The Body in the Moonlight by Katherine Hall Page Page A

and it was going to take more than little-boy outfits from Brooks Brothers to win over those in the congregation who thought her mothering skills sadly lax.
    Amy was patiently stringing large wooden beads on a long string, unaware that there was no knot on the end. She simply kept on going, retrieving the beads as they fell off, then putting them on the other end. Her breakfast was on the table, practically untouched.
    â€œSweetheart, you need to eat your breakfast; then we’ll get dressed and go see Miss Nancy.” Amy was passionate about Miss Nancy, her Sunday school teacher. Her little face glowed. “See Miss Nancy?” She laughed and clapped her little hands together. Faith pulled her onto her lap, burying her face in the sweet silk of Amy’s hair and soft neck, which smelled like the baby soap Faith still used on her daughter’s tender body.
    â€œBut first, eat some cereal. It’s your goat spoon,” she wheedled.
    Amy clamped her mouth shut. “No.” No explanation, no apologies, no guilt. Just no. This was happening a lot, and Faith’s worst nightmare—that she’d give birth to a picky eater—seemed to be coming true.
    She dipped the spoon—a silver one with a mountain goat and goatherd on the handle that Pix had brought back from Norway—into the cereal and brought it to Amy’s tiny mouth. “Just three bites.”
    The mouth didn’t open. Faith sighed. “All right. Drink your milk.” Amy gleefully picked up her glass and drained it. She had graduated from a spouted beaker and was very proud. Faith was going to have to start concocting power shakes for her recalcitrant daughter and hope the phase passed. She pulled on one of her all-purpose church dresses, a soft gray CalvinKlein knit, ran a comb through her hair, and then, after looking in the mirror, added some blush and lip gloss. She dressed Amy in the latest of the smocked dresses Tom’s mother turned out with deceptive ease. This one was buttery yellow, with a cornflower blue tulip design.
    â€œWe’re going to be late, Mom!” Ben screeched up the stairs. At five, he’d suddenly become extremely aware of social conventions, or perhaps it was kindergarten. Going out the door and across the well-worn path through the cemetery, Faith watched him speed toward church, his cape streaming out behind him. Amy walked at a slower pace, pausing to examine each passing blade of grass, small stone, ant.
    â€œBen is flying,” she announced without a trace of envy or doubt.
    â€œApparently,” Faith agreed, keeping a sharp eye on him as he disappeared through the side door on his way to his own class. He wasn’t supposed to run ahead. He wasn’t supposed to do a lot of things, and the list got longer every day. Some items would get crossed off—the running-ahead part. By the time he was sixteen, he could do that. But other things would be added. Be home before midnight. Call your mother. It was a life’s work. She laughed at herself.
    â€œCome on, chickadee, let’s get you to Miss Nancy.”
    â€œChickadee-dee-dee,” Amy chortled. It was a game she never tired of; nor did her mother.
    In church, Faith prayed briefly—for strength, for clarity, for forgiveness, for Gwen—then turned to lookup at the choir loft. She was surprised to see Jared. He was there, playing his heart out. Brahms’s Requiem, his own arrangement for solo organ.
    While the music filled the sanctuary, Faith’s thoughts returned to the night before and the scene that had greeted her when she’d returned to the Ballou House ballroom from the phone.
    Nick Gabriel had had his arms around his cousin, Jared, turning him away from the sight of his dead fiancée. He was stroking the back of Jared’s head and mumbling something in his ear. He was in full view of the corpse himself, however, and he was obviously in shock. His face was deathly pale and