Then, at the end of the summer, a man named MacArthur Payne had bought the North Country Academy and the place had been reborn as what Reid liked to call a “therapeutic school.” Frank, who hadn’t mastered political correctness, referred to it as “that high-priced private reform school.”
“So Matthew’s going to the North Country Academy for organ lessons, huh,” he said. "What’ll they do if he doesn’t practice—lock him up?”
Reid glared at him. “Frank, that’s a very unfair remark. You—”
"Joking, I was joking!” Geez, Reid had really lost his sense of humor over this place.
“The lessons will be here in the church, where the organ is,” Reid explained. “Plus, Matthew will be able to walk here.”
“His father won’t help out at all,” Ardyth interjected. “He wasn’t going to let Matthew take the lessons until Pastor Bob went and spoke to him. Those poor kids are really struggling without their mom.”
Ardyth had a tendency to dwell on misfortune, while Reid was a determined optimist. “That’s why the organ lessons are such a godsend. And, have you heard about the latest two people to get good jobs at the academy? Lorrie Betz and Ray Stulke.”
Frank’s hand hung suspended over the Danish tray. Lorrie had crammed more heartache into thirty years of living than most people manage in a lifetime. And Ray was Trout Run’s foremost blockhead. "What in the world are those two qualified to do at a school? Cleaning?”
“Oh, no. They’re going to be Pathfinders.”
“The only path Ray can find is from his barstool to the john. What kind of position is a Pathfinder?”
“Fine for you to be so cavalier, Frank," Reid said. "You have a good, secure job. Most people in this town aren’t so lucky. We’re losing our young people because there are no opportunities for them here. And with Clyde being so sick, we can’t count on Stevenson’s Lumberyard to continue as our prime employer.”
Reid straightened the lapels of his tweed sports coat. “This town needs to diversify. If MacArthur Payne makes a success of this school, it will be a source of good steady work with benefits for years to come. Steady work keeps people out of trouble. You should appreciate that.”
Ardyth studied her shoes as if she’d never seen patent leather before. The thump of the big coffee urn being hauled away broke the uncomfortable silence, and Frank grabbed the opportunity to leave as Ardyth began helping with the cleanup.
He trudged across the green toward his truck, trying to shake off the sting of Reid’s words. Last night's jack- o’-lanterns mocked him, their cheerful gap-toothed grins now transformed into grotesque snarls by the gnawing of hungry squirrels.
Unspoken in Reid’s tirade was the fact that Frank was an outsider who'd taken the position of police chief away from a local. True, the job didn’t pay well enough for a man to support a family. For twenty years his predecessor had combined the police chief’s job with furniture refinishing to make ends meet.
Herv’s retirement had touched off a great debate: increase the pay of the chief’s position and induce a local man to train for the job at the police academy, or abolish it altogether and turn Trout Run’s law enforcement over to the state police. In the middle of the fray, Frank had washed up on the town’s doorstep: a man with twenty years’ experience marred by one big mistake that had forced his resignation, willing to work cheap because he had a decent pension from the Kansas City force. His hiring had been an uneasy compromise, and Frank knew, even though Reid would never be so crass as to remind him, that he had cast the deciding vote in Frank's favor.
Now with a few unguarded wisecracks about the North Country Academy, he’d given Reid the impression that he didn’t care about the fortunes of other people in town as long as his own bread was buttered.
Frank looked up at the towering peak of Mount Marcy in the distance, and the smaller mountains that tumbled toward the town, shutting out the problems of the wider world. If he knew what was good for him, he'd start showing some enthusiasm for the North Country Academy. But really, how excited could he get about a school that imported scores of juvenile delinquents into his jurisdiction?
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Read these other mysteries by S.W. Hubbard:
Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Series
Take the Bait
Blood Knot
Dead Drift
False Cast
Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series
Another Man’s Treasure
Treasure of Darkness
This Bitter Treasure
About the Author
S.W. Hubbard is the author of the Palmyrton Estate Sale Mysteries, Another Man’s Treasure, Treasure of Darkness and This Bitter Treasure. She is also is the author of four Police Chief Frank Bennett mystery novels set in the Adirondack Mountains: Take the Bait, The Lure (originally published as Swallow the Hook), Blood Knot, and False Cast, as well as a short story collection featuring Frank Bennett, Dead Drift. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and the anthologies Crimes by Moonlight, The Mystery Box, and Adirondack Mysteries. She lives in Morristown, NJ, where she teaches creative writing to enthusiastic teens and adults, and expository writing to reluctant college freshmen. To contact her, invite her to your book club, or read the first chapter of any of her books, visit: http://www.swhubbard.net.
Copyright © 2015 S.W. Hubbard
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The Lure: a small town murder mystery (Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Series Book 2) Page 28