Crime & Punctuation

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  The signs themselves were a good indicator of increasing prosperity. One of the new businesses in the village was a state-of-the-art sign company. Their prices were high, but the results were stunning, large and durable and featuring easy-to-read lettering and clever graphics.

  Only last week, the local newspaper reported that the town had approved spending nearly fifty thousand dollars to hire a public relations firm to market it as an ideal location to establish a small business. The new casino might have been awarded to another municipality, but Lenape Hollow was centrally located in the county and therefore well placed for economic growth. All in all, the future looked promising. Next time I went downtown, I would definitely take pictures.

  The only place I was not prepared to share in photos was my house. There was a good reason for that. I was on the front porch with my laptop, at least in part because the room I intended to use as an office was not yet fit for human occupation. Although I was able to do some home repairs myself, there was too much that needed to be fixed for me to tackle it all. I meant to limit my activities to the small upstairs room where I’d already ripped up moldy carpeting to reveal a scarred wooden floor.

  There were days—too many of them lately—when I wished I hadn’t impulsively bought the house. On others, though, when I awoke full of optimism about the foreseeable future, I knew I had made the right decision.

  You’ve got everything under control, I told myself. Now get to work!

  I opened the attachment my very first client, a woman in Virginia, had sent that morning. It was the newest version of a short story she’d been working on for several weeks. The last time around I’d made suggestions for punching up the ending. I was curious to see if she’d taken my advice, but I’d only read the first two pages before I was distracted by the sound of a car pulling into my driveway.

  Lenape Hollow rises on both sides of the main street of the village. My property is on the uphill side of Wedemeyer Terrace, with the house on higher ground than the garage. Since the porch railings are high and solid, I could see only the roof of the vehicle from my present position.

  I stayed where I was, curious but unalarmed. I’d had several visitors since I moved in, mostly old friends from high school.

  A car door slammed. A moment later, I heard the clump of footsteps as someone climbed the three steps cut into the side of the terrace and started along the flagstone sidewalk that ran the entire width of the porch before it reached an entrance. I could see the top of a head—no hat and thick, rust-colored hair—but its owner didn’t notice me. I saw him pause to check the house number before mounting the five wooden steps leading onto the porch.

  When he hove into view, I was able to measure him against the height of the door frame. He was slightly over six feet tall and in good physical condition. He wore dress slacks, a blazer, and a loosely knotted tie. As I watched, he approached the front door and peered through the screen into the hallway. Since no one was visible, he looked to his right, located the bell button, and was about to jab it when I spoke.

  “May I help you?”

  His head swiveled in my direction, showing me a craggy, suntanned face dominated by a beak of a nose and piercing dark brown eyes. At a guess he was in his mid-thirties.

  “Michelle Lincoln?” he asked.

  The deep voice went well with the rest of the package. If I’d been forty years younger and the heroine of a romance novel, I’d have been instantly smitten. The man even had a cleft in his chin!

  “That’s right.” Did I sound a trifle breathless?

  The table holding my laptop, Tiffany’s manuscript, and an assortment of old-fashioned writing paraphernalia was lightweight. I moved it out of my way and started to stand.

  “Don’t get up.” Four long strides brought him to my side before I subsided. He held out his identification. “I’m Detective Hazlett with the Lenape Hollow Police Department.”

  My heart stuttered as I stared at his credentials. More bad news? Hadn’t I had enough of that lately to last a lifetime?

  The feeling of panic lasted only a moment. This visit could have nothing to do with anyone near or dear to me. All of them—my sister-in-law, her husband, their two kids and their spouses, and Allie’s three grandbabies—were safe in Maine. My cell phone, on the table next to my laptop, hadn’t rung all morning. I had the laptop set to ping if an email came in. Anyone trying to reach me would have had no trouble getting through.

  I tamped down my irrational fears and studied his badge and photo carefully before nodding to indicate that I’d seen enough. Another worry niggled at me during the few seconds it took him to put his ID away. What if he asked me for proof of identity? I hadn’t yet traded in my Maine driver’s license for one from the state of New York. All the information on the old one was out of date, even weight and hair color. What if there was a deadline to register my car in New York? Had I inadvertently broken the law?

  Without waiting for an invitation, the detective appropriated the mate to my chair. He reached into another pocket and this time came up with what looked like one of my brand new business cards. It was hard to be certain. It was inside a see-through evidence envelope, but it had the bedraggled appearance of something that had been forgotten in a pocket and gone through the wash.

  “Oh, my,” I whispered. “This can’t be good.”

  “You recognize the card?” He held it closer, and I nodded.

  “It’s one of mine. I’ve just started a new business.” I had to pause to clear a lump in my throat. “I’ve mailed a few of those to clients in other states, but here in Lenape Hollow I’ve only given out one, to a woman named Tiffany Scott. Is she . . . has something happened to her?”

  His eyes narrowed. “It would be best if you let me ask the questions, Ms. Lincoln.”

  I couldn’t blame him for being circumspect. In spite of the fact that I’d grown up in Lenape Hollow, I’d been gone a long time. He didn’t know me, and—let’s face it—outsiders are always the first to be suspected when something goes wrong in a small town.

  “When did you give Ms. Scott your card?” he asked.

  “Monday. Three days ago.”

  “Can you elaborate on the circumstances?”

  “She brought me this printout of her novel.” I indicated the manuscript. “She hired me to help her get it ready for publication.”

  “That’s what you do? Fix other people’s writing?”

  I nodded. “I’m a freelance editor.”

  He glanced at the bedraggled card. “Write Right Wright?”

  If I’d been younger, I’d have blushed. Instead, I kept my voice level and unapologetic. “I needed a catchy name for my business, and the Grammar Guru was already taken.”

  “So, Ms. Scott wrote a novel?” Detective Hazlett’s brow furrowed as he scribbled in the small, spiral-bound notebook he’d removed from yet another pocket.

  “That’s right. She wrote it, and then she hired me to edit it.”

  “You mean fix her grammar? Catch typos?”

  “That’s one of the services I offer. She wants developmental and line editing as well—in simplest terms, someone to check her story for consistency and to point out areas that might benefit from revision.”

  Along with my business cards, I’d had flyers printed to describe the three kinds of editing I was prepared to do. I’d included a list of fees and a disclaimer to make clear that I could not be hired to rewrite someone’s book. There was also a mini-biography designed to impress potential clients with my expertise. I located one of the flyers in the pile of papers on the table and handed it over.

  “How did she find you?”

  “Online. I have a website. She saw I was local. The personal contact seemed important to her. As a rule, I wouldn’t expect to deal with walk-in clients, but I have no objection to them. She came by. We talked about her book, signed a contract, and I took down her contact information. She left the manuscript with me. We arranged to meet again next week.”

&nb
sp; Detective Hazlett took a moment to skim my leaflet. “Much call for this?” he asked.

  “Not here in Lenape Hollow, no.” When he said nothing but still looked doubtful, I found myself compelled to fill the void. “I taught language arts to seventh- and eighth-graders until I was sixty-five. Unfortunately, my retirement income doesn’t stretch far enough to cover the repairs I need to make on this house. To cover the difference, I set up shop as a freelance editor.”

  Detective Hazlett put away his notebook and eyed Tiffany’s manuscript. “What’s it about?”

  I hesitated, unsure how to answer. Why had I put off reading the book? I knew little more now than I had on Monday. “It’s a murder mystery set in the 1930s.”

  “Nothing . . . controversial?”

  “I wouldn’t say so, no. Historical mysteries are quite popular with readers, and I—”

  “I’ll be taking this with me, if you don’t mind. I’ll give you a receipt.”

  I did mind, but I was hardly in a position to argue. Strictly speaking, the manuscript didn’t belong to me. I waited a beat.

  “How, exactly, did you acquire the business card I gave to Ms. Scott?”

  He sent me a long, level look before answering. “It was on her person when we found her. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Lincoln, but your client is deceased.”

  I had been afraid he was going to say something like that. It hadn’t seemed likely he’d have one of her possessions any other way.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Was it a car accident?” The day I met her, she had driven away in a sporty red convertible.

  “No,” he said as he handed over the promised receipt and scooped up Tiffany’s manuscript. “We are investigating the possibility that she was murdered.”

  Chapter 3

  An hour after Detective Hazlett dropped his bombshell and left, I was still too agitated to settle. Unable to go back to work, I gathered up my laptop and papers and carried them into the house. Calpurnia opened one eye when I deposited everything on the dinette table. She was curled up on a cushion on the wooden bench seat my father built many years ago to go over the radiator beneath the double window. The bench looked shabby now, the paint faded and the grill that allowed heat to rise so rusty that I feared it was about to disintegrate.

  “Don’t get up,” I said to the cat.

  Taking me at my word, Calpurnia closed her eye.

  This time, talking to a cat did nothing to ease my stress and confusion. Consulting my late husband, who had also been my best friend, was no longer an option. The gloomy thoughts I normally kept at bay saw an opening and flooded into my mind—doubts, regrets, sorrow . . . anger. In my mind’s eye, I saw the house we’d shared in Maine. Tears welled up as I remembered how unbearable it had been to live there alone.

  My husband and I had been married for forty-five years when he up and died on me. For forty of those years, we’d lived on twenty-five acres of land on the outskirts of a small Maine village. We had no close neighbors, but that had never been a problem for us. We enjoyed our solitude and each other’s company. He took care of the heavy-duty chores like plowing our long, steep driveway and fixing things when they broke. I put meals on the table, did the laundry, and, with varying degrees of thoroughness, took care of the rest of the housework. We’d been anticipating a long, relaxing retirement during which we would have time to pursue new hobbies and travel a bit.

  So much for carefully laid plans!

  I slammed my fist on the table, making the papers jump. The pain brought me out of my funk.

  “Get a grip,” I said aloud. “There were practical reasons to leave.”

  I’m relatively fit for my age, but I’ve never had much in the way of muscles. The idea of fending for myself, especially through a long, bitter winter, had been daunting. I suppose I could have learned how to drive the John Deere tractor with the snow blower attachment, but to be perfectly frank, I had no desire to be that self-sufficient.

  I’d considered various options, everything from finding an apartment in one of the nearby towns—walking distance from post office, bank, and the local Food City—to buying a condo in Florida. Then an invitation to my fiftieth high school reunion arrived in the mail.

  I hadn’t given much thought to Lenape Hollow for decades. My parents moved to another town at the same time I left to start college, so I’d never gone back for holidays. Two weeks after I received my bachelor’s degree, I was married in the college chapel. Since my husband was a native Mainer, that’s where we settled. The only time the Empire State had been on my radar after that was when the Red Sox played the Yankees. Having been raised by a loyal fan of the Dodgers—before dem bums left Brooklyn—I had no difficulty picking which team to root for.

  Once I decided to attend my reunion, curiosity got the better of me. I looked up the local newspaper online. Almost the first thing I saw was a real estate ad for a very familiar house.

  So, here I was, starting over. Today that depressed the heck out of me.

  Rather than stay home and brood about death—Tiffany’s or my husband’s—I grabbed my keys and I headed for my friend Darlene’s house.

  When I pulled into her driveway, I saw that her van was in the garage, although her husband’s car was missing. Frank Uberman had been in the class ahead of us in high school. Darlene had married him while they were still in college.

  She had given me her house key when I first moved back to Lenape Hollow. I used it, but I stopped just inside the front door to call out a greeting.

  “In the kitchen,” came the answering shout.

  I made my way from the entry hall through her spacious living room and equally large dining room, steering around a laundry basket full of clean, folded clothing that had been abandoned in the middle of the floor of the former and a mobility scooter tricked out with all the latest amenities that nearly blocked the door from the latter into a cheerful, sunlit kitchen.

  The battery was missing, and I didn’t see the bag Darlene kept it in when she wasn’t using the scooter, so I assumed it was being recharged. All in all, that was an excellent sign. So was finding Darlene standing in front of the stove, stirring something that smelled deliciously of tomatoes, garlic, and onions.

  “You’re having a good day.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, shrugging as she did so. “So-so. Don’t fuss. It won’t kill me to be on my feet for a while.”

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  It had come as a shock to return to Lenape Hollow and discover that one of my closest friends from high school, Darlene Uberman, née Misner, suffered from arthritis so severe and in so many joints that she’d been forced to take early retirement from her job as head librarian at the Lenape Hollow Memorial Library. On her best days, she could walk without so much as a cane for balance. On her worst, she could barely get out of bed. How much she was hurting depended upon the weather and the effectiveness of the meds she took for pain.

  Over the years, she’d accumulated the full assortment of mobility aids. When she had to “walk” a considerable distance or simply wanted to save her strength, she used the scooter, what she liked to call “motorized transport.” At other times she relied upon her cane, her walker, or a lightweight wheelchair. Fortunately, she could still drive a car, giving her an additional degree of independence, but she was obliged to rely on others for the heavy lifting.

  Darlene’s physical challenges had made her look older than she was. Chronic pain etched lines into her face, but they were right next to others that came from frequent smiles.

  We’d started life very similar in appearance—brown hair, blue eyes, average height and build, although at five-foot-seven I’d ended up being two inches taller than she was. That had equalized with age. I’d shrunk a bit since senior year in high school, and Darlene now wore orthopedic shoes that gave her an additional inch.

  As usual, she was perfectly turned out. She’d always been a Rembrandt when it came to applying makeup so that it lo
oked as if she wasn’t wearing any at all. She probably hadn’t needed to. Boyfriends called her eyes “cornflower” blue while mine, partially hidden behind glasses, never made it past an ordinary and uninteresting adjective, usually “pale” or “light.” Darlene had a cute, albeit snub, nose. Mine was just a little too long. Even now, I envied her stylishly coiffed, fluffy white hair and her ability to make anything she wore look good. Today she was clad in jeans and a sweatshirt. I can dress in my best, freshly pressed and pristine, and within five minutes, I look as if I’ve slept in my clothes. Don’t even talk to me about scarves! No matter how I tie them, they just hang there, limp and unflattering, feedbag instead of fashionable.

  At around age fifty, such things stopped bothering me, although I still noticed them. I gave up trying to impress other people with my appearance. I never wore much makeup to begin with, so it wasn’t hard to give that up. I let my hair grow long as, gradually, it turned from brown to the sort of gray that, in some lighting, makes me look like a blonde. I wear it shoulder length, with bangs, in contrast to Darlene’s short hairdo. The style would do a good job of hiding my hearing aids if I didn’t habitually tuck it behind my ears.

  These days Darlene and I do have one thing in common. We’ve both . . . filled out since high school. I refer to my build as “sturdy.” She maintains she’s twice the woman she used to be—literally. The weight doesn’t help her arthritis, but I ask you, how on earth is she supposed to lose pounds when she can’t walk any great distance, let alone jog or work out at a gym? Still, from what I observed at our fiftieth high school reunion, we were both aging a lot more gracefully than at least half of our classmates.

  “Where’s Frank?” I asked as I settled in at Darlene’s kitchen table.

  “Playing golf. Where else?” She gave the contents of the pot a last stir with a wooden spoon, turned, and got her first good look at my face. Her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”