Chocolate Dipped Death (26 page)

His eyes grew wide, but he hid them behind his glasses and spent a few seconds stuffing his handkerchief into his pocket before he looked at me. “What letter?”

“The one you were talking to Savannah about on Friday afternoon.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But he did. I could see it in his eyes. That made me a trifle nervous. “Look, I’m sure it’s no big deal. It’s just that you told me on Friday night that you barely knew Savannah and you hadn’t seen her in years. But somebody overheard the two of you talking about some letter on Friday afternoon—before the contest. So what was that all about?”

His entire demeanor changed. “If you think I killed her, you couldn’t be more wrong.”

I believed him. More than that, I realized right then and there that he still loved her. “Had you been writing to her?”

“No.”

“How did you know where to find her?”

“I didn’t. I never wrote to her.”

“Then who did? Whose letter was it?”

Marshall sat back hard in his chair and let out a deep breath. “It wasn’t mine, that’s all I can tell you.”

“Come on, Marshall. A woman is dead. A woman I think you cared a whole lot about. Are you really going to hide something that might bring her killer to justice?”

“The letter has nothing to do with the murder.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Faith wouldn’t—” he broke off suddenly and shot to his feet. “Forget I said that.”

Not likely, bud.
“Are you talking about Faith Bond?”

“Forget it, Abby. I’m not saying anything else.” He took two jerky steps toward the door and yanked it open. “You have to leave. They need me out in the house.”

I shrugged and stood. “Okay. Fine. I’ll just go ask her, then.”

“No! You can’t do that. You just can’t. It doesn’t have anything to do with Savannah’s murder, I swear. Promise me you won’t talk to her.”

“Then tell me what you know.”

He looked miserable—like a kid who’s gone wild in a candy store for several hours. His face was flushed, his eyes a little unfocused. I really thought he might throw up. Head hanging, he shut the door and sat down again. “All right. It was my letter.”

“To Savannah?”

He shook his head. “From her.”

I gave him a look. “A love letter?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Like what, then?”

He mopped his face with one hand and kept going right around to the back of his neck. “Savannah wrote to me a long time ago to tell me about something. It was something she did for another person.”

“Something she did for Faith?”

He nodded.

“Are you going to tell me what it was?”

He stood again, apparently too agitated to sit still. “She let Faith stay with her for a few weeks once.”

“When she lived here?” So, what was the big deal about that?

Marshall paced in the space behind his desk. “No. It was after she left here. A year after, maybe less.”

“How did Faith know where to find her?”

“I told her. She came to me. Said she needed to reach Savannah, and she figured I’d know where she was.”

“And you did.”

Marshall actually looked sheepish. “What can I say? I was a kid obsessed. Anyway, I told Faith where she was.”

“So? That’s nothing to get all worked up over.”

“It is if she lied. She told Noah she was going to stay with her aunt.”

I didn’t know Faith’s husband well, but I couldn’t understand why that would be a problem. Noah was a little stiff. Some might even call him self-righteous. Okay . . .
many
might call him self-righteous. And judgmental. But I still didn’t get it. “So she took off for a couple of weeks. It’s not as if they were married back then. What did she do, have an affair or something?”

“No! It wasn’t anything like that.”

“Then what was it?”

“She was pregnant, okay? Nobody’s supposed to know, and the only reason I do is because Savannah told me.”

I could only stare at him for a long time. “Faith Bond was unmarried and pregnant?”

“Yeah, but Abby, you can’t tell anybody—especially not the police. You know how Noah is. It would kill Faith to have this come out after all this time.”

“Yeah. Maybe. But I’m confused. She went to stay with Savannah for a couple of weeks. When? At the beginning? Before she delivered?” I did a quick mental calculation, but the numbers just didn’t add up right. None of the Bond kids were old enough. “Did she give the baby up for adoption or something?”

He shook his head. “She lost it.”

“So are you saying that Noah doesn’t know about the baby?”

“Good God, no. Can you imagine how he’d treat Faith if he did?”

I didn’t even want to try. “You realize this gives Faith a motive for killing Savannah.”

“But she didn’t do it. She couldn’t have.”

“How do you know? Can you give her an alibi?”

He started to say something but cut himself off and shook his head. “No, but you know Faith. There’s no way she’d harm another human being.”

“Maybe not under normal circumstances,” I agreed, “but people will do strange things if they’re pushed hard enough.” I stood and crossed to the door. “One more thing,” I said with my hand on the door. “Is Faith by any chance taking an antidepressant?”

The question seemed to catch Marshall off guard. “I have no idea,” he said. “You’d have to ask her.”

Thanks. I had every intention of doing just that.

The latest word, straight from Faith Bond’s
neighbor (who I found outside knocking icicles from her eaves) was that Faith had gone over to the church for a meeting of the women’s group or the food pantry . . . or something. The neighbor didn’t seem to know, and it didn’t really matter. Faith, bless her heart, spent more time at the church than she did at her own house. At least that’s what her neighbor said.

The Shepherd of the Hills Church is one of the first things you see when you approach Paradise from the north. It started life many years ago a small wooden building with enough room for about six rows of pews. It’s been added onto and expanded so many times it’s become large and sprawling and, frankly, ugly.

I parked in the nearly empty parking lot (an oddity for Paradise in January) and let myself in through the front door where the blast of warm air knocked me back half a step. I stripped off my coat and listened for sounds of life. I could hear voices, but it took a few minutes to track them to the gymnasium that doubles as a cultural hall.

Two rows of metal chairs had been formed into a semicircle near the stage, and Faith stood in front of a group of concerned-looking citizens, her hands clutched together in front of her and a look of supreme benevolence on her face. “I handed the woman that box of food,” she said, her voice almost whisper quiet, “and then I hugged her. I simply couldn’t help it. When I did, I was overcome by the oneness of the human race. We were the same, she and I, in spite of the obvious outward differences.” She took a deep breath, and when she went on her voice sounded stronger. “
This
is what I want to bring to Paradise. This recognition that
we are all one
as God intended us to be.”

A woman at the far edge of the circle burst into spontaneous applause, and most of the group joined in. I had nothing against the sentiment, but I wondered what a handful of determined Christians could to do turn the rest of us into human beings who really loved one another instead of injecting each other’s chocolates with poison.

Faith noticed me standing there and waved me forward eagerly. I didn’t want to join in, but I felt a little foolish backing out. I picked up a folding chair from a stack at the back of the room, tiptoed across the polished wooden floor, and set myself up a little behind the rest of the group. No sense giving the impression that I was there to experience oneness or anything.

The meeting lasted about twenty minutes longer, a mishmash of stories about experiences helping others and rah-rah about how much better Paradise was going to be once this committee started passing out Bibles and bread to people. I could see it happening. Just not in this lifetime.

I had to stay through all the post-meeting chitchat, smiling pleasantly through introductions to people I planned never to see again. Only when everybody had scurried to escape the dreaded task of putting away the chairs did I get a chance to talk with Faith alone.

“It’s lovely to see you here,” she said as the door closed behind the last conscientious avoider. “I had no idea you were interested in helping the community.”

“I’m not.” I realized how that sounded and laughed. “I mean, I
am
, but that’s not why I’m here.”

She moved a couple of books from a table to the stage and grabbed the end of the table as if she wanted to move it, too. “That sounds mysterious. Why
are
you here?”

I shifted to the other end so I could help. “I’d like to talk to you, but this might not be the best place.”

“Oh? Now
that
sounds ominous.” She laughed, and we rotated the table onto its side so we could break down the legs. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Savannah Horne.”

The smile left her face as if I’d flipped a switch. “What about her?”

Is there any smooth way to tell someone you know a secret they’ve kept hidden for two decades? I couldn’t find one. “I know that you went to stay with her for a while after we graduated from high school. I want to know more about that.”

She forced a laugh, but it rang hollow. “Who on earth told you I did that?”

“How many people know?”

“Nobody knows. It never happened.”

Mmm-hmmm. Just take a look at your face, honey, the truth is written all over it.
“You were pregnant,” I said. “You turned to Savannah for help.”

The table slipped from her fingers, and the crash reverberated around the gym. “You’re wrong.”

“You turned to Savannah for help,” I said again. “You left town and went to stay with her. Why her? Were you friends?”

Faith tossed a frantic glance over her shoulder, no doubt making sure nobody was listening. “I was never friends with Savannah.”

“So why did you go stay with her?”

“I didn’t.”

“Apparently, there’s a letter in Savannah’s handwriting that says you did.”

The color drained from her face, and I even think her knees buckled. “Where?”

I didn’t want to put Marshall’s butt on the line. What if she
was
the killer? So I tried to be clever. “It’s around.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“I have.” Okay, not true, but when you’re talking to a frightened woman who may or may not be injecting chocolates with lethal substances, it seems smart to appear strong. From a strictly selfish standpoint, if she believed there were two of us who knew, there was a fifty-fifty chance she wouldn’t come after me first. Not that I wanted to put Marshall in danger—

She looked so shaken, I didn’t know if she was about to faint or lunge at me with a syringe full of Elavil. “Don’t tell me
that
was the letter they were talking about.”

I didn’t.

“So then you know.” She looked at me with eyes filled with such pain, my heart constricted.

The correct, clever response to this is to agree that yes, you know everything. I nodded, thinking that might give her that impression without actually making me lie inside a house of worship. “Why did you go to Savannah for help?”

She shook her head and glanced toward the doors again. “You’re right. I can’t talk about this here. We’re going to have to go somewhere else.”

I’m not the I-told-you-so type, so I kept my mouth shut and followed her outside. But that’s where I took charge. There’s no way I was going to climb into her car and let her drive me somewhere. I don’t have nougat for brains.

Neither of us said anything until we were seat-belted in place and I had the heater running. Since I had control of the wheel, I asked, “Is there anyplace in particular you’d like to go?”

She shook her head, then leaned against the seat and stared out the window. “Anywhere, as long as it’s away from here. If Noah ever hears about this, he’ll leave me.”

“Why?” The question popped out before I could think about it. A reason occurred to me half a breath later. “Was it his baby?”

Her head jerked up and shot around to glare at me. “Of course it was his baby. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with.”

“So what was the problem? You didn’t think he’d support you?”

“In having an abortion?” A cold, hard laugh escaped her lips. “Is that a serious question?”

An abortion? That’s what this was about? I tried to hide my surprise, but I must have failed miserably, because I watched the realization dawn in Faith’s eyes. “You
didn’t
know, did you?” She leaned back against the seat, and weariness dragged at her expression.