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

up, and cleared up quickly. Rumors in the catering business traveled faster than the latest chili pepper craze, and if word got out that there had been a food poisoning episode at Have Faith, she’d be lucky to be catering snacktime at Ben’s nursery school. Certain food purveyors who would leap at the chance to stick a knife or even a fork in her back came to mind with frightening speed.
    She took the baby into the kitchen and packed some zwieback and other baby goodies into her gargantuan diaper bag. Faith was upset and had to talk to Tom—in person. After bundling Amy into her L. L. Bean Baby Bag, she grabbed her own jacket and headed across the yard and through the ancient cemetery that separated the church from the parsonage.
    At least no one had died in the incident, she reflected, looking at the slightly askew slate tombstones with their lugubrious messages from the glorious beyond—such as Daniel Noyes’s pithy 1716 epitaph: “As you were, so was I/God did call and I did dy.” The sun had not managed to pierce the gray cloud cover overhead and the ground was frozen. There hadn’t been any snow, but the remnants of last summer’s green carpet of grass, so very green in the burial ground, crunched underfoot.
    Tom was slightly surprised to see Faith, flushed and obviously agitated, at his office door. She rarely ventured into this part of the church, whether from lack of interest or fear of being added to a committee, he was still not quite sure.
    â€œIs everything all right, honey?” he asked anxiously.
    â€œNo,” she replied, peeling off Amy’s layers and looking around for a place to deposit her. Tom was not the tidiest person in the world. His office consisted of a large rolltop desk, several bookcases crammed with books, two wing chairs, one Hitchcock, and piles and piles of papers and more books on the floor, said chairs, and any available surface. A four-drawer file stood to the right of his desk and held church stationery, extra hymnals, and prayer books. “I know exactly where everything is,” he’d protested to both his wife and the church secretary,
earnestly imploring them not to touch a thing. “I have my own system.”
    Faith refrained from her usual comment. Before slumping into one of the wing chairs, she removed a stack of the yellow legal pads he favored when composing his sermons, written in longhand. “These are my computer,” he often said, wiggling his fingers. Too precious for words, his wife had told him on more than one occasion, and an unlikely affectation for a man whose state-of-the-art high fidelity system required a degree from MIT to operate.
    â€œWhat’s happened?” he said, reaching for the baby, who proceeded to treat his lap as a trampoline, delightedly bobbing up and down in his grip.
    â€œThe reason everyone got sick yesterday was a superabundance of Chocolax and some other laxative in the black bean soup.”
    â€œFaith, this is terrible! Are they going to suspend your license?” Tom knew the repercussions almost as well as Faith.
    â€œFor the moment, no, and the rumors will die down, I hope,” Faith said in a voice that belied her words. “But what’s got me is, who would do such a thing and why? Was it directed at the film people or me?”
    â€œMy guess would be the cast and crew, and perhaps Evelyn O’Clair in particular. You just provided a happy medium.”
    â€œThere’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.
    â€œThe 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.”
    â€œSo, what next? Are you going to get in