'Tis the Season Murder

by Leslie Meier

  According to the minutes, Roberts had requested early retirement on medical grounds, claiming injuries sustained some seventeen years earlier in a roads project. Roberts, who was then foreman of the town’s road crew, had set a dynamite charge that exploded too soon and he was injured by flying debris. That injury, he claimed with the support of medical documentation, was now causing moderate to severe back pain that made it impossible for him to continue working as superintendent.

  Jake Marlowe had questioned Roberts’s claim, pointing out that the town had paid his medical expenses at the time of the accident. He also noted that when Roberts subsequently filed a lawsuit claiming disability, the committee offered him a lump-sum payment that he accepted, rather than taking the case to court. The amount, twenty-five thousand dollars, had probably seemed generous at the time but, Lucy thought, now seemed rather paltry. Marlowe didn’t mince words, however, accusing Roberts of attempting to blackmail the committee with this new demand for early retirement. Instead, he suggested, the committee should simply refuse to renew his contract and look for a replacement. In other words, Marlowe had threatened to fire Roberts.

  Wow, Lucy thought, sitting back on her heels. She had no idea this was going on. And to think she’d always found FinCom meetings to be boring. Actually, they were. All the exciting stuff took place in executive session.

  Reading on, Lucy discovered that cooler heads had prevailed. Jerry Taubert had pointed out that granting early retirement would be far less costly than deciding the matter in court, and he for one thought Roberts had done a very good job as superintendent. Frankie and Pam had also voiced support for Roberts, leaving only Gene Hawthorne to side with Marlowe.

  When it came to awarding Roberts’s pension, however, Taubert switched sides. Roberts had wanted his pension to be calculated based on the years he would have worked to age sixty-five, but the committee voted to include only the years actually worked, although they did allow him to start collecting immediately.

  The actual figures weren’t mentioned in the minutes, however, and Lucy had to check those town budgets for the actual payroll figures. She flipped through quite a lot of pages of numbers and finally discovered that Al Roberts was getting $1,257 a month, but Frank Sullivan, the former building inspector who had retired at age sixty-five, was getting $1,979 a month. Lucy did a quick calculation and discovered that was a difference of more than $700 a month.

  What did seven hundred dollars a month mean to a man like Al Roberts, Lucy wondered. The answer was clear: it was the difference between keeping up on his mortgage payments or losing his house to foreclosure. She knew he was an angry man and, she realized with a start, he did have some experience with explosives. The question was, she thought, whether he was content to vent his anger through the legal system, or whether he’d taken things further by sending a package bomb to Jake Marlowe. She knew he’d hired Bob, and she hoped that indicated he was content to work within the legal system, but thinking back to Bob’s conversation with Roberts, she sensed that Roberts had been growing impatient.

  Lucy realized her legs were cramping and she got to her feet, then bent over to stretch out her hamstrings. It wouldn’t hurt, she thought, to go and talk to Al. Maybe she could do a feature story about how the recession was forcing many elders to take early retirement, and use Al’s case as an example. Perhaps the FinCom would even revisit the issue and take another vote. Perhaps that would be enough to save his house from foreclosure—at the very least it would give him a bit more income with which to find another place to live.

  * * *

  Lucy drove slowly, not sure she was doing the right thing. Al Roberts had a bit of a temper. What if he turned on her? What if he didn’t like her nosing around in his affairs? What if he thought she should mind her own business?

  Turning down Bumps River Road, Lucy was struck once again by the obvious signs of poverty. Quite a few of the little houses were in disrepair; many sat in yards filled with discarded appliances and wrecked cars. When you were poor, she knew, you hated to let go of anything that might come in useful later. That wrecked car contained parts that could be used to repair another car. And that dryer that no longer ran? It cost money to leave it at the dump and maybe it could be used as a rabbit hutch? Or a food safe, especially in winter, when it could serve as a makeshift freezer. One man’s trash was another’s treasure, and that was nowhere truer than on Bumps River Road.

  Al Roberts’s little house, at the corner of Murtry Road, was neater than most and in fine repair. The roof was neatly shingled, and the porch contained only a couple of dark green Adirondack chairs. Lucy knocked on the door, and when there was no answer she cupped her hands around her eyes and peeked through the living room window. There was a plaid couch, a large picture of a stag hung above it, and a coffee table sat in the middle of the room on the braided rug. Squinting to see more clearly, she tried to make out the objects scattered on the coffee table, which appeared to be tools and wire and a broken cell phone.

  What was he up to? she wondered, trying the door and finding it unlocked. Pushing it open, she called out a hello, and then his name. Her voice echoed through the empty rooms and, after hesitating a few moments, she stepped inside. Getting a closer look at the coffee table, she felt a rising sense of anxiety. This looked an awful lot like the makings of a bomb. She wasn’t sure—maybe he’d just been trying to repair his cell phone, but who did that? You just took it back to the service provider and got a new one, didn’t you? Noticing a neatly folded square of paper, she picked it up, discovering that her hands were shaking. Opening it, she gasped in shock as she read the neat, block-style print.

  Sorry, Lexie, but it’s better this way. You’ll get the insurance money, and maybe there’ll be enough left of me to save my kidneys. Love always, Dad.

  * * *

  Suddenly dizzy, Lucy sat down hard in an armchair and immediately began searching for her cell phone, frantically scrabbling through the contents of her handbag. When she finally retrieved it she hit 9-1-1 for the police department.

  “What is your emergency?” the dispatcher asked—Dot Kirwan’s daughter Krissy.

  “A suicide bomber.” Lucy’s throat was tight; she could barely get the words out.

  “Location?”

  Lucy went blank. “Oh, golly, I don’t know. I found a note.” She considered the possibilities. “I bet he’s going to Downeast Mortgage. He’s going to blow the place up, and himself, too.”

  “Do you have a victim?”

  “Not yet. You’ve got to hurry. Get there before he does it.”

  “Who? Who’s the bomber?”

  “Al Roberts.” Lucy couldn’t believe this. What was the problem? They had to get a squad car over to Downeast Mortgage, immediately. It was a matter of life and death.

  “You think he’s going to blow up Downeast Mortgage?” Krissy sounded doubtful.

  “And himself. I found a suicide note.”

  “But no body?”

  “No! But I’m pretty sure . . . it says something about insurance money and that he hopes there’ll be enough left of him to donate his kidneys.”

  “I don’t have an available unit,” Krissy said. “They’re all out at an accident on the interstate.”

  “Call mutual aid,” Lucy snapped. The town’s rescue services had agreements with neighboring towns to provide help in an emergency.”

  “I can only call mutual aid for an actual emergency,” Krissy explained.

  “But that will be too late!” Lucy tried not to yell.

  “Look, I’ll send a unit over to Downeast as soon as one’s available. That’s the best I can do. I’m sorry, but it’s not like anybody’s bleeding in the street.”

  “Not yet,” Lucy said, flipping her phone shut and running out to her car. She repeated those words as she sped over the narrow, snow-banked roads to town. “Not yet, Lord, please, not yet. Not yet. Let me get there in time. Please. Not yet.”

  It was eerily quiet when she pulled up in front o
f Downeast Mortgage. There had been no explosion, no boom, everything was in place. Normal. Then the door flew open and Elsie Morehouse suddenly bolted down the steps, and it wasn’t normal at all. Elsie was standing on the sidewalk, without a coat in ten-degree weather, screaming bloody murder, tears streaming down her face. Lucy grabbed the blanket she kept in the car in case of a breakdown and ran to Elsie, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. Then she produced her phone and called the police department again.

  “Tell them,” she ordered, holding the phone.

  “He’s got a bomb,” Elsie sobbed. “He says he’s going to blow up Mr. Scribner.”

  “Move away from the building,” Krissy ordered, in a calm, cool, and professional tone of voice. “I’ve got mutual aid on the way, the bomb squad, too. But the highway’s closed due to the accident.. . . Move away from the building.”

  Lucy closed the phone and dragged Elsie down the street. Her gaze fell on the car, which she had left right in front of the Downeast building. No way, she thought, this isn’t going to happen. There was no way she was going to lose her perfectly good but aged car, not when the insurance would only pay book value. Enough was enough, she thought, her blood rising. This had to stop.

  She told Elsie to stay put and she ran back up the street to the Downeast building. At the door she paused for a moment, took a deep breath, then pulled it open. She stepped into the reception area where Ben Scribner was sitting behind Elsie’s desk, tied to a chair, white as a sheet. Al Roberts was standing behind him, strapping his homemade bomb to Scribner’s chest. “I don’t want to do this, but you wouldn’t get the message,” he was saying. “I’d wear it myself, but I don’t want my kidneys to get damaged.”

  “Good thinking,” Lucy said, frantically scrolling through the directory on her phone, looking for Lexie’s contact info.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Roberts demanded. His eyes were bright, and his chin had a couple of days’ worth of stubble.

  Lucy held up the phone. “I’m calling your daughter, Lexie, so you can say good-bye.” Her fingers were shaking; she’d missed the directory key and the phone was telling her to reset her ring tones.

  “Get out of here!” Roberts ordered. “I’m gonna blow this place to kingdom come, and don’t think I won’t.” He paused, then added in a self-satisfied tone, “This bomb is just as big as the one I sent to Marlowe, and you know how that worked out.”

  Hearing this, Scribner grew even paler, and Lucy could see that his chin was quivering.

  Roberts chuckled, a harsh, staccato sound. “You’d think this bastard here would get the idea, but nothing changed. The foreclosures didn’t stop. Not even when his precious niece got hurt.”

  “What?” Scribner blinked, like a blind man who had suddenly recovered his sight. “What’s this about Florence?”

  “He rigged an accident—the stage scenery fell on her.” Lucy couldn’t master her voice, which quavered. “She’s okay,” she added.

  “I didn’t know,” Scribner said.

  “You don’t know anything, that’s the problem,” Roberts said. “It’s just business to you, not people’s homes and lives.”

  Lucy took a deep breath. “I’m not going anywhere until you talk to Lexie,” she said, hoping she sounded a lot braver than she felt. “This will ruin her life, you know.”

  Roberts was quick to reply. “I’m doing it for her, and Angie.”

  “You’re doing it to get back at Scribner and Marlowe and everybody you think did you wrong,” Lucy said. “Lexie will never forgive you.”

  “She’ll get the insurance money.”

  “They won’t pay for suicide,” Lucy said, not sure if this was true or not.

  “I checked. They will.”

  “What if the bomb doesn’t kill you?” Lucy asked. “What if you survive and then you have to go to jail? There’ll be no insurance then.”

  There was a sudden burst of noise from outside—a siren cut short. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake. The noise alerted Roberts that police had arrived and time was running out.

  “You can trust me on this—there’ll be no survivors,” Roberts said. “Which is why you should get out of here. I’ll give you five. . . .”

  Scribner’s eyes rolled up into his head and his chin dropped forward onto his chest.

  “Hold on, what’s the rush?” Lucy was backing toward the door.

  “You called the cops,” Roberts accused. “I’m not bluffing. Get out if you know what’s good for you. Four.” He paused a long moment, then said, “Three.”

  Roberts’s eyes were glittering, and he was panting, hyperventilating. Lucy was utterly convinced he intended to blow himself, Scribner, and herself, too, into eternity. Heart pounding, Lucy turned and made a dash for the door when she was deafened by an enormously loud bang. Glass shattered. There was smoke and she couldn’t breathe. She was coughing and her eyes were filled with tears. Her throat stung and she couldn’t swallow. She collapsed, falling to the floor, discovering she was completely helpless and couldn’t move. She thought of Bill, of the kids, and then she didn’t think of anything at all.

  * * *

  When she came to, she was in an ambulance, and there was an oxygen mask over her face. A medic was leaning over her and she grabbed his arm.

  “You’re gonna be fine,” he said. “Teargas. You had a reaction to the teargas.”

  “Bomb?” Her throat was raw and her voice came out as a croak.

  “Didn’t go off,” he said. “The bomber’s in custody. The other guy’s fine—he refused treatment.” He glanced up as the ambulance braked to a stop. “Well, here we are,” he said, as she was wheeled into the emergency room. “Is there somebody you want me to call?”

  Lucy shook her head. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to explain to Bill, not yet. Even worse, what was she going to tell Rachel?

  Chapter Twenty

  It was truly ridiculous, Lucy thought, standing in the wings of the Community Church stage and waiting for her cue, but she felt more nervous about going onstage than she did when she charged into Downeast Mortgage that morning. Then Tiny Tim took his place in front of the toy shop window and she bustled onstage in her numerous petticoats and long, full skirt, carrying an enormous shopping basket. She was no longer Lucy Stone but instead was Mrs. Cratchit, fussing about whether nasty old Scrooge would allow her husband to spend Christmas Day with his family.

  She was momentarily knocked out of character when her entrance was met with enthusiastic applause and even a few cheers. Word must have spread about her role in preventing the bombing, she realized as she waited for the audience to quiet down so she could deliver her line. She refused to think about that; in fact, she’d spent most of the day concentrating on not thinking about the entire episode.

  “What were you thinking?” Bill had demanded, when she was released from the emergency room.

  “I didn’t think,” Lucy had admitted, her voice a croak because her throat was still sore. “I didn’t want the car to get blown up.” She paused. “I know it was crazy.”

  “I’ll say,” Bill had muttered.

  “I hope my voice comes back before tonight,” she’d whispered. “I need to stop at the pharmacy and pick up some lozenges and throat spray.”

  She spent a quiet afternoon watching TV and sucking on lozenges and spraying her throat, and by supper time found her voice was almost normal. The phone rang quite a bit but she ignored it, telling herself she was saving her voice. The truth was she didn’t want to talk about the confrontation with Al Roberts, didn’t even want to think about it. Most of all, she didn’t want to think about what was going to happen to Al, who would most probably spend the rest of his life in jail for sending the mail bomb that killed Jake Marlowe. So instead she flipped through old magazines and ate ice cream for lunch and searched the On Demand menu for old movies. Bill came home early and whipped up a creamy fettuccine Alfredo for dinner, but she didn’t have much appetite, due to stage fright.


  When she arrived at the church at the appointed time, Rachel greeted her with a hug. “I called and called.... I was afraid you couldn’t go on tonight.”

  “Sorry,” Lucy said. “I didn’t answer the phone because I was saving my voice.”

  “You’re forgiven.” Rachel embraced her again. “Break a leg!”

  Everyone in the cast was keyed up, and Lucy was afraid their nervousness would get in the way of their performances, but was pleased to discover it had the opposite effect. They were all on the top of their game and outdid themselves, and when Tiny Tim delivered the final line, “God bless us, everyone!” the hall erupted in cheers and stamping and clapping that went on for a very long time. The cast took one curtain call after another until they finally gave up and just stood there, clasping hands and basking in the outpouring of emotion. It was as if actors and audience were joined in one huge explosion of happy Christmas spirit.

  Afterward, when Lucy had changed out of her costume, she was met at the dressing room door by Sara, who was holding an enormous bouquet of white carnations and red roses.

  “For you, Mom,” she said. “You were great.”

  This was the last thing Lucy expected, and she gave her daughter a big hug. “This is so sweet,” she said, tears stinging her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “I haven’t been very sweet lately and I’m sorry,” Sara said.

  Lucy’s shoulders were shaking—she was crying her heart out. After holding herself together all day, she found she couldn’t stop sobbing. Bill was there, holding her, and Rachel, too. Sara and Zoe were hugging each other, also crying.

  “There, there, it’s okay,” Bill said, soothing her, and Lucy was trying to apologize for being so foolish, but couldn’t seem to stop crying. Until finally, she did.

  “You’ve had a tough day,” Rachel said, wiping her own eyes and handing Lucy a wad of tissues.

  “Let’s go home,” Bill urged.

  “No,” Lucy said, wiping her eyes.