“You have got to see him, Mom. He wears an earring, but not one like normal peopleâit's a notebook ring. I don't even want to think about how he got it through!”
It was an unappetizing thought, Pix agreed. Her mind swerved to the current fashion that bestowed normalcy on male earrings and she laughed aloud. She liked the freedom today's kids had to dress the way they did, although she still wished Samantha would cut her hair. In Pix's day, the most outré thing one dared do was wear one's Pandora cardigan buttoned up the back instead of the front.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing in particular. I was just thinking about how differently teenagers dress now compared with when I was growing up.”
“Your kilts and kneesocks? Your Weejuns? Your circle pin?” Samantha teased her.
“Someone told me circle pins were coming back. I always used to get so confused about which side to wear it on that I never wore mine muchâone side meant you were a ânice' girl and one meant the opposite. The middle meant something, too, but I can't remember what.”
Now Samantha laughed. “Where would you have put it?”
“None of your business.” Pix was not the type of parent who believed in revealing all to her children, especially before they had passed through the particular stage.
“Do you really think Duncan put the dead mice on the counter?” Pix was ready to move on to another topic. This had been the first thing Samantha had blurted out to her mother when Pix picked her up. Pix knew there could be no possible connection with Mitchell Pierce's murder, but it was another unsettling event in a place usually devoid of such things.
“I don't know. It's no secret he hates Jim, hates the camp, maybe even hates his mother for bringing him here. Arlene says he only has a couple of loser friends, mostly younger kids who are together not because they particularly want to be, but because nobody else likes them. They all wear a lot of black and listen to mope rock, that kind of stuff.”
“Mope rock?” This was a new one, but Pix had grown to expect unrelenting novelty after raising one adolescent. The temps and mores changed at roughly the speed of light.
“Yeah, The Cure, New Order. I mean, I like them sometimes, except it gets a little muchâtormented souls, desperate love. It's depressing.”
“I think these were the kids who used to write poetry and try to get their parents to let them take the train down to Greenwich Village in an earlier day.”
“Beatniks! I read about them in my American history book.”
Sometimes children could make you feel very, very old with merely a few well-chosen words.
“I've read about them, too,” Pix countered. She picked up her empty bowl and glassâshe had taken the trouble to pour the beer from the bottleâand stood up. It was still light and she hated to go indoors, but she told Samantha, “I really have to call Faith. The kids should be asleep by now.”
“I can't wait until they come. I miss seeing Ben and Amy. By August, they're going to be all different. Amy probably won't even remember me.” Samantha had gone straight from passionate involvement with horses to small children, and now, it appeared, to soignée thirtysomething women, as well.
“I'm sure the Fairchilds can't wait to see you, either,” Pix assured her, silently adding, Especially Faith.
Â
“So what's going on? No more bodies I trust.” Faith felt she could be flippant. If another corpse had turned up, in their well, say, surely Pix would have called her at once. Besides, she knew every nuance of her friend's speech. From the moment Pix had said hello on Sunday, Faith had known something was disasterously wrong on Sanpere. Tonight's greeting had been cheerful, everyday Pix.
“No, not human ones, anyway.” Pix hadn't intended to start the conversation by telling Faith about the mice, but here it was.
Faith's reaction was similar to Pix's. “It seems unlikely that the two events have anything to do with each other, except proximity in time, and the use of knives. But why three mice? Were they blind?”
“I imagine they weren't taking in any movies,” Pix said. “I've tried to think of a connection with the rhyme, but Valerie Atherton isn't a farmer's wife, nor are you, and there aren't any other wives involved.”
“That we know of,” Faith reminded her.
“That we know of. Besides, if it was meant to illustrate the nursery rhyme, their tails, not their heads, would have been cut off.”
“Maybe the person has a bad memory and thought it was âcut off their
heads
with a carving knife.'”
This actually made sense. Pix often misremembered childhood ditties, much to her mother's dismay. Her mother was supposed to be in the time of life when one's gray matter retreated into the shadows. Ursula's was a veritable Costa del Sol.
“What kind of mice were they?” Faith asked.
“Common field mice, I suppose. They're all over the island, you know.”
Faith did not know and wasn't sure she was grateful for this new information.
“Not white mice, the kind kids keep as pets?”
“Samantha didn't say, but I don't think they were; otherwise, she would have mentioned it.”
“Well, it is odd. Let me know if anything of a nursery-rhyme nature occurs again. There isn't anything in Mother Goose about a body in the basement, is there?”
“Probably. Some of the rhymes were pretty violent. I'll ask Mother.”
“Speaking of violence, what's happening with the investigation?”
Pix told her everything she knew, including Mitchell Pierce's present whereabouts.
“I agree with you. It is sad. And it certainly gives new meaning to the phrase âon the shelf.' If no one has claimed him by August, he should be interred someplace on the island. Tom can do the service,” Faith said, cavalierly offering her spouse. “If relatives or friends haven't turned up by then, they would be unlikely to later.”
“As soon as they calculate his estate, they're going to advertiseânot the amount, of course, although Mitch couldn't have had muchâjust that you could hear something to your interest. If this doesn't bring someone forward, nothing willâor there's no one to be brought. I'm not saying it well.”
“You're saying it wonderfully. Why, I don't know, but the whole thing reminds me of the time I went in the backyard and saw this man scattering ashes on the rosebushes. It must be the ashes,” Faith added parenthetically.
“You never told me about this!” Pix exclaimed, surprised at the incident and even more at the fact that she hadn't known about it.
“It was shortly after we were married, and I didn't know you as well then as I do now. I probably thought you'd be scandalized, because I was furious with him. I mean those were our roses! He could at least have had the decency to ring at the front door and ask permission. It turned out that he was a former parishioner who was passing through and just happened to have his aunt Tilly in the car and thought she'd like literally to be pushing up roses.”
“Her name wasn't really Tilly.”
“Possibly not. I don't remember. Of course I ended up feeling sorry for him. He finished his sprinkling and I gave him something to eat. I think it was some leftover blueberry tarte.”
1
Faith's food memory was flawless.
“I want that recipe, remember. We're going to have a bumper crop this year and the wild strawberries in the meadow are already ripe. I should have plenty for jam.”
“Don't make me jealous. I wish I hadn't accepted all these jobs for the Fourth. I'll never do it again.”
Pix got her chowder advice; it wasn't complicated, simply good old multiplication. Faith suggested she might like to sprinkle fresh dill on top, but Pix told her this was a chowder purist crowd, eschewing even oyster crackers.
Faith then asked Pix's advice on how to stay sane while Amy was determinedly learning to walk, reeling around the house on feet that looked too tiny to support any kind of movement, let alone something as complicated as standing erect unaided.
“I want to give her knee and elbow pads, plus a helmet. Ben never went through this self-destructive phase. Sure he pulled himself up on things a lot, but he basically just sat, then started walking when he was about fourteen months.”
“You just don't remember. It's a merciful forgetting. All that falling down.”
They talked and laughed about the kids some more. Pix had yet to receive one of the stack of self-addressed stamped postcards she had sent off to camp with Danny. She had wanted to do the same with Mark but dared not. She'd have to pray for collect calls. She told Faith about Samantha's Valerie worship, was reassuredâand realized she needed itâby Faith's own loyal remarks as to Pix's superiority, despite her lack of a subscription to
Vogue.
“It wouldn't hurt to put on a little lipstick occasionally, though. I know what happens to you in Maine. Squeaky-clean is not all that intriguing. And leave a fashion magazine or two around the house with your cow-manure manuals or whatever you're reading these days.”
“I'd rather have manure on my roses than what's on yours,” Pix retorted.
“That was years ago. Besides, they've bloomed like crazy ever since.”
It was very difficult to get the last word with Faith. Pix said good-bye and went to bed but not to sleep. They were showing
movies at the old Opera House in Granville again and Samantha had gone with a group of friends.
As she lay listening for the sound of a car door, she thought about putting up another trellis in the garden for morning glories, across from the one that now sported a lush purple clematis. Building. House building. Earl wasn't sure when Seth could get back to work again.
Bang
. Samantha was home. Pix turned out her light and was almost startled into wakefulness by remembering.
She'd forgotten to tell Faith what she still didn't knowâthat Seth hadn't done anything at all since May. Forgotten to tell her
again.
Â
The Sanpere Stitchers, which was what the Sewing Circle had decided to call itself about twenty-five years before, was meeting at The Pines this month. Many island routines were disturbed by this sacrosanct meeting. Louella closed the bakery for the afternoon; Mabel Hamilton left a cold dinner for the camp; and Dot Prescott's daughter went over to fill in for her mother. Anyone in residence at Adelaide and Rebecca Bainbridge's bed-and-breakfast would find the doors locked. A note affixed to the shiny brass front knocker announced their return at five and suggested a long walk or drive to Granville until then.
When the ladies convened at her mother's house, Pix's life was not her own for about twenty-four hours. She wasn't a member of the group, although they graciously allowed her to sit in when it was at Ursula's. Membership was a closely guarded affair, bestowed infrequently and only to women of a certain age and level of skill. The Sanpere Stitchers were very proud of their handiwork, and their annual sale in August to raise money for the Island Food Pantry was sold out by ten o'clock.
Pix's role began the night before with a call from Mother.
“You remember, dear, that tomorrow is Sewing Circle at my house, don't you?”
Since Ursula had managed in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to work this into the conversation every day since last Friday, Pix did indeed remember. It was written down on several lists.
“Yes, of course, and I'll be there early to help. I know you want my big coffee urn. Is there anything else you need?”
“Not really. Gert has things under control. She's been baking since Tuesday and cleaning since
last
Tuesday. But it occurred to me that you might bring some savoriesâa cheese spread, some crackers, you know the kind of thing. Perhaps arranged on a nice plate with some grapes, for those who don't want just sweets.”
Pix developed a bowline in the pit of her stomach. Mother wasn't talking about a Wispride spread or Cheez Whiz. Her reputation was at stake.
“I'll see what I can do,” she promised, vowing to call Faith as soon as Ursula hung up. This was an emergency.
Faith, knowing Pix's culinary expertise, gave her two very simple recipes
2
and told her to go to the foreign-food section, one shelf, at the IGA and pick up some Carr's water biscuits and Bremer wafers.
“Basically, these are cream-cheese spreads. For the first, blend some of the goat cheese from the farmers' market with an equal amount of cream cheese. That goat cheese by itself is too crumbly. If you don't have any, it's Mrs. Cousins who makes it, and you can go to her house. Try to get the kind she puts herbs in. For the other spread, take some of the green-tomato chutney you put up last yearâyou must have some left; you made vats of itâand mix it into the cream cheese. Don't make it too gooshy; taste it as you go along. Then put each in a pretty little bowl and decorate the top with a nasturtium or some other nonlethal posy from your garden. Put them on a platter and arrange the crackers and grapes around the bowls with more flowers.”