Small Plates (6 page)

So far the vacation had been only intermittently the one she'd hoped for. Like a sore tooth, the Hadleys kept appearing to remind her that something was wrong. Very wrong. It was a thought she'd kept in the back of her mind since the night before, unwilling to take it out for closer examination, but there was no way to avoid it.

The woman the night before—Carolann—had been terrified. It wasn't a squeezing-the-toothpaste-tube-in-the-middle-or-from-the-end kind of spat; it was fear. Fear for her own safety. When she had begged for help, begged to be hidden, her face had been filled with terror. At the sound of Jim's voice—and now Faith knew it had been Jim—the woman had almost passed out.

After every encounter with the Hadleys, Faith had tried to erase the memory of Carolann's frightened face. But nothing was wrong. No crime had been committed, or none that was visible. Maybe Jim was skimming some off the top. Maybe their apartment, up for sale in Manhattan, had bedbugs. Maybe . . . Maybe what? Faith shook her head. It was freezing and she was getting stiff. Stiff. Stiffs. No stiffs in sight. Carolann was as hale and hearty as Miss June.

Faith got up and went inside. It felt as warm as a sauna in contrast, and she crawled next to Tom gratefully. She was getting drowsy. Tomorrow afternoon they'd head off for home and would stop for one last dinner in Boston before getting to Aleford. She'd eat a gargantuan breakfast and tell Elsa how yummy every last mouthful tasted. Tom's was the last scheduled talk of the conference. She hoped not too many participants were planning to cut out early, but men and women of the cloth tended to be charitable—or perhaps might have memories of how they felt when parishioners slipped from the pews in the middle of the sermon.

And then they'd leave the material Hadleys far behind. “Material Girl”—and boy. The words to the song kept repeating until she was sound asleep.

F
aith got up early with Tom the next morning. She didn't feel much like facing either the Hadleys or that inquisitive clerical spouse over breakfast. But she picked Mrs. Tucker—who'd be eating well before Jim and Carolann—as the lesser of two evils, fully prepared to hear “We didn't see you at dinner?” and so forth until Faith's entire sinful life would be laid bare.

Secure in the knowledge that their reservations at the top of the Prudential Center were not until nine o'clock, Faith ordered two eggs over easy, Canadian bacon, and English muffins plus fruit. Tom had the same plus waffles. They were rewarded by a slight nod from the director. There was, as she'd thought, no sign of the Hadleys.

“I have to go now, sweetheart.” Tom, finishing quickly, gave her a kiss. “Have fun at your basket weaving or whatever.”

“Sand casting,” Faith corrected him. “I'll meet you in the cottage. I'm going to pack now, so we can leave right away.” He nodded and walked off in the wrong direction, recollected himself, and went the right way. He wasn't nervous about his talk later, just preoccupied.

The wrong direction. It reminded Faith of Carolann heading for the kitchen instead of the bathroom in that restaurant she knew so well. Faith shoved the Hadleys firmly and figuratively away as she returned to the weathered gray saltbox. She concentrated instead on the heathers and grasses growing on the dunes to either side of the boardwalks. Her favorite was something she'd learned was called Poverty Grass, which looked like a skinny broom, one that had been used for a long time but could still sweep. There was a patch just by the door, swaying in the morning breeze. The fog was starting to lift, and Faith could see the deep teal color of the ocean. Later it would take on a greenish hue, just as the sky would be clear blue and empty of anything save brightly colored kites anchored in the sand, stretched to the length of their strings.

She packed quickly and changed from jeans to shorts. The class started at nine thirty and lasted two hours. She pulled her hair back—it wouldn't do to get it mixed up in the plaster—put her keys in her pocket, and set off. When she came to the conference center where the group was to gather, she saw Carolann absorbed in conversation with Elsa. As they parted, Carolann actually patted the other woman on the arm affectionately. Not the sort of thing Faith was used to seeing in New England. Maybe Carolann
was
a California Girl. No matter the young woman's native home, Elsa did not seem eminently pattable, and what was this all about? A reduced rate for a return visit? The older woman moved off purposefully. Dragons to slay.

“Well, good morning. What are you up to today?” Carolann was approaching Faith now. She hadn't had to hide in a shower last night evidently.

Faith couldn't think of an escape. She'd already signed up for the class and Sal Pedrone was coming toward her, his “welcome, crafty lady” smile firmly in place.

“I'm taking a workshop this morning, then I'm afraid we have to be off.”

“The sand casting one?”

Faith nodded. She knew what was coming.

“Me too.” Carolann looped her arm through Faith's. “I know whatever I make is going to look awful, but it's fun to try new things.”

Sal introduced them to their teacher, who looked to be nineteen and dedicated to her art. She was wearing sand-cast jewelry and had a display table with objects she'd made. Her name, she told them with a straight face, was Sandy. Which came first? Faith wondered.

Soon the participants, all female, were ready to start. Everything was set out under the trees. Faith headed for a spot at one of the long tables that had been set up, Carolann at her heels. It was inevitable.

“It's sad you have to leave so early,” Carolann commiserated. “You just got here.” Faith realized it was true. They'd been at The Retreat less than three days. It seemed much longer.

“You're sure you have to go?” she added.

“Yes, we have to get back home to our kids,” Faith said.

Wild horses wouldn't drag the name of Aleford from Faith's lips. She glanced over at Carolann and was surprised to see that the woman definitely looked relieved. There was no mistake.

Faith was startled. As Tom had said that first night upon discovering the woman in the bath—what the hell was going on?

Sandy clapped her hands together. “Now, ladies, the first thing I'm going to ask you to do is take off your rings, watches, bracelets, anything that might get in the sand or plaster. Believe me, it will be too late after you get all gooky.” She sounded as excited as a child.

Faith slipped off her wedding band and engagement ring, putting them securely in her pocket. She watched Carolann do the same. First the rock on her right ring finger, too large to fit with her wedding band. Then the band. She wiggled her fingers in the air.

“I can't believe I'm doing this. I just had my nails done!”

Sandy was bringing each person a basin of wet sand. Carolann held her hands above hers. She seemed to regard the prospect of molding the grains with as much enthusiasm as if she were molding cow patties. Faith wondered why she was doing it. Faith wondered—and then Faith knew.

She turned to her neighbor. “I'll be right back. I should have stopped at the bathroom before I left the cabin.”

“Don't worry,” Carolann said. “I'll tell Sandy you'll be back in a minute.”

But it wasn't a minute. It was over an hour later and the class was winding down when Faith Fairchild returned, accompanied by several members of the local police force, who walked up to Faith's sometime shadow and partner in crafts, read her her rights, and arrested her for the murder of her twin sister, Carolann Hadley.

H
ere's looking at you, kid.” Tom Fairchild raised his glass to his wife, who was sitting opposite him at the Top of the Hub with the lights of Boston spread like a bejeweled flying carpet behind her.

Faith sighed with pleasure—and fatigue. It
had
been a rather tumultuous day, starting with her desperate attempts to convince the police that she was not a lunatic and that in all probability a woman had been murdered. Finally they had agreed to call Faith's old friend—and, she liked to think, partner—Detective Lieutenant John Dunne of the Massachusetts State Police. She'd decided against Aleford's Chief MacIsaac as possibly too small-town, besides possessing an anathema toward the phone that sometimes led to dire miscommunications. Dunne had vouched for her—quickly, to her passing surprise—and they were off and running.

The crime was so obvious it had almost worked, and Faith was annoyed that she hadn't considered it earlier. “Twins,” Faith said to Tom later, “that desperate ploy of mystery writers everywhere.”

Once the police established that Carolann Hadley did in fact have a twin sister, Carolee Reese, living not too far from the Cape in New Bedford, Massachusetts, events accelerated. Two discreet officers were dispatched to The Oceanside Retreat to make sure the Hadleys stayed put. The authorities in New Bedford were notified and, sure enough, found a very dead woman wearing a turquoise nightgown lying in bed at Carolee Reese's address. The house had been ransacked and a window broken to create the appearance of a robbery. Neighbors said that Carolee Reese had told them she would be on vacation for a few weeks. It was not unusual for her to take trips, one woman added. The New Bedford police even obtained a description of Jim Hadley, a frequent guest. “I'm on the road a lot”—his words at the museum rang in Faith's ears.

And the two must have been on the road the night before last. Carolann had been strangled, probably shortly after leaving the Fairchilds, trapped in the dunes as she tried to escape once more. Carolee and Jim would have put the body in the trunk or propped it in the backseat, then made a quick trip across the Bourne Bridge and onto the highway to New Bedford and back to The Oceanside Retreat for Mr. and “Mrs.” Hadley's grand performance.

Faith took a sip of the Kir Royale she'd ordered and shuddered slightly. “Her own sister, that's what keeps coming back to me!” Faith and Hope had had their differences, but even as kids, nothing remotely murderous.

“I keep imagining Carolann's last moments. She knew her husband was after her, but what a horror it would have been to see her twin sister's face!”

Tom nodded. “Evidently Carolee had purchased a large life insurance policy with Carolann as sole beneficiary. Carolee—or rather, she and Jim—were smart enough to have done it over a year ago and not used his company. The girls had no other siblings, and their parents are dead, as are Jim's. It was almost the perfect crime—the discovery of the tragic murder, the inheritance, and all the Mercedes and ‘teardowns' they wanted—except somehow Carolann got away from them and came to our cottage.”

“And they
have
been watching us, especially me. To see if they were pulling it off. That must have been a tense moment at breakfast when I asked Carolee—really these names are so confusing, why do parents of twins do that?—if she was all right.”

Breakfast reminded Faith of Elsa Whittemore, who had practically started the Fairchilds' car for them, so eager was she to hurry them off the grounds. Murders didn't happen at The Retreat. And if they did, they weren't committed by nice people like the Hadleys who had been coming for years, except the Hadleys weren't nice and weren't the Hadleys, at least not both of them.

“You know, honey, I can't believe this, but I keep forgetting to ask you how you knew Carolann Hadley was her sister, Carolee Reese? Did she let something slip at that class?”

“In a way.” Faith smiled. “When she took her wedding band off her left hand, there was no mark. There should have been a stripe as white as snow, given her tan. There was no way they could have been married for as long as they said. I think she was so busy keeping an eye on me she got sloppy. Agree?”

Tom reached for his wife's left hand, raised his glass once again, and said, “I do.”

M
r. Carter wanted to be a widower. And since he already had a wife, he figured he was halfway there.

The idea of bereavement was irresistible. At meals, sitting across the table from his wife, he would indulge in rosy reverie, picturing especially those first days—the steady stream of comfort flowing into his house in the form of sympathetic friends bearing casseroles and baked goods. He would be stoic, breaking down only occasionally to shed some tears and whisper, “Why? Why?”

His new status would confer instant membership into the club that he knew from careful observation yielded invitations to dinner, parties, plays, concerts, cruises, and bed from widows, divorcées, the never-marrieds. An unattached man of his age in decent health, still with his own teeth, was a rarity. He was his own best capital and he longed to spend it. Mourning beckoned with all the promise of a new day. Besides, he loathed his wife.

Mabel had been a secretary at the small family-owned insurance agency where Mr. Carter, not part of the family, had worked his entire adult life. Two years ago he'd been forced to retire by the grandson of the founder, a kid he used to entertain by pulling nickels from his ears. Apparently Mr. Carter's inability to master the new technology, go with the flow on the information highway, made him a liability instead of an asset. The fact that most of his accounts had gone to the great big actuarial table in the sky had also hastened his departure. Mabel hadn't been a family member either. She'd come in off the street to apply for the position after Mr. Carter had been working there ten years or so. She was a cute little thing then. “Petite,” not “short”—she was quick to correct anyone who made the mistake. She was quick to correct any mistakes, Mr. Carter discovered shortly, not petitely, after their marriage. She was quick to learn new things too. She'd had no trouble moving first from a manual to electric typewriter, then to a word processor. She tossed words like
gigabyte
and
RAM
around with aplomb. “It's so simple, Charles. Children four and five years old, younger even, use computers all the time. I should think a man in his sixties would have no trouble.” He'd give it a shot and after a while hit a key plunging the screen into darkness or producing ominous messages with fused bomb icons.