Are the boys still breathing?
I smiled ruefully as Dimity’s handwriting appeared on the blank page. “Yes, Dimity. The boys are fine. As if you didn’t know.” I curled my legs under me in the tall leather armchair, my teacup within reach on the table at my elbow. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for the tiger in the trunk. Rainey’ll love him. I just hope she doesn’t love him to pieces.”
If Reginald could survive your childhood, my dear, the tiger can survive Rainey’s.You were never the daintiest of creatures, you know. I seem to recall repeated attempts to send Reginald to the moon. . . .
“Did Mom write to you about that?” I said, amused by the memory. “Poor Reg. The liftoffs weren’t so bad, but the splashdowns nearly did him in.” I poured a cup of tea from the pot on the tray. “Reginald’s been a busy bunny lately, hopping from the playpen to the Mercedes with no visible means of transport.”
He’s done well, hasn’t he? Francesca was being terribly stiff-necked about Adrian. It’s nearly impossible, I’ve found, to be stiff-necked when one is eating crow.
“He embarrassed Francesca,” I said sternly.
Dimity was unrepentant.
Francesca needed a push in the right direction, and Reginald provided her with one. A moment’s embarrassment is a small price to pay for a lifetime of happiness.
“A lifetime of happiness?” I exclaimed. “How can you be so sure about Adrian? Didn’t you hear what Emma said about those computer printouts?”
Computer printouts are open to interpretation. Adrian’s feelings for Francesca—and hers for him—are not.
“But Dimity . . .”
You don’t understand, my dear. It’s vitally important that Francesca learn to trust her heart again. She fancied it broken, once, and she’s never allowed anyone near it since.
I leaned my chin on my hand. “I had no idea.”
How could you? Francesca’s engagement to Burt Hodge was broken off long before you came to Finch.
I nearly dropped the journal. “Burt Hodge? Francesca was engaged to old Mr. Hodge’s son?”
She was, until Burt jilted her and married Annie.
Annie Hodge’s image floated through my mind, complete with rubber gloves, broom, and cleaning-woman’s kerchief. Perhaps Burt Hodge preferred a sturdy work-horse to an exotic, sometimes temperamental beauty.
I sipped my tea and looked down at the journal. “Would it surprise you to learn that Burt Hodge has been spying on Scrag End field for the past week?”
Burt was always very protective of Francesca.
“So Burt’s checking out the new guy in town?” I clucked my tongue. “Sounds to me as though Burt’s being pretty presumptuous. It’s none of his business if—” I jumped as the telephone rang, and made it to the desk before it rang a second time.
“Hello?” I said, half expecting to hear Stan’s usual robust greeting.
“Miranda Morrow, here,” said the voice on the other end. “If you want to see our local coven in action, come to Briar Cottage right away.”
I cupped my hand over the receiver. “You’re sure?”
“Positive, darling,” she replied. “Hurry.”
“Dimity,” I said, hanging up the phone, “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a pair of burglars to catch.”
Be sure to bundle up, my dear, or you’ll catch a cold, as well. . . .
As I scrambled into a dark-blue sweatshirt and black sweatpants, I whispered Bill’s name softly, several times. I jostled the bed slightly as I poked my feet into black socks and dark-blue sneakers. I scratched pen on paper as loudly as I dared while scribbling the brief note telling him my plans. And I sang a silent hymn of thanks when nothing woke him. Bill needed his rest—and I wanted to catch our burglars single-handed.
I watched for lights to come on in the cottage as I eased the Mercedes out of the drive, but the engine’s purr roused no one. When I reached the humpbacked bridge, I cut the motor and coasted to a stop. I would go to Briar Cottage, but not right now.
I knew exactly where I’d find the burglars: in the dip below the ridge, where the vicarage meadow swept down to the river. That’s where Christine had spotted her alien invaders, where Dick had seen the circle of broken grass, and where I would shine the bright beam of my emergency lantern, when the time was ripe. Until then, I’d use my penlight, to avoid alerting my prey.
Lantern in hand, I closed the car door gently and flicked the switch on the penlight. I glanced briefly at the darkened windows in the village, then climbed down from the bridge to the narrow tree-lined path along the riverbank.
The path was wreathed in bands of dank gray mist. Wisps flimsy as spiderwebs gave way to cloying curtains that parted at my passage, then swirled silently together in my wake. Droplets blurred my vision, soaked my sneakers, and chilled each indrawn breath, but I kept the penlight focused on the ground, kept the river’s susurration to my right, and trotted confidently along the beaten path. I felt like a commando embarking on a raid, moving swiftly as a panther, slyly as a serpent, boldly as a lioness, until a slight flaw in my plan began to dawn.
I had no idea where I was. I didn’t know how far I’d come or how much farther I had to go to reach the vicarage meadow. I could still hear the river rushing between its reedy banks, but I couldn’t see a thing. I’d trotted blithely into a cloud of fog so dense that I had to raise my foot to see my shoelaces.
“Brilliant,” I muttered, peering futilely into the murk. “If I shout for help, maybe the burglars’ll rescue me.” I was on the verge of pounding my stupid head against the nearest tree trunk when I heard a noise.
I stood stock-still, straining to separate the fleeting sound from the insistent murmur of the river. I closed my eyes to concentrate and heard it again—a faint, rhythmic thumping that seemed to be coming from the left.
I slipped the useless penlight into my pocket and let my ears guide me toward the thumping sound. I’d gone no more than five yards when the pocket of fog thinned and I found myself standing at the edge of the vicarage meadow. I shivered suddenly and dropped to my knees, thankful that I’d doused the penlight before emerging from the gloom.
Silken shreds of mist swirled and curled across the meadow like an undulating shroud. Clammy fingers brushed my face, twined sinuously around my neck, and drifted sluggishly down the ridge to fill the hollow where Dick had seen the broken grass.
The thumping noise was coming from the hollow. As I crept closer, the noise grew more complex. Grunts and groans accompanied the thumping. It didn’t sound to me like the engines of an alien spaceship. It sounded like a person being beaten to a pulp.
I swallowed hard and wished fervently that Bill were by my side. I no longer felt like a commando, but I couldn’t back off now. Someone had to put a stop to those dreadful muted moans, and it looked as though that someone would be me. I gripped the lantern tightly, prepared to use it as a club, and crawled closer to the bottom of the hollow. As I moved forward, the pooled mist thinned, parted, and revealed two shadowy figures, not ten yards from me. I gasped, and fumbled with the lantern, but before I found the switch, a blinding beam of light came from above.
“I say,” called a mild, curious voice from the top of the ridge. “Is that you down there, Mrs. Pyne? And . . . Miss Graham, isn’t it?”
“Vicar?” chorused Sally and Katrina.
“Freeze!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “We’ve got you covered!”
“Lori?” Bill’s voice sounded from on high.
“Bill?”
I exclaimed.
“Lori?” said Sally Pyne, turning her hooded head from side to side. “Bill?”
The vicar cleared his throat. “Now that we’ve introduced ourselves, I’d like you all to join me in the library. Lilian’s making cocoa. Come along.”
“I can explain, Vicar,” said Sally Pyne, scrambling out of the hollow.
“So can I!” I cried. “You’re looking at your burglars, Vicar! These two stole your pamphlet!”
“Burglars!” Sally paused in her uphill climb to glare at me. “How dare you!”
“I’ll tell you how I dare.” I marched toward her. “I have three independent witnesses who’ll swear they saw you and your accomplice come here on Sunday night.”
“I freely admit to being here on Sunday night,” Sally declared stoutly. “But I object most strenuously to the use of the word accomplice. Katrina is—”
“ Thank you, Mrs. Pyne,” interrupted the vicar. “As you can imagine, I’m eager to hear everyone’s story, but I’d prefer to do so over a nice cup of hot cocoa.”
“Vicar, wait,” I began, but Bill loomed out of the mist, and the words stuck in my throat. I glanced up at him, then quickly lowered my eyes. “Guess you found my note, huh?”
“Freeze?” he said, folding his arms. “We’ve got you covered? Were you using the editorial ‘we’ or the royal ‘we’?”
I hung my head, knowing full well that it should have been the marital “we.”
“I won’t bother to point out what might have happened if you’d stumbled into the river,” Bill said, “or if Sally and Katrina had turned out to be a pair of hardened criminals. I certainly won’t describe what it felt like to wake up in the middle of the night and find you gone.”
“Bill—” I quavered, but he waved me to silence.
“I’ll simply say that if you ever do something like this again . . .” He bent forward, until I was forced to look into his reproachful eyes. “It won’t surprise me in the least. Your mother said you were bullheaded, and she was right.”
I leaned into his arms. “I’m sorry, Bill.”
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” said Bill, “when I describe your daring exploits to Derek and Emma.” He turned toward the vicarage. “What was that again? ‘Freeze? We’ve got you covered?’ ”
22.
The library was gloriously warm and bright. A fire crackled merrily in the fireplace, all of the lamps were lit, and extra seating had been provided to accommodate the damp and chilly congregation. The vicar sat in his shabby armchair, facing the culprits on the green velvet couch, while Bill and I surveyed the guilty duo from a pair of petit-point chairs we’d brought in from the dining room.
Sally and Katrina stared back at us defiantly. Sally had folded her hood into the collar of her royal-blue tracksuit and wiped the condensation from her silver-rimmed glasses before planting her running shoes firmly on the carpet. Now she sat glowering, red-faced and round-bodied, like a furious fireplug. Katrina, clad in silky black jogging shorts and a hooded gray sweatshirt, had disdainfully refused the cocoa Lilian had offered, requesting a glass of water in its stead.
The vicar had forbidden conversation until he’d finished his first cup of cocoa, so I had time to contemplate a second pair of petit-point chairs, as yet unoccupied. One was obviously for Lilian, who’d returned to the kitchen to warm another saucepan of milk, but the presence of an extra chair, carefully arranged yet conspicuously empty, puzzled me.
The puzzle was solved a short time later, when Lilian flew down the hall to answer the doorbell and returned to the library, escorting a grim-faced, disheveled Adrian Culver. When Katrina caught sight of him, her belligerence faded.
“D-Dr. Culver,” she faltered. “What are you doing here?”
“I was about to ask you the same question,” said Adrian. He smoothed his uncombed hair back from his forehead and turned to Lilian. “ Thank you for ringing me, Mrs. Bunting. If my assistant has inconve nienced you—”
Lilian nodded toward the empty chair. “Please, Dr. Culver, have a seat near the fire. Would you like a cup of cocoa?”
Adrian hesitated, as though he hadn’t expected such a civil reception. “Yes, please.”
“I’ll be right back,” said Lilian. She looked at her husband. “Don’t start without me, Teddy.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, my dear.” The vicar slouched comfortably in his armchair and said nothing more until Lilian had finished serving the fresh batch of cocoa and seated herself between her husband and Adrian Culver.
“Now,” she said brightly, “who would like to go first?” She pointed to Katrina. “Miss Graham, I think. Please, dear, tell us what you’ve been doing in that nasty damp meadow so late at night.”
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” said Katrina miserably. “We were exercising, that’s all.”
“Exercising!” exclaimed Adrian.
“It was my idea,” Sally put in hastily. “Simon refused to work out with Katrina, so I offered to join her. I thought a spot of PT might help me lose a few pounds.”
“Commendable of you.” The vicar set aside his cocoa and tented his long fingers. “But surely you could have found a more hospitable place than the bottom of my meadow. And why work out, as you say, in the dark? I’d have loaned you a torch if you’d asked.”
Katrina looked at Sally Pyne. “People have been terribly unkind about Mrs. Pyne’s efforts to lose weight.”
Sally flushed scarlet. “ They’ve been beastly,” she declared. “I didn’t want Mr. Barlow joking about Fat Sally’s chances at the Olympics, or Mr. Farnham going on about the battle of the bulge, so we slipped out after dark to the meadow, where no one would see us.”
Sally’s words had a pathetic ring of truth to them. No middle-aged woman in her right mind would want her neighbors looking on while she did jumping jacks. The potential for ridicule would be enough to discourage all but the hardiest of fitness addicts, and Sally Pyne was a rank beginner. Her moans, groans, and aching joints were proof of that.
“We did carry torches, the first night,” Katrina was saying, “while we mapped out our route. But then—”
“Then Christine Peacock came along,” Sally interrupted, indignantly, “walking that leaky hound of hers. Gave me the fright of my life. After that, we left the torches at home.”
I glanced at the bemused smile hovering on Bill’s lips and saw a lifetime of false-arrest jokes stretching out before me. It was mortifying to think that I’d nabbed a pair of innocent joggers, but Sally and Katrina had provided explanations for almost everything my eyewitnesses had seen.