epilogue
The pure, golden summer sunlight streamed through the crabapple trees making a dappled playing field for the Bob-White Touch Football Celebrity Extravaganza. There were no actual celebrities involved in the game, but Mart nevertheless dubbed it that way. It added panache to the proceedings, he claimed.
It didn't matter to Trixie. She would have enjoyed herself had he called it the Bob-White Pig Trough Slop-Fest. Her father was home. All was right with the world. That was all that mattered.
After the excitement of Barger's arrest and Peter Belden's subsequent exoneration and release, the Belden household had been sent into a frenzy. Barger was arrested on Tuesday, Peter released Wednesday morning, and that gave Helen less than twenty-four hours to prepare the farmhouse for his return. Cheerfully, each of her children and her nephews and niece pitched in to help, along with the rest of the Bob-Whites. When the family van returned and Peter finally set foot on his own property once more, the love and pride on his face almost overwhelmed them, Trixie in particular. She alone knew what role she had played. Keeping it secret from her family had been difficult, but worth it, especially when her father gave her an extra squeeze and whispered how glad he was she hadn't gotten more involved, that Ron Barger was a sick man who might have hurt her to get at him.
Any thought she had entertained about telling her parents what she had done disappeared forever after that. Getting credit and praise for solving a mystery had never appealed less.
The family was besieged with phone calls and visitors, requests for interviews and baskets of fruit and flowers, gifts from those far away. Helen's sister Alicia sent a gorgeous bouquet. Harold and his wife Eleanor sent a large assortment of chocolates and Argentine wine. Andrew's gift was sent in a UPS envelope which Peter and Helen opened privately.
The family refused all interviews save one. On Friday afternoon, a news crew from the local station came to the farm to interview Peter and Helen about their ordeal. Peter's boss had urged him to do at least one interview, to help secure the bank's, and Peter's, reputation. According to the television station, which had conducted a phone survey after the interview aired, 85% of the people who watched the interview said they had a higher opinion of both the bank and its manager than prior to the arrest. Popular consensus in the newspapers maintained that the Beldens had handled themselves well. The bank would resume its regular services, schedule and operations beginning on Monday.
But it was still Saturday afternoon and Crabapple Farm was hosting a party for their friends and neighbors. The Hartmans, the Eliots, the Maypennys, the Wheelers and the Lynches were all in attendance, as well as Mrs. Vanderpoel, Regan and Joan. After the cookout, the younger people organized the touch football game while the adults agreed to keep Reddy and Pepper, Anne's Pomeranian, chained to Reddy's dog run.
It was quickly agreed that Jim and Brian shouldn't be on the same team, so they were made captains. It was also decided that the teams had to be made up of equal members male and female. Jim won the coin toss; he chose first. After only ten minutes of discussion and argument, the two teams were ready to take the field.
Jim's team, made up of Dan, Trixie, Bobby, Anne, Larry, Hallie, Knut and Ben, faced off against Brian's team of Mart, Honey, Terry, Diana, Kathy and Julie (the young twins counting as one teenager), Joan, Regan and Cap. Brian won the next coin toss and the game began.
Since 'house rules' applied, winning the coin toss meant not only first possession of the ball, but choice of what side of the huge, sloping backyard to begin on. Brian decided to take the risk and begin on the slope. He hoped that his team would utilize the hill's advantages well enough to take such a decisive lead over Jim's team that the second half fatigue, coupled with having to run up the hill to make a touchdown, would not cripple them quite so badly. And for the most part, his strategy worked.
From their superior position on the hill, Brian's team could not only use gravity to aid them when throwing the ball, but they could easily see over the heads of the opposing team. The main disadvantage to it all was the tendency for Mart, as quarterback, to throw the ball near the farmhouse roof. The one time he did manage to hit the roof, he was more than relieved to see the ball bounce and roll off.
By half time, Brian's team was ahead 14 points. At the last minute, Ben had managed to score by tossing the ball aside to Hallie as she crossed the finish line. Anne reluctantly cheered her rival and teammate's accomplishment as they crowded toward the picnic tables where the older women had set out desserts.
Mrs. Vanderpoel proudly informed the assembled that Anne had made a 'delightful' low sugar strawberry shortcake. Joan turned her nose up at the thought of 'low-sugar', but Regan proclaimed it surprisingly good. Anne flushed at the praise. She had a bite each of the fudgey brownies the Wheelers had brought, the Lynchs' raspberry torte and the Hartmans' trifle, while everyone else almost gorged themselves on the scrumptious sweets.
As the families and friends sat talking and digesting, conversation turned to nicknames. The Bob-Whites realized curiously that each of them went by a nickname except Brian. Even Anne was not her full name, it was 'Anneka.' Then the Belden cousins explained that 'none of them' went by their full names, either. Knut was really Knutson and Cap was really Capleton. And Hallie? Anne wondered. After a fierce scowl from their sister, Hallie's brothers declined answering. The only adults there who knew her real name refused to say either. Anne nodded, apparently resigned to never knowing it, and excused herself to go inside the farmhouse.
While she was gone, Peter turned to Helen and asked what she had done about Hallie's punishment for spiking Anne's drink at Jim's birthday party. Helen admitted she had done nothing, focused as she was on Peter's situation. He nodded, then turned to Mr. Maypenny. The two men had an agreeable conversation and, after a moment, called Hallie over to join them.
The girl was not happy, but she realized she had no choice if she ever wanted to redeem herself even in her own eyes. She agreed to her Uncle Peter's plan.
Mr. Maypenny was planning to dig a well and put in new pipes to connect it to his house. There would be a great deal of digging. Dan had volunteered, but he bowed out when Hallie agreed to help the old man with his task. Now Dan would have more time to spend with Anne. If spending her last week in New York digging a well in the hot sun didn't sadden Hallie, the knowledge that by doing such strenuous physical labor she was freeing Dan to spend time with her rival, did. Until Ben elbowed her and handed her a plateful of trifle. Cheer up, he told her. She could have been scrubbing the stables, up to her elbows in manure. And maybe he'd come by and visit her during her lunch breaks.
Hallie took the plate and smiled, beginning to remember something she had always known before. There was something good in every bad situation. Even when Anne returned from the farmhouse and triumphantly announced she had discovered Hallie's real name. Anne had used Peter Belden's returned computer to find the other girl's school records and there it was, plain as day: Mahalia.
Anne didn't stop using her full name, even after Hallie tried to get even with her by calling her Anneka. It wasn't until Hallie hit upon the idea of calling Anne 'Margaret' that the other girl seemed the least bit upset. From that point on, the two girls realized they would probably never be close friends. They also realized that not being close friends was not a bad thing after all.
The game continued now with Jim's team on the hill. Determinedly, Trixie, Dan and Jim worked out a series of plays designed to help even the score. At one point, Joan tripped while running the ball. She fumbled. Anne seized her opportunity. She grabbed the ball and ran toward the goal line. When Regan, the nearest one to her, tried to touch her, he accidentally pushed her. She went sprawling. Horrified, Regan tried to help her up while calling a timeout.
Anne got to her feet, eyes blazing with mock fury, and slapped her open palms against Regan's chest, pushing him backwards inadvertently harder than she intended. She nevertheless continued to scold him for playing 'too rough' while his arms pinwheeled and he lost his balance. He collapsed on top of Joan, who was just getting herself brushed off from her own trip and fall. The two of them fell together, limbs entwined, and rolled a few feet down the hill. They ended up kissing while the others cheered and applauded the unscripted pratfall, and then laughing together at the silliness of it all.
Still laughing, Trixie looked around her. The light was still golden, the breeze was still fresh and clean, the sky was still a crystalline blue, her parents were still laughing and smiling, their arms around each other. As she watched, her father pulled her mother into a close, full-body embrace and they kissed. Trixie felt odd, seeing them kiss as passionately as anyone else, as Regan and Joan had kissed. Then she was glad, her heart light.
Her father was home where he belonged. All was right with the world. That was all that mattered.
CODA
An aching Anne stretched out on the living room sofa in her father's log cabin. She heard him whistling while he put away the remains of his hunter's stew in Tupperware containers in the refrigerator. Pepper lay peacefully on the rug beside the sofa. Anne tried to concentrate on the book in her lap, the first Lucy Radcliffe mystery, but Lucy Radcliffe and the Legend of the Porcupine Pearl didn't hold much interest. After discovering that Anne had not only never heard of the book series but had never read a mystery novel at all outside such things as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, Trixie lent the book to Anne and implored her to read it.
It had been a long day already, what with the picnic, the touch football game and the long walk back through the woods to the cabin. She had been pleased to note that her blood sugar levels were practically normal, probably in thanks to the massive exercise she had gotten that day, probably in thanks to her new doctor.
Anne sighed and tried to focus on the page in front of her. What she most wanted to do was go upstairs to her room and go to sleep, but it was only nine o'clock. It seemed too early to go to bed. She read another line and then Pepper yipped softly. Anne was about to ask her dog what was the matter when he got to his feet and trotted to the front door. He sniffed at the door, then yipped louder and looked up at the door handle, as if he expected someone to come inside.
Putting aside her book, Anne got up and went to the door. She lifted Pepper into her arms. Her father was still in the kitchen, still whistling. Anne opened the door cautiously. She peered outside. She saw only unalleviated darkness. Squinting, she thought she could see something long, metallic and black in the yard. Something like a huge car. It moved silently away and was gone.
Shivering despite the oppressive summer heat, Anne moved to shut the door. Then she noticed a white envelope on the step outside. She bent to retrieve it. It was not addressed. It was not sealed.
Anne shut the door and locked it. Still holding Pepper, she lifted the envelope's flap. She pulled out a single sheet of folded notepaper and opened it. It had three words in twelve-point type. It read: Lower your profile.
Anne set Pepper onto the floor and read the note again. The meaning was perfectly clear. Pepper barked once more. Anne held her finger to her lips and said, "Shhh!"
The End