The Body in the Moonlight (6 page)

In church, Faith prayed briefly—for strength, for clarity, for forgiveness, for Gwen—then turned to look
up at the choir loft. She was surprised to see Jared. He was there, playing his heart out. Brahms's Requiem, his own arrangement for solo organ.

While the music filled the sanctuary, Faith's thoughts returned to the night before and the scene that had greeted her when she'd returned to the Ballou House ballroom from the phone.

Nick Gabriel had had his arms around his cousin, Jared, turning him away from the sight of his dead fiancée. He was stroking the back of Jared's head and mumbling something in his ear. He was in full view of the corpse himself, however, and he was obviously in shock. His face was deathly pale and Faith could see that his hand was trembling. Jared's full weight was collapsed against his cousin, and from the way his shoulders heaved, Faith could tell he was sobbing. He'd screamed when Gwen fell to the ground, and the sound of his voice, crying, “Gwen! Gwen! Don't!” had carried above the crowd, following Faith into the kitchen. Gwen. Don't. Don't die. Don't leave me.

Pix and Ursula were standing near the Gabriels, far enough away so as not to intrude on their grief, but close enough to help if help was needed. Anson Scott was with Janice Mulholland. She seemed about to faint. He had distanced her from any sight of Gwen and was talking to her in an insistent manner, forcing her to focus on him and his words. There were several ornate gold-framed mirrors on the walls, enormous—reaching almost from floor to ceiling and wide enough to reflect any number of bygone ladies in
their full-skirted crinolines. Faith saw Anson's and Janice's reflected images mixed with those of the other partygoers. The mirrors gave the illusion of another room, another party, but with the same people. A party where nothing bad had happened. These mirrors had held Anson's relative—how many years ago? Had she helped serve at a ball? Or had she been in the vast room only to clean the floor, dust? Had she looked at herself in these mirrors? Servants started when they were still children in those days. Had she danced a step or two, singing to herself, twirling around?

While Faith watched, Scott pulled out a chair from the nearest table and sat Janice down. She looked limp, in sharp contrast to the mystery writer who now loomed large over her, still talking in an animated fashion, as if to keep her conscious.

Faith went over to them and Anson called out, “Brandy. That's what everybody needs. Some brandy. No, I'm not asking you for it. Nothing must be touched. But wish I'd thought to put a flask in my pocket.” She had had a fleeting disconnected feeling that she was watching a play—had been for the entire night—and here was Anson Scott playing some role to the hilt.

And Tom, Tom was stage right, standing alone. Immobile. Staring in disbelief.

Tom's voice. The Reverend Thomas Preston Fairchild's voice. It was Sunday morning. Faith was in church.

“Dearly beloved, the Scripture moveth us in sundry
places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness….” Gwen Lord had been murdered the night before. Wickedness was afoot.

 

The last thing Faith Sibley Fairchild had ever wanted to be was a minister's wife. She was the daughter and granddaughter of men of the cloth and had sworn to avoid that particular fabric after growing up a preacher's kid. Her home hadn't been in a moss-covered manse, but a Manhattan duplex. Her mother hadn't been the pillar of the Ladies Aid, but a real estate lawyer. Still, both Faith, and her sister, Hope, one year younger, had felt that the eyes of the congregation were on them—always. The family had had very little time together, except for a two-week vacation in the summer. Her father's busy times had been holidays, not only with the designated services but also with the pastoral calls and crises accompanying these occasions when one is supposed to be feeling great joy. Faith was proud of her father and treasured his ministry, but she'd seen the kind of sacrifices her mother had had to make—the kind they all had. No, she'd decided early on—a godly man, all right, but not a man of God. Then she'd met Tom and fallen hopelessly in love. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, she'd found herself a new bride in Aleford, Massachusetts, a small town west of Boston. Then a year later, a new mother. Three years later, a mother again. Next, she'd revived Have Faith, the highly successful catering company she'd founded in Manhattan ten years earlier. Before going back to
work, she'd had moments of acute boredom, acute distress at her distance from the Big Apple—a decent haircut, Balducci's, Barneys, and Bloomies. Now, life was a high-speed juggling act and boredom was a luxury like Petrossian caviar or a Kate Spade pocketbook.

Sundays meant Sunday dinner, and they had just finished the meal and said, “Good-bye and come again” to the extras invariably invited to round out the table, when the doorbell rang.

“Someone must have forgotten something,” Faith said. “I'll get it.” Tom grunted from the couch, where he'd stretched out. Amy was napping and Ben was at a friend's house for the afternoon.

She opened the door and saw Charley MacIsaac. Of course. He'd said he was coming. She also saw Detective Lieutenant John Dunne of the Massachusetts State Police. This was a surprise.

“Come in. Good to see you, John.” She could hear Tom leap to his feet. “Let me take your coat. May I get either of you some coffee?”

“No thanks, Faith,” Dunne said, handing her his topcoat. Joseph Abboud, she noticed, and cashmere. John Dunne was one of the tallest men she knew and one of the homeliest. To offset this, or to add to his unmistakable presence, he dressed as elegantly as a New York stockbroker. Charley was wearing a threadbare Celtics jacket over an equally venerable sports coat.

Dunne and Faith eyed each other warily. Their lives had touched during several other investigations and the
friction had produced sparks. When Dunne had heard about this latest case, he hadn't even bothered to ask who the caterer had been. He walked into the living room.

“Moved the couch.” It was a statement.

“Yes, we like it better this way,” Faith said defensively.

Dunne nodded and sat in one of the wing chairs. Charley took the other, leaving the Fairchilds the controversial piece of furniture with its view of headstones.

John Dunne hadn't been at Ballou House the night before and Faith had wondered where he was. Instead, another state police officer appeared to be in charge, sealing the kitchen and taking down the names of all the attendees. “I didn't see you last night,” she said.

“It's my case now,” Dunne said. He had left the Bronx many years ago, yet his voice hadn't. He added wryly, “Headquarters thought I'd better take over in light of my close connections to the town.” Several corpses and Faith.

“How did she die? Was it cyanide?” Faith asked. She was glad Dunne had taken over. The devil you know…

He took a PalmPilot from his pocket and removed the stylus.

“Potassium cyanide. Very nasty stuff. Very painful death.”

Tom coughed and got up. “I'll be right back,” he said.

Dunne looked sharply at the retreating figure. Faith pretended not to notice.

“It was in the dessert topping?”

“It was in the dessert topping. And only hers. We're sure of that. All the plates left on the tables were checked, and there were no plates missing. No one had taken a dessert someplace else to eat or dispose of, unless that person put it in a pocket, which seems unlikely, although we can't rule out the possibility. We also checked what was left in the kitchen and the trash. Which means—”

“Which means that I couldn't conceivably have done it, nor could any of my staff,” Faith declared excitedly.

“Which means…” Dunne scowled. He hated being interrupted and was vividly reminded that this was one of Faith's less endearing traits. That and her annoying insistence on sticking her nose—and foot—in his investigations. “Which means it was done after the desserts were served. By whom, we don't know yet.”

“Isn't cyanide hard to come by?” Faith asked.

“Not if you have access to a lab, especially a research lab, and with all the Harvard and MIT employees in town, that eliminates nobody. It's also in a variety of pesticide products—and darkroom supplies. Not hard at all.”

“What we're particularly interested in, Faith, are the times when the desserts were out in the open,” Charley said.

They'd asked her this the night before, but she supposed he had to ask again for Dunne's benefit.

“I unpacked them and set them on the trays to be served. Then the staff put one at each place.” She remembered what she'd told Patsy and now corrected what she'd said to Charley at Ballou House. “I'd thought there was no time when the kitchen wasn't occupied, but this morning I remembered that when I went in just before the desserts were served, there wasn't anybody around. Either they were clearing or they were in the butler's pantry, where the dishwasher and other sinks are, starting to clean up.”

Dunne was jotting down a few words.

“You knew everyone at the deceased's table. What was each person's relationship to Gwen Lord?”

Faith's throat closed over. The question had caught her completely unawares. Tom. Where was Tom?

“Well, most of them didn't know her, or very slightly. I'm certain the writer Anson Scott hadn't met her before. Nor had Janice Mulholland, unless it was at a church coffee hour. Gwen has come to services several times—last spring and this fall.” Faith realized she'd have to try to get used to the past tense. Came to church. “She was engaged to Jared Gabriel, the choirmaster and our music director. His cousin, Nick Gabriel, owns the Undique Gallery on Newbury Street. Gwen worked there. Who else was at the table?” She paused as if in thought to give herself some breathing space. “The Pringles, Paula and Sydney, joined the group late, but again, they hadn't met Gwen before,
unless Paula, who's also a church member, had run into her after a service. Sydney isn't a churchgoer. Then there were Pix and Ursula. You know them, of course, and even if they did know her, it would be absurd to think either of them had anything to do with her death.” Faith knew she was beginning to babble. “Other than the Gabriels, no one had any relationship to her.”

There was a moment of silence. Cops did this—kept quiet, so eventually you'd feel so uneasy, you'd have to fill the empty space yourself. Have to say something. Say anything.

Tom entered, carrying a tray with several mugs of coffee and a plate of molasses sugar-and-spice cookies. Both Dunne and MacIsaac regarded him suspiciously. He might as well have been carrying a bomb—carrying it with an apron tied around his waist. Faith knew for a fact that John couldn't boil water, let alone make coffee, and Charley ate all his meals at the Minuteman Café in the center of Aleford. Besides providing him with the five food groups, leaning heavily toward fats and carbohydrates, it served up everything that was going on in town to and by whom.

“Thank you, honey,” Faith said, reaching for coffee she didn't want. It gave her something to do with her hands.

“We were just discussing any possible links between Gwendolyn Lord and the others at her table last night,” John said, reaching for a cookie.

“Other than her fiancé and his cousin, her employer,
I wouldn't imagine there were links to anyone else,” Tom said firmly. “Jared lives in Cambridge, so she wasn't out here much, except for a few church services and the Spring Choral Recital.”

Faith had forgotten the event. Both the church school choir and the adult choir worked all year on it. Jed had composed a special round for the children, and it had been lovely—ever so slightly off-key, but lovely. The adults had sounded almost professional. It was one of the first times Faith had met Gwen and the first time she'd talked with her at any length. Faith had asked about her job. Newbury Street with DKNY, Ermenegildo Zegna, Pratesi, agnès b., and others was the closest Boston got to Gotham, and Faith assumed it must be a fun place to work.

“I never get out of the gallery,” Gwen had told her. “And if I did, everything costs the earth. Even a cup of coffee.”

It was something Gwen wouldn't have to worry about once she was married, Faith had reflected at the time. Jed had inherited a fortune when his parents died, one that had started with his grandfather. When she'd asked Tom how large a fortune, he'd said no one ever mentioned a figure. “That big,” she'd commented.

Gwen had looked very beautiful that day, too. It had been a brilliantly sunny day, not unlike today, but spring sunlight—lighter, less dense than autumn's. Gwen had worn a pale green silk sheath, abandoning her basic blacks. Afterward, Jed was over the moon with the success of the concert and the two stood hand
in hand at the reception in the parish hall, looking like a bride and groom.

A bride and groom. They were to have been married on the Saturday before Christmas, the eighteenth. A small wedding—a few friends, Nick, some of the choir. Earlier this fall, Faith had asked Gwen what her dress was like and Gwen had looked embarrassed. “I haven't picked one out yet. Everything I try on makes me look like one of those plastic ornaments on top of a wedding cake or so plain that I might as well just wear something I already have.” Faith urged her to go to a dressmaker and get something made, something like the dress she'd worn last spring, but long, in ivory or a soft bisque. “I know it sounds corny, but you'll treasure the dress for the rest of your life.” Gwen had thanked her somewhat absentmindedly. Faith wondered if she'd gotten a dress, a dress for the rest of her life.

Dunne's next question jolted her from her reverie.

“So, you didn't know her well yourself, Reverend.”

Didn't Dunne usually call him Tom? Faith sat up straight and clutched the mug.

“I'm beginning to think I didn't know her at all,” he answered wearily, which was no answer. “I know Jared, of course. We both came to First Parish the same year.”