Tom returned shortly. "I didn't get to make many noises of any kind. Cyle was on his way out and almost cut me off. He did say they'd been in touch with Dunne and he'd come down to talk to them, so if not exactly public knowledge, at least it's police knowledge at present."
“I don't care much for Bootsie and family, but I still hope they don't find out about it at Hubbard House. She is a dynamo, and the Pink Ladies are essential to keeping the place running.”
They moved into the living room and sat before a fire reading Ben his favorite books of the moment, In the Night Kitchen and Katy and the Big Snow, until he dropped off to sleep and they carried him up into the hibernal regions of the bedrooms and put him in his bed. He had forsworn his crib at the beginning of the fall in favor of an old spool bed Aunt Chat had unearthed from her attic. They kissed him good night, slid the little bars into place that would keep him from falling out, and walked back downstairs arm in arm.
“At last," said Faith.
“At last," agreed Tom.
Monday morning was sunny and cold, but the roads were clear. The Byford police had had Faith's car towed to a garage in Byford center, and Tom was driving Faith over to get it. It was parked in front.
“I'll wait to make sure everything's okay," Tom said.
“Thank you, darling. I'll go ask in the office.”
It was, and she stuck her head out to tell Tom, waved good-bye as he drove off, then quickly went back in.
Scott Phelan was sitting at a battered gray metal desk leaning precariously back in the chair behind it. He had on grease-stained coveralls, and no amount of Lava soap would ever get his hands clean. He looked gorgeous.
“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Fairchild. Hear you found another body. Getting pretty good at this, aren't you?" He smiled, and for more than a fleeting moment Faith wished she didn't take her vows so seriously. Scott looked like the handsome one in Tom Cruise's family. They'd met two years ago when Scott had agreed to give Faith some information that gave one of the suspects in Cindy Shepherd's murder an alibi. She'd seen Scott several times since then at the Willow Tree Kitchen, a New England equivalent to a roadhouse—seedy, but with ruffled Priscilla curtains at the windows. Scott ate there every night and the Fairchilds went occasionally for the chowder and chili, which were excellent (in contrast to the rest of the menu and a wine list limited to two screw-top offerings—red or white).
“Still hanging out at the Willow Tree?" Faith asked.
“Yeah, but not for much longer. Trishia and I are getting married next spring."
“That's great, congratulations. She's a terrific girl." Trishia was the one who had led Faith to Scott.
Scott smiled slowly. It lit up the room. "Yeah, we're spending all our time together and I figured if we could stand each other this long, we're a pretty safe bet. She'll be graduating from Middlesex Community College over in Bedford then, so we'll have one party. Hope you can come—and the Reverend," he added after a distinct pause.
“We'd be honored.”
Scott stood up and sauntered around the desk.
“Your car is fine. Not a scratch on it. You were lucky. And it started right up. We didn't even have to tow it."
“That's great.”
As they headed toward the lot, it occurred toFaith that Scott might have heard something about Eddie Russell. Habitués of the Willow Tree knew most of what was going on in the area before it happened.
“Did you ever run into a guy named Eddie Russell in your travels?"
“You mean the stiff?"
“Yes. Did he come around the Willow Tree?"
“Yeah, old Edsel used to come around a lot. But not to eat. At least not lately. Wasn't good enough for him. No mixed drinks. Liked to impress the ladies."
“Well, what did he come around for then?"
“Look, Faith, think about it for a moment and then forget the whole thing. Eddie Russell was not a nice boy and he was into some pretty heavy shit."
“Drugs." As Faith said it, she mentally kicked herself for not thinking of it before. It fit so neatly into the rest of the picture. Dunne probably knew from the start. And it wasn't that she had led a particularly sheltered life.
“The man was a walking Rexall's. I asked him for Band-Aids once. He didn't get it. Pretty stupid for a guy who thought he was smart—but he also got himself killed, which is about as stupid as you can get.”
Faith had not regarded murder in this light, yet it made a certain amount of sense.
“So it was pretty well known that if you wanted drugs, you could get them from Eddie?"
“Everything from nose candy to weed. He wasn't a druggie himself, though. I heard him talking about some of his customers once. Thought they were complete losers. Trish and I laughed about it later. If anyone was a loser, it was Eddie."
“Why do you say that?"
“He was a type. Always wanted to be one of the big shots. But—what was he, thirty, thirty-one?—he wasn't anything but a handyman at an old people's home hustling on the side. I remember when he was first back from Florida. He was bragging about all the rich women he'd had down there. How he could have married any number of them—but you notice he didn't. A loser."
“Who do you think killed him?"
“Maybe he owed a lot of money to the wrong people and they wanted to make an example out of him. Maybe somebody's husband. Maybe somebody had just had enough of his face.”
Or his blackmail, Faith speculated to herself.
“Knifed, right?" Scott said with more than a touch of relish. "You have to be pretty strong to drive a blade in—and get it in the right place.”
Faith thought of the knives in Eddie's throat and chest.
“Oh, whoever it was got them in the correct places, all right."
“You mean there was more than one? Jeez, I hadn't heard that.”
Something to regale the bar with after work at the Willow Tree.
“Yes, two knives. Ordinary ones, like hunting knives.”
Scott reached into his pocket, produced a knife for her inspection, and flicked it open. The blade looked sharp enough to shave a peach.
“Like this?"
“Exactly.”
As she drove away from the gas station, she realized how difficult it was going to be for Dunne to trace the murder weapons if virtually every male—and no doubt a fair number of females—of a particular age and background carried the same knife. She turned her attention instead to what Scott had just told her about Eddie. It provided another possible motive, but what drug dealer was going to pick the first heavy snowstorm of the year and Hubbard House, filled with people, to kill Eddie when the task could be accomplished so much more easily on a long car ride to a deserted beach, for instance? And why the whips-and-chains accoutrements? Faith hadn't thought it wise to reveal too much to Scott. The number of knives had been in one of the papers, but so far nothing had been said about the cords.
She pulled into the Hubbard House parking lot, got out, and went into the kitchen. The only alteration in her routine was that she was going to stay for lunch. Tom had grudgingly agreed to get Ben at school and take him to Lizzie's house.
“This hasn't been the merriest of Christmas seasons," he had said sadly earlier that morning.
“It will be, darling. Don't worry. I'm only going to help for a day or so more, then we'll turn our full attention to the blazing hearth before us and sing Noël," she'd promised.
Mrs. Pendergast didn't hear Faith come in. She was running the enormous electric mixer. Faith walked over and tapped her on the elbow. She jumped a mile or the equivalent for a woman her size.
“What are you doing creeping up like that! Most scared me to death!"
“I'm sorry, but you didn't hear me with that thing going.”