The Body in the Wardrobe (24 page)

He did look sick, Faith thought—and should be in bed. “I
think we should call it a night, quite a night, or rather day. I have an early flight tomorrow, so I'll say good-bye now. I've ordered a cab, so you're not to even think of getting up.”

The house had a small elevator. Sophie helped Will in and before following him, gave Faith a tight hug. “You'll come in February? The school vacation?”

“Absolutely. And you, missy, call me with every detail as soon as you hear them.”

Sophie gave her another hug. “I will—and Faith, I don't know what I would have done without you. You
are
good at finding things.”

As each day revealed more of what had been going on, Sophie relayed the information to Faith, making good on her promise. “Carlene, who is the sweetest thing on two feet”—where was she getting these expressions?—“had no idea of any of it whatsoever and truly thought that Will was in Atlanta! Anyway, she's busy baking red-and-white cookies for her husband in prison. Although not for her mother-in-law. I'm glad Carlene was able to draw a line.”

“Gloria puts new emphasis on the ‘psycho' in ‘psychopath.' It's horrifying—and frightening. She seems to have had no compunction at ordering a hit on her stepson,
and
the firm's treasured longtime employee, Miss Sophronia,” Faith said.

There was a pause. “I haven't told you the worst.” Sophie drew a deep breath. “Gloria faked Ruth Stafford's suicide. She came over to wish her a happy New Year with a bottle of champagne, lethally spiking Ruth's drink and then setting the stage, even making the ‘drunken' slurred call. Randy had told her that Ruth was pregnant by him and he intended to do right by her. That he would support the child. Ruth apparently didn't want him to divorce Carlene and was looking forward to being a single mom. She'd always wanted children.”

“Oh, Sophie, this is beyond belief. Why would Gloria have to get Ruth out of the way? She didn't know anything about the money laundering, did she?”

“No. I think Gloria may not have trusted Ruth to keep quiet about whose baby she was having and thought she would also blackmail Randy for more money.”

“As in what she would have done?”

“Got it. Besides, she has a thing about her family, and introducing a Northern strain into the mix couldn't be tolerated. Carlene and Randy's children were going to be the only grandchildren so far as she was concerned.”

“Poor Ruth,” Faith said. “Wrong place, wrong time, and most assuredly wrong man.”

“She really did love him, I think—and maybe the same. He was devastated by her death, and I don't think he could have faked it. Although he was the one with all the prior suggestions that she was depressed.”

“Think Carlene knows about the pregnancy?”

“I doubt it.” Sophie laughed a little. “Otherwise those red-and-white cookies would be laced with rat poison.”

When Faith, and family, returned to Savannah in February, they happily stepped into balmy sunshine. Will had somehow managed to get the Habersham house owners to find other accommodations, and the Maxwells had been in their new house for almost a month. Faith and Sophie were sitting in the small garden of the new house while Will was giving Tom, Ben, and Amy his own special Savannah tour. Faith was basking not just in the warmth, but also in the growing things all around. Leafy growing things. About the only good thing she could think of when contemplating an empty nest in not too many years was being able to take time off other than school vacations to go someplace tropical. Though, they'd always be tied to a parish or
something similarly clerical—and for the foreseeable future it was still going to be in Aleford.

The word did get out. Not from the woman Faith had encountered on First Day, but a distant cousin of Tom's father who was in the new parish and present when the Reverend Thomas Fairchild (possible candidate, word had it) guest preached—an event Faith made by the skin of her teeth, arriving from the airport just before the eleven o'clock service. Marian called Ursula and the two women confronted the reverend in much the same way they would have confronted a child filching a penny from his mother's purse without asking. Ursula made it clear that she did not intend to go to her Maker with anyone other than Tom by her side, and Marian chimed in, equally firm, that she preferred the distance for now. “You have your turf, I have mine,” she'd said.

Tom had admitted to misgivings once Amy was settled in school and contemplated the difficulty of wrenching Ben from his. And Faith from Have Faith. And the parish.

“But that doesn't mean a change at some point,” he'd said to Faith.

“I certainly hope so,” she'd replied. Okay, Aleford for now, but life was long. . . .

Sophie had gone into the house to get them some iced tea. “It might could be too sweet for you,” she said, returning. She placed a tray with the glasses and a plate of praline cookies on a small Victorian wrought iron table.

“You are going native fast, darlin',” Faith teased. “But while the others are away, fill in the gaps. I know that Patty Sue was the merry prankster, penning the anonymous letter, which she got Laura to deliver after she deliberately kept you at The Pirates' House until dusk—wearing her hooded cape. But have you turned up any proof that it was Patty Sue who locked you in Christmas Eve?”

“First, to her dubious credit, Laura Belvedere had no idea what was in the letter, and when I finally did tell Will about it and he
confronted Patty Sue, she said the same thing. Laura had been upset when Will announced our betrothal, but Patty Sue took it way worse.”

“But she hadn't even met you!” Faith took a swig of tea. It wasn't at all sweet. Sophie hadn't strayed that far from her roots.

“It had nothing to do with me. Or maybe a little. She feared a Yankee bride would mean the end of Will's largess—think credit card bills—and besides; he was
supposed
to marry Laura. Neither woman had ever not gotten her own way. But nothing Patty Sue did was illegal. She had a mother and brother for that. As for the ‘Incident of the Doorknob That Didn't Turn in the Night,' I have no proof, but who else could have done it?”

Ben and Amy took that moment to come running into the garden. “You have got to come see the square with the turtles holding up a kind of globe! It's not far, Mom. We know the way,” Amy said.

“It won't take long,” Ben added.

“Go,” Sophie said to Faith. “The piece is in Troup Square—very close—and it is special. My father-in-law won't be here for a while. He's out on Skidaway playing golf. I think I told you he's buying a place at The Landings. He has a lot of friends there.”

Bells Mills was on the market. Anson and Will had decided to turn the Monterey Square house into a house museum, and Francis Whelan was helping with the particulars. Maxwell & Maxwell had not gone under—the hacking was not bad hats but part of Will's investigation. And Patrick Smith's film was optioned in a bidding war, which satisfied him he'd made the right choice with Sophie. Anson might still get his cameo.

The back garden was suddenly empty. Will and Tom were inside watching a game. She should bring the tray into the kitchen and check on the roast for dinner, but Sophie's mind was on something that had not been solved. Would never be.

A week after Will's rescue, late in the day, she had driven
out alone to Bells Mills and gone into Gloria's garden behind the house. It wasn't hard to spot the moonflowers, even though they weren't in bloom. The leaves were distinctive.

Aurora had been the obstacle in Gloria's plan to marry Anson. His mother would have sized up the woman. So Aurora had to go.

Sophie sat, lost in her thoughts, until the night sky was overhead.

“‘Cut them into stars and they will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night,'” Sophie had murmured gazing up.

The air was suddenly suffused with a fragrance that she had not wanted to shake off then—or ever. It wasn't one she recognized—magnolia, gardenia, definitely not moonflower.

What she did recognize was that she was no longer alone. There were three in the garden.

“I Fall in Love Too Easily.” It's a favorite song composed in 1944 by the great Jule Styne, lyrics by the great Sammy Cahn, recorded with piercing emotion first by Sinatra and notably followed over the years by Miles Davis, Dionne Warwick, Linda Ronstadt, Chet Baker, Tony Bennett, and many others. The sentiment is bittersweet, but when I hum it to myself, I'm not feeling sad. It's always been a characteristic. (Oh yes, I'm talking about you, Barry Z., third-grade crush.) I
do
fall in love easily, maybe too easily, and am glad for it.

While writing
The Body in the Birches
, I fell in love with the character Sophie Maxwell, and while visiting a friend several years ago who had moved to Savannah, I fell in love with the city. This book is the result.

First Sophie. In the last book, she personifies the song lyrics, appearing in chapter one with a broken heart after falling in love disastrously fast. At the end, she is in much better shape. I found as I created her that I was thinking of Faith Fairchild as she was in the early books of the series, and the notion of pairing the two women again here in
Wardrobe,
a kind of sequel, was hard to resist. Both were outsiders as new brides—one in the North, one in the South—but their experiences are much the same. They have to learn what is essentially a new vocabulary, and since this is a murder mystery, the process is complicated by a body or two—or three. Both have husbands with jobs involving secrets they can't share with their wives—a member of the clergy and a private investigator have to be tight-lipped. Both have in-law issues. Faith's sister-in-law causes major problems for her before and after the nuptials. Sophie faces more serious in-law troubles. Unlike Faith, however, Sophie has someone to turn to for help—and it's Faith. It was a pleasure to write about their friendship, celebrating the bonds between women, and men, too, no matter what age, truly one of life's great joys.

And it was friendship that took me to Savannah. I had been to Virginia, the Carolinas, Louisiana, and other parts of the South, but never Georgia, specifically Savannah. Then Meg moved there, so three of us started going down to see her—no chore to leave winter behind, never a chore to be with Meg. That first trip, the four of us explored Savannah as newcomers with our hostess, a newly seasoned guide. Savannah is a very walkable city, and we walked. I picked out the house I wanted, not unlike the one Sophie gets for Christmas, and learned which square had which statue. We spent many hours in Bonaventure, and it would not be a trip to Savannah without going out to Tybee. Each time in the city has been just as special as the first. Going back to a place one loves is always a treat—checking out the familiar, finding the new. It has the same feel as rereading favorite books.

When it comes to Savannah, subsequent visits meant eating all the delicious food described in these pages—and discovering more dishes. On my last trip, the culinary highlight was attending Chef Joe Randall's “The Dinner Party, A Southern Cooking Class Lecture & Demonstration.” Go to his Web site: www.chefjoerandall.com and be amazed at his credentials—and his food! We sat back, sipped wine, and watched the chef and his wife, Barbara, prepare shrimp cakes with herb mustard sauce; a salad of beets, Smithfield ham, Bermuda onions, and Georgia peanuts on Bibb lettuce; Southern-fried quail with gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans; and finally sweet potato pie with praline sauce. We had been warned to eat lightly during the day and come hungry. With such a long growing season, all the places where we ate showcased the chef's regard for fresh, local ingredients. And at the cooking school, you also get a running commentary that is both an education and theater.

One trip to Savannah was marked by an evening at the Jepson Center for the Arts, part of the Telfair Museums, with John Berendt, author of
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
It was a party and a chance to watch Savannahians doing what comes naturally. The food was catered by Clary's Café, and the music—Johnny Mercer of course—was provided by Jeremy Davis and the Equinox Trio (thank you for the dance, Archie!). It was an extraordinary experience to look out architect Moshe Safdie's soaring wall of glass and watch Telfair Square move from dusk to dark while the inside glowed.

In all my books, place is almost as important as character and plot. I am in love with all of them—the fictitious town of Aleford somewhere west of Boston that came to mind so many years ago; always Manhattan; Sanpere, the beloved made-up island off the coast of Maine; Rome, the Eternal City; and now Savannah. Yes, I fall in love too easily—thank goodness.

by Faith Sibley Fairchild with Katherine Hall Page

Pimento Cheese

This is a very easy, highly addictive dish. Simply mix all the ingredients together and it will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week. As mentioned in the book, it makes delicious grilled cheese; but it is also great for other sandwiches, on crackers—traditionally the Keebler Club type—and stuffed into celery or other veggies. One of the cheeses has to be orange in order for it to be the real deal.

Makes 3 generous cups.

Mrs. Eugenia Duke of Greenville, South Carolina, created Duke's Mayonnaise in 1917. It has more egg yolks and less sugar than other brands, which makes it tangier (it's the South after all).

Some pimento cheese recipes call for Worcestershire sauce, Old Bay, and a favorite adds roasted garlic powder, available from Penzey Spices. Hard to go wrong with any combination.

If you look up “pimento cheese,” you will find the claim (probably true) that it started in the North, but it is truly the caviar of the South now.

Pimentos, as Ben Fairchild notes, are those little red things in olives—
Pimiento
is the Spanish name for these cherry peppers, a variety of the chili pepper.

Savannah Red Rice

4 strips bacon or 1 cup diced smoked sausage

1 cup diced yellow onion

1 cup diced red bell pepper

1 cup diced green bell pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juice

1/2 cup water

1 cup uncooked Carolina long-grain rice

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon hot sauce such as Tabasco, or to taste

Butter to prepare casserole dish

Fry the bacon in a large skillet until crisp and remove from the pan. Drain on a paper towel and crumble. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Reusing the large skillet, over medium heat sauté the onions, peppers, and garlic in the bacon grease until soft. Add the tomatoes, water, rice, salt and pepper, hot sauce, and the crumbled bacon and stir for about ten more minutes.

Pour the mixture into a buttered casserole dish and bake until the liquid is absorbed, approximately 30 minutes.

Serves 6 generously.

Red rice comes to us from the Carolina and Georgia coastal Gullah or Geechee people from West Africa. There are many variations. Some recipes call for smoked sausage instead of bacon and add celery. Chef Joe Randall adds tomato paste and cooks the mixture on the stove top. Other recipes cook the rice first, adding it to the pan and then baking it.

The greatest variation comes in taste buds—the heat will increase the farther south one goes! A versatile side or main dish, Savannah red rice is a treasured part of Southern culinary heritage.

Cheese Grits

4 cups water

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup half-and-half

1 1/2 cups long-cooking grits

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, plus more for preparing the casserole dish

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 large eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese, preferably sharp

Combine the water, milk, and half-and-half in a heavy saucepan. Stir the grits into the combined liquids and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Add the butter, salt, and pepper and immediately turn down to low. Keep a sharp eye on the grits, stirring as they thicken. This will take about 30 to 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Once the grits have thickened, add the eggs and cheese, stirring until the cheese is melted. The grits should appear a bit fluffy.

Pour the grits into a buttered 1- to 1 1/2-quart casserole dish and bake for 40 minutes.

Serves 6, with leftovers.

Leftover grits, or hominy as true Southerners call them, are not just for breakfast (although there is nothing better than a couple of eggs over easy, thick country bacon, and creamy grits straight from the saucepan). Cut into squares and fried, the above recipe is equally delicious the next day as a substitute for a starch.

Instead of cheese, or in addition, chopped greens such as kale or collards may be stirred into the grits. Shrimp 'n' grits is just plain heaven.

Grits, preferably stone ground, are ground hominy kernels—white or yellow corn—that have been then passed through a screen. Quick grits are grits that have had the germ and hull removed. If you use them, you need to stir more frequently since they cook faster. When using long-cooking grits, follow the package instructions for rinsing them. Places like Anson Mills in South Carolina sell their products online now:
www.ansonmills.com.

Sweet Potato Pie with Caramel Pecan Sauce (Optional)

1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup light or dark brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch of salt

2 large eggs, beaten

1 cup half-and-half

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

An unbaked pie shell

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Steam or boil the peeled potatoes until soft. Drain and puree using a food mill (sweet potatoes can be stringy). Set aside.

Cream the butter, sugar, spices, and salt by hand or with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, half-and-half, and vanilla extract. Add the potatoes and beat until smooth.

Pour the mixture into the unbaked pie shell and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. A thin knife or skewer inserted in the middle of the pie should come out clean.

Serves 8.

Faith's favorite pie shell recipe may be made in your food processor or by hand:

Pie Shell

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

Pinch of baking powder

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter in pieces

1/4 cup ice water

If using a food processor, put all the ingredients in the processor, with the regular blade attached, and slowly add the ice water with the motor running until you have a nice ball of dough. If mixing by hand, cut the butter into the dry ingredients and then slowly add the ice water, mixing until the dough holds together.

Tightly wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

On a floured work surface, roll out the chilled dough into a 14-inch round.

Press the rolled-out dough into a 9-inch pie pan, crimping the edges.

Caramel Pecan Sauce

The caramel pecan sauce is listed as optional, because to many adding anything to a treasured sweet potato pie recipe is not only gilding the lily, but also downright blasphemous. However, this sauce is delicious on ice cream, pancakes, waffles, and all sorts of other concoctions. Plus, every once in a while, too much is just fine, and you may want to spoon it over your pie.

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 tablespoon half-and-half

2 tablespoons dark corn syrup

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup chopped pecans

Combine the butter, brown sugar, half-and-half, and corn syrup in a small saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring until it is smooth—approximately 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Add the vanilla extract and pecans. Stir and spoon over each serving, if desired.

The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Claret Cup

2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup water

2 bottles dry red wine

1/2 cup Grand Marnier, or a similar orange-flavored liqueur

1/2 cup crème de cassis

1/3 cup Port or Madeira

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 (1-liter) bottle chilled club soda

1 (1-pint) block of ice (in a decorative mold, if available)

1 large naval orange, sliced

Make a sugar syrup by combining the sugar and water in a small saucepan over low heat until the sugar has dissolved completely. Cool.

Place all the remaining ingredients, except for the soda and ice, in a large punch bowl and stir. Chill, covered, until cold. Before serving, add the soda, ice, and decorative orange slices.

Makes approximately 12 cups.

The beauty of this punch is that the recipe may be doubled or tripled, depending on the crowd. Make it up ahead (except for the soda, ice, and oranges), storing it in empty liter soda bottles in the refrigerator—easy to replenish the punch as the party goes on. The orange slices left at the end in the empty bowl are delicious.

“Claret” is the British way of referring to red wines from the Bordeaux region of France, a term going back many centuries. Claret Cup has a nice elegant sound for the holidays.