“So, I could hear the Commissioner on his phone and one day I heard him say, “Oh that will never pass, it’s just a red herring to get the Lake Resort and Casino through. Just think, if we can pull this off we’ll have the whole lake. We could build three or four more hotel resorts. We could be the next Atlantic City, but you know, on a lake. And smaller.”
If Gracie had any of the donut left, she would have choked like Trudy-Faye. This was unbelievable if it were true!
“Well, you could knock me down with a feather! What is it you want me to do?” she asked.
“I want to hire you to figure out who is behind this. I think that anyone who has been quietly buying up old cabins with lake frontage would be a good place to start. Once we find out who is attempting to profit from zoning changes, we can squash this takeover of Huckleberry like a bug!” Myron dug his wallet out of his jeans and pulled out a hundred dollar bill.
“My down payment,” he said.
Gracie accepted the money. “Did you work with anyone called Anita Ellis?”
“Also known as the former murderer, Mrs. Frederickson? No, why do you ask?”
“Just a possible thread I might pick at. Should I mail you the receipt?”
“Could you come by and meet my Dad? He has never met a celebrity before, and he would love to meet you. Here’s my address and number.”
Gracie agreed and entered the information in her phone. She then informally approached the Mayor as she had missed the question and answer period of the emergency meeting.
“Hazel don’t make any decisions or agreements yet. I’ve got something I’ve got to look into with Ted. I think we’re going undercover!”
***
“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it,” Trudy-Faye said smugly. “I knew you two were going to end up together! But you could have knocked me over with a feather, when you said you wanted to live in Munson on Lake Wasabi!” She poked Gracie in the ribs.
Ted and Gracie continued to smile. It was torturous going around to see different properties for sale with the boisterous Trudy-Faye, but Ted was just as invested as Gracie in keeping Huckleberry a small town. Their crime rate was already off the charts and a huge influx of tourists, even if it was city adjacent, would not help.
“Of course I’ll have to split my commission with the local realtor, but still it will be a nice amount. Now, can we give your budget a nudge?” Trudy-Faye was beyond jubilant. Being busy helped her forget some truths she was coming to grips with.
Ted and Gracie looked at one another. Trudy-Faye was treating them like a pair of teenage newlyweds, so Ted blinked his eyes rapidly, lifted one shoulder and slapped his hand against his chin. “It’s just all too exciting,” he fake squealed.
Gracie snorted with laughter.
“We really want a lot of lake frontage with whatever property we buy, so we may be able to bump up our budget,” Ted said in his normal voice.
Trudy-Faye clapped her hands. “Oh goodie! Now, there isn’t that much to choose from; there has been a recent rash of sales, but I did find this little gem. It literally came on the market today. Mind the stairs, you can install new ones to suit your taste.”
Despite the warning, Ted put his foot through the top stair as Gracie wisely walked down to the cabin in the foliage beside the three stairs.
Trudy-Faye continued to gush, “Really, the whole thing should be torn down, but you could hole up here while building your new place. You’ve got over two hundred feet of lake frontage. Of course, you might want to consider rebuilding the dock.”
Gracie pointed to the water. “You mean the floating pile of rotting debris? Yes; we would definitely consider building a new dock. Now you said there were a lot of sales in the area. Would we get new neighbors right away? I wonder if we could coordinate the delivery of lumber?”
Trudy-Faye looked thoughtful. “Can’t speak to that, Gracie and Ted, but it seems a cost-cutting measure. But yes, you will have new neighbors. In fact, all the waterfront on either side of this gem was snapped up by the same purchaser. This cabin hadn’t come on the market yet otherwise I’m sure he would have bought it too. Now, let’s go in the cabin.”
Ted stepped very carefully on each tread of the steps up to the front door. The steps held and he scooted inside followed by the two women.
“Who bought all this surrounding area then?” asked Gracie.
Trudy-Faye rocked her head back and forth. “Well, I really shouldn’t say, but you’re going to be neighbors, so you’ll find out soon enough. It was Hizzoner, the Mayor of Munson, Mr. Orvin Metcalfe!”
“I’m sure glad no one is in the habit of carrying feathers, or that would be the second time today I would have been easily knocked over,” Gracie said sotto voce to Ted.
“Well, that’s pretty much all we need to know,” Gracie said in a louder voice.
Trudy-Faye was dismayed. “Oh no, this is the best part of showing a property. I love hearing the prospective home owner talk about where they are going to place their furniture and watching them measure and look out the windows at the view! And bicker; I do love me a good argument!” She leaned forward and crooked her finger towards Gracie and Ted. “It’s mostly about two sinks in the bathroom and paint colors. The women all want to rip out the bathroom and the men, well, they want a workshop, but surprisingly, they do have strong feelings about the paint color.”
Ted had a dry sense of humor and an excellent dead pan delivery of a line. He looked at the tongue and groove pine paneling that covered every square inch of the cabin. “I think the paint color is fine,” he said.
“Oh no Ted,” Trudy-Faye corrected, “This is paneling. It isn’t painted at all.”
“I see. Amazing. What color would you call this? I’d like to paint the station house this color.”
Trudy-Faye wasn’t entirely sure if he was serious, but she went on to the next point on her list. “Now, I’m going to step outside and let you just live in the space for a little while.” She carefully made her way outside and started returning messages.
As much as Gracie wanted to make several phone calls, she started to seriously consider a course of action that might make all the difference to the secret resort destination plan.
“Ted, I think I should buy this. You know me, I not much for travelling. This place, once I re-build, would be an excellent week-end retreat for me and the cats.”
“Gracie, what about me? Do you think I could rent a room? Or live in the garage? Wait. There isn’t one.”
“Oh, I’m sure the cats won’t mind if you come along. I am serious about buying this Ted. What if we can’t prove that Orvin Metcalfe has this master plan? Maybe if I do buy this property, it will be the fly in the ointment.”
Ted smiled. “Now I would have said ‘the screw in the works’ but I see your point. This property would curtail the change in zoning, one would hope. But maybe they would just build the casino etcetera on either side of you and use a zip line to get from one side to the other. “
Gracie looked up and watched several wasps squeeze through a hole in one of the boards in the ceiling. That’s going to be an issue, she thought and made a note on her phone to purchase several epi-pens.
“I hope I’m not going to be branded a traitor to the Huckleberry township; but I’m going to buy this place.”
She walked over to Ted and put her arm around his. “I did hear the subtext when you said, ‘what about me’. Do we want to do this jointly? I’m game, but my only concern is that I have way more money than you and if I finance most of this project, you won’t feel like it’s your place.”
“Don’t worry Gracie, I have buckets of money.”
“You do? Since when?”
“Grandma, Father, Step-Father, inheritance, stock market, blah blah blah. I’m loaded.”
“Awesome! Let’s do this thing!”
Ted frowned. “You don’t have any ear plugs do you? Trudy-Faye’s shrieking is going to be worse than any police siren.”
***
Myron had watched the renovations taking place at the Davis home over the months and years. Beside immediately replacing their front door, they had cut down the beautiful old lilac trees in the front yard.
This was almost blasphemous in Myron’s mind. He had carefully helped the previous owner shape those trees. Initially they cut out all the dead wood and new shoots. Eventually the two trees formed a heart shape. Each fall, Myron would get his Dad’s ladder and cut off all the old blooms. Each spring, he would rub off the new buds from the inside of the heart. Myron was very proud of those lilacs and when they bloomed, he always left his bedroom window open. The fragrance soothed him and reminded him that at least he had done one right thing in his life.
Lily and Mark Davis hired men to come and grind out the stumps so there was no hope that the lilacs would grow back. The sound the machines made burned into Myron’s brain. He knew it was silly, but he felt like the lilacs were screaming.
Myron carefully kept track of all these heresies and promised that, at the proper time, his neighbors would die.
His binoculars could only show him so much, so he relied on his boom microphone. He had considered buying a drone and spying that way, but the learning curve would be too steep. According to the conversations he overheard, they were going to redo nearly every room in the house.
At some point though, early in the renovation extravaganza, Lily decided that she couldn’t live in a construction zone so she would go to France and take cooking lessons. A week or two after she left, Mark came over and knocked on the door of the Flores home.
Mark was a changed man without Lily around. He fell all over himself apologizing for the lemon pound cake incident. He invited Myron to come over, anytime to view the changes.
If Myron had the ability, he would have jumped up and clicked his heels. He went over to Mark’s place, as he now called it, nearly every day. Myron bought himself a hardhat and steel toed shoes because he was in a construction zone. Mark said he didn’t need to but agreed it was a good idea to be on the safe side.
Once all the rooms in the house had been done, Mark started working on the outside. The former owners had two large greenhouses and thus had vegetables year round and were the first to put out hanging flower baskets stuffed with beauties they had grown from seed.
Oddly enough, when Mark dismantled the greenhouses and the many raised gardens, Myron didn’t want to kill him. Mark decided they needed a large patio area so they could have guests like the Flores family, for meals al fresco on warm summer evenings. Myron thought that was a reasonable idea. When Mark discussed placing pavement stones for a walkway, Myron suggested planting woolly thyme in between.
Mark was over the moon. He hugged Myron many times that day and they went to the nursery together to pick out the plants. The thyme grew quickly, and the walkway was a treat to look at. Myron even helped Mark trim the thyme every week, so it didn’t look too unruly or takeover.
Then, after sixteen months away at the Cordon Bleu in Paris France, Lily came home in December. She had supervised the redo of the kitchen and the butler’s pantry via Skype, but when she saw it in person, she was uncharacteristically effusive with praise to Mark.
Myron heard it all. He also heard her dictating to Mark that his tubby buddy Myron won’t be coming over anymore. Myron did not fit with the theme of the house nor did he go with the brand of people that Lily wanted them to associate with.
Myron had been lonely most of his life, but now he experienced a new kind of loneliness. One that sunk him to new depths of depression. To have a friendship, finally and then to have it ripped away; well, somebody had to pay.
Of course, it was going to be Lily. But only at the right time. You couldn’t rush a thing like this, Myron knew.
The only thing that brought Myron comfort during this dark time in his life, was the increasing friction at the Davis household. As spring approached, and their second year of living across the road from Myron, Lily discovered the walkway that Mark had not consulted her on. She was incensed. She wanted a Terrazzo tiled walkway, just like the one in Hollywood with all the stars on it, to lead to the patio area. When Lily found out that the thyme had to be trimmed weekly, she flipped and bawled Mark out.
It was Mark’s turn to flip. He told Lily that they were going to finish landscaping the backyard the way he wanted it and that’s the way it was going to be!
She had never been talked to that way by anybody, let alone Mark. She spluttered and stuttered and finally came up with a response.
“You can fill the damn thing up with rocks, for all I care,” she said.
So Mark did. For nearly two years he had been fighting a losing battle with the blackberry bushes along the lot line at the back of his property. Despite his best efforts, they continued to creep ever closer to his beautiful patio. So after ripping them out, yet again, he built an eight foot high retaining wall the entire width of his property. He ordered the aggregate and rented a stone slinger complete with operator.
Unbeknownst to Lily, the two friends chatted via computer during the six months she was back. Myron had broached a certain subject with Mark during one of their clandestine computer chats. He suggested a course of action and Mark simply said, “I’ll sign off on this project.”
On the day the machine was due to arrive, Myron was ready. It was time. He almost ran over to Mark’s place. Almost. Even though he had lost forty pounds when he was chumming with Mark, in the six months Lily had been back, Myron’s weight had returned. Another thing Lily had to die for.
Lily yelled for Mark when she opened the door and saw Myron standing there. Myron was not wearing his hardhat and steel toed shoes and was quite perturbed about that, but he didn’t let it show. Lily kept screaming for Mark to come and talk to his tubby friend, but Mark didn’t answer.
“I just want to take before and after shots of the backyard.” Myron showed Lily his phone and asked her if he should just keep ringing the bell until Mark showed up. Reluctantly, Lily escorted Myron to the backyard and stayed with him, because people of Myron’s sort might attempt to steal things.
Myron needed a ladder. With much effort, he managed to prop the ladder up against the wall. Unfortunately, he couldn’t climb the ladder. But Lily didn’t realize that at first. Myron started to climb but as soon as his foot touched the first rung, he said he felt faint. He took his foot off. He put it back on. Felt faint again. Took his foot off.
Of course Lily was exasperated beyond belief.
“You little turd, hand me your phone and I’ll take the damn picture,” she said.
Myron handed her a cheap phone he had purchased for the occasion.
Lily climbed part way up the later. Myron quietly told himself, it’s not time; don’t rush it.
“Well now I can’t see anything because this damn ladder is in the way,” Lily complained. She leaned out to the side of the ladder and started looking for the camera icon on the phone.
Now was the time. Myron wedged himself under the ladder and with a herculean effort, he stood up, lifting the end of the ladder. It began to pivot on the wall and Lily began cursing in earnest.
Myron pushed his arms up with all his might. He thought for a moment that Lily was going to jump off, but just in time, Mark stood and reached up from the other side and pulled the ladder and Lily down.
Myron heard a couple of pops, then the scrape as Mark leaned the ladder against his side of the retaining wall. Mark climbed up, stood on the wall and took a picture. Then he lifted the ladder over and climbed back down to where Myron waited.
“Done and dusted,” Mark said as he put the handgun back in his pocket. “I put an old tarp over her just in case the machine operator looks over the edge.”
“Good idea. Can you send me an email of those pictures?”
Mark didn’t want to disappoint his buddy, but he suggested a different way to send the images. “I think I better print them on my home computer and then you can pick them up tomorrow.”
The two friends watched in awe as the stone slinger operator expertly maneuvered the conveyor to the edge of the wall. The operator was going to peer over, but Myron asked, “What are you looking for?”
“Just want to make sure no animals went in there! We don’t want to hurt any neighborhood cats.”
We just want to bury one, thought Myron.
Even though he was assured by Mark, the operator took a quick glance, but didn’t notice the tarp up against the foundation of the retaining wall. He started his machine.
The neighbors who thought they heard something like a car backfiring earlier, came out to see what was going on. As they heard the rumble of the machine and the noise of stones being thrown they convinced themselves that this was the noise the machine made when it started up. In no time at all, Mark’s blackberry problem was solved. Permanently.
That was last year. Last winter, Myron and Mark had rebuilt a greenhouse. Now, at Mark’s place a plethora of pots graced the rock bed, all overflowing with flowers. Myron had lost fifty pounds and had gained a lot of confidence. Tons of it, in fact.
He even got the courage to go to the Doctor about his issues. The Doctor referred him to a specialist who told him he needed to take a medical leave. Myron began going out in public more and started to take an interest in city politics. He still couldn’t believe that just that day he went to a town meeting where he actually talked to Gracie Noseworthy and hired her!
His Dad was really proud of Myron. He hadn’t told Mark yet.
***
Gracie was thinking over a rum and coke at her house. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was wrong.
Someone, during the course of the day had body language that was out of sync with their surroundings. Gracie pulled at her memory threads; it was as a result of a conversation she overheard, but she couldn’t get any further.
It wasn’t Ted, he was always forthright with her. Other than not sharing that he had buckets of money, he was an open book. Or was he? No; it wasn’t Ted. What about Trudy-Faye? Well, she was an open book too. Clearly her over-jubilant manner was her compensating for the death of her son.
Gore in the Garden Page 17