The Body in the Bonfire (6 page)

Finally outside in the freezing night air, the front door closing firmly behind them, Faith took Tom's arm and drew him close. “I don't think we have to go to any more of those, not being real faculty.”

“Good God, I hope not. Once was enough.”

“What about the charming Mrs. Harcourt?” Faith asked teasingly.

“The charming Mrs. Harcourt has an overabundance of hormones. But,” he added, laughing, “if I were to go back, she'd definitely be the reason.”

Faith agreed. “What were her etchings like?”

“Etchings? Oh, the things in the other room. Not etchings at all, but some rather nice Russian bibelots—Fabergé type, and each with a poignant story. Maybe we should go next week, so you can hear about Cousin Dimitri and poor, poor Sasha.”

They were walking toward the spot where Tom had parked.

“How old would you say she is?” Faith asked, knowing full well she could go to sherry hour for the next twenty years and never be invited to see Zoë's treasures. “Robert Harcourt has been the headmaster here for twenty-six years and he'd been a teacher and administrator for some years before that in Connecticut. So say mid-fifties. But Zoë doesn't look that old.” Faith wasn't jealous of Zoë—it wasn't just a matter of age, although the words
older woman
took on a new meaning when applied to Mrs. Harcourt. But not Tom's type at all. Faith was Tom's type.

“I'd say late forties, but I'm sure she'd change forties to thirties. I'm also sure a lot of her vacations have been to the plastic surgeon. I hope you never go that route. I like a woman with wrinkles, especially if I have them, too. Look at my parents. They match.”

This was true. The elder Fairchilds could almost be brother and sister. Yet, they had started out looking completely different—a redhead and a brunette, one with a high complexion, one with cheeks of ivory. Now both were always slightly tanned from working in the garden and both had hair that had gone completely white. Faith had no intention of either accepting crow's or any other feet on her face or looking like her husband. But they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. Or rather, she would, then double back.

“They could never have furnished that house
on a headmaster's salary. One, or both of them, must have money.”

Tom nodded. “Money to buy the school in the first place, and although I'm not an expert on these matters, I'd say Zoë's frock wasn't from Marshall's.”

Faith was amused—amused by the whole conversation. Fortunately, Tom, despite his collar, was a good gossip and not above discussions of extremely secular matters. And he was right—the dress wasn't from Marshall's. Not unless Chanel had misdirected a shipment to Saks lately.

They were at the car.

“Jump in, honey, and I'll take you to your car,” Tom offered.

“It's just beyond the next building, and I'd really rather you got home. I promised Danny we'd be back before seven, and it's getting late. I left dinner for him and the kids, but I don't want him to have to cope with bedtime. You know how hard it is to find baby-sitters, especially ones who live next door.”

“You're sure? It's cold,” Tom said.

“Good for me,” Faith called over her shoulder as she strode off.

“We'll make a New Englander out of you yet.” Tom's voice was barely audible over the noise of the engine, but Faith heard him.

“What an idea,” she murmured. It would be like a sex change.

She reached the parking lot and noticed that
the car in the space behind hers was running. She could see two dark silhouettes, heads close together, in the front seat, and as she passed the driver's door, she smelled cigarette smoke drifting out of the slightly cracked window. Smelled cigarette smoke and something else.

Shalimar.

Carleton House was completely empty. Faith hadn't expected a red carpet, but she had thought there would be someone to greet her at the first class. Connie with an attendance sheet or Daryl. She'd arrived twenty minutes early to set up for the class and had been glad of the lack of company then. But now, thirty minutes later, at ten minutes past nine, when Cooking for Idiots was supposed to start, she was puzzled, and slightly annoyed. If there had been a change, why hadn't someone called her? Maybe no one had signed up? But as of Monday, there had been ten kids enrolled. What had happened over the next day? Had she gotten the time wrong? No, she was sure Connie Reed had said nine o'clock.

The front door opened and banged against the wall. A breathless voice shouted, “Mrs. Fairchild? Are you here?” Faith went through the dining
area into the foyer, almost colliding with a young black teenager.

“You must be Daryl,” she said.

“I am and get your coat. I'll explain while we're walking. I didn't think you'd want to miss this.”

Faith grabbed her coat from the coatrack and hurried after him.

“Miss what? Where is everybody? What's going on?”

Daryl Martin smiled. It
was
a beautiful sight. Patsy had described him accurately. His deep brown eyes seemed to melt into his smooth skin. He was tall and moved with the grace of an athlete. His well-shaped head was defined by a thick tangle of dark hair, cut short.

“At the end of breakfast, just when everybody was getting ready to split for their projects, the headmaster comes running in and announces that there's an all-school emergency meeting in the chapel at nine-thirty.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with what's going on with you?”

“That was my first thought, too, but I didn't see how he could know anything about it unless you or Mrs. Avery said something, and I was sure you hadn't.” There was no mistaking the emphasis he put on those last words, that implicit warning for the future.

“Then I thought it was probably the usual,” Daryl continued. “He'd found a joint someplace
or an empty beer can. Project Term is a little—very little—looser than school usually is, so I figured he wanted to read us the riot act and set the tone. He's a big one for setting the tone. But I was wrong.”

They were almost at the chapel and boys were continuing to stream in.

“So what is it?” Faith stopped. Once they were inside, Daryl would have to sit with his class, while she made herself as inconspicuous as possible in the rear.

“Somebody's ripped off something from Mrs. Harcourt and she's bullshit. Wants to address the school. Have everybody turn their pockets inside out.”

“How did you find out?”

“Went into the kitchen and asked Mabel. In the kitchen, they know everything that goes on in the school. Well, maybe not everything, but a lot. And Mabel's always been very good to me. One of my people.”

Faith nodded. “I met her—and Mrs. Mallory.”

“Now, she is definitely not one of mine, and I'm not sure she's one of yours, either. Some kind of whole separate race thing going on there.”

Faith laughed. It had been less than five minutes, but she knew why Patsy was so taken with Daryl and why she had agreed to help him on his own terms. If the situation weren't so deadly serious, she might even describe herself as having fun. Someone had stolen something from Zoë
and Zoë meant to get it back. It should be quite a show.

“Meet you at the class. We don't know each other, remember. I'll stay after and we can talk then.”

Faith nodded and thanked him loudly for informing her about the schedule change. Connie Reed rushed past her, uncomprehending, flushed and obviously upset. Efficient as she was, it obviously hadn't occurred to her that Faith would be cooling her heels at Carleton House. Whatever was missing must be significant, Faith thought. Daryl disappeared into a sea of bobbing heads and chatter. The whole school was excited. She slipped into a seat at the rear of the chapel and kept her coat on. It was cold in the chapel—cold as only an old New England stone edifice in January can be. There were no pew cushions—too unmanly—and the chill seemed to travel straight from the depths of the frozen ground through the slate floor, up the sides of the mahogany pew, and directly into every bone in Faith's body, starting with her coccyx.

Robert Harcourt stepped forward to address his flock. There was instant silence.

“I have called you all here together due to a most grave matter, and it saddens me that we are to start our annual Project Term with a dark cloud hanging over us. Someone in our community is a thief.” He paused and directed his gaze like a searchlight over a prison yard upon each and
every face. “Mrs. Harcourt is missing several items of great value—and I need hardly say that the sentimental value is the one that most concerns us here today. They belonged to her family and—”

“My grandmother! My grandmother's pillbox.” Zoë leapt from the high-backed chair near the altar. A moment before, she'd been immobile, sitting slumped over, the picture of woe, wrapped in an enormous shearling, as if she'd just stepped in from the steppes. Now she was the picture of rage.

“I want them back. You're all to look for them. Some boy”—these last words were spoken in a death knell, her accent more pronounced, her voice almost a baritone—“some boy has taken them from
my
house to sell for a fraction of what they're worth to buy who knows what. Invaded
my
house!” She raised her arm and shook her velvet-gloved fist. “But you are to find them. I had photographs, fortunately, and you will study the copies.” She was really, really scary. The expressions on the faces Faith could see were easy to read. This wasn't like Mom and Dad pulling a nutty over a broken curfew or a
D
in French. This was Mount Saint Helens, Mount Vesuvius, Mount Zoë.

Robert stepped up and put his arm around her, guiding her firmly back to her seat. He proceeded as if the interruption hadn't occurred.

“The objects belonged to family members of
Mrs. Harcourt's and, although worth some considerable monetary amount, would be very difficult to dispose of. The police have copies of the photographs and are circulating them throughout the area. We have also posted copies on all dormitory and classroom bulletin boards. There is one in each of your mailboxes.” Faith had a sudden image of Connie racing around the campus with a staple gun and an armload of posters. The whole episode was somewhere between high drama and comic opera, music by Mussorgsky, film by Eisenstein.

Robert Harcourt's sonorous, slightly ecclesiastical voice continued on. His calm tone was in marked contrast to his wife's, but the effect was much the same. An implied threat—retribution, hellfire. Faith forced herself to listen to his words and ignore her thoughts.

“But I have complete confidence in the kind of community we have here at Mansfield. It may have been an impulsive act. In fact, it must have been an impulsive one, and I'm sure whoever gave in to this weak lapse will feel all the better for returning the objects. And if you happen upon them and are not the culprit, you do not have to tell me where you found them—unless you wish to, of course. Simply restore them to me and we will assume that the act will never be repeated. But I want to make one thing absolutely clear. We cannot survive in an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior. Therefore, I want this
matter settled immediately. The items are to be returned by dinnertime. A note slipped into my mailbox or under my door, telling me where they are, however you wish to handle it. Now, please rise and we will sing the school anthem.”

Zoë didn't move from the Niobe pose she'd resumed, and Faith almost toppled over as she stood up. She'd lost all the feeling in her right foot and most of what was in the left.

Beneath the chords of the rousing hymn to Mansfield, Faith picked up a comment or two from behind. She couldn't be sure who was speaking, though.

“Don't remember this much of a fuss when someone swiped McCord's Palm Pilot.”

“Amen.”

“What makes Harcourt so sure it was someone from the school? Couldn't it have been an itinerant tramp?”

Faith peeked over her shoulder at this notion and saw the remark had come from one of the older faculty wives. In all Faith's years in Aleford, she had never laid eyes on an itinerant tramp, or a tramp of any kind, unless you could count Cindy Shepherd, but it wasn't nice to speak ill of the dead. Yet the notion was sound. Why was the headmaster so sure Zoë's treasures had been pilfered by one of the boys?

 

She had her answer sooner than she could have imagined. As she joined the orderly and subdued
throng leaving the chapel, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Not showing our best side, I'm afraid.”

It was Winston Freer, the Shakespeare professor.

“I suppose theft is always a problem in any school,” Faith said. “But I'm puzzled why the Harcourts are so sure the culprit was one of the students. Surely there are people coming and going all the time on campus who may even have seen the things through a window—meter readers, delivery people. Wouldn't one of the boys have been more apt to steal money than pillboxes and icons, or whatever it is Mrs. Harcourt is missing?”

“You are embraced by the gift of logic, Mrs. Fairchild. I myself would have assumed the same had I not been apprised of the situation during the department heads' meeting in Robert's office early this morning.”

He smiled, and for a moment Faith wondered if that was that. Perhaps the headmaster had enjoined them all to secrecy. Fortunately, he hadn't—or Winston didn't care. He was clearly enjoying the situation.

“They found a button. Too, too Conan Doyle. One expected Robert to announce from the pulpit just now that the criminal was five foot ten, with a mole behind his left ear, and had recently suffered a cold.”

“A button?”

“A very distinctive button, to be sure. From a Mansfield blazer. It must have been hanging by a thread, a navy blue thread, and
plop,
there it was on the floor, complete with the manufacturer's initials on the back. A thoughtful clue, don't you think? It would have been foolhardy for our Zoë to be so accusatory otherwise. Parents don't care for that sort of thing.”

“Probably not,” Faith replied somewhat vaguely, since her mind was racing in quite another direction. How very convenient. A button at the scene of the crime.

“Well, I must leave you here. My path diverges. You must come for tea soon. An old man such as myself longs for new faces.” He smiled and so did Faith.

“Thank you. I'd like that.”

“I have a small cottage, not far from the lake. Anyone can tell you where. Now, about this other matter. The boy will be caught soon and/or Zoë's precious trinkets returned. Perhaps not by dinnertime. Robert is a bit optimistic, I'd say. But there are always boys who will squeal on other boys, and the thief himself may break down. As Will put it so aptly in
Henry the Sixth,
‘Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.' Now, I must away.”

He left, his dark green Tyrolean coat fluttering slightly behind like a cape. Faith quickened her steps toward Carleton House. She'd had a sud
den thought. If you really hated someone, hated him enough to send a steady stream of vicious bigotry his way, wouldn't framing him for a crime like this be the next step? She had to get to Daryl before the class started and send him back to his room to check his school blazers.

Button, button—who's got the button?

 

“Are any of you Daryl Martin?” Faith asked, addressing the small group of boys who had already arrived and were assembled in the kitchen. Thank goodness Daryl
was
there.

“I am.” He stepped forward.

“Good, I understand that you are my student liaison. Since I don't know Mansfield, I'll be relying on you to tell me how to find my car again and what to do when the oven sets off the smoke alarm, as it's bound to do. Perhaps Ms. Reed told you?”

Daryl picked right up on it.

“Yes, I'm your guardian angel. Anything you want to know.”

The other boys had stopped talking when Faith asked her question but now had resumed. A couple of them were studiously examining a color Xerox of what Faith assumed were the missing goods. It was easy to draw Daryl away and quickly tell him what she had learned from Professor Freer. He was out the door immediately, ostensibly in search of a campus map for Faith. He was gone for about fifteen minutes,
but Faith had still not started when he returned. Several of the boys were late, arriving with apologies—and almost all of them clutching the wanted posters.

One of the latecomers rushed in, started to speak, and then stood stock-still.

“Mrs. Fairchild! I didn't know you would be teaching this course! Um, I mean, hey, that's great.” It was Brian Perkins, Danny Miller's friend, and from the glum look on his face, Faith's presence was anything but great.

“It's good to see you, too, Brian. I think you'll have a lot of fun and you'll be able to impress your friends and relatives with your advanced culinary skills.” Over the years, Faith had gotten to know Brian through Danny and the two had jointly baby-sat a few times, taking the kids to the playground or the green. Brian had been a roly-poly kid with a ready grin. He'd shot up and slimmed down. The grin was in hiding. If he was unhappy at Mansfield, Faith would have thought the sight of a familiar face would have brought a remnant of his cheerful expression to the fore. Why had he been so dismayed to see her? What else was in hiding? It wasn't as if she knew him well enough to embarrass him in some way. She wasn't carrying any pictures of baby Brian lying bare-bottomed on a bearskin rug. The boy had seemed genuinely upset, though. One more complication in a place that was fast becoming as puzzling as Rubik's Cube.