Trouble on Main Street

by Kirsten Fullmer

She nipped off the end point of her pie with her fork. How did she even begin to explain the whole thing to Adam? The pieces had only begun to fall into place that afternoon and it had all come to a wild, swift conclusion.

  “It’s no big deal,” she said, shrugging modestly. “The mayor’s son racked up some gambling debt, so the mayor sold off some family property on the west side of town to build the shopping mall. I guess he figured selling to developers would get him the biggest bang for his buck, and he was desperate. I don’t think he even considered the ramifications to our Main Street shops.”

  Adam thumped the table. “I told you somebody was trying to make a buck.”

  She scoffed inwardly, not explaining that the mayor’s older son had been gambling the family fortune away for years. First online from his home computer, then once he was at college, his addiction had turned into weekend gambling sprees in Atlantic city. He’d pilfered his parent’s bank accounts first, and then moved on to their credit cards.

  Adam thought for a moment. “So, the mayor was trying to get his son out of trouble.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “He figured he could push the project through and cover his son’s debts. But things started to get out of control when his secretary, Rachel, saw what he was doing. That poor thing must hate him because somehow, and we’re not quite sure about how this hooks up yet, but she figured she’d make a few bucks for herself and implicate the mayor. She sold the investors some adjacent property that belonged to the city. Since no one knew about it, she pocketed the funds for herself.” Heidi popped the fork in her mouth, savoring the flavor of her favorite treat.

  “She sold land that belonged to the city?”

  Heidi nodded yes, because she had a mouthful of pie.

  “So…” Adam said, tapping his fingers on the table. His brow lowered and his eyes came up to hers. “How are you involved? And why was she arrested on stage at the festival?”

  Heidi swallowed then fiddled with her pie, carefully choosing her words. This was the part where she didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to disclose the society’s involvement either.

  She cleared her throat. “The mayor found out someone else was selling off city land, but he didn’t know who it was. He only figured it out a few days ago, when he told Rachel to go through his mail. It finally occurred to him that she knew everything he was up to, and she was the only other one who could have pulled it off. Not even his wife had a clue.”

  “Hmm,” Adam said, taking his first bite of pie.

  Heidi continued. “The mayor came into the post office yesterday after you left and told me, so I called the police, but Rachel was already at the festival. We figured the easiest way to corner her was to get her up on the bandstand, out of the crowd.” Heidi didn’t specify who we could be. She let him think she was referring to herself and the mayor or the police.

  Adam’s eyes blurred as he tried to follow the story.

  Heidi took another bite. There was really no need to tell Adam about the men from Atlantic City. Evidently, those thugs had been coming to town and pressuring the mayor for money for quite some time. When the son couldn’t pay his debt, they turned to the father. But at the time, Heidi and the society didn’t know any of that. It had taken them weeks to track it all back to the mayor’s son.

  It still amazed her that the thugs pressuring the mayor for money had set off this whole mystery. One night the men had roughed up the mayor—beaten him to a pulp actually. They’d dumped him on Main Street, bleeding and scared out of his wits. Unable to go to the police as that would implicate himself in using his position as mayor to push through the construction project as well as his son’s underage gambling, he had gone to his office and got the drawings, then slipped them into the outgoing mail. Evidently, he hoped Heidi would figure out what was happening.

  Heidi supposed that he was afraid they’d kill him at some point and his family would be in danger.

  The only question left in Heidi’s mind was why the mayor had left the drawings for her. Did he know about the society? Or was it because she was the post master and he was afraid of the police? Did she seem like a safe person to tell? A person with some authority? Or was it because he knew the society would figure it all out?

  Either way, the mayor’s son had blabbed about the shopping center project to the thugs, and of course they expected a cut of that deal too. It had all come to a head that night at the mayor’s house.

  Ol’ Buford had been dragged in by the mayor to do the work cheap because he was family, but when the thugs got involved he’d backed out of the deal.

  The mayor had been making payments to the casino to protect his son, all the time hoping he could find out who was selling the city’s land so he could extricate himself from wrong doing.

  It had taken the collective brains of the society to put it all together.

  “Well, all’s well that ends well, I guess,” Adam said. “Too bad it ruined your reenactment though.” He tried to look sorry, but a glimmer of humor shone in his eyes.

  Heidi choked on her pie and had to take a drink of water. She sputtered a laugh. “It was already a mess, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “Well, I…” he wanted to say he thought the reenactment was good, but he couldn’t do it. His eyes met hers and his brow lowered in thought. “I get the feeling that you and your reenactment ladies are more than your average historical society.”

  Heidi’s throat went dry. “Why would you say that?”

  He poked at his pie with his fork. “I don’t know.” He looked up and their eyes met. “There’s something about your house and your friends, something strange.”

  She shrugged and took another bite of her pie, then her demeanor changed and she tossed him an amused expression. “What do you want to do when we finish our pie?

  Adam shrugged. “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

  Heidi smiled wickedly. “Ever been up Grandfather Mountain?”

  “No, what’s up there?”

  “Make-out point,” she whispered behind her hand.

  It was Adam’s turn to choke on his pie.

  The next evening, chatter filled the attic room at 111 north Main Street as the ladies of the Sugar Mountain Historical Society gathered for their meeting. The heady aroma of fresh-brewed coffee permeated the room as the ladies visited, regaling their latest adventure.

  Sarah, who just weeks ago had been apprehensive, now joined in with gusto, adding her laughter and gossip with the others. Even old Stella sat back in her chair offering a comment here and there. Sam was deep in conversation with Michelle about Heidi’s form as she’d tackled Rachel. Jessica reached for another cookie, while Monique sat quietly in her chair, watching the commotion as she slurped from her coffee cup.

  Mildred nudged Heidi with her elbow. “Well, are you going to call them to order or not?”

  Heidi grinned, she was in no hurry. Her mind was still on her meeting at the mayor’s office that afternoon. Being a Sunday and all, no one had been there to overhear.

  He had listened to her concerns about a shopping center taking away from the shops on Main Street. He hadn’t agreed of course, but given the trouble he’d caused, and Heidi’s knowledge of the deed, he agreed to go with the bypass plan and even offered to put the idea up for the city council to approve at the next meeting.

  When she’d shown him the plans Adam had had drawn up, he’d suggested they’d build the parking structure on land he owned, of course.

  In the end neither of them had mentioned the mayor’s son, the thugs, the society, or any details of the whole ordeal. It was a small town after all, and just because you knew something didn’t mean you spread it about. Heidi didn’t want to tip him off if he didn’t already know about the society, so she hadn’t said a word about how she and her friends had come to solve the mystery of the bloody parcel.

  Now, comfortable and safe in the society meeting, Heidi enjoyed the lady’s high spirits. With a smile, she pulled the bypass ske
tches from their envelope. She had already placed the bloody tube of drawings safely in the lost mail bin. No one need ever see them again. Her gaze scanned the new map-made-construction-plan, already seeing the finished bypass in her mind’s eye. She could imagine Main Street once again sublime and pretty, the honking and traffic noise replaced with bird songs and the tunes of street musicians. Better yet, she could imagine a three-block area just north of Main Street where the parking garage would be, complete with repaved roads, curb and gutter, a new park with playground equipment, as well as handsome new street lights.

  She leaned back in her chair, her gaze resting on her friends gathered around the old table in her cozy attic, happily snacking and laughing with each other. The place, the accomplishment, the feel of the night was perfect, and she was one hundred percent contented. She, her son, and the ladies of the society were all safe and happy, here in the magical house where it had all begun so long ago.

  Heidi sighed serenely. Once the meeting was over, she planned to sneak away to her hidden master bath and relax in her fancy claw-foot tub. She’d sink neck deep into fragrant bubbles and sip a glass of wine, thinking about the night before. It still gave her chills to recall her and Adam on Grandfather Mountain, taking in the sunset as it blazed over the valley and surrounding mountains. Based on their passionate kisses, anything could happen at this point, and Heidi looked forward to all their new relationship had to offer.

  She sighed contentedly to herself, basking in the moment and her thoughts of Adam, but then her eye caught something sketched onto the drawing in red pen. She brought it up to her face for a closer look. The mayor must have added his own idea to the plans.

  Her mouth fell open and the drawings fell to her lap. Mayor Winslow had added a toll booth to the parking structure!