Katherine Hall Page - The Body in the Bookcase: A Faith Fairchild Mystery

KATHERINE

HALL PAGE

T h e BODY t h e

BOOKCASE

A FAITH FAIRCHILD MYSTERY

The robbd that smiles steals something from the thief.

Contents

Night had fallen in Aleford, Massachusetts, and its inhabitantsthose who were still awake were involved in a variety of pursuits.

At the First Parish parsonage, Faith Sibley Fairchild was sitting in the living room with her husband, the Reverend Thomas Fairchild, before the unlighted hearth. It was an attractive room, stretching from the front of the house to the back. A deep blue Oriental rug bequeathed by some previous inhabitant lay on the floor, its colors repeated in the rooms drapes and upholstery. A few spindly chairs, also hand-me-downs, had been supplemented by the Fairchilds own, more comfortable furniture. Their belongings decorated the walls, personalized the tabletops.

Their two children, Ben, five, and Amy, twenty months, were mercifully sound asleep upstairs. The morning paper and the book she was reading lay untouched on the coffee table in front of Faith. She was enjoying the rare sensation of doing nothing and her mind drifted to thoughts of May thoughts of the current season.

Although she had lived in Aleford for six years, Faith had never become used to spring in New England. It was such a tease. Spring in Manhattan, where she had lived previously, went on and on forever. First, a certain ineffable warmth crept into the air. It was followed by the whiff of new soil, which infused the odor of exhaust fumes with promise. Central Park began to look like something from a Disney movie, daffodils playfully bending their heads to gentle breezes, beds of pansies with faces like kittens lining the walks, and animated robins hopping about on the velvet green of the Great Lawn. A brilliant swath of tulips stretched as far as the eye could see down Park Avenue. Swelling pale green buds on branches made veils of the trees in Gramercy Park.

In Aleford, however, April meant six feet of snow and May was a big maybe. Toward the end of the month, a few of the flowers promised by the showers, or moisture in a more solid form, struggled into the light of day. Then Mother Nature did a fast-forward and everything happened at once. Fruit trees burst into blossom. Birds returned and sang. The bulbs that the squirrels and deer hadnt eaten bloomed. It was beautiful. Briefly beautiful. Then the region lurched into summer, the temperatures soaring, narcissi withering. Faith had immediately understood the local mania for forcing bulbs indoors, as well as branches of forsythia and flowering quince, or virtually anything with swelling bark one might find to hack down, cart inside, and plunge into containers of water. Forcing an apt termas in If X wants a hyacinth, X will be forced to force it.

Nice to finally be able to turn the heat off, Tom said cheerfully, interrupting his wifes somewhat resentful thoughts. She walked over and sat on the arm of the wing chair where he was sitting, planting a kiss on the top of his head. There were certain compensations to New Englands drawbacks, the primary one was her husband, a native son.

Youd have turned it off in March if you hadnt married such a thin-skinned New Yorker. Admit it! Tom was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan IF GOD IS YOUR COPILOT, CHANGE SEATS , given to him by one of his parishioners, while Faith was in a turtleneck and sweater. Both kids seemed to have inherited Toms heat-generating genes. One of Bens first full sentences had been, I dont need a jacket, Mom. And it was a struggle to keep Amy from stripping off most of her clothes once they were on.

Tom wisely decided not to pursue the subject of thermostats any further and instead asked, Whats your schedule tomorrow? I may have some time late in the afternoon, and we can take the kids to Drumlin Farm. See the spring lambs.

It sounded terribly quaint and was just the sort of thing Faith hoped her children would remember when they grew up, not the fact that she was the meanest mother in the nursery school because Ben couldnt have Nintendo. Or at least if they remembered these other thingsand there were sure to be plentyshe could always come back with But what about all those nice times, like taking you to see the spring lambs? She had observed Pix Miller, her friend and next-door neighbor, try this tactic with her adolescents, with varying degrees of success, but at least the ammunition was there.

Spring lambs sound great, and I think Ill make some parish calls in the morning.

Tom looked skeptical. Faith had said the same thing the previous night.

I know, I knowIve been putting them off, but I really havent had a spare minute.

Faith had awakened that morning, fully intending to make some. Shed been filled with the kind of vernal energy that impels some women to attack grime on their windows and dust bunnies under the radiatorsor the ironing, which, in Faiths case, threatened to erupt like Mount Vesuvius from the spare-room closet, flow down the stairs and out the front door, entombing hapless passersby for eternity. But then shed had to help out at the last minute at Amys play group and something had come up at Have Faith, her catering company. Suddenly, it was time to make dinner, and all her best intentions were exactly where theyd been that morning.

You know, you dont have to do them, Tom said, drawing his wife from her perch to a more comfy place on his lap.

Even before they were married, Tom had been adamant that the gig, as he occasionally referred to his calling, was his alone. While recognizing her husbands thoughtfulness, Faith was also well aware of the navet of the notion. Shed grown up in a parish. Her father was a man of the cloth, as was his father before him. In Manhattan, the parsonage had, at Faiths mothers insistence and expense, taken the form of a roomy duplex on the Upper East Side, yet it remained a fishbowl, despite the doormen on guard. In every congregation on earth, its an immutable law of nature that even the most well-meaning member will feel obliged at some point to express an opinion about the ministers spouse, child-rearing practices, and behavior of said children. Faith and her sister, Hope, had sworn to avoid a repetition of this part of their childhoods. Hope had succeeded, marrying an MBA; Faith had not. Tom Fairchild hadnt been in clerical garb when they met, and by the time they got to the What do you do? part of the conversation, Faith knew she wanted to see this man againand again and again. Yes, it was all well and good for Tom to say she neednt involve herself in his work, but she knew the territory, and it meant, among other things, parish calls.