“So the fastest time wins?”
“That’s right.”
As they watched, a man using a fireman’s carry lost his footing and dropped his partner. She bounced right back up again and blamed him for the fall. She retaliated by kicking him in the shin. As he hopped up and down, Liss couldn’t hear what he said, but it was easy to guess that he was cussing up a storm. Before the quarrel could escalate further, one of the timekeepers intervened, steering both parties off the course to make way for the next couple.
“Dropping your teammate adds five seconds to your time,” Liss said. “Standing around yelling at each other afterward gets you disqualified.”
“Good thing she was wearing a helmet,” Mac said.
“That’s a requirement. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Have you and Dan ever entered?”
Liss repressed a shudder. “Dan’s big and strong, but I’m not exactly tiny. We wouldn’t have a prayer of winning.”
Her father chuckled. “Be honest. What you’d really object to is being carried in such an undignified position.”
“Not only undignified, but uncomfortable. The fireman’s carry and the piggyback are bad enough, but the most successful teams are usually the ones where the woman is upside down with her arms around her partner’s waist and her legs looped around his neck. Her face ends up nestled against his backside.”
They watched in silence as one such couple loped around the course, avoiding the worst of its perils.
“I have to judge the senior division in about an hour,” Liss said. “Will you be okay working here alone or should I give Dan a call?”
“I’ll be fine. Senior division?”
“Shorter course and older couples. This is the first time we’ve offered it. It was Stu’s idea.”
“Please tell me he didn’t enter.”
The image of short, round Stu Burroughs trying to pick up any female of his acquaintance, let alone carry her more than a step or two, had Liss and Mac grinning at each other.
“I wish we’d had a March Madness Mud Season Sale when I was younger,” Mac said. “The kids, especially, look like they’re having the time of their lives.”
“Would you have tried to persuade Mom to let you carry her?”
“Not a chance. I wouldn’t even have had the nerve to ask her. Charlie, now—”
When he broke off, Liss turned to look at him, a questioning look in her eyes. He’d said very little about his brother, and much of what he had said had been laced with anger. She couldn’t help but be curious.
“You must have a few good memories,” she murmured.
He didn’t glance her way. He didn’t even speak for a long moment. Then he shrugged. “We didn’t have much in common. I wasted a lot of time wishing I could be more like him. Curse of the middle child, I guess. Margaret idolized him. She’d never hear a bad word spoken about him. Once, she even got into a fistfight with one of her classmates over some snarky remark the other girl made about him.”
Liss’s eyebrows shot up. That hadn’t been the impression she’d received from talking to her aunt. “What bad things did people say about Charlie?”
Another long silence answered her.
“Dad?”
“Who remembers after all this time? Let it go, Liss. How do you think it makes me feel, having it come out that he hid from us for fifty years, that he didn’t want his own family to know he was still alive?” He scraped agitated fingers through his hair, leaving one tuft standing on end. “For all we know, he wasn’t MIA in Vietnam at all. He probably deserted.”
“No, Dad. You mustn’t think that. When Mom and I were in Florida, we found proof he left the military with an honorable discharge.” She didn’t mention that it was dated years after Charlie had been reported missing.
“When we were kids,” Mac said after a long pause, “he liked to make fun of me for being a nerd.”
“He bullied you?”
Mac stared through the window at the current competitors in the woman-carrying race, but his thoughts were clearly far away. “I suppose that’s what people would call it these days. ‘Boys will be boys’ is what they said back then. I’d built myself a tree house in our backyard. It wasn’t much more than a platform up in a maple, but it was a place where I could hide out and read. Charlie and his pals took it over and kicked me out. They were the jocks, the big fish in the small puddle. Charlie. Moose. George Campbell. Greaser—I don’t remember his real name.”
“Pete,” Liss said. “Pete Cramer.”
Eyes back in focus, Mac turned to face her. “Now, how on earth do you know that?”
“I read a newspaper article about the fatal car crash he and Charlie were involved in.”
“Then you know they were a wild bunch. They thought they could get away with anything. Things changed after their friend died, but not for the better. That was when Moose Mayfield turned drinking into a vocation. Charlie was just angry all the time, and mean as a snake—at least he was when our parents weren’t around. I was glad when he up and enlisted.” A note of anguish came into his voice when he added, “I hoped he’d get sent to Nam and be killed.”
* * *
Liss stood on the steps of the gazebo, stopwatch in hand, timing the third of the six couples entered in the senior division of the woman-carrying race. The man who trotted past her, his laughing wife riding piggyback, had taken twice as long to reach this point in the course as the previous entrants and was already out of the running.
The next contestants did better. The fifth couple gave up halfway through. The sixth pair, dairy farmer and selectman Wilmot Ranger and his wife, set a new record. Liss was about to announce their win and hand over the trophy when a shout stopped her in her tracks.
“Hold it! One more couple coming through!”
Liss’s eyes widened when she recognized Moose Mayfield. As usual, he’d had more to drink than was wise, and just enough to make him belligerent. Any other day of the week, he’d have backed down the moment his wife objected to what he wanted to do, but not this time.
“C’mon, Dolly,” Moose said. “It’ll be fun.”
In spite of Dolores Mayfield’s sputtered protests, her husband scooped her up, tossed her over his shoulder, and began to weave his way through the muddy course. Dolores let out a shriek of protest. Moose was a big guy, and she wasn’t heavy, but she was almost as tall as he was. Her head, unprotected by a helmet, dipped perilously close to the ground with every step he took.
Liss held her breath. Disaster seemed imminent. Moose’s balance wasn’t very good to start with, and it wasn’t helped by Dolores pounding on his back. When she kicked him with booted feet, he grunted in pain, but didn’t put her down.
A collective moan went up from the spectators when Moose’s foot slipped. Letting go of his wife’s knees, he windmilled his arms in a futile attempt to stay upright. He tottered backward, then forward, causing Dolores to slip off his shoulder and slide down the front of his body. She gave a horrified gasp when his momentum began to push her backward. She twisted sideways, but the maneuver came too late to prevent them from tumbling the rest of the way into the ground. Moose landed heavily, half on top of his wife, his face wholly in a mud puddle, and lay ominously still.
“Get his head out of there before the damned fool drowns,” Stu bellowed.
A handful of locals rushed to assist, Liss among them. Despite her coat and gloves, the cold goo of the course had worked its way up her arms by the time Dolores was upright again.
Shaking off Liss’s support, she rounded on her husband. “This is all your fault, you stupid oaf!” She took ineffectual swipes at the layer of mud caked on her clothing and one side of her face.
Someone handed Liss a towel. She stripped off her gloves and mopped at her sleeves, all the while keeping a cautious eye on both Mayfields.
With help from bystanders, Moose regained his footing. He could stand, but not without swaying. Liss expected him to apologize, or a
t the least look ashamed of himself. Instead, he giggled. The incongruous sound further infuriated his wife.
“My father warned me you were a screwup,” Dolores muttered as she turned her back on her husband.
Moose caught her by the shoulder and swung her around to face him. “Aw, c’mon, Dolly.” His words were slurred, but perfectly audible to anyone within a three-foot radius. “Your old man was a holier-than-thou preacher. He didn’t think anybody was good enough for his little girl.”
Slapping his hand away, she glared at him. “He knew you were a sinner. ‘His sins will find him out.’ That’s what he used to say about you, Roger Mayfield.”
Liss watched in astonishment as every trace of expression vanished from Moose’s face. The big man seemed to shrink into himself. Head down and shoulders hunched, he pushed his way through the nearest onlookers and disappeared into the crowd.
Stu’s quiet voice broke the silence. “Now you’ve gone and hurt his feelings, Dolores.” He sounded as if he felt sorry for Moose.
Dolores sent a fierce glare in his direction. “He’s not the only one who’s hurting.”
Walking with a noticeable limp, she set off toward her house on Upper Lowe Street. Although two or three townspeople tried to talk her into letting them drive her home, she waved off all offers of assistance.
Liss’s first instinct was to follow her and make sure she got home safely, but for the moment she was stuck where she was. She forced herself to smile as she handed the prize in the woman-carrying contest to Mr. and Mrs. Ranger. As soon as she could decently leave the festivities, she retreated to the sanctuary offered by the Emporium.
“Quite a display” was her father’s only comment. “Moose Mayfield always was an impulsive fool.”
* * *
On the day after Moosetookalook’s March Madness Mud Season Sale, all the shopkeepers with businesses around the town square pitched in to help with the cleanup. Following a good night’s sleep and a hearty brunch, Liss and Dan ventured out with rakes and hoes. Their goal was to repair the grassy areas disturbed by the previous day’s sporting events and get the flower beds that lined the paths ready for spring planting.
Just at noon it started to snow.
“Figures.” Liss tipped her her head back and caught a fat snowflake on her tongue.
“Don’t like the weather in Maine?” Dan quipped. “Just wait a minute.”
They kept working until the flurries turned into a snowfall so heavy they could no longer see the municipal building from the center of the town square. One by one, and two by two, the members of the work crew drifted away, heading for the warmth of their own homes. Liss shoved one last section of turf back into place, stomped on it to secure it, and suggested they call it a day.
She walked into the house to find the light on the answering machine blinking furiously.
“Seven calls,” Dan announced, checking the readout. “Three from your folks.”
Liss stamped her feet to get the excess snow off her boots and shrugged out of her jacket. She was in no hurry to talk to her mother. Vi had called three times the previous evening. Overall she’d been happy with the outcome of the indoor yard sale, but, being Vi, she’d also wanted to suggest ways to make the event bigger and better next time around. Liss wasn’t ready to think as far ahead as next week, let alone project a year into the future.
Whether she was braced to listen to the messages or not, Dan pushed the button to play them. The first was from his brother.
“I’m getting a divorce,” Sam said. “Can I move in with you guys?”
“You can go live with Dad,” Dan told the answering machine. There was not an iota of sympathy in his voice.
Liss gaped at him. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
After a pregnant pause Sam’s message continued. “April fool, bro! Did I have you worried?”
The click as he hung up on his end sounded loud in the quiet living room.
“Sam always did have a juvenile sense of humor,” Dan said.
“I’d completely forgotten that today is the first of April.”
“The day after March Madness,” Dan said. “Every damn year.”
And every year, Liss thought ruefully, she fell for some prank or other. She hated thinking of herself as gullible, but she could be too trusting. It would never have occurred to her that someone as upright and honest as Sam Ruskin would deliberately lie about something as serious as divorce.
The second and third messages on the answering machine were nothing more than brief silences followed by hang-ups. More crank calls? Or just wrong numbers? Liss stopped wondering when call number four was an impatient request from her mother to call her back as soon as possible. Five and six were more hang-ups, but Vi’s voice came through loud and clear on number seven.
“Liss, you need to get over to the town office by one o’clock. The board of selectmen is holding a special closed meeting about the water issue. They’re going to sign the deal with Merveilleuse International despite everything they’ve been told.”
Liss stared at the phone. “That’s ridiculous. They’ve seen the evidence against the company. It’s too damning to even think about going forward.”
“Relax, Liss. I bet your mother has fallen for an April Fools’ joke. Either that or someone else did. You know how these things go. One person believes it and tells someone else, and by the time ten people are in the loop, there’s full-blown panic.”
Liss sent him a doubtful look. “Are you sure it’s a false alarm?”
“Look at the facts. By law a board of selectmen isn’t permitted to meet in private. They have to announce their schedule so anyone who wants to can attend.”
Liss knew that was true, but the more she thought about it, the more concerned she became. “Isn’t it possible that the letter, if not the spirit of the law, can be met by posting a notice on the bulletin board in the hallway at the municipal building?”
“I’m pretty sure they have to do that several days ahead of time.”
“I’m going to go check, just to make sure.” She was already shrugging back into her coat and fishing in the pockets for her hat and gloves.
Dan rolled his eyes. “I’ll fix us some lunch while you’re gone.”
“If I’m not back right away, go ahead and eat without me. If there is a meeting, I’ll be staying for it.”
Liss was glad she’d bundled up when she stepped into the teeth of the spring storm. The soft snowflakes that had been falling only a short time ago had morphed into stinging particles of sleet.
She nearly turned back. This was probably a waste of time. Since it was Sunday, she might not even be able to get into the redbrick municipal building unless she went around to the back and used the door closest to the police department.
By the time she’d had that thought, she’d already trudged through the snow as far as Main Street and was close enough to see that there were lights on in the clerk’s office.
Her heart sinking lower with every step, Liss pushed open the front door and walked in. The first thing she saw was the notice posted beside the sliding window that separated the town clerk from the general public. What she’d hoped would turn out to be a harmless April Fools’ gag appeared to be very real indeed.
The meeting was already under way.
She followed the murmur of voices until she came upon the three members of the board of selectmen in a huddle at the conference table in the meeting room.
Thea Campbell looked up to level a cold stare in her direction. “I should have known you’d show up.”
“A little bird told me you were taking a vote today,” Liss said.
“That’s right. You just missed it. We were about to adjourn.” She waited a beat, then managed a grim smile. “Oh, don’t look so stricken. We turned down Merveilleuse International’s offer. The deal is dead.”
John Farley and Wilmot Ranger were already donning heavy coats. On their way out they paused only long enough to thank Liss fo
r her help in resolving the issue. She thought they were sincere, but it was hard to tell. It was impossible to gauge Thea’s mood.
The older woman waited until they were alone before she sank heavily into one of the leather chairs. “I suppose your meddling was worthwhile,” she said in a grudging voice. “The town would have garnered a short-term windfall, but the long-range outlook would not have been good.”
“Forestall has been successful running this scam before,” Liss said. “It’s not surprising that he almost pulled the wool over our eyes.”
“No ‘almost’ about it.” Thea’s tone turned self-deprecating. “The image of lamb to slaughter comes to mind.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? Because I made a fool of myself with a charming but completely insincere man?” She shrugged. “I’ll survive. I suppose, in time, I might even feel grateful toward you. Wade would have shown his true colors eventually. Better to have that happen before we signed away the town’s water rights.”
“Have you seen him again?”
“Briefly. It was not a pleasant encounter. I should warn you that both Wade Udall and Jeremiah Forestall place the blame for the loss of the deal squarely on your shoulders.”
Liss couldn’t hide her reaction. She could almost feel her face drain of color. Naturally, Thea noticed.
“Do you still think someone from Merveilleuse International was behind your uncle’s murder?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I’m counting on the police to figure out if there’s a connection.”
Thea shook her head. “It’s doubtful. Big business doesn’t operate that way.”
“Most businesses don’t lie, cheat, and commit fraud, either.” Liss hoped Udall and Forestall would face charges for their shady business practices, even if they couldn’t be linked to her uncle’s death.
“They’ve cut their losses. They didn’t even wait for today’s vote to leave town. Forestall’s probably back in Switzerland by now.”
A View to a Kilt Page 23