The Body in the Bouillon (2 page)

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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

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“Sit down and I'll get lunch. I had an interesting call from Chat this morning.”
Tom would miss supper—much of a minister's life is spent not in prayer but at committee meetings—so Faith had cooked a big lunch, as she often did when his schedule was like this. They'd have something light when he got home, and she'd feed Ben early. With luck, he'd be asleep. Now they sat down to a casserole of boneless chicken breasts she had lightly poached in white wine and layered with zucchini and carrot matchsticks and blue cheese. The juice from the chicken and what was left of the poaching liquid that she had poured over it made a delicious sauce. There was also some nutty basmati rice and steamed pea pods. With the holidays, she was trying to keep on eye on their calories, although Faith was as slender as she had always been and Tom never seemed to fill up his tall, rangy frame. He was trying manfully now.
“This is delicious, honey. Ben, we are two lucky guys.” Ben was daintily picking up each grain of rice left on his plate after he had impaled all the rest of the food on his eager little fork.
“So—what's the news? Why did Chat call? It had to be for a reason; she never calls just to talk.”
Faith related the call and, as she did, wished she had jotted down the exact wording of Howard's letter. She'd call Chat back and ask her to read it again.
“Farley is over at Hubbard House now. You met him before he moved—Parley Bowditch. I've dropped by a couple of times to visit him. He seems happy enough and I've never seen anything that would suggest he should be otherwise. The place itself is beautiful. It was the Aldrich estate, and Dr. Hubbard has kept the grounds pretty much as they were. People go over to see the rhododendrons in the spring. They're planted along the drive and pretty spectacular.”
Tom glanced out the window at the overgrown, woody shrubs in the parsonage backyard. They looked particularly bleak in winter. “This year we really have to do something about those bushes. Cut them back, fertilize …”
“Yank them out and start over,” Faith suggested. “But tell me more about Hubbard House.”
“I don't really know much more. I've met Dr. Hubbard several times, and he seems to genuinely care about the elderly. People around here have a great deal of respect for him—and his whole family. They're all involved with the home. His son's a doctor too and his daughter's a nurse, I think.”
“Sounds like ‘Marcus Welby'
and
‘Father Knows Best.'”
“Now that you mention it, he does look a little like Robert Young, except Dr. Hubbard is taller—bigger all over, and he has that old Yankee voice, sort of a combination of marbles in the mouth and foghorn.”
“Not unlike your father.” Faith laughed.
Tom glanced involuntarily over his shoulder. The adage in the Fairchild house had always been “Spare the voice and spoil the child.”
“I can't see that there could be any harm in asking around about the place—or danger,” Tom added pointedly, referring to some of Faith's previous investigative endeavors.
“You know, Tom, I'm pleased that Chat asked me to help. Not that I'm about to trade my whisks and spatulas for a cape and magnifying glass, but it means she has some respect for my sleuthing abilities.”
Tom's reply, which Faith recognized as a heavy-weather warning flag gliding up the mast, was cut short as they both suddenly realized that during their conversation Ben had slid down from his chair and was quietly and gleefully scattering an entire box of linguine over the pantry floor.
“Ben! What are you doing? No, no. That's very naughty! You help Mommy pick up all these spaghettis immediately!”
Tom surveyed the mess. On the Ben scale it was merely a two. Nothing like emptying the vacuum or the ultimate ten, crawling into Tom's mother's car and releasing the emergency brake—fortunately on level ground with several adults running frantically after him.
“Honey, I have to run. I have a meeting with the new divinity school student who's going to be working with us this winter. I'll call you later.”
Faith came over and gave him a kiss. “You mean you actually prefer talking to another adult to cleaning up pieces of spaghetti from the floor? Naughty, naughty.”
“Don't put ideas in my head. I have to work this afternoon.
Faith turned back to the linguine. Ben thought it was almost as much fun picking it up as throwing it down, and afterward Faith cleared away the lunch dishes and took him upstairs for a nap.
While he was sleeping, she planned her campaign. Maclsaac first, then Millicent. Not that she believed in delaying the inevitable, but since Millicent was going to treat her like a congenital idiot, she'd like to know at least one or two things about Hubbard House beforehand. That way she might not appear to be a complete foot—to herself.
She made a quick call to Chat, took down the exact wording of Howard's letter, and baked the Norwegian Christmas bread she had prepared that morning.
Faith loved the holidays—the traditions, the food, the getting and giving. She'd taken Ben down to New York last week for a look at the tree at Rockefeller Center, the poinsettias massed on the altar of St. Patrick's, and the windows at Saks and Lord & Taytor—even though he was still a little too young to truly appreciate it all. It was never too soon to start. For her these periodic trips to the city, especially at
certain times of the year, were a kind of life-support system. Back in Aleford at the end of the long cord, she was willing to grant that New England was the perfect place to be at Christmas. They had already had the first snow, which melted quickly but brought a reminder of things to come. At this time of year no one thought of getting stuck in snowdrifts, backbreaking shoveling, chapped lips and drippy noses. Instead, memory brought the full moon shining like a beacon over unmarked fields of snow, snowflakes on mittens and tongues, sledding and snow angels, tall pines covered with white, and the feeling of sitting before the fire while the storm swept past the windows and down the chimneys.
But Faith wasn't thinking Currier and Ives. She was thinking Hubbard House.
 
Chief MacIsaac wasn't at the station. Deputy Dale Warren told Faith to try Patriot Drug—the Chief had mentioned he needed some throat lozenges, might be starting a cold. If he wasn't there, then, of course, try the Café. Faith thanked him and wheeled Ben in his stroller out the door and back up the street toward the pharmacy. Like most of Aleford, it had been there forever and no one save herself appeared to find anything humorous about the name, or the fact that besides what one would expect to find in a store of this nature, they also sold the odd case of tuna fish, lawn mower parts, seed packets in the spring, and shoes. Not shoes like those found in Svenson's Shoe Store up the street, where Ben sat on a wooden pony and tried on little Stride Rites with what seemed liked greater and greater frequency, but shoes with the labels cut out or slightly mismatched. If one of your feet was a seven and the other an eight, Patriot Drug was the place for you. It was also one of the few places in the country, no doubt, where you could still get old favorites—and possibly collectibles—in the Friendship Garden line, Dierkiss talc, and Muguet des Bois perfume. Patriot's policy was keep it till it sells. Faith
peered in the door, noticed they were having a special on rather dusty cases of imported bonbons, but didn't see Charley.
He was sitting in his usual booth at the Café, toward the rear but on the side facing the street. His hands circled a mug of coffee, and an empty plate was pushed to one side.
“May I join you?” Faith asked.
Charley grinned at the two of them. “Anytime, Faith, and how are things with you?”
“Fine, but I hear you have a sore throat.”
The Chief did not seem surprised that the information had already made its way around to Faith. This was Aleford, after all.
“Just a tickle, but these will fix it.” He motioned to his pack of Fisherman's Friends.
The waitress, a pleasant woman named Helen Griggs who attended First Parish, came over to the table. “Have you decided yet, Mrs. Fairchild?”
Since Faith had either blueberry or corn muffins whenever she came in, which one was the only knotty question. She ordered blueberry, a cup of coffee, and a doughnut for Ben. He was usually so intrigued by this thing with a hole in it that Faith could count on a good fifteen minutes of uninterrupted conversation while Ben looped the doughnut on his finger and gnawed his way to the middle.
She told Charley about Aunt Chat's call and produced her copy of the passage in the letter that referred to Hubbard House for Charley's perusal. Charley took his time.
“There's basically two places people go to around here when they can't live at home anymore. Peabody House down the street, but that's pretty small, only room for eighteen and you have to be hale and hearty to get in. They don't have any medical facilities there beyond a nurse and an aide or two. Hubbard House is a bigger operation. You can start out in your room or cottage and
then, if you need it, move to the hospital section Dr. Hubbard added when he set the place up. Must be about twenty, twenty-five years ago. Before that he was a GP, had an office here in town where that new dentist is now.”
Faith and Tom were patients of the new dentist, who had been in practice in Aleford for only seven years, as opposed to the other dentist, Dr. Cook, who, from the look of him, might have flossed Sam Adams.
“Roland Hubbard was just about everybody's doctor. Delivered all the babies, a lot of them in their mothers' own beds, made house calls. You know, the kind of thing we don't have anymore.”
Charley sounded bitter. Maybe his throat was worse than he was letting on. He might actually have to go to the doctor's office to get a culture. As for having a baby at home, Faith was very happy for any and all advances medical science might make. She doubted she'd ever want to trade the security of Brigham and Women's for her own roof, not to mention the mess.
“Why did he leave his practice?” Faith asked.
“His wife was very ill and he didn't have much time to see her, let alone take care of her. He thought if he opened a retirement home, he could be with her more, and he was. She only lived two years after Hubbard House opened, but from what I hear she was very happy about the idea. Maybe he knew he would need to be around more for the kids too. Anyway, that's how it turned out.”
“I understand his son and daughter are both at Hubbard House.”
“Yes, Muriel and Donald. Donald moved back to town and has a small practice in addition to Hubbard House. Muriel lives at the home.”
“And you've never heard anything shady about the place?”
“Never. And over the years I've gone often to see a lot of friends. The only drawback to Hubbard House is what it costs. When my time comes, I doubt I'll be there, but I'm
glad it's around for the people who can afford it and need it.”
“Charley! All this is a long way in the future.”
“The future has a way of creeping up on you, Faith. No, I won't go to Hubbard House. I'll go back to my people in Nova Scotia or just stay in my house here until they carry me out.”
It must be a very bad sore throat. This kind of lugubrious talk was definitely out of character for Charley.
“Anything else that occurs to you?”
“Not really, but I'll let you know if it does. And I'll drop by there this week and have a look. Talk to a few people. It certainly sounds like this Perkins fellow found something out of kilter. Best thing to do would be to show the letter to Hubbard.”
Faith wasn't so sure. Until she'd had a chance to find out a little more, she didn't want anyone at Hubbard House to get the wind up.
“Charley, I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything about this to anyone—not around here or at Hubbard House.”
“I know. It's your baby, but if it looks like anything serious is going on, you'd better let me in on the double. I still feel bad about the last time, and I want to be able to look Tom in the eye—you and little Benjamin too.”
“I promise,” swore Faith, thinking as she did so that two oaths in one day meant life was getting a bit more interesting than usual. She brightened up. “Next stop, Millicent.”
“I'm surprised you bothered with me at all.”
“You underestimate yourself, Chief MacIsaac—and don't think I don't know there's more you could have told me about the Hubbards if you weren't so honorable. Millicent doesn't have that problem.”
Faith moved Ben from the booth back into his stroller and struggled with the belt that held him in. He wasn't in his subzero snowsuit, only the intermediate weight, yet
putting him in the stroller was already like trying to wedge a pillow into a case too small. She brushed some crumbs off him. It certainly wouldn't do to let one fall on Millicent's cherished threadbare orientals.
On the way over, she gave some thought to where she and Tom might end up in their twilight, golden, or whatever the current euphemism was, years. She looked about at the frigid landscape. Definitely someplace a little less bone chilling. Someplace with sun, blue skies, and good food. Someplace like Eugénie-les-Bains in the southwest of France.

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