“Well, you know we're looking for a certain person to question and after that maybe we 'll have something to say.
“Oh, that 's as ridiculous as the tramp theory! You've known Dave all his life. You can't honestly believe he would kill anybody ! “
Charley looked Faith straight in the eye and drained his tumbler. "Faith, anybody can be a killer given the right place and the right time. Even you would kill to protect that baby of yours, right ? Or Tom ? "
“ Yes, of course, but it's not the same ! "
“It's all the same in the end. And I'm not saying Dave did kill Cindy. We just want to know where he was and where he's been.”
Faith had to be satisfied with that and, disgruntled, left MacIsaac. Of course he was keeping something from her. How was she ever going to help clear Dave if she couldn't find out what was going on ? She felt it was rather mean of Charley not to share what he knew. It wasn't as if she would snitch to Detective Dunne.
She looked around the room for Tom. How long did they have to stay anyway ? She had had enough of the mystery for one day, and the sherry on an empty stomach—no, she would not eat fish paste sandwiches—was making her slightly queasy. Or maybe it was MacIsaac.
Oswald Pearson was busily jotting down notes and Faith wondered what he could be writing. Descriptions of what everyone was wearing ? She noted today he didn't seem the dandy he usually was. Oswald was a round little man in his early forties who had compensated for an early loss of hair by growing a precise Van Dyck beard. The few hairs left on his head were carefully drawn across his scalp and had a tendency to rise together in a solid phalanx whenever a breeze drifted by. Today his pink and white complexion looked gray and white. Faith couldn't imagine that he was upset at Cindy's death, especially since the headlines it was producing were increasing his circulation beyond the town limits. Maybe he was coming down with the flu. Where was Tom ? When she was forced to medical speculation about the inhabitants of Aleford, she knew she had reached boredom 's rock bottom.
Just then Robert Moore came into the living room with Charley MacIsaac and said something to the Sven-sons. They all went out into the hall and Faith saw Erik Svenson reach for the phone. Eva Svenson clutched his arm. As if a message had been delivered, those who had been outside in the garden came in and the talking stopped.
MacIsaac left the hall, went out to his car, switched on the radio, its blare jarring the silence unpleasantly. No one could make out what was being said. Abruptly, Charley drove off.
Erik put the phone down. With Eva quietly weeping at his side, he came into the room and told them, "Dave is at the police station. That was Detective Dunne. What he said exactly was they're holding him for questioning.”
Eva stood absolutely still, with a bewildered expression on her face. Her eyes were locked on one of the portraits of Patricia's ancestors and she looked as though she wished her family had never heard of the Moores—or Aleford either. That they could all have stayed on the farm in Sweden and never come across the ocean at all.
Tom stepped forward. "I'll go down with you, Erik, let me get my coat." He came over to Faith, gave her a kiss, told her he would meet her at home, then left the room. The Svensons waited immobilized, until Tom came back with Robert. Robert took Eva's arm. " I've called another lawyer and he 's meeting us there." That seemed to trigger something and Eva began to sob openly. They hurried out to the cars.
Those left looked stunned and then all began to talk at once. There was a lot of anger, but also a lot of fear. It had been hard to connect the day 's events with the murder. It had been a funeral like every other funeral. There had been a sense of security in going through the established motions. Now they all remembered. It wasn't just any funeral. The dead woman was a murder victim. And someone, however unlikely, had been picked up by the police.
Faith went home soon after and sat in Tom's study nursing Benjamin in the big old rocking chair her Aunt Chat had given them when Benjamin was born.
“You'll use it more than any booties or sweater I could knit," she had said, and it had been true. It was comforting to sit and rock and Faith fell asleep with Benjamin nuzzled close to her breast. When she woke up, it was dark outside and cold. She felt stiff. Tom still wasn't home.
Faith realized she hadn't eaten anything all day and after she changed and bathed Benjamin, she went into the kitchen to make herself an omelet. She had just broken the first egg when Tom walked in. He looked horrible : His face was drawn and there were circles under his eyes that hadn't been there earlier. She broke some more eggs and got out the remnants of last night's capelli d'angelo and pesto to make a frittata.
“I can't believe they are putting this kid through all this. They've been at him all afternoon. About Cindy. About the damn photographs. Even the minuscule amount of marijuana .they found.
Faith had never heard Tom sound so depressed and she quickly left the frittata to put her arms around him.
“This is too much, Tom. The funeral and now this.”
She poured him a glass of Puligny-Montrachet.
“I'll admit I'm totally overwhelmed. They really think he did it ! MacIsaac and Atlas or whoever he is.
Poetic mother, my foot, more likely straight from Barnum and Bailey's!"
“Now, Tom, he can't help his genes and he 's really not so big, he simply looks it—big bones.”
Tom eyed her in astonishment and began to laugh helplessly. "And what, pray, is the difference ? "
“You know what I mean. He's not fat like those before-and-after ads where the man has his whole family standing in a pair of his old trousers. He 's just big.”
Faith was drying the lettuce, a thankless task. Tom walked over to the sink. His glass was empty and he was feeling slightly better. He planted several kisses on the back of her neck. She always smelled terrific—if it wasn't the kitchen, it was Guerlain's Mitsouko. He couldn't decide which excited him more. But the day's events crowded in again.
“Oh, Faith, I kept looking at the Svensons and thinking how we would feel if anything like this happened to Benjamin. I felt so useless. At least Robert had the sense to get on to his law firm and they sent their top criminal lawyer. Fortunately Dave had refused to say anything until his parents got there and by that time, the lawyer was on the way, so he didn't incriminate himself. The way he was going on to us—about being guilty in thought. That's all the police had to hear."
“What did he know about what was in the box ? "
“Nothing. He was pretty amazed, in fact. It's not the behavior one expects of one 's betrothed. He did say that they smoked occasionally. Cindy especially liked to smoke before they had sex. Dave didn't."
“The old impairment theory, no doubt," Faith interjected.
“Whatever," Tom continued, "Anyway, Dave insists that dope never did much for him. My guess is a stiff shot of aquavit and a jump in the snow is more in the Svensons' line."
“The police really don't have much of a motive, aside from the fact that he hated her guts. But they do have the fact that he had a quarrel with her shortly before she was killed, a quarrel in the Burger King on Middlesex Turnpike that was witnessed by most of Aleford's teenagers. He also had an appointment to meet her in the place and at the time she was murdered," Tom spoke ruefully.
“What's going to happen now ? " asked Faith.
“They'll either formally charge him with murder or keep him as long as they can for questioning. If they don't charge him, they'll have to let him go.”
They went to bed early, falling wearily, easily, but not straight, to sleep.
The next morning, Benjamin woke them up at five o'clock, soaked through and hungry. Faith fed and changed him, made a bargain with God that if He would make Benj go back to sleep again, she would try very hard to be a better person, and tumbled gratefully back to bed, God having recognized a good thing when He saw it. Then the phone, not Benjamin, awakened them at seven o'clock. It was Eva Svenson. Dave had been released on personal recognizance the night before, but the police had arrived a few minutes ago to take him in for more questioning. His father had gone with him and they hoped Tom would join them.