Was it just yesterday morning she had heard Zoë crying? Less than a day since finding the body? She suddenly felt exhausted and shivered as she contemplated the violence that must have preceded Bird's death. Who could have hated her that much? Faith had been turning this question over and over again in her mind. There was no question of burglary. Poor Bird had had nothing worth stealing. It was hate. Or insanity. Or both.
There had been three phone calls before Faith took the children outside. First, of course, was Pix. The "nannies" wanted to know if they could come over, and Faith was happy to agree. She asked Pix to stop and get some smaller diapers and another bottle, preferably postwar, to supplement the one from the pantry.
Sgt. Dickinson had called shortly after and asked Faith if she could keep the baby a little longer. They had not found much in the cabin, but the police down the coast had picked up Andy, and they hoped he might be able to tell them who Bird was. Dickinson had spoken rapidly, and Faith had had the impression that he was short of time—or someone who matched a face on the post office wall had just passed by his window.
Finally, Louise Frazier had called. Bill had not slept and was still sitting silently. John Eggleston had come by the night before and tried to talk with him, but Bill had waved him away. John was coming back today. Not whom she would have chosen as a comforter, Faith reflected; rather like having Captain Ahab offer solace, but they had known each other for a long time. Bill had roused himself only once, to ask about Zoë, and had appeared to be satisfied with the arrangements.
Faith looked at the horizon with what she thought was an increasingly nautical eye. They hadn't had any rain in a long time, and it appeared there might finally be a storm.
By the time the Millers and Arlene arrived, the rain was pelting down and Faith and the children had hastily moved into the living room.
“We certainly need this," Pix said as she removed her dripping-wet foul-weather gear. "But I hope we don't lose our power. I left the pump on."
“What do you mean?" Faith wanted to know.
“When the power comes back on after being off, it surges and can destroy the pump."
“Just another one of the perils of living in the country.”
“Have you ever tasted better water?”
Faith had to admit that if the Millers ever got around to bottling their spring, fifty million Frenchmen would toss their Perrier and Evian bottles out the fenêtre.
But Pix had more on her mind than water.
“Faith, how about a cup of coffee?" she asked, and seemed barely able to contain herself before they got into the kitchen. She closed the door quickly.
“I didn't want to gossip in front of the girls, but when I stopped to get some of Mrs. Kenney's doughnuts this morning, she told me there was a big drug bust last night! She heard it all on her CB. The Coast Guard seized a boat out beyond Osprey Island, and the hull was loaded with bales of marijuana.
“Mrs. Kenney said they were probably going to land it on Osprey, which is uninhabited, divide it into smaller amounts, and then bring it into Camden and Bucksport on several other boats."
“So that's why Sgt. Dickinson was in such a rush this morning. He barely said two sentences. But he did tell me they had located Andy. Maybe he was on the boat!”
Pix slumped into a chair. "What an amazing summer! Believe me, Faith, in all the years I've known this island, there hasn't ever been this kind of trouble."
“I certainly hope not," Faith said, as she filled the pot with water and set it on the stove. "But I'm beginning to think there was probably a lot going on you didn't know about. And what about the old days—during Prohibition? Things must have been pretty lively then.”
She sat down next to Pix to wait for the pot to boil and studiously avoided watching it. Her mind was racing. If Andy had been on that boat, where had he boarded it and did his presence mean that he was not a suspect in Bird's murder? And if he wasn't a suspect, who on earth was? Itinerant tramps suddenly gone amok were always possibilities in books, but unheard of on the island. Everybody knew everybody else, and if there had been a stranger around the last few days, they, or rather Pix, would have heard about it by now.
And there was something else. Bird had been attacked face on. The murderer had not crept up behind her. This suggested that they had been talking. It also suggested it was someone she knew.
The whistle blew shrilly, and Faith ground some beans for the Melitta. Nothing was getting any clearer. Except for one thing.
She and Pix had better hurry up and figure out Matilda's clues before word spread too rapidly that she had kept the quilt photos. She doubted that Arlene's branch of the Prescott family had had anything to do with the break-in, or with Roger's death for that matter; but she wasn't going to count on word not leaking out. Anything to do with Matilda's quilt, which might just happen to be a treasure map, was bound to reach the wrong ears at some point. The drug raid might squeeze it off the grapevine today and give them time to name the rest of the squares and find whatever they were seeking. She said as much to Pix, and they spread their things out on the kitchen table.
“Only four more." Faith put the photos in a row. "What do they look like to you? Number eight could be a spider's web, or a ripple in a pool with concentric circles."
“And number twelve looks like mountain peaks. Let's try those themes.”
It worked for number twelve. Pix located it in one of the quilt books soon after.
“Hill and Valley. That should be easy—North Star is just before and it's not marked in any way, so presumably it means go north, and Apple Tree is before that, so we look for a tree or orchard."
“Pix, I think we should go out for a drive when the rain lets up and see what we can figure out with what we have. The children will be fine here, and we could spend weeks at this. We don't even know that they are all in these books." Faith was also starting to get a little bored with the current approach.
“True. I agree. We can follow the clues to square eight and then see what choice we have. The Schoolhouse square should give us a clue, but again there were quite a few of them when the island population was greater. At the turn of the century there were fifteen hundred residents in Granville alone."
“Let's give the kids an early lunch, then take off. I want to do some cooking this afternoon. I feel like eating something good tonight, and it also calms the spirit."
“I know," Pix responded. "Comfort foods—like shepherd's pie and macaroni and cheese.''
“No, like seafood mousse or maybe lobster en gelée.”
“Whatever.”
It was shortly after noon when Faith turned the Woody around in the driveway at Harborview and said, "Go," to Pix who sat next to her with the list and the photos discreetly out of sight in her lap.
“Drive back through the village and turn right up the hill. At the top, you're as close to the mill wheel as you can get on the road.”
They drove on, turning east when the road divided, and paused at the Odd Fellows Hall.
“That casserole supper seems like a long time ago," Pix remarked. "Although it's been less than two weeks.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
And thinking of the way Roger and Bill had looked at Bird when she had come in with Andy.
Faith tried to remember more about what Andy looked like, but she had been so distracted by his outfit that she didn't really remember much about his face, although she had had a general impression that he regarded the world at large in a smug, lordly way. Almost as if he knew what the other men yearned for and only had. Now no one had her.
“What's next?"
“Go straight and turn left at the crossroads.”