heaven unfold,” Faith knew she was depressed. Dear God, how she hated funerals.

It got better when Tom began to speak and there was comfort in the familiar words of the service. He was reading from John, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” To comfort the bereaved—that was the whole point of the service.

Nelson had pulled himself together and was sitting dry-eyed in the front pew, close to the casket. There was a large basket of flowers on top with a few small artificial birds perched on the sprays of inevitable gladioli. Nelson was flanked by the Scotts. Louise’s nose was bright red and she seemed closer to breaking down than the next of kin. Nelson squeezed her hand, which only served to start the tears again. Faith thought of Amy’s reaction to Nelson in the woods.

The poor man seemed to be better at provoking tears than stanching them lately.

They read Psalm 104 responsively. Tom had done a good job, and it was filled with birds. Some ancient pro-genitor of Margaret’s, with a life list in hand, may well have authored it—at the very least, a kindred spirit: The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he planted.

In them the birds make their nests; as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.

Faith began to feel uneasy. She was having trouble concentrating. Church sometimes had this effect on her. What was Margaret doing in the new house?

What was Margaret doing in the woods?

Let the sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Praise the Lord!

She was jolted from her thoughts but not her anxi-ety. Tom’s voice, as he read the last verse, had assumed a totally different quality. He was not just stern but angry. Suddenly, everyone in the church was reminded of the way Margaret died. And the sinner still walked among them.

Tom’s homily touched upon Margaret’s love of nature and service to the community. He spoke of the deep sorrow that inevitably follows when a life is cut off before its time and the test this presents for one’s faith. Faith, his wife, heard him and took the words literally—as a challenge.

The last hymn was one of those that changed key frequently, making it difficult to sing, and by the third verse only Tom and a few other diehards were trying.

Everyone else came in for the “Amen” and then trooped out into the rain to the cemetery.

The cemetery next to the church had long since filled up and now it was mostly visited by those interested in Aleford history and earnest souls who found delight in hanging rubbings with pithy epitaphs such as “Death is a debt, to Nature due,/I’ve paid the debt, and so must you” on their walls. The new cemetery, dedicated shortly after the Civil War, was across town.

As need arose, the grounds had been extended, and it was like a large park, a park with headstones. The heavy carpet of moss and abundance of willows lent a suitably doleful air to the surroundings. On most days it was a pleasant walk from First Parish, but not today.

Faith got into Pix’s car and they joined the cortege. It wasn’t a very long one.

There were even fewer people than had been at the church and they clustered together, umbrellas overlapping, trying to keep dry. The tree trunks were streaked with black and beneath the leafless branches the ground was a sea of mud. The wind was picking up. The people from the funeral home had quickly gotten back into the hearse after depositing the casket. Tom struggled to hold both his prayer book and umbrella until Faith came to his rescue, shielding him from the elements with her large umbrella.

Giving her a grateful look, he started the service with Shelley’s poem, and never had “Hail to thee, blithe spirit!” seemed more inappropriate. Tom perse-vered. Faith had forgotten how long the ode was. By the time he got to:

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know;

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Faith’s feet were soaked and the arm holding the umbrella had gone to sleep.

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .” Tom dropped a handful of dirt on top of the casket as his deep voice, so well suited to his calling, repeated the familiar words. Familiar words, yet however often Faith heard them, they always produced the same effect on her. A door was being shut. Another one might be opening, but this life was over. When were you ready? Sixty, eighty, a hundred? Never? Margaret hadn’t been ready. Margaret had been denied all thought at the end. It was horrible.

Faith heard the mourners start, “Our Father,” and she joined in. Margaret Batcheldor’s funeral was over.

Pix dropped her off at one o’clock and Faith immediately called Lora to tell her she was on her way over to pick up Ben. Lora ran an extended day program twice a week and this had fortunately been one of the days.

As Faith hurried down the stairs into the church base-ment, where the nursery school was located, she realized that of course no one from the Deane family, nor any of their friends, had attended Margaret’s funeral.

Faith had half-expected Gus to show up. It was the kind of thing he did. Lest anyone have any doubts.

What kind of murderer would go to the victim’s funeral? she could almost hear him say. But perhaps his wife had encouraged him to stay home. Lillian didn’t like the spotlight. Perhaps he hadn’t thought to go at all. And it wasn’t true, Faith thought. About murderers. They often did go to their victim’s funerals—out of bravado, or to make sure the deed was well and truly done. Maybe remorse?

It had been a small group back at the Batcheldors’

house. The rain was still coming down hard, and even with all the lights turned on, the atmosphere was gloomy. They lived in a small stone Arts and Crafts–

style cottage that had been built in the twenties. Today the stone walls and small-paned windows did not seem cozy. The Scotts were there, acting as hosts, keeping everyone supplied with sherry and, yes, those sandwiches. Millicent grabbed Pix and, as Pix reported later, filled her in on what would be presented at tonight’s POW! meeting. Charley MacIsaac sat morosely in a bare wood Stickley-type chair next to Nelson. Charley was not drinking sherry; he had managed to find something quite a different color that filled half a tumbler. He was avoiding the sandwiches, too.

Conversation tended toward the repetitive: “I can’t believe she’s gone.” “She was a very special person.” No one mentioned the fire. No one mentioned the time of night.

“Mom, hey, Mom, look what I made!” Ben tackled her, effectively pulling her into the present tense.

“He is so talented, Faith. I think you may have a real artist here,” Miss Lora said seriously. “He is unusually gifted.” She was holding a dripping-wet painting. It looked like a rainbow done by a nearly five-year-old child. Faith took a chance.

“What a beautiful rainbow, sweetheart. When it dries, we can take it home and put it up on the fridge.”

“Oh, Mom, it’s not a rainbow. See the legs? It’s a zebra from Magic Land and here’s the boy who rides him in the sky and here’s . . .”

Swearing for the ninety-ninth time that she would never guess what a child had drawn until given either an extremely obvious hint or the answer, Faith managed to get Ben away without the painting by explaining the rain might damage it. This made sense to both Ben and Miss Lora, who was as insistent that the mas-terpiece grace the Fairchild home as soon as possible as Ben had been.

Lora did not look like someone who was resting easy in the comfort and security of her grandparents’

home. She had deep circles under her eyes. Faith asked her how things were going as Ben left to get his raincoat and froggy boots.

“Oh, everything’s fine. Well, I mean it’s not great living at Grandma and Grandpa’s, but at least no one’s throwing stuff through my windows.”

“Do you have any idea who it could have been?” Tom had already reported that she did not. He and Charley had been spending quite a lot of time together lately and evidently, as Faith had suspected, covered much ground. Still, maybe Miss Lora would spill the beans to Faith, a sympathetic woman, far removed from an official capacity.

No such luck.

“I can’t imagine who would do such a thing.” It sounded as if she’d said this phrase before—and more than once.

“You don’t think it could have been Brad? You did think he could have made the calls? Or Joey?”

“Definitely not Joey!” Lora’s cheeks flushed in annoyance. “I told you, I was wrong to accuse him.” Ben came back and the conversation ended, but Faith knew it wouldn’t have gone anyplace. Whatever Lora knew or suspected, she was keeping to herself.

No show-and-tell, no sharing circle.

Tom came back around three. He looked wrecked and Faith knew he still had his sermon to finish. She sometimes wished he were a bit less honorable and would either repeat an earlier one or use one of those sermon books—at least as a starting point. But someone in the congregation would be bound to point out the repetition even while vigorously shaking Tom’s hand at the church door at the close of the service. And Tom scorned all aids, the ecclesiastical equivalent of Cliffs Notes, even the computerized Bible, complete with subject search, on CD-ROM, that was being touted by some of his colleagues. Faith thought it sounded great and wondered who did the readings—Charlton Hes-ton? But Tom steadfastly refused, surrounding himself with stacks of books and papers. Whether it was the divinity ordering one’s life or pure chance, somehow he managed to make sense of the chaos, plucking the sources he needed and turning out sermon after sermon each week—intelligent, inspirational, occasionally truly memorable. And never too long.

The kids were making sugar cookies with their mother in the kitchen. She was tired, too, but after Amy woke up from her nap, Faith had felt a need to do something with family and food for comfort. Margaret’s funeral had continued to stay with her like the cold, soaking rain that had worked its way down the back of her coat collar at the cemetery.

“Why don’t you lie down before you start working?

I’ll keep the kids in here with me and maybe you can get a quick nap.”

“It sounds great, but I know I won’t be able to sleep with this hanging over my head. Maybe I’ll work a little, then take a break.”

“We’re going to have dinner early. POW!—remember? Samantha is baby-sitting, but if you want to stay home, I’ll call her.”

“No, I want to go. Who knows what may happen?” Tom attempted a light tone, yet the words were strained.

Faith agreed. She wasn’t offering to stay home.

Everything had started with the formation of POW!

Gus had thundered the other night. And he was right—the letters, the attack on Lora’s apartment, the fire, the murder. The calls had come before, but the calls might be unrelated.

She grabbed the flour canister just before Amy sent it toppling over the edge of the table, and got out a rolling pin for Ben. She set Amy on the floor with the tin of cookie cutters and let her play with the shapes.

“At least let me make you a cup of coffee, or some tea? And I hope you didn’t eat any of those sandwiches, did you? You must need something.” Tom had, in fact, mindlessly consumed quite a few of the bite-sized sandwiches before he realized how foul they tasted. He’d avoided the sherry and had been drinking coffee all afternoon. It was the last thing he wanted now.

“How about a big glass of milk and whatever cookies you guys make?”

“I’m making rainbow zebra cookies, Daddy. Just for you,” Ben said.

Faith eyed him warily. He was getting dangerously close to cute. She’d have to read Where the Wild Things Are to him again—soon.

“When they’re ready, I’ll bring you some. The first batch is going in now.” Faith gave Tom a big hug.

It was upon this scene of slightly boring domestic tranquillity that the doorbell intruded. Faith wiped her hands on her apron and went to answer it. When she opened the door, she gasped.

Detective Lieutenant John Dunne of the Massachusetts State Police stood without.

Five

Familiarity had not diminished the impact of John Dunne’s presence. As Dunne stepped into the hall, Faith marveled anew at the sheer bulk of the man: six foot seven with an ample frame to match, his head grazed the parsonage’s authentically quaint low ceil-ings. In his late forties, the salt was beginning to over-power the pepper on his head. Otherwise, he was unchanged from Faith’s first encounter—or, as she liked to think of it, partnership—with him five years earlier. He still dressed more like a CEO than a cop, and as she took his Burberry—had to be special order—she noted the well-cut suit he was wearing. Her private theory was that Dunne dressed so impeccably, even down to the French cuffs he favored, to draw attention away from the rest of him—especially his face. It was, in a word, homely. When he was growing up, his mother had probably told him it showed character. It got worse when he smiled, which fortunately was not often. He was not smiling now.

“I wonder if I could have a word with you and Tom?”

Detective Lieutenant Dunne had grown up in the Bronx, but his wife was from Maine, and Massachusetts was as far south as she’d go. Fourteen years in New England had not altered his accent. If anything, it had thickened. It was a not-so-subtle statement of regional pride—of egg creams, the Zoo, and Manhattan, a short subway ride away. Faith, who had resisted

“paahking her carr in Hahvad Yaad” herself, had been drawn to Dunne immediately—and ever since. In turn, she was growing on him, but how, specifically, varied from time to time, depending on the mood he was in. At the moment, he wished he could tell her to stay in the kitchen and keep baking the cookies he smelled. It had as much chance of working as the possibility of his acquiring a rent-controlled West Side apartment with a view of the park as a pied-à-terre.

“Of course. Tom’s in his study. Go on in and I’ll join you as soon as I get the kids settled. Coffee?

Something to eat?”

“No thanks.” Faith expected as much. Dunne seldom accepted refreshment while on the job. For once, she was glad sustenance had been rejected. She didn’t want to miss anything.

Having quickly opted for that mother’s standby, a video—in this case Winnie the Pooh—Faith walked into the study only a few minutes later.

“I’ve assumed the whole thing was Millicent’s idea,” Tom was saying.

“What whole thing?” Faith asked. With Millicent, Tom could be referring to anything from temperance to changing Aleford’s name back to what Millicent believed was its original one, Haleford.

John Dunne sighed. The papers on Tom’s desk fluttered. She was back. There was no way he was going to get a private chat with the reverend. Once again, he faced the prospect that Faith would get overly involved, get in the way, get in his hair, get . . . He could go on, and did—to his wife.

Yet, he reminded himself, Faith did know more about what was going on in town than Tom, who the detective presumed was busy concentrating on loftier matters.

“I want to know about the POW! group,” Dunne explained. “Who started it, anything that comes to mind.” Faith thought it more judicious to answer his questions before asking her own.

“Tom is right. Millicent started Preserve Our Wetlands! and the core group formed around a letter sent to the Chronicle protesting Joey Madsen’s plans to develop Beecher’s Bog.”

Dunne nodded.

“The people who signed the letter were Pix Miller, Louise and Ted Scott, Margaret and Nelson Batcheldor, Brad Hallowell, and Millicent herself. You know about the poison-pen letters they got afterward?”

“Yes,” Dunne said. “Charley told me. He also described the meeting of POW! that he attended and I understand there’s another one tonight. But what I want to know is whether there have been others you know about, smaller meetings.”

“I’m sure there have been, although I haven’t been invited to any. They would have had to have met to talk about the big meeting and compose the flyer. Although, I suppose Millicent and Brad could have done that themselves. I can find out from Pix if she’s been at any meetings.” Having offered help, Faith felt she could slip in a question.

“Do you think Margaret’s active membership in POW! had something to do with her murder?” Dunne hadn’t rung their doorbell to sell raffle tickets for PAL. The state police would have been called in right away in a town with a police force the size of Aleford’s. The detective might be asking about POW!, but he was definitely investigating Margaret’s death.

He frowned. It was marginally more grotesque than his smile.

“I didn’t say anything about the Batcheldor case,” he spoke sternly. “Back off, Faith. All I want to know about is POW!”

Outwardly chastened, Faith told him everything she knew and described the selectmen’s meetings, as well.

She had been prepared to tell him about meeting the Batcheldors in the bog, but he’d said stick to POW!, so she did.

At the end, he nodded again and addressed Tom. “It would be useful if we had someone who could report what goes on at these meetings. Charley’s there, but some extra eyes and ears would help. Obviously we can’t go.”

“I suppose so,” Tom said. He wasn’t altogether easy with the role of infiltrator, but if Dunne thought there could be a connection between the group and the murder, they had to try to find it.

Faith was not miffed. She was used to John and knew that even though he was specifically asking Tom, he meant her, too—however much it pained him.

“You want us to be moles. No problem. Now, if we could disguise ourselves in Carhartt jackets and get jobs with Deane Properties, we’d be all set.” It was exactly what Dunne had been afraid of—Faith was already on the case, at least in her mind.

“I just want to know about the conservation group. Period.”

If he had known Faith was taking this to mean that she didn’t have to share whatever else she uncovered, he might have phrased it differently. He might not even have walked in the parsonage door in the first place.

He snapped shut the Filofax in which he’d been making notes and stood up, narrowly missing a beam.

The study was in the oldest part of the house.

“I’ll hear from you tomorrow, then.” It was not a question. Tom showed him out and Faith raced to make sure the tape had not finished. Tigger was about to take Roo’s medicine and Ben had not taken Amy out of the playpen. She was in time.

Resisting the impulse to dress up as either Boris Badenov or Natasha—she seemed to have an impulse for disguise lately—Faith arrived at POW!’s second meeting early enough to get a place up front. She draped her jacket on the seat beside her to save it for Tom, who was waiting for Samantha. Softball practice had run late. Samantha had still not heard from her last two colleges and was no closer to a decision about the others than she had been a week ago. The whole episode of the poison-pen letter had been over-shadowed by where Samantha was going to go to school, the main topic of conversation at the Miller house once again. Samantha herself seemed quite calm when Faith had spoken to her about her choices.

It was Pix who was going off the deep end. “I don’t even know what time zone she’s going to be in or how much of a phone bill to expect!” she’d told Faith. The real issue was Samantha’s leaving. Pix was going to miss her terribly, and without a daughter in residence, the whole family constellation would change. “I’ll be outnumbered,” she’d told Faith. “All the blouses in the wash will be mine.” Faith had commiserated without totally understanding. Granted, it was many years away, but she thought it might not be so bad getting back to just the two of them—with lots of visits home, of course. Pix viewed the gradual reduction in size as the loss of limbs from one kind of family tree.

Millicent strode up onstage just as Tom slid into the seat next to his wife. “No envelopes thick or thin today, and she’s sick of talking about it. So don’t say anything about the C word when we get home,” he told her quickly before Millicent began.

“Poor Samantha! It’s horrible to be the center of attention sometimes.”

Millicent didn’t have a gavel. She didn’t need one.

The room, which was even more crowded than last time, instantly grew quiet.

“Before we begin, I’d like to have a moment of silence for our member, Margaret Batcheldor, who died so tragically this week. Most of you knew her and of her devotion to our cause. I would like to dedicate all our future efforts in memory of Margaret.” Millicent bowed her head and the only sound was the ticking of the large clock mounted on the wall next to the stage. Sixty seconds later, Millicent’s head snapped up and she was on to the first order of business.

“We’ll start the meeting with a report from the head of the signature drive, Brad Hallowell. Brad, stand up.”

Brad stood.

“We have submitted more than the required number of signatures to the town clerk and after verification, which should be completed by Tuesday, since Monday is a holiday, a special Town Meeting will be called for the following week.” Someone gave a cheer and everyone clapped. Brad sat down.

Faith tried to think of a way she could question him.

They still didn’t know who’d made the calls—or thrown the brick. Lora was at her grandparents, but she’d have to go back to her own place sometime. Brad was basking in success at the moment, smiling and happy. He didn’t look threatening, but his scuffle with Gus at the selectmen’s meeting suggested otherwise.

“Wonderful work! Everyone is to be congratulated, and special thanks to you, Brad, for doing such a fine job coordinating things. I may just have to get one of those computers myself someday!” The audience laughed at the pleasantry. Until they came out with Chippendale or Sheraton models, it was unlikely that high tech would invade Miss McKinley’s parlor.

“I’m pleased to report that our treasury is in fine shape due to your generous contributions, and we have more than enough for a town-wide mailing to explain what is going to happen at Town Meeting and ask people to call their members to express support for the articles. Pix Miller and Louise Scott have agreed to head up this committee, and they’ll need volunteers to stuff all those envelopes. You can sign up after the meeting. I’ve written an informal environmental-impact statement that we’ll include.”

“When does the woman sleep?” Faith whispered to Tom. She leaned back in the wooden chair like the kind that used to be in movie theaters, the kind that demanded you sit down quickly and stay seated or it would jackknife on you. It was almost as uncomfortable as the pews at First Parish. So far, there was precious little to report back to headquarters, she thought.

Signature collection and a hefty treasury. Possibly there was something there. She could ask Pix who the big donors were. Everyone had been asked to kick in at least ten dollars initially to cover the cost of the flyers. But a town-wide mailing was expensive. Millicent herself lived on a very fixed income—or so she said, frequently. Brad certainly made good money, but was he committed to the point where he was assuming the bulk of the cost? Faith wished she could make a note, but she didn’t want to look conspicuous.

Faith was getting bored. Maybe it was too much to hope for a repeat of the fireworks at the last selectmen’s meeting.

Millicent was discussing tactics for Town Meeting.

Someone suggested that all the Town Meeting members in POW! meet separately to talk about how best to present the articles. Millicent thought that was a pretty good idea. Faith didn’t. It meant Tom would find out what was going on before she did. Town Meeting was something the Fairchilds had always done wherever they found themselves, running for election before the boxes were unpacked, although in Tom’s family’s case, this normally meant years. The Fairchilds were savers and everything went with them. On one visit, Faith had been startled to discover some Allied Van cartons in her in-law’s attic marked,

“Children’s Misc. Schoolwork and Odd Curtains.”

“Now to be blunt . . .” Faith heard through her thoughts. Millicent might be getting to something interesting at last, she hoped. “We have to be very careful not to tread on any toes between now and the meeting. A certain family in town has come in for a great deal of criticism and mudslinging is not the way we do things in Aleford. They will have their day in court, just as we will. Town Meeting will decide.” This was pretty decent of Millicent—to call off the hounds and leave the Deanes in peace. But, Faith reflected, it was also very smart. There was nothing to be gained by going after them. It made POW! look bad. Millicent was a great believer in the power of moral superiority.

Suddenly, Faith began to feel sorry for the Deanes and was glad Millicent wasn’t a mind reader—close to it though she was. What about the Deanes’ rights?

Faith didn’t want the land developed, but Joey did own it. It belonged to him, and those opposing him would be equally furious if, for instance, Joey told them they couldn’t paint their houses a certain color or add on a bedroom because of some sainted “quality of life in Aleford” article.

“I’m getting mixed up about which side I’m on,” Faith said in a low voice to her husband.

“Me, too,” he responded, speaking into her ear. “I don’t like the bedfellows on one side; don’t like the bed on the other.”

Millicent was asking for someone to help draft the cover letter for the mailing. Faith, finally seeing an opportunity, shot her hand up like an eager “pick me, pick me!” third grader.

“Why, Faith,” Millicent said, the words tumbling out before she could help herself.

“Thank you, I’d love to work on this,” she said in acceptance, even though she well knew Millicent was merely voicing surprise. Faith never volunteered for anything. She’d learned from watching Pix that one thing did not lead to another, but to fifty or sixty.

Tom raised his eyebrows. It gave him an endearing look. Faith smiled. “I simply want to be of service, darling.”

“Sure you do,” he said, the eyebrows approaching his hairline.

At the close of the meeting, Ted Scott read a few passages from Thoreau to keep everyone in the mood and Millicent told them they would gather again, same time, same place, the following Wednesday.

POW! was gaining momentum and they would need to meet more often.

Faith was waiting for her at the side of the stage.

“When do you want to meet?” she asked.

“Meet?” Millicent made it sound like an indecent suggestion.

“Yes, to draft the letter.”

“Oh, that. Well, I can’t think about another thing until Patriots’ Day is over. I have a million things to do before Monday.”

Faith was sure this was not an exaggeration. Apart from organizing the reenactment, Millicent was also in charge of the DAR’s pancake breakfast served afterward to some of the hundreds of spectators who flocked to the green. Then there was the morning youth parade and the big parade later in the day. Millicent had received the Bronze Musket, the town’s highest civic award, twice—the only person in history to do so. In Aleford, this particular plaque was so prized it fell into the category of what-to-save-first-in-the-event-of-disaster. For a couple of the recipients, it might be a hard choice between musket and, say, spouse.

“How about Tuesday?” Faith was persistent. “The mailing should be well in advance of Town Meeting, and we could read it to the members the next night.”

“All right, Tuesday. Ten o’clock at my house. I’ll see if Brad can make it. He’s working at home for these two weeks.”

Just as Faith had hoped. Brad Hallowell. At last a chance to get to know this tempestuous young man, a young man Millicent obviously did know well, even down to his work schedule.

She left Millicent and went in search of Tom, who was talking to Pix. Faith suggested they walk home together. Sam Miller, while opposing Alefordiana Estates, told his wife he could not belong to any organization that had an exclamation point. He’d taken his son to the movies.

It wasn’t difficult to find out what Pix knew about POW!’s funding. All Faith had to do was ask.

“I assume you’re talking about amounts over a hundred, right?”

“Yes,” Faith answered, this being the rough equivalent of benefactor in New York City, your name to be chiseled in marble or over an archway.

“The Scotts gave a hundred and fifty and so did the Batcheldors. Brad gave two hundred. The largest donation was five hundred from anonymous.”

“Anonymous? Come on, you must have some idea of who it is, or Millicent does. The check had to be signed.”

“Nope.” They were approaching the parsonage and Pix slowed her steps. “The money was in cash. Millicent found it in her mailbox with the donation slip from the flyer inside.”

“Well, what did that say?”

“Nothing. Just ‘anonymous’ printed next to ‘Name’—and no other information.”

“Not too many people in town have that kind of money, or rather, they do, but they don’t give it away.

Take a guess, Pix. Who do you think it is?”

“I have given it some thought,” Pix admitted, “and we did talk about it when we met to plan last week’s meeting. It could be Bea Hoffman or one of the other selectmen—someone who can’t publicly support us.”

“Does Bea have that much money?” Faith asked.

Bea had never struck her as a lady with much in the way of disposable income. Same coat since Faith had been in Aleford. Same pocketbook, too. Although this frugality should have alerted her.

“Oh yes, Bea is very wealthy. Her mother’s family.” They were at the gate to the parsonage.

“I’ll come in and get Samantha,” Pix offered. “No sense in having her walk home alone.”

“I’m happy to walk her home, but she always laughs at me,” Tom protested.

“Since it’s only a few steps, I can see why,” her mother said, contradicting herself. But Faith knew Pix wasn’t concerned for Samantha’s safety. She just wanted to store up as much time as possible with her daughter.

Samantha was curled up in one of the wing chairs, reading. She yawned and stretched.

“They were perfect,” she told Faith, who believed her. One’s children always were for other people.

“How was POW! tonight?” She laughed.

“Fine. And we have enough signatures to reconvene Town Meeting. Poor Joey Madsen better give up now,” Pix said. “By the way, did you see that his lawyer was there again tonight? I think Joey should come himself instead of sending a spy!” The tops of Tom’s ears turned pink. “Maybe he has his reasons. Such as not wanting to cause a riot.” Faith looked at her husband. “I agree with Pix.

Spies, the very idea.”

At two o’clock the next afternoon, Faith was looking out the kitchen window, trying to predict the weather.

They were about to take the kids to the Boston Children’s Museum. Should it be raincoats or not? Pix seemed to have acquired this meteorological knack at about the same time as she had learned to walk, and Faith had noted other Aleford residents who would touch their tongues to index fingers, test the air with great deliberation, then matter-of-factly tell you the temperature, barometric pressure, and the precipitation for the next several days, with an occasional reference to what was rolling in from Canada.

“Raincoats?” she asked Ben and Amy. Maybe they’d picked it up, too. Ben was already adding r’s to the end of certain words where none existed.

“It’s not going to rain, Mom. It’s warm. I don’t need a jacket,” Ben said firmly. So firmly, Faith was tempted to believe him, except he never wanted to wear a jacket.

“We’ll throw them in the car. I wonder what’s keeping Daddy.” Tom had been at the church office since early morning, taking a sandwich with him.

After her husband had left, she’d reported in to Detective Lieutenant Dunne. It had been a brief conversation and the only item that really seemed to interest him was the anonymous five-hundred-dollar donation. It was the only thing that had interested her the night before, too. She told him that she had volunteered to be on a committee, and he told her to keep in touch, but she could tell his heart wasn’t really in it.

She returned to peer out the window like Sister Anne, but it wasn’t her brothers she saw. It was Miss Lora. Miss Lora was getting out of a very new, very jazzy bright red Miata convertible—a car Faith herself coveted. Miss Lora? Sports cars? She was carrying a carton and called something back over her shoulder to the driver. Faith strained to see who it was, but he was too far away and the top was up. She quickly grabbed her purse, got out the keys to the extremely practical familial Honda, and prayed for Tom to return quickly. Maybe not prayed as such, but wished hard. It worked. As soon as he was in earshot, halfway across the cemetery, she opened the door and called out, “Tom, could you hurry up? The kids are really eager to get going.” It was true. It was also true that so was she—eager to follow Miss Lora and see who was behind the wheel of the car.

Reverend Fairchild walked through the door, expecting a hug and a kiss. Instead, Faith pulled him to one side. “Did you see Lora?”

“Lora? No. Why? Was I supposed to?”

“No, no,” Faith said impatiently. “But she just got out of that sports car in the church driveway and went inside. Did you recognize who was driving the car?” Tom had finished his sermon. While not a cloudless blue sky, it was a washed-out watercolor approxima-tion. He was on his way home to spend a pleasant afternoon with his wife and children. There was a spring in his step. He’d had a good run that morning.

He hadn’t, in short, seen the driver—or the car.

“Car?”

“Look out the window! That red sports car—you didn’t notice it?”

“Not really. Is this important?” He loved his wife, yet there were definitely times when their worldviews diverged, and this was one of them.

“Lora got out of the car, carrying a cardboard box, said something I couldn’t hear, and went into the church.”

“So long as she wasn’t taking things out of the church in a box, I’d say there’s nothing here to be concerned about. Why don’t we get going? I just need to go—”

“She’s back! Tom, come on, we’ve got to find out whose car it is. She seemed so edgy yesterday when I picked Ben up, and she looked terrible. You haven’t forgotten how frightened she was that night in the study? I just want to know what’s going on.”

Tom hadn’t forgotten how terrified the young woman was and he became infected with Faith’s sense of urgency.

“You’re right. Let’s go.”

They strapped the kids in their car seats. Tom backed out of the garage and drove down the street to a spot with a clear view of the church.

“Why are we stopping? I thought we were going to the museum? I want to climb on that big phone and make bubbles. Why—” Ben was puzzled.

“Hush, sweetie. We need to stay here for a minute and think. Maybe you could think of some other things you want to do in the museum.”

“I want to play with that computer and—”

“Think, Ben. Think. Quietly,” Faith said, then patted his sleek blond head affectionately. She was trying very hard to save him a fortune in future therapists’ fees. Amy was taking her shoes and socks off. No problems there.

Tom started the car.

“She’s coming out. Good girl. She’s locking up.” The Miata pulled out of the church driveway and turned right along the north side of the green, then left onto Main Street. Tom followed. The Honda was a silver-gray one and he hoped it would be inconspicuous. He’d never done anything like this before, but he’d seen enough movies. He let two cars get between him and the very conspicuous sports car as they passed the library. The Miata was traveling at an overly respectable twenty miles an hour.

“Not speeding through town. Think that means it’s someone who knows Charley usually has a car on Parker Place?” Chief MacIsaac was proud of this extremely lucrative source of revenue for the town, revenue from nonresidents, of course. Everyone local slowed to a crawl.

“Lora’s with him, so we can’t assume anything.”

“True.”

As soon as the posted speed limit went to 40 mph, the Miata jumped forward. With one car between them, Tom followed suit. They were heading straight down Main Street, away from Aleford and toward Arlington, Cambridge, and Boston.

“I’ll bet he turns toward Route Two.”

“Too easy.” Faith only bet when she knew she would win. “Lora lives in the opposite direction, so they’re not going to her place. Why would they be going to Arlington? The car has bright lights, big city written all over it, and the fastest way to get there is on the highway.”

At the small, treacherous traffic circle down by the Woodrows’ farm stand—a family operation that had mushroomed from bins of tomatoes, lettuce, and corn in season to arugula and jicama—the small red car made a sharp right. The Fairchilds were slowed down by their attempt to enter the circle, something akin to Russian roulette, except with cars, when all the Saturday shoppers were leaving the stand.

“Don’t worry. We won’t lose them. We were right.

They have to be going to Route Two.” Tom turned down the ramp and they spotted the car farther along the highway, not too far ahead of them.

He speeded up.

“Hey, Dad, this is fun. Go faster!” Ben called out.

Tom grinned. He had no idea anymore why he was doing this, but it was fun.

The highway stopped and they followed the car around two more traffic circles, less lethal because of the perpetual construction occurring outside the Alewife Transit Station and Fresh Pond Parkway. It slowed everyone to a crawl. Finally, at the Charles River, the road divided definitively. The left would take them down Memorial Drive past Harvard; the right led to Storrow Drive and Boston.

“Don’t lose them. Don’t lose them!” Faith cried.

“Don’t lose them, Daddy!” Ben echoed.

Tom could just see a patch of red that he assumed was their quarry. Traffic was heavy on this Saturday afternoon and there was no way to stay closer to the car. He tried pulling into the next lane and was rewarded with both an obscene gesture and the blast of a horn. He wished he’d worn his work clothes.

The light changed and he pulled forward. It was no good. He couldn’t see which way they’d turned.

“We have a fifty-fifty chance. Quick, tell me what to do,” he said to Faith.

“Take Storrow. We’re going that way, anyway.” The red car was stopped at the next light. Tom grinned triumphantly and pulled up behind them.

There were so many cars now that looked like the Fairchilds’ that he felt safe. Besides, he didn’t want to lose them again. Faith put on her dark glasses. She wished she had a scarf to tie around her hair like Garbo or Madonna, but Faith wasn’t the type to tie scarves around her hair. The sunglasses would have to do.

The light changed and Tom trailed the car to Copley Square.

“It’s a clear day. Maybe we should take the kids to the top of the John Hancock Building,” Tom suggested as they passed the tallest building in the city, sheer glass jutting up to the sky, and now that the windows had stopped popping out, perfectly safe. He liked going up there. You got a great view of the city, and while you couldn’t see as far down the South Shore as Norwell, where he grew up, he could point in the right direction for the kids.

South Shore childhood memories receded rapidly, replaced by Boston’s South End. They drove down Clarendon, across Columbus, and then the Miata turned left and pulled into a parking place on Chandler Street, a legal one—something of a minor miracle.

“Over there! Across the street!” Faith gestured in front of Tom’s nose, causing him to step on the brakes.

“Honey, there’s a hydrant. We can’t—”

“We’re not getting out. If we see a—” She had started to say the word cop, then recalled Ben had un-happily reached that age where you could say virtually nothing in front of him—had reached it a long time ago.

“If we see a person with a notebook in hand, we’ll leave. We’re not getting out of the car. At least not all of us.”

“This isn’t the museum.” Ben offered the observa-tion as a flat statement of fact.

“We know that, but we need some more thinking time. You do that, too, sweetheart, and we’ll be at the museum soon.” Amy was attempting to remove her sweater and overalls.

“Are they waiting for someone, do you think?” Tom asked. No one had moved from the Miata.

“Possibly.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes more. A young man dressed in black jeans with an A/X T-shirt, spotlessly white except for the logo, came strolling down the block. He paused at the car. Faith rolled her window down. He looked at his watch, glanced at the sports car, and moved on.

“Some kind of code?” Tom asked.

Faith reminded herself that Tom read a great many more mysteries than she did. She’d like to humor him, but years of sleuthing, amateur though she was, told her the guy was probably merely stopping to check the time.

She shook her head, then put her hand on Tom’s arm. The door was opening. She turned around to face the backseat and put her finger to her lips. “It’s a game,” she whispered. “Quiet as mice.” The driver got out, closed his door, and walked around the front of the car to put money in the meter.

He was a total stranger. She looked over at Tom. He shook his head.

Whoever it was matched the car well. The look was Louis, not Brooks. This was someone who paid attention to labels. Someone who thought clothes were important and a reflection of self. Someone not unlike Faith herself. For this spring Saturday afternoon, he was wearing a soft cream-colored silk shirt, light brown cotton slacks, tight, but not too tight in the rear—enough to show, not show off—and a cotton sweater the color of perfectly poached salmon, flung casually around his shoulders. No gold chains or an earring, just a simple watch that Faith was pretty sure even at this distance was a Piaget and tasseled loafers for decoration. He was fairly tall, lean, and his blond hair was at a length about halfway between Fabio and Macaulay Culkin.

Miss Lora with this guy? Faith and Tom didn’t have to speak. Each face mirrored the other’s surprise.

Then Lora got out, on her own steam. Whoever he was, he was either too conscious of women’s rights to open the door for her or did not have any manners.

Faith reminded herself that Lora had struggled with her carton unaided.

She wasn’t carrying anything now, except one of those funny little knapsacks made of clear vinyl. Faith focused on the bag. It confused her. The whole thing confused her. Where was Lora Deane? Whoever had gotten out of the car did not look anything like the person who had gotten in. Had some sort of switch been made? During the brief time they had lost track of the Miata? But why? And with whom?

Tom was quicker, although apparently equally stunned. “Just like Betty Grable.” He was smiling.

“You know, ‘Why, Miss Jones!’ ”

And Faith did know. The old “take off your glasses, remove the bobby pins, shake out your hair, perch on the desk, and cross your shapely legs” number.

Like Miss Jones, Lora had ditched her glasses—contacts? She’d also pulled her hair from its habitual ponytail, applied makeup—skillfully—and taken off the loose-fitting jacket she’d had on earlier. Underneath it, she’d been wearing a very short plum-colored jersey dress that showed what the jumpers and overalls had been hiding all this time. Miss Lora had a great body. She was wearing fishnet stockings, and Faith would have been happy to take the bet that they weren’t panty hose. Respect might be the watchword at school, but today’s word was more like garter belt.

Faith quickly turned around, ready to clamp her hand over Ben’s mouth, yet he very obviously did not recognize the woman who had taught him to make macaroni necklaces and sing “John Jacob Jingle-heimer Schmidt.” It appeared to Faith that as far as Ben was concerned, the Miss Lora across the street had nothing to do with his beloved teacher. This other Miss Lora might just as well be from another planet.

The second Miss Lora, the faux Miss Lora—or was it the real Lora?—had looped her arm through the driver of the car’s and the two of them walked down the block, turning into one of the old redbrick apartment buildings that lined the street. This part of the South End had gentrified early, so the neighborhoods looked much as they had originally. Trees and other plantings had grown up. The renovations weren’t sparkling with newness. There was a slight patina of age.

“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.

If the others were ostensibly sent in a friendly manner, dropping it underscored the seriousness of the threat.

She took a cookie, bit into it, and realized she was hungry.

Sam was proposing that they leave town on Patriots’ Day and go someplace safe—Faith suggested Manhattan—when there was a noise at the back door.

All three of them jumped.

“Get down on the floor and don’t move,” Sam ordered. “I’ll call the police.”

But it was the police. Seeing Chief MacIsaac’s puzzled face through the glass, Sam immediately opened the door.

“Forgot you’d be bolting things up and thought it was open as usual,” Charley said.

Pix stood up and dusted herself off.

“This is getting ridiculous. I refuse to be a prisoner in my own house or scared to walk around in my own town. I haven’t missed Patriots’ Day once. Mother says they started taking us as soon as we were born, and I’m not going to miss this one.” Pix also had her Sunday school pin with a cascade of bars for perfect attendance hanging from it. Faith had seen it. Pix’s family, the Rowes, were known for showing up.

Faith handed Charley a mug of coffee.

“I understand how you feel and I’d probably do the same, but wouldn’t it be more sensible to skip the celebrations just this once? Or you could go to Concord for theirs.”

“Concord!” From the tone of Pix’s voice, Faith might have been suggesting London, England, for Patriots’ Day.

“I agree with Faith,” Sam said firmly.

“No.” Pix folded her arms across her chest. She could be very stubborn, and the set of her mouth and the gesture told the assembled company that this was going to be one of those times. “Our forefathers and foremothers didn’t run on April nineteenth and neither will I.”

Charley had been silent. He’d already heard the same basic speech from Millicent Revere McKinley and Louise Scott. Ted wasn’t home. He hadn’t talked to Nelson or Brad yet, but he expected more repetition. Both men were members of the minutemen and participants in the reenactment. As for Millicent, there was no question that she believed Patriots’ Day would be canceled if she wasn’t there.

“The state police have been notified. We’re taking this very seriously. They’ll provide extra coverage and someone will be with you at all times. Now, don’t say anything.” He held up his hand as Pix began to protest. “No choice here. Nothing’s going to happen and we want to make sure it doesn’t.” Faith was relieved by the illogic of the statement.

She planned to be at her friend’s side every waking minute of the day, too—no matter how early that minute was.

“What about the kids? I haven’t told them. I don’t want them upset.” Having given in on one thing, Pix was taking a stand on another.

She was going to lose this one, too.

“We don’t know anything, so we have to assume all of you are targets. If you don’t tell your children, they’re not going to be able to look after themselves—or accept our looking after them.”

Faith remembered that Samantha, a class officer, would be riding in one of the classic convertibles.

Charley had used the word and it had stuck in Faith’s mind: Target. Sitting duck.

“Can we move the senior class officers to a closed car?” she suggested.

Pix winced. They were right. These were her kids.

Charley nodded and took out his scruffy spiral memo pad. “Okay, let’s get it all down. They’re in the youth parade and the big parade, right? And what about Danny, is he marching with anything?”

“DARE, but that’s just the big parade. He’ll want to ring the bell at the belfry in the morning, though.

He always does. And we all go to Millicent’s pancake breakfast. I’m in the kitchen and Sam passes out the food. The kids help clear and set up.” The Millers’ Patriots’ Day routine was unvarying—and exhausting.

“Well, at least when he’s marching with the DARE group, he’ll be surrounded by cops,” Faith observed.

DARE was the drug education program the police ran for the upper elementary and middle school kids.

Charley took some more notes. Pix appeared to feel better. She was quilting. Chief MacIsaac stood up to leave and Pix had a sudden thought.

“I can see how you’ll be able to cover us, but how on earth are you going to keep track of Millicent?” It was just what Charley had been thinking, too.

Faith sat in church the next morning wondering if they would ever get back to normal. Once again, the peace of the sanctuary was gone, replaced instead by a tension so palpable, you could taste it. A kind of a morning mouth taste, a taste even a good toothbrushing couldn’t entirely dissolve. Last Sunday, it had been the first letters. Today, Margaret’s death—and more letters. Plus the undercurrents—Lora’s calls, the brick through her window, and Lora herself. Faith tried to find a spot on the pew cushion that still had some stuffing.

She planned to spend the afternoon with Pix. They were going to take all the kids up to Crane Beach in Ipswich to fly kites. Tom had calls to make, but Sam was coming. Faith had already packed a picnic. They needed to get away, and the idea of sitting and watching a large expanse of water appealed to her. Pix had agreed.

Faith stood up for the last hymn. Yes, it would be good to spend the day outside—and away from Aleford. Aleford—overnight it had become a place of danger. They’d be away, but they’d be marking time.

As they sang “Amen,” the bells rang in the steeple. It was noon.

In twelve more hours, Patriots’ Day would begin.

Six

The sky was pitch-dark when Faith woke. Unlike other Patriots’ Days, this morning she had no trouble getting out of bed. The trouble had been getting to sleep at all. She felt muzzy. She needed some coffee, a lot of coffee.

“Tom, Tom, wake up.” She leaned over her husband. He smiled and reached for her, then remembered the day and what it might bring. The smile faded and he kissed Faith hurriedly.

“I’ll get Ben dressed while you get ready. Mrs. Hart should be here soon,” Tom said.

Amy was at the age where any change in routine produced disastrous results. Eloise Hart was a parishioner who’d agreed to stay with the toddler until a more reasonable hour.

When Faith returned from brushing her teeth, she found a gleeful Ben bouncing on their bed in his Minutechild garb.

“Did you remember his thermal underwear—and yours?” she asked Tom. “It’s freezing out, as usual.”

Faith most enjoyed Patriots’ Day after the sun rose and her toes thawed.

Tom was struggling into his homespun frock coat and Faith took his mumbled reply as a yes. She looked at her own costume and pitied those poor women who had had to struggle through their onerous chores weighted down by layers of heavy petticoats and coarse woolen hose. Normally, Tom delighted in his role as the Reverend Samuel Pennypacker. Aleford tradition more or less demanded that whoever Samuel’s modern-day counterpart was at First Parish join the Aleford Minutemen Company and participate in the reenactment. Star of several college productions and George in Norwell High’s staging of Our Town, Tom hadn’t needed any urging, and he read Samuel’s diaries in the Aleford Room at the library each year to get into the role.

Faith played his wife, Patience. Patience didn’t leave any diaries, nor did she figure in her husband’s except for an occasional reference, “Patience with child again.” Faith had seen both their headstones in the cemetery and noted that Mistress Pennypacker had outlived her husband by fifteen years. Maybe Patience was a virtue. Patience didn’t have to do much at the reenactment except rush onto the green when the smoke cleared and tend the wounded. Faith didn’t do anything to prepare. This was Ben’s first reenactment.

He was little Elijah Pennypacker. Faith reminded him that children in those days were extremely obedient and that he must stay by her side at all times.

The bell rang and Faith went to answer the door, nearly tumbling down the stairs, encumbered by skirts as she was. It was Mrs. Hart. As Faith let her in, the lights in the Millers’ kitchen went on. None of the Millers were participants in the reenactment, but they all took turns ringing the alarm bell in the old belfry and would join the spectators lining the green. Faith wondered if they had company for breakfast, company who might be packing something more modern than a musket. Charley had promised protection, and if there wasn’t anyone there yet, Faith herself resolved to stay by Pix’s side. Patience might miss the battle this year.

Each year, the Aleford Minutemen met for breakfast before the event, gathering at the parish hall of the Catholic church. This third Monday in April was always a very ecumenical day. Besides the DAR pancake breakfast, the Baptists and the Episcopalians hosted them. Faith made coffee for Mrs. Hart and put out some apple crumb cake, bagels, cream cheese, and lox. Let her choose from these all-American favorites. Hastily drinking some coffee herself, Faith went into the living room and called softly up the stairs, “Tom, Ben, we have to be going.” They came immediately, Tom’s heavy boots clumping noisily.

“Sssh, you’ll wake Amy!”

Ben was so excited, he was hopping from foot to foot.

“Go pee, Ben. One more time,” Tom instructed.

“I don’t have to,” he protested—one more time.

Faith was anxious to get over to the Millers’. She needed to see Pix.

“Come on. They have bathrooms at the church.

And it’s getting late.”

They said good-bye to Mrs. Hart and put on their woolen cloaks. Tom draped a plaid blanket over his shoulders. He’d seen a print of a New England minister of the time so attired and had adopted the garb himself. It meant he was the warmest person on the Common, too.

They stepped outside. The moon, full two days earlier, was still large and bright. The cold early-morning air seeped through their clothes. Faith was chilled. It was 4:15.

The Millers were ready to leave, too. You had to get in line early if you wanted a turn at pulling the bell rope. Faith was relieved to see Patrolman Dale Warren was with them. As she did every year, Pix was urging her family to pretend that they actually were on their way to sound the alarm.

“It was cool, maybe not as cool as today, but definitely not warm. Everyone who lived close to the green, the way we do, would have been gathering at the tavern, waiting for information about the British troops. Keyed up—something was finally happening—but scared, too.”

Faith had heard it all before, yet this year she thought Pix’s voice held real fear. They left them at the bottom of Belfry Hill and walked briskly toward St. Theresa’s. It was still pitch-dark, but Aleford was filled with activity. Cars were parked on the side streets; Main Street was blocked off. Figures, some in period dress, passed by, flashlights illuminating them for an instant. Despite the numbers of people about, the town was quiet—lying in wait, as Pix had said. Inside St. Theresa’s hall, the contrast was immediate.

All the lights were on. It was warm and noisy. The Minutemen kept up a steady stream of conversation as they ate. Faith blinked at the sudden change and grabbed at Ben’s cloak as he started to race off.

The Aleford Militia had been founded in 1773 and was still going strong, an uninterrupted history documented by their meeting records. It was open to any U.S. citizen over the age of eighteen and, unlike other Aleford institutions, a number of its members actually lived out of town. Just as there had been several generations from the same family on the green over two hundred years ago, there were several generations of various families represented in the Minutemen. In 1775, Aleford had, strictly speaking, not organized a company of Minutemen, members of the militia who would be ready to fight at a moment’s notice, but it kept the militia as such. The mists of time and preju-dices encouraged by myth had obscured this fact long ago and Minutemen they were.

The first person Faith saw was Gus Deane devour-ing a large mound of scrambled eggs and sausage, using his toast to help. It looked delicious. Faith got her own plate, parked Ben and his at a table with some other children, then went over to chat with Gus, who was Capt. Ebenezer Sewall, the head of the militia today. He was regaling a small group with reminis-cences of Patriots’ Days past.

“Remember the year George came round the bend at the tavern during the rehearsal, riding his daughter’s little hobbyhorse instead of a real one? I thought I’d die laughing. Don’t know how we made it through the actual thing without cracking up. When he came riding up to the tavern shouting, ‘The Regulars are coming!’ everyone kept picturing him on the damned toy!”

Faith looked at the men around her, who had joined in Gus’s merriment. The room was at a fever pitch of excitement, as if they really were preparing to defend their rights, their village. Besides the talk, there was a continuous bustle in the adjoining rooms. The women and older children were managing the breakfast things. Miss Lora, dressed as a servant girl, a long checkered kerchief crisscrossed over her bodice, came by with a platter of piping-hot sausages, the steam curling up to her face. She paused to say hello.

Ben was in heaven. Others were putting the finishing touches to their costumes, adjusting hats, garments.

One man was handing out the muskets from the small stage at one end of the hall.

“The British are coming!” Bonnie Madsen called from the door, and the company from Boston that assumed this role each year filed in. They were impressive. Bright silver buttons gleamed on their red coats, silver gorgets at their throats. Their wigs were elaborately coiffed. Anything that was supposed to shine did. Tom had told her each outfit cost upward of a thousand dollars, all made by hand. In contrast, the farmers and artisans who made up Aleford’s force got away cheap—fringed homespun shirts, rough jackets and vests. Some wore the tricorne hat. The only gleaming metals aside from a buckle were a few pewter flasks slung from their shoulders on leather thongs. Others had canteens, homemade wooden ones. Many of the men had full beards. Faith’s own son was sporting a red mustache from the fruit punch put out with the orange juice. She went over to the table to get a napkin.

Ben’s eyes grew wide as he watched one British major pour himself some coffee and select a doughnut. The drummer boy came up next to him and grabbed two. “Don’t sneeze on the doughnuts, Nathan,” the major bellowed as the young man reached for a pocket handkerchief. Ben ducked behind his mother’s voluminous skirts.

“Is it time?”

“Almost,” she answered, and looked about the room for Tom.

He was talking to Nelson, who was dressed like the others, except he wore a black armband. Millicent, already at the green, might fuss that it wasn’t authentic, but even she wouldn’t say he couldn’t wear it. Last year, Margaret had been here, too, helping with serving. A man Faith didn’t recognize stood beside Nelson. Though he was dressed for the reenactment, she was willing to bet this would be his first and only one.

His chest, with a noticeable bulge, was covered with straps; he was carrying a powder horn and shot pouch.

Tom’s pouch held his Bible and a hunk of bread—he’d read that was what Samuel had carried—in addition to his ammunition. Faith thought it more likely this Minuteman was toting some kind of cellular phone. Nelson left the room, his flask clanking against his powder horn, and the unknown Minuteman followed him out.

As dawn approached, tension mounted. Her first year, Faith had been amused to note that the British and Colonial troops did not fraternize. Tom said it was because they didn’t know one another, since they only got together for rare events like today’s. She’d watched every year—the same people, the same place—and decided he was wrong. It might be a reenactment, but soon these men would be facing one another on the field of battle. Captain Sewall hadn’t taken a cup of tea, or noggin of rum, with his British counterpart that morning and he didn’t now. There were nods and greetings, yet that was all.

“It’s almost five, time to get to the tavern, and those of you who are on the green better hurry,” Gus commanded. Joey Madsen came into the room and grabbed his musket.

“Ramrods out!” shouted Gus. “Ramrods out!” This reminder was made each time a group left. There had been a reenactment, not in Aleford, of course, where one of the participants had forgotten to remove the ramrod from his gun; when he fired, it shot into the crowd with deadly force. Miraculously, no one had been injured.

“Let’s go, Mom. Everyone’s leaving.” Ben was pulling on Faith’s hand. She had been postponing the moment—the hall was so nice and warm.

“Go to the bathroom first,” she bargained. He ran off and she decided she’d better do the same. They’d be on the green for a long time.

Outside the kitchen, she found Brad Hallowell, next to his drum, wolfing down his breakfast.

“Overslept,” he said between bites. “Damn alarm didn’t go off and my mother didn’t want to wake me up. Thought I needed my sleep.”

Faith reminded herself that Mrs. Hallowell was a relative newcomer to Aleford and Patriots’ Day activities. In some households, her behavior would have caused her to be labeled a Tory spy. She certainly doted on her son, her only child, Faith thought as she waited to get into the bathroom. Several of her homespun sisters had had the same idea. Mrs. Hallowell had been extremely put out with Lora Deane for breaking up with her darling boy. Put out enough to make the calls? Lora had said it was a man’s voice, but it wouldn’t be hard to imitate one for those few words. Some mothers would do anything for their sons.

Her own was approaching, annoyance shadowing his little face. “Aren’t you done yet?”

“Ladies take longer, and I don’t care for the way you’re speaking to me.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

She gave him a quick hug. It was her turn. “I’ll hurry. We won’t miss anything. I promise.” Anything for their sons.

It was twenty after five. There was a glow at the horizon and the dark sky was now deep purple. Here and there, a lighted window shone. Faith watched the silhouettes of the leafless trees surrounding the green become more distinct, until she could see the swelling buds on the branches. The steeple at First Parish pierced the sky. She looked around for her husband.

Samuel Pennypacker had been one of the first to muster on the green. She spotted the blanket. He stood next to a lantern with a flickering candle inside. Faith took Ben’s hand and went over.

“Be careful, Tom.” She was filled with foreboding.

Patience must have felt the same way. Faith was having no trouble getting into the mood this April morning.

“I will.” He squeezed her hand and gave Ben a kiss. “Now you’d better get off to the side.” As he spoke, the alarm began to toll. Steady, loud, the sound quieted the crowd of spectators. Tom blew out the candle in the lantern. It was daybreak. Two geese flew silently overhead.

He looked about for Nelson. He planned to stay as close as possible to the man.

Faith joined the other women and children at the far end of the Common. The spectators were kept from the field by ropes. Some had brought stepladders for a better view. Small children were hoisted on their parents’ shoulders. The bell kept ringing. Faith pictured the Millers grabbing the rope in turn and pulling hard.

She remembered the time she had rung the bell herself. She’d had to use her whole weight to get it started.

At six o’clock, they heard hoofbeats. Soon the rider appeared calling for Captain Sewall, who emerged from the tavern, followed by a stream of men. “The Regulars are coming!” Faith had been surprised the first year. No one said, “The British are coming.” Her fourth-grade teacher had been wrong.

Two shots were fired in the air—the alarm guns.

The alarm bell fell silent. Gus turned to Brad Hallowell and ordered him to start drumming. “Men, we are going to muster on the green,” the captain called out.

Although she had seen it before, Faith was caught up in the drama, and the crowd pressing against the ropes a few feet away seemed not to exist. Ben’s hand was in hers, warm and warming. She was vaguely aware how cold she was, her breath a cloud. She wished she knew where the Millers were. The shots had startled her.

“Watch closely,” she told her son. “Everything happens very fast.” All these spectators, some from far away—and it would be over in a flash. A flash and puffs of smoke. But at the moment, Gus was calling the roll—slowly, dramatically, drawing out each name. He stood before the rude band and one by one they answered.

The British drums could now be heard, approaching from farther down Battle Road, its name later changed to Main Street. Inexorable. The drums were terrifying. Gus ordered his men to march to the far end of the green and form two lines. “Load and stand ready,” he ordered. He was born to lead, Faith thought. Standing straight as a ramrod himself, he was not wearing the rough clothes of the farmer he’d been, but Captain Sewall’s bright blue militia uniform. Sewall and Deane, centuries apart, yet with this curious link. Faith had a sense that they were both men you’d want on your side.

Now the sky was pale yellow at the horizon, the color of a good Chablis, and faintly blue above. The Minutemen were saying their lines, all documented.

“There’s so few of us, it’s folly to stand here.”

“Easy. Stand your ground.”

The British appeared, transformed from the doughnut-eating crew of an hour ago into an efficient war machine. Their bayonets glittered. They reached the green. Their red coats—bloodred coats—were a splash of color against the grass, glistening with dew.

Marching all night through unfamiliar terrain in 1775, the Regulars had been fatigued, wet, hungry—and frightened. Numbers of the size of the forces on both sides had been greatly inflated.

“Disperse, you damn rebels! Disperse!”

“Go back to Boston!”

The Minutemen stood their ground. A rude band, but not untrained, Faith had learned. Many had fought in the French and Indian Wars. They were dressed as the farmers and artisans they were, but they kept their weapons cleaned and knew how to shoot. The drums kept beating. For a moment, time stood still. There was indecision on both sides. Then the shot rang out.

No one knows who fired first. It may not even have been someone on the green. One recent theory attributes it to a restless Aleford teenager crouched behind one of the nearby stone walls. An accident? Deliberate? Whatever the motive, it caused the green to explode in a barrage of noise and smoke. Ben put his hands over his ears. The smell of black powder filled the air.

“Disperse! Disperse!” Gus ordered, and the men fled, leaving two fallen from their line. The British pursued relentlessly. Faith closed her eyes as the all-too-realistic reenactment of the use of a bayonet occurred in front of her. The smoke was so thick, it was hard to pick out anyone. Men were screaming in pain and terror. The British commander frantically ordered his troops to stop, but, out of control, they continued to attack the damned rebels. Finally, the drum sounded. They had been trained to obey it instantly: the carnage was arrested. Slowly, they marched off the Common and down the road to Concord, accompanied by the drums. It would be a long day, and when they returned, they would face double the number who had gathered on the green, a force that would exact its price, shooting at the easy red targets from the woods, behind stone walls, their houses.

Now it was Patience’s turn, and she rushed onto the green with the others. At first she couldn’t see through the thick smoke; then as it began to lift, carried by the breeze, she located Tom. He was bending down next to Nelson. Faith ran faster.

The man Nelson Batcheldor played wasn’t supposed to be injured.

“Get the EMTs over here,” Tom screamed. “We need help! Someone’s been hurt!” He had rolled Nelson on his back and was starting mouth-to-mouth.

The unknown Minuteman was speaking into his phone. Sirens abruptly dragged the scene into the twentieth century and real panic set in.

“Someone’s been shot for real!” Faith heard a spectator shout. “A ramrod, it was a ramrod!” People began to run away. She knelt next to Tom. There was no blood. Nelson hadn’t been wounded. His eyes were closed and his skin had a deathly pallor.

Charley MacIsaac got on the public-address system, which normally would have been used at this point to talk about the day’s upcoming events.

“One of our company has been taken ill. There is no cause for alarm. Please, everyone stay where you are so we can provide medical attention. The program will proceed in a few minutes.”

“Taken ill”? Nelson wasn’t ill. He was scarcely breathing. It appeared that, like his wife, Nelson had been murdered.

“I’m going with him. Go home and stay there. I’ll call you.” Tom sounded frantic.

“How could this have happened? No one has left his side!” Faith suddenly remembered Ben next to her and pulled him close. “Sweetie, Mr. Batcheldor is sick and Daddy’s going with him to the hospital. We’re going to go home, but first I want to find the Millers and ask them to have breakfast with us.” She willed herself to stay calm. Her voice sounded like someone else’s—someone who spoke very deliberately.

Charley was still instructing the crowd to stay put, but people continued to press forward to leave.

“What about the pancake breakfast. I thought there was a pancake breakfast.” Ben’s lower lip quivered.

Patriots’ Day wasn’t turning out the way he expected.

“We’ll have our own pancake breakfast. Now help me find them. See if you can spot Samantha.” Ben adored Samantha and brightened at the thought of breakfast with her.

Faith turned away as the EMTs rushed Nelson off the green, Tom close behind. Nelson—was he the intended victim, or did the poison-pen writer plan to pick them all off, one by one? She had to find Pix.

The Millers were by the large oak near the Centennial Monument, obeying Charley’s request. Dale Warren was saying something into his two-way radio.

Pix ran toward her. “What’s happened, Faith? What did Charley mean? Who’s sick? Dale doesn’t seem to know anything.”

“It’s Nelson.” Faith fumbled for words. What could she say? She didn’t want to alarm her friend, but she wanted her to get the hell out of here. “He may be gravely injured, and it may be the letter writer, although I don’t see how. You’ve got to leave here immediately. Tom went with Nelson in the ambulance and he’s going to call when he knows what’s happened. Please”—she reached for Pix’s arm—“I think you should come to my house, all of you, and stay there for a while.”

Sam agreed, but Pix protested, “We said we would help at the breakfast.”

“These are unusual circumstances. People will understand.”

Dale Warren decided things. He’d put the radio back in his belt. “Chief MacIsaac says you’re to go home and stay there. The Fairchilds’ will be all right, too, I guess. Anyways, he wants you off the green.” Pix gave in. Her face had grown pale. Samantha held one of her hands; Sam grasped the other. “This can’t be real,” Pix said to no one in particular.

Danny and Ben were running ahead. Faith lost sight of them in the crowd and rushed the others forward.

“You must stay where I can see you!” she said to the two boys angrily, driven by fear.

They looked sheepish and slowed down. Danny was wearing a tricorne hat, as was Ben. Both carried flags. Patriots’ Day. This modern-day reenactment was fast becoming the nightmare it had actually been in 1775.

Back at the parsonage, Amy was still asleep. So was Mrs. Hart.

“Was it a good one?” she asked, sitting up at the sound of their entrance. “A big turnout? No surprises, I expect. We still lost this round, eh?” She laughed.

“Yes, we lost,” Faith said soberly.

“Never a peep out of the little angel, and unless you need me, I’ll go over to help my sister at the DAR breakfast.”

Faith thanked her and headed into the kitchen to make her own pancakes. Sam, Pix, and Dale Warren were sitting silently at the Fairchild’s large round table.

Samantha, Danny, and Ben were in a small room off the kitchen, watching an instant replay on the local cable channel. Faith went in, drawn by the noise of the battle.

Reaching into his pocket, Danny gave Ben one of the pieces of paper that held the powder charges. At the end of the battle, children always rushed onto the grass to pick these up. Ben smelled it. “I didn’t like the guns,” he said. “They made too much noise. But I wasn’t scared. My sister would be scared, but I wasn’t.”

Faith looked at the screen. The whole thing had been filmed. Would they have captured the moment when Nelson fell and how? She came out and told Dale, who immediately called the police station to have someone get a copy of the tape.

Soon the house was filled with the smell of pancakes on the griddle. The mood lightened. The kids joined them around the table.

“These are delicious! What kind are they?” Sam asked, starting in on a stack.

“I don’t know exactly,” Faith said. “I just threw some things together, but I’ll call them Patriots’ Day Pancakes (see recipe on page 339). They’ve got sour cream in them and that’s white, the blueberries are blue, of course, and the raspberries, red.” She had mixed the two berries together since she didn’t have enough of each. She took a bite, although she didn’t have much of an appetite. Thoughts of whether Nelson was still alive had dulled it—plus, she’d already had one breakfast. The pancakes were good. She ate some more.

Then they waited. Pix was uncharacteristically restless.

“Couldn’t we call the hospital?”

“I doubt they’d give us any information. Especially considering the circumstances.”

“Can’t you call, Dale?” Pix had been his sister’s room mother in fifth grade and she thought the young man ought to be able to find something out, given his position.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you anyway, unless the chief said so. The last thing he told me was he’d be in touch and only to call if there was an emergency.”

A grim reminder, and everyone in the room felt it.

From upstairs, Amy started crying. She was awake and hungry.

It was seven o’clock.

Faith felt as if it should be at least the afternoon and Amy rising from her nap. The hours since they’d first left the house were moving as slowly as the thick maple syrup that the kids coaxed from the jug for their pancakes.

At nine, the phone rang. Faith picked up before the second ring.

“Tom? Is he alive? What’s happened?” But it wasn’t Tom; it was Millicent.

“And how are you, Faith? I understand Pix is at your house and I’d like a word with her, if it’s not too much trouble.” Her tone clearly indicated she did not think much of Faith’s telephone manners.

“Of course, I’ll get her right away.” Faith was tempted to explain, yet it wouldn’t make any difference. Yes, this was a crisis, but that was no excuse for letting standards slip.

Pix went to the phone. “Probably wants to yell at me for not being at the breakfast,” she whispered to Faith.

“She’d better not,” Faith replied. At the moment, she deeply wished Millicent had never asked Pix—or any of the rest of them—to sign that letter. Had never started POW! So what if Joey Madsen wanted to put up a bunch of big houses?

She went into the living room. Dale was reading the latest issue of New York magazine with the appearance of someone who’s bought one of the periodicals Patriot Drug kept behind the counter. Sam was giving a good performance of reading today’s paper, but he was still on the page he’d been on when Faith left the room. He put the paper down. Faith had stopped offering food or coffee an hour ago. Nobody wanted anything—except for the day to be over. Samantha had taken charge of Amy and Ben. She was one of those teenagers who actually liked small children, moving straight from her horse phase to babies. They were in the kitchen, drawing on large sheets of shelf paper.

Danny was watching the Boston Marathon on TV.

“What do you think our friend Millicent wants with my wife?”

“And badly enough to track her down here, although that would be child’s play for Millicent. But I have no idea. The two are involved in just about every activity in town, so it could be POW! business or the Garden Club plant sale. Or Pix could be right and Millicent is calling her on the carpet because you didn’t show up to help at the breakfast.”

“They couldn’t have had much of a turnout. People were leaving town as fast as they could,” Sam commented.