Free The Body in the Gazebo by Katherine Hall Page Page B

Much hemming and hawing and no information. This one was unusually cryptic, though. Faith knew Ursula was fine and Pix had made a point of saying that everything at Sea Pines was okay when she’d called after her arrival. Probably a sudden need for wardrobe advice. Except Samantha was there. Faith took out her cell and called.
    “Hi, I just got your message. What’s up?”
    “Everything’s great and this place is really lovely—the views, the room, and you would love the food. We just finished a fabulous brunch.”
    “You’re with people, right?”
    “Absolutely. And the guys are all about to hit the links, what ho, while we womenfolk get massages, the works.”
    Pix was sounding like a cross between P. G. Wodehouse and Zane Grey. “The links, what ho”? “Womenfolk”?
    “Mimosas at brunch?” Faith asked.
    Pix was an even cheaper date than Tom when it came to booze and had been known to get slightly tipsy on her mother’s rum cake.
    “Yes, several.”
    “Well, you certainly sound cheery. Now, maybe I can guess why you’re calling. The massage? I don’t think you’ve ever had one, have you?”
    “That’s right, and yes, Samantha is going with us.”
    “So that’s not it.”
    “Nope.”
    “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”
    Entertaining as the conversation was, Faith wanted to get going.
    Pix lowered her voice. “Much, much bigger.”
    “Ah, a person. And he or she is there, so call me when you can talk. We’re off to Crane Beach to fly kites.”
    “Keep an eye out for a snow owl. They might still be there.”
    “Of course,” Faith assured her friend, although this had been most definitely the furthest thought from her mind. But it was the kind of thing Tom got excited about. Bird-watching. A New England trait inbred along with a love of Indian pudding and touch football. She made a mental note to tuck some binoculars and the Sibley bird guide in the canvas tote she’d packed.
    “Coming,” Pix called to her unseen companions. “I’ve got to go, but . . . well, I’ll call later.”
    “Have fun, sweetie,” Faith said, “and I hope they keep the champagne flowing. You deserve it.”
    A lthough the weather was fine and a pale sun shone, the sky and sea at Ipswich were a single shade of gray, almost indistinguishable from the color of the sand as the tide ebbed. The children’s kites joined others, rising and falling in brilliant streaks. Tom and Faith walked along the tidemark toward a rocky outcropping in the direction of Castle Hill, a magnificent early-twentieth-century estate open in the warmer months for tours and concerts. Faith had catered events there and it was an exquisite setting, especially at night, the house sitting high on a bluff above the sea, with long views of the North Shore coastline.
    Crane Beach was no Sanibel, but soon Faith’s pockets were filled with tiny whelk shells and bits of beach glass.
    There had been no sign of any snow owls, but plenty of the terns, gulls, and plovers. Tom had the binoculars around his neck.
    After determinedly talking about everything except that which was uppermost in their minds, Tom finally said, “Okay. I’ve gone over and over the past year, all the money I’ve given out—it’s not hard to recall things that are emergencies like this—and I keep coming up with the figure I gave them. No more, no less. Well, we won’t discuss it now.”
    Faith stopped and faced him, forcing him to a standstill also. “It’s like a sore in your mouth. You want to keep your tongue from touching it, but you always do. And it’s always still there. I think we should be discussing this whenever we feel like it and especially as soon as you get back from the bank tomorrow morning.”
    “Someone there may be able to shed some light on the whole thing, I hope, but we’ll have to wait to talk it over. It’s one of my days at the VA hospital,” Tom said. He took his wife’s hand and they turned around, walking slowly back toward Ben and Amy,