The Body in the Bonfire (11 page)

Ben burst through the kitchen door filled with news from the first grade front.

“We are studying whales, and I need to bring
my tape in tomorrow. Some of the kids didn't even know that whales sing, Mom!” Faith didn't care for the slight note of scorn she was picking up.

“All right, sweetheart. I'll leave a note on the door to remind us, but you just happened to get that tape for Christmas. You wouldn't have known about the whale songs, either.”

“Still.” Ben didn't give up easily.

“Still nothing. Bring the tape and enlighten others. Now, when Amy wakes up, we need to return our library books and go to the market. Until then, why don't you have a snack and look at the whale book that came with the tape?”

“Great! And maybe the library has more. We're going to draw whales in chalk on the playground,
life-size!
”

Education was certainly much more creative than Faith remembered. First grade was a very distant memory of workbooks and a teacher who smelled like lilies of the valley.

The phone still had not rung by the time Faith left for her errands. When they got inside the library, both kids made a beeline for the children's room. She followed them in and helped Ben find whale books, which he immediately took to one of the comfortable nooks that had been part of the plan for this new addition. Besides the nooks, there were computer stations, but the puppet theater in a nook of its own had been preserved from the old children's room and reassembled. Generations of Aleford kids had put on shows
for real and make-believe audiences with an assortment of hand puppets. It was Amy's favorite place, and now she had Oscar on one hand and some sort of mythological beast on the other. They were hugging and Amy was crooning softly to herself. One of the librarians was at her desk nearby, and Faith told her she was just going to go into the main library for some books for herself and would be back in a minute.

“No problem, Mrs. Fairchild. I'm engaged in the pleasurable task of ordering new books. The kids are fine where they are.”

Faith scanned the shelves marked
NEW BOOKS
to try to find something to fit her current mood. No mysteries. Too confusing—and irritating. The way everything was so neatly, and quickly, solved. Contemporary novels about relationships. Elizabeth Berg had a new book out. She thought about Marian and Dick. Almost forty years, as Tom had pointed out. Was there a novel about them? Finally, she turned away and went off to the stacks for some cookbooks, comfort food for the mind, and a copy of Anthony Bourdain's
Kitchen Confidential,
which she hadn't gotten around to reading yet. The account of his “adventures in the culinary underbelly”—restaurant kitchens—might be just what she needed to distract herself from the academic underbelly she was experiencing.

Millicent Revere McKinley was shelving books, and she looked disapprovingly at Faith for
taking one down. Faith knew what she was thinking. Not only was there an unsightly gap now but in the near future, someone, probably Millicent, would have to put the volume back again. Better simply to leave the books alone.

“Hello, Millicent,” Faith said. “Are you working here now?”

“Friends of the Library has always pitched in as shelf detectives—making sure all the books are in order and reshelving those that are not.”

If ever there was a calling for Millicent, this was it. She would pounce on a misplaced book with the fervor of a very hungry lioness on a hapless wildebeest.

“I hear you have a job yourself. Teaching at Mansfield.” Millicent smiled complacently. She liked knowing things and, even more, liked people to know that she knew them.

“Project Term. A cooking class. It's been fun.”

“Such dear boys. I usually participate, but this year I was too busy.”

Dear boys
was not the term Faith would have chosen, even for the ones she cared for, but she nodded. Maybe she could steer Millicent away from the boys and to the staff, particularly the headmaster's wife. She wondered if Millicent knew about the theft.

Of course she did. Faith's tentative remark about a bit of trouble was met with an immediate “Oh, you mean the break-in at the Harcourts'?” Her eyes were sparkling under her Mamie Eisenhower fringe.

“I'd never met Mrs. Harcourt until recently. I hadn't realized that we had such a collection of Russian artworks in Aleford.”

Millicent narrowed her eyes, “What you hadn't realized was that we had someone like Zoë Harcourt in Aleford.”

“That, too,” Faith confessed. Damn Millicent.

It was one of Miss McKinley's more expansive days. She must have found a great many books out of order.

“Of course, when they first arrived—it must be more than twenty years ago—she made a stir. She's a good bit younger than Robert, although not so much as she'd like you to think. We used to see her around quite a bit. She had a little sports car—and then there were the clothes. Bright colors and sables in the winter, until she must have gotten nervous about having paint thrown at her, because those disappeared. And, gradually, Zoë disappeared, too. Began to travel a great deal. Robert would go with her in the summer. I hear she has an apartment in New York City.” Millicent emphasized the last three words as if she were intoning “Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Apparently, the items taken had come down through her family.”

“Oh, she's Russian all right. At least her grandparents were.” Millicent's specialty was ancestry and she was equally adept at deciphering a Cyrillic family tree as her own heavily laden New England boughs. “But her parents grew up in New
York—Brighton Beach; then her father invented some kind of part that every airplane has to have, and by the time Zoë came along, the family was in Westchester and Palm Beach.”

So Winston Freer had been right about the provenance of Zoë's treasures.

“It's all her money. The school, that is. Robert Harcourt never had two nickels to rub together.”

But wouldn't Zoë have wanted her husband in some other sort of profession? International currency trading, politics? The governor's wife, the senator's wife? Even—Faith could see the inaugural gown—First Lady? But perhaps Robert was not so inclined—or gifted.

“She didn't strike me as a typical headmaster's wife.”

“She's not. But I suppose the life suits her. No responsibilities, aside from pouring tea or sherry occasionally and handing out a prize or two, and over the years, she's done less and less of that.”

“Have you ever heard any rumors about—”

Maddeningly, Millicent did not let Faith finish her sentence.

“I'm sorry, Faith dear, but I do have a great deal of work to do, and aren't those your children at the circulation desk?”

Yes, those were her children. Millicent's tone of voice had raised the suggestion of dubious parentage, just as she had intimated that she knew exactly what Faith was going to ask—whether there had been rumors about Zoë and other men.
She raised her arm to put a book on the top shelf, darting a tantalizing smile in Faith's direction, making it clear by her gesture that she was putting a tidbit of knowledge up and out of Faith's immediate grasp.

Ben was tugging Amy along behind him.

“Where have you been, Mom? I'm bored, and Amy's bored, too. We told the librarian we were coming to find you and she said okay.”

Amy didn't look bored. She still had her puppets on like mittens and she looked as if she was going to let out a wail of protest at the prospect of being parted from them. Not in the library, Faith prayed fervently. Not in front of Millicent, she added in a PS to God.

“Come on, chickadee, and give me a puppet show. Ben can watch, too, since he's so bored.” She gave him a withering look. “Six-year-old children do not get bored, especially in libraries.”

Ben scowled. “I wanted to go home and look at this tape I found.”

“Okay. That's what you tell me. Not that you're bored. We'll watch Amy—
for a little while.
” She emphasized her last words to take the sting away of her earlier scolding. Ben picked up on it and brightened.

“Got you, Mom. Hey, they have a whale puppet. I'll be in the show, too.”

When they finally got home, the only message on the machine was a brief one from Pix, wanting to know where Faith was and what she was up to,
and an even briefer one from Patsy that simply said, “Anything to report?”

Nothing from Tom.

The days were getting longer and every increment of light was a blessing. She had never gotten used to how dark it was in New England during the winter. Seasons changed in New York, but man had made up for nature's deficiency and it was light year-round. She put the whale tape on and was rewarded by the sight of Amy and Ben snuggled together watching it. Faith had decided not to believe in sibling rivalry when Amy was born. It took too much energy away from more interesting and rewarding things in life. Tom agreed, so like little brush fires, they assiduously stamped out any possible occurrences. Brush fires. That reminded her of the Mansfield bonfire. She thought they only did things like this at large southern universities before football championships. Maybe Robert was from the South. She knew very little about his background. His voice was generic Yankee, but he wouldn't have been the first one to assume it to complete the picture he was trying to present.

She called Patsy back, but there was no answer at home and Faith didn't want to bother her at work. She left a message that there wasn't anything yet but she was working on it. Strictly speaking, that wasn't true. Yes, she was working on it, but she'd found out a great deal. The problem was, she couldn't see any way that what
she'd discovered related to the racist attacks on Daryl.

Faith hadn't liked the tone in Pix's voice, but she didn't call her back. Now that the leaves were off the trees, she could see the Millers' driveway clearly and Pix's Land Rover, which only went into the garage during storms, wasn't there. She also wasn't sure how she was going to handle the discovery of Danny's sound system in Zach Cohen's room.

She had just put the water on to boil for the egg noodles, which would accompany the Swedish meatballs she'd made yesterday, when she heard a car pull into the drive. It was Tom at last. She'd thought she would have to feed the kids first.

“Honey, what's going on? I've been on tenterhooks all day. Why didn't you call?”

Tom folded her in his arms. His coat felt cold and rough and wonderful beneath her cheek.

“I've been with my father all this time. Lunch took a while; then he decided as long as he was up here, he wanted to walk around to some of his old haunts. Old haunts that are gone now, of course. Scollay Square, Cornhill, the West End. He was in that kind of a mood. My feet are killing me and it was freezing.”

Rare to hear a Fairchild mention a thermometer reading except in delight. Tom had had a hard day. He took off his coat and gloves, rubbing his hands together. Faith poured him a glass of the Coudoulet de Beaucastel Côtes du Rhône she'd
been planning to give him with dinner and said, “So, tell me! I can't stand the suspense. Are they splitting up?”

Tom sat down at the kitchen table.

“Mom redecorated the living room,” he said in a hollow voice.

Faith's first reaction was that this didn't sound like a woman who was planning on moving out.

“Yes, and that means…” She realized this was going to take some time.

“It's obvious. She's like a different person. She's ordered new dining room furniture, too!”

The Fairchild dining room, like the living room, was—or, in the case of the living room, had been—furnished with a few good family heirlooms and a whole lot of well-worn, well-sat-in pieces they'd accumulated since they'd moved to the house, when Tom, the eldest, was born. The dining room set had come from Paine's—your basic highly polished mahogany table with extra leaves in the closet, a sideboard, and rather uncomfortable matching chairs.

“She put the old living room stuff in the attic.”

So the woman had not gone totally berserk. Marian's leaving the odd ottoman on the sidewalk for the trash collector would have been of real concern to Faith. If there was even the slightest possibility that someone might have a use for an item, it went into the attic, which, needless to say, was overflowing with everything from boxes of worn linens—potential rags
and drop cloths—to wrapping paper, creases ironed out for reuse.

“But what about this business of leaving your father?” Faith asked, trying to steer Tom gently back on track.

“Modern. She wants a more ‘contemporary' look. Now, does that sound like my mother?”

Actually not. Marian still wore shirtwaists, and in the winter, her tweed skirts matched her Shetland cardigans.

“Maybe she felt she needed a change.”

“Change! Why on earth would she need a change? Hasn't she always been perfectly happy with the way things have been?” Faith was sure this outburst was a direct quote from Dick Fairchild.

“People can be perfectly happy and still want a change after a while.” Say forty years, Faith added to herself. She got up to put the noodles in the boiling water. They might as well eat, and maybe by the time she went to sleep she'd know what was going on.

The entry of the kids, hungry and eager for Tom's attention, put a stop to all grown-up conversation. They hadn't been able to talk about anything serious in front of the kids since Ben was two and a half. Faith remembered it all too well. Precocious Ben, blond hair gleaming, blue eyes big and round, had toddled up to Ruth Simmons and asked her how her “sunuvabith” was. Faith had whisked him away after stuffing a
cracker in his mouth, fearful that he would add the word
husband
to what she hoped were otherwise-indecipherable words.