by Lee Hollis
“Speaking of Sergio, are you ever going to tell me what you so urgently needed to speak to him about the other night?”
Bruce sighed. “Do I have to?”
“Now that we’re married, it’s kind of expected that we tell each other everything,” Hayley said pointedly.
“Okay, fine. I wanted to tell him that on the night of the Witches Ball, when you were busy flitting around chatting with everybody, I stepped outside to get some air, and I saw someone dressed as a witch running away from Trudy’s truck. I didn’t think anything about it at the time since all of the women in the vicinity were dressed in witch costumes, but after you and Gemma found Trudy’s body, I felt like I needed to share that information with Sergio.”
“You saw the killer?” Hayley gasped. “And it was a woman?”
“No, I saw someone, not necessarily the killer, leaving the scene right before you discovered the body.”
“Cloris Fennow! I bet my bottom dollar it was Cloris Fennow! She rented a witch costume! I saw it hanging in her truck, and her alibi’s shaky!”
“Maybe, but you’re going to need more evidence than that. Half the women in Bar Harbor have witch costumes,” Bruce said emphatically. “I just thought Sergio should know.”
“You did the right thing,” Hayley said. “But what I don’t understand is, why couldn’t you just tell him that in front of me? Why be so mysterious and take him outside so I couldn’t hear you?”
Bruce shuffled his feet, not wanting to reveal any more. But he knew Hayley well enough by now to know that keeping a secret from her would be impossible and make his life miserable.
“Bruce... ?”
“Okay, okay. I didn’t want to say anything in front of you because the reason I went outside was because...”
“Yes?”
“Because I needed a smoke...”
“Oh, Bruce,” Hayley wailed, disappointed.
“See? That’s exactly why I took Sergio outside on the porch! I didn’t want to have to see that look of judgment!”
“If you don’t get a grip on this nasty habit, you’ll get lung cancer and die and then where will you be?”
“Free from your nagging.”
“Did you really just say that?”
“It just slipped out.”
“Is that supposed to make it better?”
“I love you, Hayley.”
“No, you are not going to try and wiggle out of this by saying ‘I love you,’ and then kissing me, and giving me those sad, cute puppy dog eyes until I start to melt and finally let you get away with it.”
Bruce kissed her.
“No, it’s not going to work.”
He gave her the sad, cute puppy dog eyes.
“Nope. Not going to work.”
But she couldn’t help herself.
Especially when he kissed her again, this time with more passion.
“You have smoke breath,” Hayley scoffed.
“No, I don’t. I ate half a box of Tic Tacs. You’re just trying to make me feel guilty.”
“You’re right. You’re minty fresh. But we don’t need any funeral attendees watching us make out in the parking lot of the church!”
“Good idea! I have a lot more planned for when we get home,” Bruce said with a sly smile.
“Only if you promise to quit smoking!”
Chapter 19
Hayley stood in the middle of the aisle at the drugstore staring at all the selections of nicotine patches, gum, and coated lozenges. Which brand was the best? Should she start him out small, perhaps the four-milligram nicotine gum, or go big, like the twenty-one-milligram patch? She had one mission in mind, and that was to find the right solution to help Bruce finally kick his nasty smoking habit. She just wasn’t sure how to go about it. After perusing her choices, Hayley grabbed the box with the twenty-one-milligram patches, which promised to help reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, and increased appetite and nicotine cravings. Whatever made Bruce easier to live with while he powered through this was fine by her.
She was halfway to the counter when she heard a familiar voice at the pharmacy window toward the back of the store. She veered right, heading in the opposite direction of the checkout counter, and spotted Edie Staples talking to the pharmacy employee in a white lab coat, a girl she didn’t know, who stood behind a window, a helpful smile plastered on her face.
“I tried the Lexapro but it did nothing for me, and the Celexa elevated my heart rate too much and made me shaky and I had terrible insomnia, so I’m hoping this Zoloft finally does the trick,” Edie said to the pharmacist, who glanced nervously toward Hayley, thinking she might be eavesdropping.
Which to be honest, she was.
Edie noticed the girl’s wandering eyes and turned to see Hayley holding the box of nicotine patches. “Oh, good for you, Hayley, for trying to kick the habit.”
“What?” Hayley asked, confused, before remembering the box she was holding. “Oh, I don’t smoke. This is for Bruce.”
“Well, good for him, then. I wish him all the luck in the world. Those patches never worked for me when I smoked. But then I went to a hypnotist in Portsmouth, and after just one session, I completely lost my craving! Can you believe that? He was a miracle worker!”
“I may need to get his number.”
Edie held up a finger to Hayley. “Here, let me just pay for this. Don’t go anywhere.”
The pharmacist rang up the sale on her register. “That will be forty-six ninety-two, please, Mrs. Staples.”
“Lord, and that’s with insurance! When are those idiot politicians in Washington going to do something about drug prices?” Edie lamented as she handed over her credit card. “This is much more expensive than my last drug.”
Hayley knew enough about Zoloft to know it was an antidepressant medication, and she was surprised that Edie Staples, who normally struck her as so upbeat and positive, was battling some kind of depression.
“Thank you, Mrs. Staples,” the girl behind the counter chirped as she handed Edie back her card. “You have a wonderful day.”
After signing the slip and sliding it back to the girl through the slot below the window, Edie grabbed her bag and receipt and marched over to Hayley.
“The hypnotist did wonders for my smoking habit but I’m afraid when it came to my erratic mood swings, he didn’t help me at all on that front.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Edie,” Hayley said as they strolled up to the front of the store where Hayley could pay for her nicotine patches at the regular checkout counter.
“Frankly, I’ve tried everything with dismal results,” Edie said quietly, shaking her head. “Trudy Lancaster told me right before she died to try Zoloft. She claimed it worked wonders for her. Calmed her right down and got her through the day, so fingers crossed it does the same for me.”
Hayley stopped suddenly. “Trudy was on antidepressants?”
“Yes, she was. And believe me, she needed them,” Edie said with a derisive sneer.
“Why do you say that?”
Edie glanced around to make sure no one was loitering about listening to their conversation before leaning in to Hayley. “When the Lancasters first moved to town and didn’t know anyone, the reverend and I tried to make them feel welcome by hosting them at our house for dinner their first few nights. The men had much to discuss about the goings-on at the church and the training period they were about to begin, and so Trudy and I spent a lot of time alone talking about our lives. Well, after a few glasses of wine on the second night, Trudy intimated that she and Ted did not have a storybook marriage.”
“She told you that?”
Edie nodded conspiratorially, thrilled that she finally had someone to tell this juicy revelation. “I know it’s shocking. On the outside, they looked like such the perfect couple. Both good-looking and personable, and he’s a minister for heaven’s sake! But apparently the handsome Reverend Ted can be moody and demanding
and it was taking quite a toll on their marriage.”
When Hayley noticed the short, stout male clerk behind the checkout counter staring at them, curious as to what they were so intensely discussing, Hayley gestured toward Edie to wait, and she stepped up to the counter and paid for her box of nicotine patches. Once they were outside safely out of the nosy clerk’s earshot, Hayley and Edie immediately resumed their conversation.
“I had no idea Ted and Trudy were having problems,” Hayley said, stunned. “We saw them socially a few times and never got that impression.”
“Poor Trudy was an emotional mess. She also hinted that moving to Bar Harbor was a last-ditch attempt to save the marriage. If they couldn’t make a go of it here, she was going to bring up the D word.”
Divorce.
Hayley couldn’t believe it.
Neither Ted nor Trudy had ever hinted at any marital discord. Not once.
Normally Hayley might question Edie’s trustworthiness, but in this case, Hayley’s instinct told her that Edie was not embellishing facts or making things up. It made perfect sense that the two women would have gotten to know each other since their husbands were working together, at least in the short run before Reverend Staples officially retired and they headed west in their RV.
“The sad thing is, Hayley, Trudy and I were on the road to becoming very close friends until my nitwit randy husband suddenly developed an unseemly obsession for the poor woman!”
“He did seem to like her an awful lot.”
“That’s the understatement of the year,” Edie snorted. “After he started chasing her around like some girl-crazy teenager, she wisely chose to keep her distance from both of us, and so our blossoming friendship was sadly nipped in the bud.”
“What do you think of Ted?” Hayley asked.
Edie frowned, not sure she should go there, but ultimately admitting, “I don’t like him. I found him charming at first, maybe a little distant, but certainly personable. Once Trudy told me what was going on behind the scenes, I paid more careful attention to his personality and I did see flashes—nothing too obvious, but I could tell he could be controlling and easy to anger, but again, on the surface, he was quite lovely.”
“Do you think based on your observations that he might be capable of—?”
“Oh, goodness, you mean do I think he killed his wife? I am hardly qualified to make that kind of assessment. Which is why I’ve told you all this.”
“Me? Why?”
“Given your history in this town, and your track record of exposing people who have done terrible things, I’m hoping you might be able to unmask Ted Lancaster and reveal him to be the truly scary man I believe he might be.”
Hayley was taken aback.
Edie Staples was asking her to prove Ted Lancaster was a cold-blooded killer who had no compunction about offing his wife by trapping her inside her food truck and gassing her to death.
And although her opinion of Edie Staples had always been a bit wobbly, Hayley was ready to accept the challenge.
Chapter 20
After leaving Edie, Hayley raced in her car over to the police station, swerving into an empty space in the parking lot across the street. As she dashed toward the nondescript brick building, her phone buzzed, and she glanced at the screen to see it was Gemma calling. She didn’t answer, intending to call her right back just as soon as she found Sergio and related the information Edie Staples had just confided to her about the Lancasters.
As she hurried up the stone stairs, the door flew open and Sergio barreled out with Officer Earl close on his heels.
“Sergio, just the man I came to see!” Hayley said, awkwardly blocking his exit on the steps.
“Sorry, Hayley, I can’t talk now!” he shouted, almost roughly pushing past her as he and Earl, who was already huffing and puffing from trying to keep up with his more athletic boss, rushed to the police cruiser parked in front of the station.
Hayley whipped around and chased after them. “But I have some important information regarding the Trudy Lancaster case!”
“It will have to wait,” Sergio called back. “Joanna Liscomb was driving her son, Emory, home from soccer practice at the high school and just hit a Great Black Hawk with her car out on Eagle Lake Road!”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like such a big emergency! This will only take a second!” Hayley cried.
“She killed it! It’s a rare bird! The Maine Audubon Society is going to be up in arms, and I think we may have to report it to the Fish and Wildlife Service!”
Sergio unlocked the driver’s side door of the cruiser with his remote as Officer Earl circled around to the other side and jumped in the passenger seat.
“What about Joanna and her son?”
Sergio stopped, turned to Hayley. “They’re both fine. Her Ford Escape has a cracked windshield, though. But we need to get out there and make a report.”
Hayley heard a pinging sound coming from her phone. Gemma had left a voice-mail message. She made a mental note to listen to it after she was done talking to Sergio.
Sergio slid behind the wheel of the cruiser and fired it up. Hayley rapped on the window. He grimaced, annoyed by her persistence, and pressed the button that lowered the driver’s side window. “Hayley, I’m sorry, but we really have to go—”
“The Lancasters were having marital problems!” she blurted out. “Edie Staples told me. Apparently Trudy was depressed about it and was even taking medication.”
Sergio nodded, indifferent. “Okay, thanks.”
He then turned the wheel, steering the cruiser away from the curb toward the street. Hayley found herself running alongside, her hand gripping the car door to keep up. “You don’t sound very surprised.”
“I’m not,” he said, looking up at Hayley, who was now jogging next to him as the cruiser slowly moved down the street. “Now, will you let go so I can get to the scene of the accident?”
“I thought you’d at least be mildly curious. I mean, Ted is acting so broken up over losing Trudy, what if it’s all an act? Don’t you find that highly suspicious?”
“Yes, and I’m on it. I already knew they were having issues in their marriage,” Sergio said.
“How? Did Edie already tell you?”
“No, I got my hands on some court papers. Trudy Lancaster filed for divorce from her husband on the day she died.”
Hayley gasped, stunned.
Even Officer Earl raised an eyebrow, surprised. “No kidding?”
Sergio shot him a look to stay out of it.
“The same day?” Hayley said, wheezing.
“Yes, don’t worry, Hayley, I’m taking this case seriously, now will you please let go? Joanna Liscomb is distraught enough over killing an endangered species and really needs my help right now.”
Hayley released her grip on the car door and Sergio, without wanting to risk her trying to stop him again, sped off, rounding the corner onto Mount Desert Street and disappearing from view.
Hayley was left standing in the middle of the street, her mouth open in shock as she processed this revelation. Trudy was unhappy and wanted out of her marriage. Hayley had definitely not seen that coming. Trudy had gone to such great lengths along with Ted of presenting themselves as the picture-perfect happy couple to the community. Ted probably needed that stable image in order to ensure his smooth transition into his new role of minister at the Congregational church. What if Trudy threatened to ruin everything by leaving him? A nasty divorce would not have been a good look for the new clergyman in town. Ted appeared to be very good at presenting himself as the blissfully content husband. That obviously was an act. And it was entirely possible that he was also fully capable of acting the part of the now-grieving husband. After all, in a way, ministers are performers too.
Suddenly Hayley feared that Ted Lancaster might have gone to extreme lengths to stop the town from finding out that his marriage to Trudy was about to blow up in his face.
Hayley’s phone buzzed again.
It was a text from Gemma.
I need to talk to you!
First a voicemail and now a text within the span of just a few minutes. Hayley was officially concerned something was wrong. She was about to listen to the voicemail when she received another text.
It’s an emergency!
Hayley didn’t bother listening to the voicemail. She immediately called her daughter back.
Gemma answered the call on the first ring. “Mom, where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you!”
“I know, I was busy. I’m sorry.”
“The most terrible thing has happened!”
Hayley’s heart sank. “Oh no. What?”
“Conner just proposed to me!”
Chapter 21
After speeding home and nearly swerving her Kia into a lamppost to avoid mowing down a black cat darting across the street, Hayley peeled into her driveway so fast she thought she might have left skid marks on the pavement. Rushing into the house, Hayley found Gemma in an agitated state, pacing back and forth in the living room. She dramatically threw her arms up in the air as her eyes fell upon her mother.
“What took you so long?”
“I got here in seven minutes flat! I nearly killed a black cat on the way, I was driving so fast! I guess I should be grateful I’m not Joanna Liscomb. At least I didn’t hit a rare bird!”
“What on earth are you talking about, Mother?”
“Nothing! It doesn’t matter! Where’s Conner?”
“I sent him out to the store. I told him I’m making an authentic Bangladeshi beef curry, and needed cumin.”
“That sounds delicious. Are you really making it?”
“No, I made it up in the moment to get him out of the house so we could talk. I don’t know what I’ll do when he sits down at the table and I serve him leftover lasagna from the other night.”
“We’ll figure something out.”
“I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” Gemma wailed.
“Just like that poor Great Black Hawk.”
“Why do you keep talking about birds, Mother?”
“I’m sorry, I suddenly can’t seem to get the image out of my head. Forget it. Tell me what happened with Conner.”