The Body in the Bonfire (20 page)

“Accomplices wouldn't have been hard to find, but thank you for your reassuring words. I guess I should be lifting weights or something.”

“You're fine just as you are. Don't worry about it. Now show me what to do. I have to get going.”

His words had reminded her of the line of questioning the police might pursue with Daryl once they saw the kind of provocation on the laptop. And Daryl would definitely have been able to put
Sloane's body in the packing crate. She was fervently grateful for Daryl's alibi. The racist attacks—it would all have to come out now, though, and give Robert Harcourt one more nasty shock.

Zach whirled around suddenly. They had been sitting with their backs to the kitchen door. He ran into the next room and came back slowly.

“Nobody there. Not in the hall, either. It must have been my imagination. All this has me spooked.”

Faith hadn't heard anything.

It wasn't long before she knew exactly how to get to the material.

“Technically, this is my property,” Zach said. He'd shown her the bill of sale Sloane had signed.

“I have a feeling you won't be seeing it for a while.”

“That's okay, so long as I get it eventually.” Priorities. And this
was
a G3.

They walked out into the darkness. He'd missed dinner, but he said Mrs. Mallory would give him something to eat in the kitchen. They were old friends, apparently. Go figure, Faith thought.

Sleet was falling and the wind was beginning to pick up. An unforgiving climate. They parted where the path divided, and for a moment Faith felt unwilling to leave the boy. She wished she could take him home for the night. There was a bond between them now: shared secrets and genuine friendship. She knew she'd keep in touch with him.

“Don't worry about Miller and Perkins,” he said as he strode off. “Little geeks tend to get obsessed, but they'll grow out of it, and that
Star Trek
stuff is worth investing in. He knows what he's doing.”

“I'll try to talk to his mother. She's a good friend. Good night. And thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

Faith walked on toward her car. She wished there were a few more of the quaint gaslights the school used to illuminate the paths. And the wind was blowing the sand that had been scattered on the icy paths into her face. She pulled her hat from her pocket and put it on to keep the grit out of her hair. Think warm, she told herself. Think—well, in New England you couldn't say May—think June. She hurried on, head down. Once again, she didn't see a figure coming from the opposite direction until they crashed into each other. This was getting to be an occupational hazard at Mansfield. First Sloane, then Winston Freer, now who? Her hat had slipped down over her eyes, and as she pulled it up, she was astonished to see a figure racing into the bushes. No apology. No “Are you all right?” She was, but she'd have a hell of a black-and-blue mark on her right knee. She grabbed her purse and reached for the laptop.

It was gone.

 

“Damn, damn, damn!” was all Faith could say at first. She'd driven to Patsy's, called Tom to say
where she was, accepted the drink Will Avery poured, then poured out her own tale.

“Regrettable,” said Will. “But not your fault and maybe not all that important.”

“I'm not sure Lorraine Kennedy would agree with you,” Faith mused. The scotch was working.

“Look, you remembered a couple of the names from the North Shore. We've got them down. The other stuff isn't that relevant. Except now we know for sure Sloane Buxton was the one and probably the only one doing the number on Daryl. Kid strikes me as a loner,” Patsy said. “He had his buddies, but he was in charge. Just look at those lists! A control freak. I'm sure—what were their names, Sinclair and somebody?—would be surprised to know about his lists, and maybe by what he was doing to Daryl. Their names were on his customer list, right?”

“Yes, and Sinclair owed him two hundred dollars.”

“But why was Sloane going after Daryl?” Will asked. “I mean, aside from his extremely Neanderthal view of black people. Why go to so much trouble? Tying a noose, cutting out pictures, articles. The Aunt Jemima ad was Xeroxed from a book, probably one about racism in advertising.”

Faith had been wondering the same thing.

“I suppose he got off thinking about Daryl's reactions. And he did plant the stolen goods in his room. Maybe he was on some weird campaign to
systematically rid Mansfield of all people of color, starting with Daryl,” Patsy offered.

Faith nodded and added, “I think he must have been jealous of Daryl's success, academically and socially.”

“But I thought this Buxton kid was a big man on campus,” Will said.

“He is—was—but he wasn't the scholar he may have wanted to be, and he was more feared than liked, from what I've been hearing,” Faith told him.

“So, where are we?” Patsy splashed a bit more of the amber liquid into their glasses.

“My job is done,” Faith answered. “I mean, what we set out to do—find the person behind the mask. Things just got complicated, that's all and now I feel I have to find out—”

Will raised his glass to her. “Who knocked you down and stole the computer.”

“Do we tell the police?” Faith asked, acknowledging Will's unspoken toast with her own glass.

Patsy answered. “Oh yes, we do, baby. Together. Right away.”

 

Lorraine Kennedy was
not
happy. It was written all over her face.

“Withholding evidence. Pretty serious.”

“She wasn't withholding evidence. She was bringing it to you when someone assaulted her and stole it. Can we focus on what's important here?” On the way to Kennedy's office, Patsy had
told Faith the line she intended to take. “Always better to go to their turf when you want to make a good impression,” she'd added when Faith had voiced the notion that maybe the police would like to come to her. She was tired.

“I have the names from Salem and Danvers, the North Shore.” She'd stared at the screen long enough. Zach might recall them, too. She didn't intend to mention his involvement. She merely said that one of the students in her class had told her in confidence that he had a computer that had belonged to Sloane and asked what he should do with it. She'd told him to give it to her and said she'd make sure it got to the proper authorities. All of which was true.

She described most of what else had been on the computer. Detective Kennedy took notes and had Faith sign them.

“If you come across anything else, say a murder weapon or a confession, you will let me know, won't you?” Kennedy said sarcastically.

No need to be so snippy, Faith thought, missing her old friend John Dunne. John was never snippy. Pissed off, furious, but never, ever snippy.

Faith went back to the Averys' to get her car. Lunch with her mother-in-law had been eons ago, and Faith was hungry. It was highly unlikely that Tom had whipped up anything, but it wouldn't take her long to throw something together. The egg. Your best friend in the kitchen. A puffy golden omelette. Food was good.

Ben was enjoying his temporary “only child” status to the hilt. He'd convinced Tom to get steak and cheese subs, then listened to his dad read several chapters of Jane Langton's fantasy
The Diamond in the Window.
Life doesn't get much better than this was written all over his face when Faith walked in. They let him stay up later than usual and Faith made omelettes for everyone. Fairchild males could always eat. Then when Ben went to bed, she told Tom everything that had happened, the unedited version—the one that included Zoë Harcourt's name.

 

“Rabbit, rabbit,” Faith had said to Tom. It was the first day of February. Not a single person she'd encountered since her move to Aleford had ever been able to explain the derivation of this old custom—that you'd have good luck all month if you said, “Rabbit, rabbit” upon awakening on the first day. Lucky rabbit's foot taken a few hops further? Some months, she forgot. Not this month.

And the sun was shining. The rain had stopped. She was teaching the boys how to make a couple of easy main dishes. Daryl had given her his grandmother's smothered pork chop recipe and Faith planned to get Zoë's for Stroganoff, even if she could not get the woman herself to demonstrate it. Today Faith had brought the ingredients for a quick and easy coq au vin with a nonalcoholic red wine that didn't taste half-bad.

She let herself in at Carleton House. Light
streamed in through the fanlight over the front door, falling upon what looked like a pile of blankets or coats at the bottom of the stairs. She'd put the food away and then pick up the stuff before the boys arrived. She was early. But as she walked into the dining room, it became clear that this wasn't something she could tidy up. What she'd mistaken for a blanket was a voluminous dark gray hooded woolen cloak. She dropped everything, walked over, and pulled the material back from the head it was covering.

It was Zoë and she was dead.

 

Faith felt for the pulse she knew wasn't there, stood up, and gazed down at the back of Zoë's head, at the mass of Zoë's tumbled curls. The beautiful animated face—Faith saw it clearly in her mind, saw it the way it had been that night at the Harcourts' house. So vibrant—so very much alive. Now it would be still. The whole house was still. She couldn't even hear a clock ticking, and on this windless, bright day with its false promises of spring, not even a branch tapped at the window. She took her phone from her purse, called the police, and continued to stand there rooted in the hall, keeping watch. The wine bottle had broken when she dropped her bags and the red liquid was seeping out into a pool, making its way across the hardwood floor toward the body.

Two motionless, silent women. A few minutes passed, passed slowly in a stately manner, like
royalty, like a czarina—then pandemonium broke out. Everyone came at once—the local and state police, Robert Harcourt, Connie Reed, Paul Boothe, and some other teachers. Faith was dimly aware of the boys being turned away from the door. She was dimly aware of it all—Robert's face distorted in grief, Connie's in horror—until Lorraine Kennedy's voice brought the entire scene into sharp focus.

“You're in shock. Come with me. We have to get you some coffee with plenty of sugar. Your husband's on his way.”

Kennedy seemed to be familiar with the campus, and she led Faith out the front door, past the small crowd gathered there, and took her to the kitchen, the warm kitchen. Mabel was crying. So was Mrs. Mallory.

“Who could have wanted to hurt her? Maybe she was a little too colorful for this place, but everybody liked her. She livened things up. Loved to cook. Came here and we'd do it together. God knows, I'll miss her.” More words than Faith had ever imagined hearing kept issuing from the woman's mouth. Mabel, meanwhile, was getting coffee, piling a plate with doughnut muffins and butter. Then she put an arm around the cook, no easy task, and took her away.

Lorraine Kennedy was heaping sugar into Faith's cup and urging her to drink. It tasted terrible, but Faith drank it anyway.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked.
This kinder, gentler Lorraine was giving Faith a Jekyll and Hyde feeling. When was the other Detective Kennedy going to take up residence in the body of the pleasant woman sitting next to her?

“Maybe because January is over. Maybe because it's nice out. Maybe because it's like you can't get a break here and I feel sorry for you. Finding a corpse is no picnic.”

“Very true.” Faith took a muffin. It was still warm. “Although around here lately, there doesn't seem to be any shortage.”

“Except this one is different. The guys are going over everything, but her heel was caught in the hem of the cape she was wearing. Boots with very high heels. That's all it would have taken to send her down those stairs, and she landed wrong. Very wrong.”

“She liked high heels.” Faith felt relief flood her body, or maybe it was all the sugar she was consuming. An accident. A terrible accident and one of those cosmic coincidences—two deaths at Mansfield in one week.

“You're feeling better. Could you tell me what happened this morning? You didn't see her fall?”

“No. I didn't even think it was a person at first, but when I got closer, I knew—and knew it was Zoë. Her hair.”

“I'm not an expert, but I'd say it must have happened shortly before you came. And she must have died immediately.” Lorraine took a muffin. “These are great.” She slathered it with butter.
Clearly, she wasn't on the white diet or the grapefruit diet or any other one. She finished the muffin and took another.

“Metabolism. My whole family—I'm one of seven—all skinny, which is good, because in my work it's hard to keep track of the basic food groups.”

Faith was familiar with the machines at headquarters that dispensed bags of chips, candy, and sandwiches that the forensics lab would certainly declare unfit for human consumption.

It was pleasant sitting in the kitchen shooting the breeze with the detective. Lorraine's lipstick was wrong again. Maybe Faith could tactfully work it into the conversation. Tom would come soon. The three of them could chat. If she kept talking, maybe she wouldn't keep seeing Zoë's lifeless body in front of her eyes.

“There's still the Buxton case.” Lorraine poured more coffee. “And that business with the laptop.”

So that was what all this was about. Lull Mrs. Fairchild into a good mood, then hit her with what? An accusation? Indictment?

But it wasn't. Lorraine sat down again and mused, “Whoever knocked you down knew what was on the computer. You said his friends were listed as drug users. If they'd known he was keeping a list like that, they would have done something about it sooner—and not continued their glorious friendship. So who? The names you gave
us are well known to the police on the North Shore and they're checking out where they were during the time Buxton was killed. Again, they wouldn't have been happy to know about his lists, but how would they have known? Which leaves?”