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  And he had been repeating this and various other prayers ever since. Irrationally, he felt deeply upset that he hadn’t been able to protect his family from this crime. Closer to the surface, he was equally upset that Faith had discovered the burglary alone and had continued to be alone for much of the police investigation. Yet, he was also thankful—thankful she had not walked in on the robbery in progress. Unlike poor Sarah Winslow, Faith hadn’t been home. It was the first thing he’d thought of when he got the message. The relief he’d felt far overshadowed any feelings of loss.

  He walked over to his wife and put his arms around her. Faith still looked stricken and she was holding Amy as if the baby were some kind of life buoy. We can’t let this get to us. Help me find the way back. He repeated it again.

  But it was going to be hard. It was hard now.

  There was a knock on the front door. Both adults jumped. Tom went to answer it, returning with a large shopping bag, held flat across his two hands.

  “Another one?” Faith asked incredulously.

  “Another one,” he answered, a warm smile crossing his face. He placed the parcel on the counter in front of him like an offering.

  As soon as word got out that the Fairchilds had been robbed, phones started ringing and the casserole brigade sprang into action. Blissfully unaware that tuna noodle, even with crumbled potato chips on top, would be greeted by Faith as culinary crime, the housewives of Aleford reached for their Pyrex and got to work, offering solace the only way they could.

  Earlier, Tom and Faith had followed Chief MacIsaac to the police station, where they waited on the uncomfortable vinyl-covered chairs while Charley got the fingerprint machinery ready.

  “Just let your hand relax,” he’d told them, then held their wrists and swiftly pressed their fingers first over a roller of sticky black ink, then onto the paper. “Saw one of those new inkless machines the other day over in Lexington. Pretty nifty, but,” he’d added forlornly, “wouldn’t be worth the ink even to list it in my budget.”

  After the ordeal that left Faith oddly feeling somewhat like a felon, she was all for Tom, a Town Meeting member, to demand the town vote in an inkless machine. The ink was impossible to get off, especially with the brand X liquid soap in the station’s tiny bathroom. “Out damned spot,” Faith had said as they washed up. She wasn’t joking. Her hands were red and raw from scrubbing.

  The soap in the dispenser smelled like Lysol. “Is this really happening?” she’d asked Tom.

  “But I want a bowling ball. I never threw one. I want to do it!” Ben’s voice was tremulous. Faith stood up and sat Amy next to her brother. Amy, thank God, was young enough to be oblivious to the horrendous events of the day. As far as she was concerned, things had gone rather well.

  She’d played with her special friend, Nicholas, had lunch with her beloved Pix, and watched Samantha the goddess run around catching a little ball a lot. Yet, although Amy might not be old enough to know what had happened, she was dangerously adept at reading her mother’s moods, translating them instantly into her own replicas. Tired of doing wash, trying to restore order where none would exist for a while, and, most immediately, tired of the bowling ball argument, pained by what it actually represented, Faith was having a hard time controlling her emotions. She mounted a herculean effort not to let the tears so near the surface spill from her eyes or the angry words so close to her lips spew forth.

  She put her arms around both kids, kissing her frightened son. Ben would require a great deal of reassurance—and patience—but no bowling ball.

  “Let’s go for a drive. I think this family needs to have some ice cream!”

  “The farm?” Ben knew when to push his luck.

  Great Brook Farm was in Carlisle, a bit of a drive, yet it happened to fall in with Faith’s other plans.

  “The farm,” she said, and took Amy off to get her ready. “On the way, we can have a kind of treasure hunt. It will be fun, you’ll see.” Tom looked mystified. “Treasure hunt?” He followed his wife out of the room.

  “I want to look in a couple of Dumpsters. It’s possible that they’ll get rid of the stuff they don’t want, like our drawer.” She had heard this was a common practice. Pull over, go through the things, and winnow out. She’d suggested to Charley that the police make a search and he’d said they would, but from his slightly skeptical tone of voice, she wasn’t sure he’d follow through with the kind of diligence the task required. He’d probably have Dale check the Dumpster behind the market and call it a day. She decided she’d better do it herself. She also wanted to check out a wooded area on the Aleford-Byford line where kids hung out. The police had said “pros,” but Faith didn’t intend to eliminate any possibilities at this point, when the trail was so fresh. Hey, let’s ditch school and hit a house or two. The woods were a favorite drinking spot, and if she wanted to get rid of a drawer and maybe a charm bracelet or other less valuable jewelry, the woods would be where she’d go. A nature walk, as far as the Fairchild children were concerned. The start of her own sleuthing for Faith.

  Many Dumpsters later and after combing the woods for an hour, the Fairchilds pulled back into their own driveway. They’d gone straight to the farm for ice cream first, but it had disappeared quickly and the kids were tired and cranky. Tom had gently suggested to his wife that they give up, and she had been forced to agree. It had all seemed so simple, yet she’d come up with nothing.

  When they got home, the light on the answering machine was blinking. Faith listened to several heartfelt messages of commiseration accompanied by promises of yet more food before Charley’s voice pumped fresh adrenaline into her weary system. “Call the station as soon as you come in.”

  The chief answered the phone himself.

  “Oh, good, you’re back. Now don’t go getting your hopes up, but we called around to some of the places in the area that buy gold and silver, and a coin shop in Arlington said someone had come in with a bunch of gold jewelry this afternoon.

  They bought the lot. I can’t leave the station now, but when Dale gets back from supper, I’ll drive over so you can look at it.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Faith said, and hung up.

  Calling explanations and instructions to Tom, she grabbed her purse. By the time she reached the police station, she was testifying in court, identifying her property, Exhibit A, for the judge.

  But it wasn’t her property. Not even close.

  Charley spread out the contents of the Ziploc bag on top of his desk. Faith felt a dull, leaden sensation start in the pit of her stomach and in-vade the rest of her body. She pawed through the tangle of gold chains, dented hollow bracelets, and assorted charms for form’s sake. She was examining a large pendant with a diamond chip and the word Bitch ornately engraved on it when Charley asked in a hopeful tone of voice, “Any of it yours?” She tossed the pendant on top of the rest of the jewelry and said snappishly, “I don’t think so.”

  Extremely disappointed didn’t even come close to describing how she felt. She supposed it would have all been too easy. But then, why not?

  Dale came back, looked at Faith’s face, and knew enough to keep his mouth shut, nodding solemnly in her general direction. Charley walked her to her car. “Look, it may not be today, or tomorrow, but we’ll get them. I’m sorry, Faith. I wish these had been your things. We do find things sometimes, you know,” he added in what Faith later described to Tom as “a fart in a wind-storm kind of way.”

  “Don’t tell me this. I have to think it’s all gone, get used to it. I know how rarely stolen goods are recovered.” She felt a sudden rush of contrition. If the pendant fit . . . Charley was doing everything he could. His big, square, kind face was crumbled in concern. “Thanks for calling us, and anytime you get anything for us to look at—I don’t care if it looks like a bag of lanyards somebody made at camp—let me know right away. You’ve been great, Charley.” She gave him a swift hug. He wasn’t the hugging type.

  “I’m just glad you didn
’t walk in on them, when I think about it. . . . Anyway, they’re only things. Take it from me—in the long run, things don’t matter at all.”

  She nodded and got in her car, closed the door, and waved good-bye. It wasn’t until she was pulling into her drive once again that she softly whispered her reply, “But they do, Charley. Unfortunately, they do.”

  By eight o’clock, all the Fairchilds were in bed.

  One bed—Tom and Faith’s. The room had been cleaned and straightened. If it had not been for the fact that several of the surfaces had empty spots, no one would have suspected that anything untoward had happened. Faith tried very hard not to picture hands pulling drawers open, feet walking down the hall. Running down the hall. The police said they had probably been in the house for a very short time. Faith’s unimaginative hiding places and lack thereof—a silver chest out in the open, for example—had made their job simple and quick. Not like Sarah’s house, where objects obscurely hidden suggested more to find. Faith shuddered and pulled the blanket covering the four of them up over her shoulders. She was lying on her side, the two children nestled close. Tom was reading a book from Ben’s current favorite, the Boxcar Children series.

  She could use those little Sherlocks now, Faith reflected, although they’d probably make her crazy.

  They were so good, even the mischievous one, Benny, whatever his name was. Tom’s voice was soporific. Amy had been asleep for a while and Faith knew she should put her into her crib. It was late for Ben to be up, too, but it wasn’t inertia that kept her from moving.

  She didn’t want to let them out of her sight.

  Rational or irrational, one thought seeped its poison into every corner of her brain, driving all else away: Person or persons unknown had entered their house with intent to harm—and they could be back.

  Four

  “It’s the little things, things that weren’t valuable.

  Not that we had diamonds and emeralds lying around—more’s the pity—but all the jewelry I’d saved from when I was a kid and planned to give to Amy when she was older, like a little coral-bead necklace that was my grandmother’s. She gave it to me because I was ‘the careful one.’ ” Faith’s tone was mournful and bitter.

  Patsy Avery nodded and poured Faith some more wine. It was Wednesday and she’d stopped by on her way home from work, bearing char-donnay for what was quickly becoming a wake, as Faith bade final farewells to the coral necklace, her Cinderella watch, and other treasures. Tom wasn’t home yet and the two women had settled into the kitchen to talk while Amy sat in her high chair, content for the moment to pick up Cheerios one by one and, alternately, turn the pages of a new Beatrix Potter board book—also a gift from Patsy. Ben had raced off to his room with his present, yet another Lego. A shaft of late-afternoon sunlight crossed the table, sending reflections of their glasses glimmering against the wall. Faith noted the tiny dust motes lazily drifting in the light and felt she should be sitting with Patsy in two rockers on a front porch.

  “Girl, I don’t know anybody with their original jewelry. I kissed all that stuff good-bye years ago when we were broken into, but I still look for a little fake pearl bracelet with a poo-dle charm my daddy gave me every time I’m in a flea market or at a yard sale.” Patsy didn’t mention the number of times she’d had to kiss subsequent stuff good-bye. When you are in the middle of a tragedy, you don’t want to hear how often somebody else has been through the same thing. You want to talk about your pain and you want to talk about it now.

  “Aunt Chat, that’s my father’s sister, Charity . . .” Faith paused and added parenthetically, “They were either devoid of imagination or had too much. The Sibleys named the boys in each generation Lawrence or Theodore and the girls Faith, Hope, and Charity as they came along. I’ve always suspected my mother stopped with two rather than have to saddle a child with Charity.” Patsy gave an appreciative chuckle. She could never get enough of these WASP folktales, especially when the teller appreciated them, too. It was hard to keep a straight face when the speaker was a believer.

  “Anyway, Aunt Chat used to bring my sister and me a charm from every place she went—all over the world. She had her own ad agency. We were on bracelets number three by the time she retired.” Faith sighed, knowing she’d never see them again—or any of her other treasures. She thought about the other things entrusted to her, especially by her maternal grandmother. It wasn’t that her sister, Hope, was reckless, strewing her possessions about, but rings had a way of slipping off her fingers when she skated and thin gold chains snapping when she climbed trees, lockets disappearing. So Faith had always been the recipient because, unfairly, she was older; and, fairly, she did take better care of them.

  “I know it wasn’t my fault, but I can’t get over feeling guilty. I didn’t just lose a gold watch or drop a silver teaspoon down the garbage dis-posal. I lost everything, Patsy. It was horrible telling them all.” Faith had insisted that she be the one to break the news to both the elder Sibleys and Fairchilds. Her father had brushed aside her talk of possessions, open garage doors, and the like, caring only about how she was. Her mother, calling upon her return from work, had done much the same. Before hanging up, however, Jane Sibley had slipped in a query about what jewelry Faith had put on that morning.

  “If I ever get any more good jewelry, I’m going to wear every bit of it all the time,” Faith intoned solemnly to Patsy. The wine was beginning to feel just fine.

  “All dressed up like a Christmas tree? I’d like to see that in Aleford. That old biddy—what’s her name?—Ms. Revere something, she would be scandalized for sure.”

  “Millicent Revere McKinley. You have gotten around,” Faith commented admiringly. Patsy had retained a touch of her Louisiana accent and it made whatever she was saying sound fascinating—the vocal equivalent of garlic.

  “I get to eavesdrop a lot. Particularly at the bus stop in the morning. In the beginning, folks seemed surprised that I was going to town—getting on the bus, not getting off it to clean their toilets. Now I’ve made a couple of friends and I’m invisible to the others. You’d be amazed at what people will say if they don’t register that you’re there.”

  Frowning, Faith poured Patsy some more wine and shoved the plate of crackers and chicken liver and mushroom pâté (see recipe on page 337) they’d been steadily nibbling at toward her.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be happy here?” They’d talked about the way the Averys stood out in the community before. “It was bad enough for me at first, a New Yorker.” She didn’t need to add “But I was white.”

  Patsy slathered one of the Carr’s water biscuits with a good-sized portion of pâté. “You have got to give me this recipe. Will is crazy for anything as artery-clogging as I suspect this is—

  and I’m not changing the subject. Just don’t want the moment to pass. No, I’m not sure I’m going to be happy in Aleford, but it has nothing to do with race. Hell, I get more hostile looks in town any day. I don’t know where we could live and bring up kids where our color wouldn’t be a factor. I hear Cambridge, but you have to send them to private school. The South End was fun for grown-ups, but Will worried about my safety.

  Roxbury feels the most like home to me, but both prob-lems exist—schools and well-being.

  There’s no perfect place on earth, as you really found out yesterday.” Patsy patted Faith’s hand and took Amy, who was beginning to whine, on her ample lap.

  Patsy Avery was a good-looking woman. Her skin was dark, smooth, and slightly shiny—like some of the round stones the tide has just uncovered on the beach in Maine. She wore her hair pulled straight back into a large chignon, often sticking an ornate tortoiseshell comb or pair of lacquered chopsticks into the thick, glossy mound.

  She was tall and her large frame wasn’t squeezed into any size eights. She’d told Faith once that Will liked a little meat on his women: “He doesn’t want to see bone, honey.” Will, on the other hand, was all bones, tall and skinny; his skin was the colo
r of Faith’s favorite bittersweet Côte d’Or chocolate. Patsy spoke slowly and deliberately; each word seemed especially chosen for the occasion. Will’s words flowed like a fountain, hands gesturing, punctuating his phrases emphatically in the whirlwind he created around him.

  Faith returned to Patsy’s comment. “If it doesn’t have to do with race, then why don’t you think Aleford is the place for you?” “Too damn quiet. Too many trees. Too . . . too pretty.” She burst out laughing.

  “I know what you mean,” Faith agreed. “Sometimes I feel as if I’m living in a Currier and Ives calendar. When it gets unbearable, I head for New York and walk a few hundred blocks!” Patsy stood up. “I’ve got to get home. I’m not going to need any supper after all this pâté, but I have a perpetually hungry man to fill up.” She knew she hadn’t answered Faith’s question about Aleford. The foreboding she had about the town sounded vague—and even superstitious—when put into words. Maybe it was race. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was a whole lot of things.

  Faith was scooping the remaining pâté into a container over Patsy’s protests. It was a good recipe—chicken livers, onions, mushrooms, port, and, as Patsy detected, a great deal of butter. Faith had rediscovered it after Stephanie Bullock nixed the pâté de campagne, originally planned as one of the wedding hors d’oeuvres, in favor of this one. Pâté de foie de volaille apparently sounded more elegant than a pâté “of the country.” After Patsy left, Faith decided to feed the children early and heated one of the casseroles. Ben had been greeting the offerings as exotic, extremely haute cuisine, savoring green beans in mushroom soup with water chestnuts and Dur-kee canned fried onions with all the appearance of a connoisseur hailing Paul Bocuse’s soupe de truffes. While her offspring gleefully devoured what appeared to be ground beef, tomatoes, and corn, with mashed potatoes on top, Faith turned her attention to dinner for the grown-ups. Earlier in the day, she had decided they needed more than a nice piece of fish and some salad—her mother’s old standby, or its variation, a nice salad and a piece of fish. No, the Fairchilds needed calories, plenty of them. Comfort food. Food for thought. Faith was ready with both—thoughts and food. She looked at the thick veal chops from Savenor’s market, located on Charles Street, at the foot of Beacon Hill. It was worth the trip to this culinary shrine, transplanted from the original store in Cambridge after it burned down.