The Body in the Gazebo Read Free

school, both required a great deal of chauffeuring, and Faith had not taken kindly to this suburban mother’s chore—although the fact that Ben would be driving himself in a little over two years filled her with dread.
    “I’m sure she’ll want to see you. She’s been asking for you,” Pix said.
    “Tom told me the same thing when he came home last night.”
    Faith’s husband, the Reverend Thomas Fairchild, was the minister at Aleford’s First Parish Church. Ursula was a lifelong member, as were the Millers. Faith was a more recent arrival, born and raised in Manhattan. The daughter and granddaughter of men of the cloth, she and her younger sister, Hope, had sworn to avoid that particular fabric and the fishbowl existence that went along with it. Over the years they had observed congregations—composed of ordinarily reticent individuals—who felt perfectly free to comment on the way the minister’s wife was treating her husband and raising her children. At First Parish there were a number of women Faith termed “Tom’s Groupies” who were sure they would do a far better job than Faith at keeping him in clean collars and doing other wifely chores. They regularly dropped off dubious burnt offerings—casseroles featuring canned soups and tuna fish. Faith ceded the collar cleaning—amazing how hard it was to keep track—but stood her ground on the culinary front.
    The fact that she succumbed to the Reverend in the first place was due to good old love at first sight. He was in New York to perform the nuptials for his college roommate and Faith was catering the reception. Shedding his ministerial garb, Tom had been in mufti by the time the poached salmon and beef tenderloin appeared on the buffet tables along with Faith bearing pâté en croûte. Whether it was the platter she was carrying or her big blue eyes that attracted him was soon moot. Later that evening in Central Park, during a ride in one of the touristy but undeniably romantic horse-drawn carriages, when she discovered his calling—he’d assumed she knew—it was too late. The heart knows no reason.
    She left the Big Apple for the more bucolic orchards of New England and, like Lot’s wife, looked back—often. Faith, however, did not become a pillar of salt, even the delicious French fleur de sel from the Camargue kind. What she did become was a frequent traveler back to the city for visits to the three Bs: Barneys, Bloomingdale’s, and the late great Balducci’s, as well as the lox counter at Zabar’s.
    “Maybe she wants me to cook her something special,” Faith said, although, she thought, Ursula could have given the message to Tom, or Pix. More likely it was a request that Faith urge Pix not to change her trip plans. Pix was as easy to read as a billboard and Ursula had, no doubt, picked up on her daughter’s reluctance to leave.
    As they moved out of the kitchen to go upstairs, the doorbell rang.
    “I wonder who that can be?” Pix said. “I’m not expecting anyone.”
    She opened the door and Millicent Revere McKinley stepped into the foyer. She was carrying a brown paper bag similar in size and shape to those sported by individuals in New York’s Bowery before it became a fashionable address. Faith knew that Millicent’s did not contain Thunderbird or a fifth of Old Grand-Dad. And it wasn’t because Millicent had joined the Cold Water Army around the time Carry Nation was smashing mirrors in saloons. No, Faith knew because Millicent’s earlier offerings still filled the shelves in Ursula’s refrigerator. The bag contained calf’s foot jelly, the Congregationalist equivalent of Jewish penicillin, chicken soup.
    Pix took it from her.
    “How kind of you. I know Mother appreciates your thoughtfulness,” she said. “Let me go up and see if she’s awake.”
    “She doesn’t need a roomful of company. That’s not why I’m here, but you go check on her and I’ll talk to Faith.”
    Pix handed Faith the bag. Millicent led the way