Small Plates by Katherine Hall Page

night upon discovering the woman in the bath—what the hell was going on?
    Sandy clapped her hands together. “Now, ladies, the first thing I’m going to ask you to do is take off your rings, watches, bracelets, anything that might get in the sand or plaster. Believe me, it will be too late after you get all gooky.” She sounded as excited as a child.
    Faith slipped off her wedding band and engagement ring, putting them securely in her pocket. She watched Carolann do the same. First the rock on her right ring finger, too large to fit with her wedding band. Then the band. She wiggled her fingers in the air.
    â€œI can’t believe I’m doing this. I just had my nails done!”
    Sandy was bringing each person a basin of wet sand. Carolann held her hands above hers. She seemed to regard the prospect of molding the grains with as much enthusiasm as if she were molding cow patties. Faith wondered why she was doing it. Faith wondered—and then Faith knew.
    She turned to her neighbor. “I’ll be right back. I should have stopped at the bathroom before I left the cabin.”
    â€œDon’t worry,” Carolann said. “I’ll tell Sandy you’ll be back in a minute.”
    But it wasn’t a minute. It was over an hour later and the class was winding down when Faith Fairchild returned, accompanied by several members of the local police force, who walked up to Faith’s sometime shadow and partner in crafts, read her her rights, and arrested her for the murder of her twin sister, Carolann Hadley.
    H ere’s looking at you, kid.” Tom Fairchild raised his glass to his wife, who was sitting opposite him at the Top of the Hub with the lights of Boston spread like a bejeweled flying carpet behind her.
    Faith sighed with pleasure—and fatigue. It had been a rather tumultuous day, starting with her desperate attempts to convince the police that she was not a lunatic and that in all probability a woman had been murdered. Finally they had agreed to call Faith’s old friend—and, she liked to think, partner—Detective Lieutenant John Dunne of the Massachusetts State Police. She’d decided against Aleford’s Chief MacIsaac as possibly too small-town, besides possessing an anathema toward the phone that sometimes led to dire miscommunications. Dunne had vouched for her—quickly, to her passing surprise—and they were off and running.
    The crime was so obvious it had almost worked, and Faith was annoyed that she hadn’t considered it earlier. “Twins,” Faith said to Tom later, “that desperate ploy of mystery writers everywhere.”
    Once the police established that Carolann Hadley did in fact have a twin sister, Carolee Reese, living not too far from the Cape in New Bedford, Massachusetts, events accelerated. Two discreet officers were dispatched to The Oceanside Retreat to make sure the Hadleys stayed put. The authorities in New Bedford were notified and, sure enough, found a very dead woman wearing a turquoise nightgown lying in bed at Carolee Reese’s address. The house had been ransacked and a window broken to create the appearance of a robbery. Neighbors said that Carolee Reese had told them she would be on vacation for a few weeks. It was not unusual for her to take trips, one woman added. The New Bedford police even obtained a description of Jim Hadley, a frequent guest. “I’m on the road a lot”—his words at the museum rang in Faith’s ears.
    And the two must have been on the road the night before last. Carolann had been strangled, probably shortly after leaving the Fairchilds, trapped in the dunes as she tried to escape once more. Carolee and Jim would have put the body in the trunk or propped it in the backseat, then made a quick trip across the Bourne Bridge and onto the highway to New Bedford and back to The Oceanside Retreat for Mr. and “Mrs.” Hadley’s grand performance.
    Faith