The Body in the Moonlight by Katherine Hall Page

her way home from the library. She watched Gwen stand absolutely still for a moment, then saw her look about before darting across the driveway into the Millers’ yard. Faith ran in that direction, in time to see the young woman cut into the field beyond her neighbors’ garage. She’d walked into the kitchen. Tom was drying a mug. She’d planned to tease him, but something in his face had stopped her. She’d merely said, “I see you’ve had a visitor.”
    â€œA visitor?”
    She didn’t want to hear him deny it, and feeling chilled to the bone, left the room to get a sweater.
    She also couldn’t tell Patsy about the way Tom had been behaving since he rose from Gwen’s side, his face a mask of grief. During the commotion that followed, he’d been completely silent and had withdrawn. If he’d been aware Faith was by his side, he’d given no indication. Everything she’d thought of to say sounded completely banal: “Tom, are you all right?” Words to that effect. Obviously, he wasn’t. She wasn’t. They weren’t.
    As she walked home, she was hit by a wall of fatigue. She didn’t want to talk over the whole thing with Patsy—or Charley MacIsaac. Living through it had been enough. And she had been reliving it in her mind ever since.
    When she’d returned to the ballroom after calling 911, Charley had moved everyone away from the body. The music had stopped, but there had been a feverish level of conversation. Upon seeing Faith, Paula Pringle had promptly pointed one long, bony finger at her and screamed, “It was the food! Something in the dessert! The desserts are poison!” Then equally promptly, she began to laugh hysterically and cry at once. Ursula Rowe stepped over to the woman and coolly slapped her smartly across the face. Paula stopped instantly and returned to what was, for her, normal. “At least we finished the auction,” she said. Her husband took her to the far end of the ballroom and made her sit down and put her head between her knees. At any other time, Faith would have kissed Ursula for executing what Faith herself had yearned to do for several weeks. But just then, she scarcely took the gesture in.
    â€œThings are getting out of hand,” Faith heard Ursula tell Charley. “You’d better do something quick.”
    Charley nodded and took the mike.
    â€œI know I can trust all of you to remain calm. There’s been a tragic accident, and it will take a while to sort the whole thing out. We’re waiting for a unit from the state police to arrive, and in the meantime, I’dlike to ask you all to stay in this room. Since there is a possibility that this could be food-related, I suggest that no one eat or drink anything further.”
    That had caused an even more hectic buzz, but at least they’d avoided a repetition of Gwen’s death. If it was the food, that is.
    Faith walked up to her own front door with no recollection of the steps taken between it and the Averys’ house. As she stepped into the living room, she heard Tom call from the kitchen.
    â€œFaith, is that you? I have to leave five minutes ago!”
    â€œGo on. I’ll see you later.”
    She heard the door slam shut and went to get the kids. Ben had dressed himself. He was wearing the navy sweatpants he’d had on the day before, which he must have dug out of the hamper, one of the two dress shirts he owned, and his Superman cape from last Halloween.
    â€œI can’t find my sneakers,” he wailed. “I bet Amy took them again.”
    Last month, Amy had lovingly put Ben’s favorite sneakers, the ones with Velcro frog fastenings, in the bathtub, where Faith had fortunately discovered them before turning on the tap.
    â€œI’m sure she didn’t, but why don’t you look there just in case?” Faith decided to let Ben’s outfit go. He’d appeared in worse combinations,