“There's something else ⦠. There's no way anyone could have put the stuff in the soup without being seen.”
Faith recounted the timetable, and Tom had to admit he was stumped, too.
“The only thing that makes sense is that the stuff was added to Evelyn's soup and the soup in the tent at different times. I'm convinced the fire was set to get everybody out of the way. But we're right back at who and why again.”
“So, what next? Are you going to get in touch with Alan Morris to see if you still have a job?”
“I have to, although I'm not looking forward to it. Charley said Max wants to start shooting again tomorrow. They kept
Evelyn at the Lahey Clinic for observation overnight, but she's all right now. That's another thing I don't understand. Why was she so much sicker than anyone else?”
“Body weight, maybe. Or a greater concentration of the stuff in her particular serving. Nerves. Maybe all three.”
Faith stood up. “I know you're busy, darling, and I'll be going. I just needed to be with you. I think I'll call my old friend Cornelia and see if I can find out which way the wind is blowing.”
“Apt choice of words.” Tom grinned and folded his wife and daughter in a warm embrace. “Need me anytime you want.”
“I feel much betterâand madder. Believe me, I'm going to find out who's responsible. You don't go fooling around with a woman's livelihoodânot to mention the suffering all those people had to endure.”
Tom knew his wife well enough to know which fueled her anger more at the moment. It wasn't that she had a hard heartâmerely certain priorities, bordering on maybe a touch too much self-interest. “I may have been slightly spoiled as a child, you know,” she had told him shortly after their wedding in a moment of early marital candor. “Oh, really?” He'd only just managed to keep a straight face.
Faith trudged back home, her heart lighter but her chest heavier. It seemed Amy was getting larger by the hour. Her birth weight had doubled to fourteen pounds. When Faith strapped the baby in the Snugli now, she sensed the day would soon come when she'd fall face-forward as gravity and the baby joined forces. And if she fell forward here in the yard, she noted ruefully, she'd be covered with the slippery, moldy leaves they hadn't managed to finish raking last fall.
The message machine was blinking frantically. Both Niki and Pix had called to find out what was going on. There was nothing from Alan Morris or anyone else connected with A. Faith made brief calls to her two assistants to tell them what she knewâor rather, didn't knowâand asked that they get in touch with the others. Then she called Cornelia and invited her to come over for lunch.
“Well, I don't have much time. Max has asked me to work on part of the script with him, but I might be able to squeeze a quick bite in. It would be faster if you came here. There's a little restaurant not far from the hotel called The Dandy Lion. Do you know it?”
Faith did. It was opposite the huge Burlington Mall and provided decent salad, soup, and sandwich-type fare amidst a forest of ferns populated by the high-tech Route 128 computer crowd that favored it as a watering hole.
Arlene Maclean and even Faith's old standby Pix were both out, so Faith was forced to take Amy along to the rendezvous. With luck, the baby would lapse comatose in the stroller, as this was close to her normal postprandial naptime. A more probable scenario was alert wakefulness in a new and exciting place. Faith had packed a bushel basket of toys and various foodstuffs to keep the infant involved while her mom pumped Auntie Cornelia for information.
After all, what were old friends forâespecially old friends like Cornelia? Faith had no problem reassuring herself as she drove down Middlesex Turnpike onto Mall Road, where the restaurant was cosily tucked into a minimall with a panoramic view of vast parking lots.
Cornelia was waiting at a table in the main dining room and looked slightly askance at the baby. She favored Faith with an air kiss and waved dismissively in Amy's direction, wafting away any thoughts Faith may have had of baby worship as a way of getting Corny to spill the beans, black or otherwise.
“I've already ordered. I suppose you want to talk about yesterday.” Cornelia was using her best head counselor's voice to come straight to the point, and it suddenly occurred to Faith that her friend thought she was to blame for the disaster.
“Corny,” she gasped, “you certainly don't think I or any of my staff had anything to do with everyone getting sick!”
“You did prepare the food, Faith dear,” she said, fixing Faith with a stern eye that continued the thought.
“But I didn't put Chocolax in the soup!”
Now Cornelia appeared surprised. “Chocolax. Did you hear this from the police?”
Obviously, the news had not reached the Marriott, or Cornelia, at any rate. Charley MacIsaac had not told Faith to keep it a secret, so she supposed the news was for public consumption.
“Yes, from our chief. He said it was Chocolax, loads of it, and another liquid laxative.” Since hearing the method, Faith assumed the police were asking around at such places as Aleford's own Patriot Drug to find out whether anyone had made suspiciously large purchases of it lately. She was so busy with this thought and with rooting around in the diaper bag for Amy's plastic keys that it was a moment before she realized Cornelia hadn't said anything. She looked up. Corny had a puzzled look on her face and was staring off toward the other dining roomâthe one Faith preferred because of its fireplace and smaller, more intimate size.
The waitress arrived to take Faith's order, and by the time this had been accomplished, Cornelia's expression was almost back to its usual imperturbability.
“What is it? You know something, don't you?” Faith pressed. She wasn't about to miss this opportunity. Not with her business at stake, as well as enough curiosity to decimate the greater Boston cat population.
“The laxative, the Chocolax. Evelyn takes it by the handful.” Cornelia was almost whispering.
“What on earth for?” Faith asked, then quickly said, “You mean ⦠?”
“Yes,” Cornelia replied. “She throws up, too. It's one of the reasons she was at the clinic in Switzerland.”
At that moment, the food arrived. Faith stared at the burger with Boursin, salad to one side, she'd ordered. Cornelia hadn't picked up a fork, either. It all looked so robust, a trickle of fat and blood oozing from the rare meat. She was being ridiculous, Faith told herself, apparently at the same time Corny told herself the same thing. They grabbed their utensils and took two large bites of lettuce.
“An eating disorder. The poor woman. Is this common knowledgeâor is it only because you're close to Max that you know?” Faith went from sympathy back to the main point rapidly. She hoped her not-so-subtle flattery would produce results. It did.
“Of course I knew about it before other people,” Cornelia preened, “although by now it's old news. But surely Evelyn wouldn't put it in her own soup?”
Exactly what Faith was thinking. Still, it may not have been in Evelyn's soup. She bent down to pick up the toy keys that Amy had thrown on the floor for the tenth time, ecstatic as always with the game of “Fetch, Mommy, Fetch.” Evelyn might have taken the Chocolax before lunch. Then why had she gotten so sick? It couldn't have been suggestibilityâeveryone else getting sick. Her dramatic entry had preceded the onset of the others' symptoms. But if she had taken some and it was also in the soup, that might account for the severity of her attack. Faith bit into her hamburger ruminatively. One thing was sure: Everyone working on A knew where to go to get plenty of yummy Chocolax. Or did they? She swallowed hastily.
“Did she keep the laxative in her trailer or at the house?”
“In the trailerâat least that's where I've seen the stuff. She thinks Max doesn't know, so she wouldn't have it at the house, where he might find it.” Cornelia's face crumbled into the kind of pout it had assumed in earlier years when her father had said she couldn't have a new pony. “They share the master bedroom suite.”
“But Max does know?”
Cornelia nodded. Her mouth was full.
Faith continued to think out loud. “What do you think? Does someone have a grudge against Maxâor the crew in general?” She was eager to get as much information from Cornelia as possible before her old classmate ran off to save the movieâor, more likely, to put in an order for more cases of Calistoga waterâand before Amy tired of the stroller. The baby was beginning to eye her mother's lap with increasing determination.
Cornelia looked decidedly uneasy. In fact, Faith realized, she'd been uneasy and tense since Faith's arrival. Of course, this could be attributed to the events of the day before and a night Cornelia had complained about venomously to Faith, the caterer, on the phone. Yet it was also possible she was hiding something, or someone.
“Everyone loves Max, or even if they don't exactly love him, they're thrilled to be working with him. I can't imagine that this is directed against him.” Cornelia paused. “Unless it was Caresse. Little Miss Wonderful is far from his greatest fan right now. Her agent should have told her Max often writes people in and out of his movies once he starts shooting. There's no need for her to carry on the way she is.”
Faith didn't care much for the child, but if Maxwell Reed was planning to cut her role, it would be a bitter blow and one that wouldn't do anything to enhance her career. Cornelia might be onto something. Putting a laxative into everyone's food was a very childish thing to do. And precocious Caresse probably knew about Evelyn's cache. Caresse. It all added up, except for one thing. When did the merry prankster do it?
Another thought occurred to Faith. “Has there ever been trouble of this kind on Max Reed's other films?”
“No,” Cornelia answered fiercely, “certainly not. Oh, well, the usual tricks, especially at the end of a shoot when everyone's nerves have been getting a little frayed. One of the PA's found a lot of plastic maggots in her coffee during
Maggot Morning,
thought they were real, got hysterical, and quit. Then, of course, there were plastic maggots everywhere. And sometimes people prepare joke versions of certain scenes. However” âshe squared her shoulders, shoulders that needed no padsâ“the individuals who work on his films are professionals.
“Now, I'd love to stay and chat with you all day”âCornelia was up and flinging some money on the tableâ“but I've stayed too long already. Take care of the bill, will you?”
Another kiss kiss, a vague good-bye to little whatever, and she was gone.
“You know she didn't leave enough,” Faith told her daughter, who obligingly blew a few spit bubbles in agreement.
She paid the bill and once again prepared herself and her child to meet the elements. It would be simpler, she'd told Tom her first winter in Aleford, to get sewn into a kind of quilted all-weather cocoon in October and emerge as a rank butterfly in May than constantly getting in and out of layers of clothing day and night.
She wheeled the stroller toward the door, then, attracted by the warm smell of the burning logs in the other room, turned the corner to look at the fire. The logs were crackling in the fieldstone fireplace and the occupants of the tables lingering over coffee seemed to appreciate the ambience created. Two patrons at the table farthest from the door were not looking at the fireâor Faith. They were gazing into each other's matchless eyes, gems of sparkling sapphire blue meeting deep puddles of liquid brown velvet.
It was Evelyn O'Clair and Cappy Camson.
No reason why two cast members shouldn't get together for lunch, even if one of them has just gotten out of the hospital. No reason at all. Faith filed the picture the two made for future reference. Her system was every bit as efficient as her husband's, and, like Tom, she really did know exactly where everything wasâusually.
Â
This time when Faith returned home after picking Ben up at school, there was a message from one of what she and the rest of the town customarily referred to as the “movie people.” It was Alan Morris and he asked her to call him back at her earliest convenience. That could be a few weeks, she thought as she tried to listen to Ben's tale of some playground inequity, gave both children something to eat, and finally settled themâAmy playpen-boundâin front of a tape of “Thomas the Tank Engine.” The British had managed to make the series so didactic, a mother could almost feel she was advancing her children's moral development instead of parking them in front of the TV.
Alan Morris was in and, from the sound of his voice, happy to hear from her.
“The police chief said he had spoken with you, so you know what caused the uh ⦠problem yesterday,” Alan said delicately.
Faith wasn't sure what she was supposed to say. Beg for her job back, asserting Have Faith's noninvolvement? Commiserate with the assistant director, who, she recalled, had come back for seconds? But would saying she was sorry suggest blame?