The Body in the Casket Read online

  She waited. Dead silence. She waited a minute more. “Okay, when you’re ready. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  She was turning to go back down the hall when the door was flung open so hard it hit the wall with a loud bang. Ben’s face was bright red and streaked with tears, instantly transporting Faith back many years into his childhood. She had to stop herself from reaching to cradle him in her arms.

  “She needs some space!” He spat out the words.

  No need to ask whom he was talking about.

  Mandy Hitchcock.

  Years ago at the urgings of the Millers and Ursula, the Fairchilds had rented a cottage on Sanpere Island in Penobscot Bay, Maine. Ursula’s Bostonian grandparents had built a large summerhouse there, The Pines, back when the trip meant travel first by train, then coastal steamer. Dubious about freezing cold water and rocky beaches, Faith had given in to their and her outdoorsy husband’s urgings. She figured one summer wouldn’t kill her and then they could hit her kind of beach—one preferably on Long Island, or even the South of France. Instead, the Fairchilds ended up buying land and building their own house—not on the scale of The Pines—and Faith had succumbed to the beauty and peace of the island. Her kids adored it, too. Two summers ago Ben had met Mandy at The Laughing Gull Lodge, where both were working. Ben fell for the girl hard, and last summer she’d stopped treating him like a younger friend—she was almost two years older—and they became a couple.

  Mandy was bright, resilient, and very pretty. Faith had come to love her, too, especially for the way the girl had coped with tragic events resulting from an extremely dysfunctional family that first summer, a situation that had intensified Ben’s affection for Mandy. But Faith and Tom worried about the strength of Ben’s attachment at such a young age, although they knew plenty of people—the Millers for example—who had met their mates as teens and lived happily ever after.

  Mandy had graduated from the island high school and was now in the middle of her first year at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. She’d taken a gap year to work and save money, although she had received substantial financial help from Bates as well as a scholarship from a silent benefactor on Sanpere.

  The college wars that had raged in the Fairchild household starting last spring had to do with Ben’s absolute insistence on applying only to Maine schools, with Bates his first choice. He’d finally agreed to a few others on the Common App, including Tom’s alma mater, Brown. From the start, though, he was adamant that the only place of higher learning he’d attend would be in the Pine Tree state.

  What Faith, and Tom, had feared—that Mandy would meet someone else with a suffering Ben all too close by—had apparently happened. “I need some space” was akin to “We need to talk” and “Let’s take some time apart” as kisses of doom for a relationship. Faith felt a certain amount of relief that it had happened now and not during Ben’s freshman year somewhere near Mandy’s doorstep.

  “Come downstairs and we’ll talk while I make supper,” Faith coaxed.

  The look her son gave her pierced her heart. “There’s no use talking, Mom. She’s gone.”

  He closed the door and she heard the lock click.

  “Good chili,” Amy said. The two of them were eating in the kitchen, the male Fairchilds both absent. Faith had left a tray outside Ben’s door, calling out that it was there, but she expected it would stay untouched. Tom had phoned to say in a markedly strained voice that she shouldn’t wait up for him. She’d leave dinner out for him, too—and that would get eaten even at midnight.

  “Maybe she really does just need a little space and then they’ll get back together,” Amy said, ever the optimist. Faith had told her all she knew.

  “It certainly could happen.” Faith was not an optimist but cherished the quality in her daughter. “I have flan for dessert. Do you want some now?”

  “Maybe later,” Amy answered. “I’m going to check Mandy’s Facebook page. Her profile picture is a selfie she and Ben took last summer out on Barred Island.”

  “I’ll clean up, you go check.” Faith made a point of not friending her children or her children’s friends. There was such a thing as TMI.

  Amy was back too soon. “No new posts, but she’s changed the photo. Just one of her. Although I think Ben took it.” Amy’s face brightened. Still the optimist.

  After her daughter left to do her homework, Faith retrieved the full tray from the upstairs hall and went to her own computer to check her e-mail. Max Dane had sent several dates and times to meet, all in the next couple of days. He’d added again that he wanted the invitations to go out immediately and wondered if she could commit to the job right away. “I’ve been told the kitchen is all any chef could want,” he wrote. “And I should have mentioned that your fee is for your services. Sky’s the limit on what you’ll have to spend on the food.” An unlimited budget! Even her wealthiest clients had never offered that.

  Faith leaned back in her chair and stretched. With all the drama going on in the house—she was sure Tom’s unexpected Planning Board meeting boded ill—the notion of a few days away from hearth, home, and even kin was extremely attractive. Maybe this rare opportunity would jolt her out of her own personal doldrums. She decided to call her sister.

  “Hi, is this a good time?” she asked when Hope answered. “You’re not helping Quent with his homework or other mommy chores?”

  “Sweetheart, that’s why God invented afterschool help. By the time I get home, it’s all done. Dinner, too. He and his father are watching some sort of sports thing.”

  The Sibley family had not been particularly sportif, yet both daughters married men who were passionate about everything from basketball to tiddlywinks. Fortunately, as their children grew up, they shared these paternal interests, allowing the two sisters to relinquish their places before the TV and occasionally the playing field with relief.

  Faith quickly filled Hope in on what she was now thinking of as The Mandy Projectile, launched and sure to pick up speed.

  “It’s no use saying that someday he won’t even remember her name, because he won’t believe you—and maybe it won’t be true,” Hope said.

  “Don’t tell me you’re still secretly pining for Andy,” Faith teased.

  Hope sighed. “We were good together weren’t we?”

  “As the only kids I ever knew who had subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal in elementary school, yes, you were a perfect match.”

  “Until that surfer girl from L.A. moved into his building, and suddenly he was all about following his perfect wave, or more like her perfect curves.”

  Faith laughed. “It still hurts doesn’t it all these years later? Poor Ben.”

  “Poor you,” Hope said. “If it were Amy, and it will be, you’d get to hand her Kleenex and she’d let it all out. Ben will be the Spartan standing without complaint while the fox he’s got under his tunic gnaws at his entrails.”

  “Thanks, sis. Now I’ll have to think about this image every time I look at him. If he ever comes out of his room again, that is. But I called to ask your advice about something else.”

  After hearing about Max Dane’s party, including the fee offered, Hope said, “You’re probably expecting me to tell you to take the money and run, as in straight for the job, but I’m telling you to take it for the hell of it. Of course money is nice, but, Fay”—Hope was the only person to use this nickname, one Faith had never liked, but she had also never figured out how to tell that to her favorite and only sibling—“Max Dane! He’s a legend. The house is bound to be incredible and the guests even more so. What’s stopping you?”

  It was almost word for word what Pix had said.

  “Nothing now. I have to check with Tom. He’s at a Planning Board meeting tonight, but I’m sure he’ll tell me to do it, too.”

  “Dane’s obviously heard about your expertise. He could have hired a Boston firm or even flown in a chef from New York or anywhere. Say Paris.”

  “Maybe he was at one of the events I
catered before I moved,” Faith said. When she did meet with him, she’d ask him how he’d heard about Have Faith.

  “Fay!” Hope shouted into the phone. “I just remembered. Call Aunt Chat. I’m almost certain he was a client. I mean one or more of his shows.”

  Charity Sibley was their father’s older sister, the youngest of the three Sibley girls named, as had been their female forbearers and those who followed: “Faith,” “Hope,” and “Charity.” Faith’s parents had stopped short. Chat had started out in public relations straight from college, writing press releases and making coffee (in the bad old days for women). By the time she’d retired a few years ago she had one of the most prestigious and successful firms based in Manhattan and specialized in show business.

  The sisters talked a bit more. Faith hung up longing for her native land, as she always did after contact with anyone there. She missed being able to go outside anytime of day or night and find food from any part of the globe, as well as things like books, haircuts, films, music, you name it. The food choice in Aleford was Country Pizza—and Harry did make a great pie—but it closed at seven thirty, sometimes even seven. There was a convenience store in nearby Concord rumored to be open until eight, but Faith had not been able to find it the few times she’d discovered they were out of milk after the Shop’n Save closed.

  Resolving to call her aunt in the morning, she went back to her computer and e-mailed Max Dane: “Send out your invitations. Will meet with you Monday morning at 10:00. Sincerely, Faith Fairchild.” Monday was four days from now.

  She felt as if she had crossed some sort of Rubicon. Life was becoming more interesting. Dreary January was suddenly taking on a whole new aspect. The feeling was reinforced when his reply came back immediately: “Couldn’t be more pleased. Sent the invites out this afternoon after talking to you. Max.”

  According to anyone from Massachusetts it was Tip O’Neill who said, “All politics is local,” when he ran for office in 1935. As Faith waited up for her own Thomas, the words popped into her head. Faith had soon come to believe in the phrase—and also believed it could be dangerous. When Sam Miller served on the Aleford school committee, he’d received several anonymous, ominous threats when he reorganized the school bus schedule. A friend on the Board of Selectmen found a slashed plastic rat on her doorstep after calling for a leash ordinance. Planning Board was the worst in Faith’s opinion, and anyone foolish enough to dip a toe into the maelstrom of property permits was just asking for trouble. Of course, her husband was the first to volunteer to fill a vacant seat. The previous incumbent had not left a forwarding address. “I feel a responsibility to the town,” Tom said. “It has been very good to us.” Faith was not sure exactly how the town had been good to them specifically, but she couldn’t help but be proud of her spouse. If anything, he was the one who was good. Too good. He was a Fairchild to the core. Fairchilds, responsible citizens, had always been involved in local politics, the first stepping onto if not Plymouth Rock, then one nearby, with campaign buttons at the ready.

  It was after ten o’clock when Tom came into the kitchen looking weary and angry, his face, as always, an open book. She gave him a hasty kiss, put the chili in the microwave, and poured him a Sam Adams Winter Lager. Then she waited while he ate and drank, enjoying the quiet of the kitchen this late at night. The new LED lighting the Vestry had allowed Faith to install—at her own expense—was casting soft shadows on the goldenrod-colored walls, which she had also received permission to paint. Herself.

  “What was so pressing?” she asked. “Someone planted a tree on the wrong side of the property line?”

  “I wish,” Tom said. “Seems a developer has purchased the old Grayson House and is submitting plans to raze it for a strip mall.”

  Faith was aghast. “But it’s in the Historic District. You can see it from our backyard and the church!”

  Tom nodded. “We can see it, but it’s not part of the District. The house was used as a kind of nursing home from the nineteen forties until not that long ago and there was a zoning change to allow it, removing it from the District. Any more of this chili?”

  The next morning Faith was waiting by the front door for Ben as he came downstairs in his jacket, carrying his knapsack ready to leave for school. “Here.” She put a glass of juice in his hand, and when he drained it quickly switched it for a warm breakfast sandwich—her version of the fast-food staple: poached egg, sliced tomato, and sharp cheddar on a homemade ciabatta roll.

  Ben had dark circles under his eyes, and she was sure he hadn’t slept much. She knew enough not to try to hug him and he left without a word. Amy came tearing down the stairs afterward. She’d already eaten the steel cut oatmeal with fruit that Faith made overnight in a small slow cooker most winter school days. She did hug her mother and called out, “Bye, Dad” over her shoulder.

  Tom was sitting over his third cup of coffee, surrounded by copies of the town’s previous zoning decisions and ordinances that he had stayed up late printing out from the board’s online site—a state requirement for transparency still regarded as Big Government intrusion by several Alefordians. He too had circles under his eyes.

  “Let me make you an omelet or other eggs,” Faith said. “I have some of that good applewood bacon too.”

  He shook his head. “No time, but thanks. I’ll take these to work and look at them when I can. Sam made copies, too. He’s coming over after we both get home to talk the whole mess over.”

  The proposed strip mall was not the kind with a massage parlor and dollar store, Faith had learned very late last night, but a two-story building with offices for small businesses below, apartments above. “All very legit,” according to the developer. “A real asset for the community.”

  Tom was hoping to get him on the issue of parking. One of the things he and the board had to resolve was how many spaces had to be allotted for this kind of use. There was a good-size lot in place behind Grayson House from its previous incarnation. Faith kept her mouth shut, but she was pretty sure the developer had already determined it would meet any requirement. Her mother was a real estate lawyer in Manhattan, and Faith had had a ringside seat at real estate bouts, whereas Tom’s family business, Fairchild Realty, on Boston’s South Shore, had employed much kinder, gentler fisticuffs.

  As he left she put the extra breakfast sandwich in his hand. Before Faith finished loading the dishwasher, Pix walked in and sat down in Tom’s still-warm chair at the large round table.

  “Coffee?” Faith said automatically. This was one of the things she had learned from her friend. In New England, you didn’t say “Hello” first, you offered coffee, then you said hello.

  “Love some.”

  Tom hadn’t eaten any of the corn muffins Faith had put out with the strawberry jam she’d made last summer in Maine. For a normally hungry guy, it was not a good sign. She hoped he’d noticed the sandwich.

  She handed Pix a mug of coffee with one Splenda, no milk, and pushed the muffin plate in her direction. Pix, a normally hungry gal, didn’t take one. It was not a good sign.

  “Do you believe in bad news coming in threes?” Pix asked.

  Pix was the least superstitious person Faith knew.

  “Absolutely not.” Faith stood up. She had the feeling she was going to need some more coffee herself.

  “Samantha called last night.” Pix put down the mug and held up one finger. “She’s lost her job.” She put up another finger. “She’s broken up with Caleb.” A third went up. “She’s left the apartment—the lease is in Caleb’s name.” The fingers came down and Pix folded them into a fist. “Oh, and she’s moving back home. Could you warm up one of these muffins for me?”

  Pix stayed for several muffins and fresh coffee. “I love being with Samantha, but it’s been wonderful to go back to just Sam and me. Danny left only a few weeks ago. I can walk around in my pj’s again.”

  Considering Pix’s lingerie was opaque L.L.Bean flannel in the winter and almost as thick cotton in the su
mmer—not exactly Victoria’s Secret, more Queen Victoria—Faith found this newfound freedom a bit hard to envision. But it was true that the nest was only recently empty. Sam had finally decided it would be cheaper to help his twenty-three-year-old son with rent money for the Somerville apartment Dan was now sharing with college buddies than continue to keep him fed out in Aleford. Dan had a job with an IT firm that was up, but still coming, along with a livable salary. Mental health—Sam’s—had entered into the decision as well.

  “I’m sure Samantha will want to be out on her own as soon as possible,” Faith reassured her friend. “Plus Samantha likes to cook.” Pix classed the chore below ditch digging, relying heavily on boxes in her pantry with HELPER on them. When on her own for dinner, she ate cornflakes—a habit Faith found extremely hard to believe.

  “She’ll do her wash.” Pix perked up at the thought, but then her face fell. “She sounded like her little-girl self last night. Between sobs she kept saying she couldn’t wait to be in her old room. You’ve read all the statistics about the numbers of millennials still living at home and how hard it is for them to find jobs, even someone with Samantha’s credentials.”

  Faith had read the dispiriting numbers, too, and while part of her was agonizing over Ben’s departure for college—somewhere—she also hoped gone would be gone. That he’d be able to find a fulfilling job and live independently when he graduated. One could dream . . .

  Driving to work she detoured through Ursula’s neighborhood. There was time for a quick visit. Faith’s assistant Niki Constantine would be baking the brownies and lemon squares for the afternoon Friends of the Library tea they were catering. Faith herself would put the sandwiches together later—traditional cucumber and watercress ones, less traditional curried chicken salad, and thinly sliced roast beef with horseradish aioli. They’d made shortbread cookies and petit fours yesterday.

  There was no snow on the ground, but it was a cold gray winter day, a day when spring seemed very, very far off. Prepared to swing into the driveway, Faith straightened the wheels and kept driving. The same car, which she now knew belonged to Austin Stebbins, seemed to be in exactly the same place as yesterday. Was he a houseguest?