Part 22 (1/2)
”I try. I'm switching to beer. You want one?”
Faith shook her head. She wanted to keep her mind clear.
”The suspects in Nelson's case are more limited,” she said. ”The chloral hydrate had to have been administered sometime during the breakfast, which means it had to have been someone who was there.”
”It's beginning to look more and more like Joey. He may have thought Nelson knew something-or Nelson may know something and not know he knows it. That makes more sense than it sounds.”
”I know,” Faith said, and wrote it down. ”But Joey didn't kill himself-and he is in no condition to go scampering in the woods after me.”
Tom looked disheartened. ”We do have a problem. Unless Joey's killer was completely unrelated to the other two crimes and that killer thinks you saw something when you discovered the body.”
”It was a person he knew,” Faith mused. ”Who disliked him but might have seemed like a friend, or at least an acquaintance?”
”People in the construction field, perhaps, some of the POW! members, and from what you told me about your conversation with Gus, he might be a possibility.”
' 'If Gus found out that Joey had killed Margaret and tried to kill Nelson, would he have taken the law into his own hands? He wouldn't have wanted his family's name dragged through the courts-and the tabloids. It's also pos- 200.
sible that it was Joey all along who sent the letters to try to intimidate POW! and made the calls to Lora. If Gus found all this out, he might have seen getting rid of Joey as justifiable homicide, an extreme form of citizen's arrest.”
”I can't believe Gus Deane would kill anyone, though. Especially a family member.” Tom sipped his beer slowly.
”He was at the breakfast, remember. And he adores Bonnie. If he thought Joey was hurting her in some way ...” Faith was scribbling madly. ”And what about Bonnie herself? She's very tough. Suppose she found out what Joey had been up to?” Faith added her name. Bonnie had been at St. Theresa's. She'd been wearing a voluminous snuff-colored skirt with a wide ap.r.o.n of blue-striped mattress ticking-plenty of room for'pockets. Plenty of room to hide a bottle of medicine.
”And you? What would these people have against you?” Tom asked.
”I must be getting close to the truth-which leads me to my plan.” She hadn't intended to tell Tom, but they were in this together now. ”I want to give whoever it is another chance, but before you say anything, this time it would be perfectly safe. I'd be a decoy, let it be known that I do know something. But have John or Charley in the pantry or wherever.”
”You must be out of your mind!” Tom exploded.
Faith was disappointed. She'd thought he understood.
”Tom, it's the only way to stop this. Someone else may get killed.”
”And it's not going to be you.”
Faith kept quiet. Tom finished his beer.
”Well, what have we learned?”
”Besides the fact that I married a crazy woman?” He tempered his remark with a long kiss.
”Besides that.”
' 'One of our killers, if there are indeed two, was someone at the Minuteman breakfast. Although, the notion that there are two seems unimaginable.”
201.
Faith was casting her thoughts back to Patriots' Day morning, a.s.sembling the cast of characters: Gus, Joey, Nelson, Bonnie, Brad ...
”Brad Hallowell. We haven't talked about him.”
”How does he fit into all this?” Tom had slipped his arm around his wife's shoulders. She smelled good-having put Amy to bed, Faith had a whiff of the cornstarch powder she used for the baby mixed in with her Arpege.
”Suppose he was the person Margaret was meeting at the unfinished house on Whipple Hill. He sees Joey kill her, then tries to blackmail Joey into dropping the Alefor-diana Estates plan. When Joey refuses, Brad kills him.”
”What about the attack on Nelson?”
”Nelson knows Margaret was meeting Brad at the house. Maybe Brad has a ski mask, too, and was cavorting in the bog with them. Brad is satisfied now that Nelson is too terrified to say anything and is letting him live. He may be certain there's no evidence to tie him to the crime.”
”And he made the calls to Lora and threw the brick?”
”Yes-and cut the hoses on the excavator. Joey would never damage his own property, unless he really did want to frame POWf But I think he would have picked something less expensive.”
”All the pieces fit so far, but there's the attack on you. You guys are on the same team,” Tom pointed out.
”True, but Brad knows I've been looking into things. I implied that I'm not satisfied with what the police have been doing-or not doing. I said as much at the meeting this morning.”
”I remember,” Tom said glumly.
”And Brad was sitting right there.”
”He certainly is temperamental. I thought he was going to blow his stack when I said I'd quit if we didn't call off Town Meeting for now.”
' 'Exactly. Lora said as much, too, when she first told us her suspicions about her caller.” That night, Lora in Tom's arms, seemed a century ago. And what about Lora? Lora, the lady of at least two faces, if not a thousand. Could she 202.
have been in this with Brad and their whole breakup a smoke screen? Then who was Mr. Miata?
Faith wrote a few more hasty notes.
”Let's call it a day-or rather, it is day. It's tomorrow already, and if I'm not mistaken, it will be show time in a few hours.”
Tom pulled her to her feet. ”Show time? Not exactly. But I do have plenty to say.”
Joseph Madsen's wake was Sunday evening. The funeral would be held at St. Theresa's early Monday. Faith put on a black linen suit from Searle and went next door to drive to the wake with the Millers. Tom had had to go to the hospital to see an elderly paris.h.i.+oner who'd suffered a heart attack that afternoon.
”I wonder who will be there?” Fix said as they drove to the funeral home.
”Judging from the number of cars, I'd say most of the town,” Sam remarked. ”You two go on in and I'll park in the Shop 'n Save lot. There's no room here.”
The parking lot of the Stewart Funeral Home was full and when Faith and Fix went inside, there was a long line to get into the room where the family was sitting with Joey. Faith spied Millicent ahead of her and the Scotts. Nelson was with them. This was an occasion that transcended mundane disagreements. At least, Faith hoped so. For these two days, no one had any affiliations. Death was a nonexclusive club. No sponsor needed.
Faith had been in a great many funeral homes. It went with the job. Stewart's was interchangeable with most, except for the framed prints of the battle on Aleford Green and other famous moments from local history. The furniture was Chippendale by way of Ethan Allen, the wall-to-wall carpeting beige, and the walls themselves covered with a muted striped paper that matched the floors. As the line moved slowly forward, they pa.s.sed a number of large floral offerings: Deane Construction Company, Deane-Madsen Development Corporation, Deane Properties, Deane Toy- 203.
ota, the Masons, the Aleford Minutemen, and, when Faith glimpsed the casket, the biggest and most heartrending of all: ”Love from Bonnie and Little Joey.”
”Open or closed?” whispered Fix. She figured Faith, of all people, should know.
”Closed, I would think,” she answered. Yet, morticians could accomplish a great deal. They'd shut those staring eyes and cover the wound. The casket might be open after all. She thrust the image out of her mind and tried instead to think of Joey as he'd been at the selectmen's meeting.
Sam joined them. ”Such a young guy.” He thought of his own children. ”His poor parents. They were very proud of all he'd accomplished. He conies from a large family in Somerville and he's always been the star.”