The Body in the Boat

by Ami Diane

  Through the windows, the sky had shifted to a greenish gray. The scent of a coming storm rode on the breeze each time the doors opened. Ella didn’t mind accumulation in the form of snow—loved it, actually—but being from the Willamette Valley, she’d seen enough rain to last her a lifetime. She also feared seeing it might deepen her ache of homesickness.

  As they settled into their chairs, Rose nudged Ella’s ribs. “He’s right there.”

  The inventor strolled through one of the side doors. His eyes locked on Ella’s, and his mouth quirked to the side.

  While he approached, Rose managed to finagle another seat. Rather than let Will slip into the now-vacated seat next to Jimmy, the innkeeper hissed for her husband to scoot down. She made everyone shift awkwardly in a fanfare of noise and grunting that attracted many stares until there was an empty space next to Ella.

  For her part, Ella did her best to stare at the ceiling and pretend she didn’t know any of them.

  “Swell,” Will said, sinking to the chair, “a seat just so happened to open up next to you. I wonder how that happened.” His voice dripped with uncharacteristic sarcasm, and they both shot Rose daggers.

  “Yeah, sorry. Cupid there isn’t exactly discreet. Glad you made it, though. How’s the project coming?”

  “I’m almost finished.” He slipped off his fedora and slide the brim through his fingers, a nervous habit she’d noticed. “I got caught up fixing a heater for Horatio, though.”

  Being the town’s only inventor also made him the town’s go-to handyman.

  “I really didn’t want to miss tonight’s discussion. They’re supposed to be addressing the town’s energy crisis. Where’s Wink?”

  Ella caught a whiff of his aftershave as he craned his head around. It smelled of cedar and something earthy and heady, reminding her of the forest.

  “Probably still picking arborvitae from her clothes.” Ella let out a long-suffering sigh. “Hey, have you noticed anything strange with her?”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “Good point. It’s just, she’s been acting funny all week. Very… preoccupied. She ruined two loaves of bread on Friday, and yesterday she almost dusted lye over the powdered donuts. It made me wary to fly with her this morning. I mean, other than the whole, dangling several hundred feet in the air by a thin piece of fabric thing.”

  Beside her, Flo grunted, apparently eavesdropping on the conversation. “Well, she’s over there. Ask her yourself.” She tipped her tower of hair towards the front.

  Ella spotted Grandma Wink’s blue coif in the front row. Her head was bent in what appeared to be a heated conversation with the professor. Her pet squirrel, Chester, sat on her shoulder in hand-knit lederhosen. His nose twitched in the air, most likely sniffing out the varieties of perfumes and dinner crumbs on the townspeople.

  Ella’s eyebrows pinched together, wondering what her boss was doing up front—and sitting beside the professor.

  Sal—who owned Sal’s Barbershop, was the unofficial Keystone weatherman, and now acting mayor—stepped up to the microphone.

  The room filled with several heavy thuds followed by a screech of feedback as he tapped the mic. “Hello? We ready to start?”

  He craned his head around to the council members sitting on the short stage behind him. The seven members faced the audience and wore tight expressions that could only look more sour if they sucked on actual lemons.

  Sal faced the audience again and cracked a smile that reminded Ella of a deranged clown. His voice was as greasy as his slicked-back hair as he called the meeting to order.

  Her mind and eyes wandered as the council conducted old business. Someone had dumped their garbage in the alley on F street, and it had attracted the local wildlife. A local trapper-turned-butcher from the 1800s had been out with a 20-gauge shotgun target practicing on the critters. As disturbing as the mental image was, Ella made a mental note to ask Wink where the diner’s meat came from.

  Ella tuned them out when the name-calling began, and she noticed Sheriff Chapman lingering in the back. He leaned against the wall, his face void of any emotion. He caught her gaze and dipped his chin in a greeting. Ella pressed a small smile in return and turned her attention back to the stage.

  Her attention turned back to Sal. A moment later, he settled the microphone into the stand and opened the floor to discuss new business.

  In the audience, a man with long hair and fur stood. Ella recognized him as one of the Norsemen-possible-Vikings she’d spotted in the forest earlier.

  She leaned forward, her eyes widening. The guy was massive with very little fat to speak of. If there was a town gym nearby, she hadn’t seen it. She wondered what he did for a workout.

  “Here we go.” Flo bounced in her seat like a giddy three-year-old.

  The room stilled. Ella could scarcely breathe, not wanting to miss a single syllable. And syllables they were.

  The man released a diatribe that went on for several minutes in a language that piqued her linguistic ear. It was reminiscent of Icelandic, but the first syllable of each word was stressed. Occasionally, he’d stab a finger at a council member with one hand while the other caressed the sword at his hip.

  At one point, Ella looked over at Will, her eyebrows rising towards her hair.

  He shook his head, whispering, “He does this sometimes, and no one ever knows what he’s saying.”

  Flo teetered on the edge of her chair. “Would you look at that sword? Where do you think he got it?”

  “Oh, no. You do not need one. Besides, do you know how much those things weigh?” Her experience around Flo with a weapon was limited to a single incident involving a Tommy Gun, but that had been enough for Ella to realize the older woman should never be around anything even remotely resembling a weapon.

  The man in fur ended his rant with a grunt and sat back down. People shuffled in their chairs, glancing at their neighbors.

  Sal cleared his throat. “Okay…” He drew out the last syllable. “Thank you, Leif.”

  He only had a moment to fumble with the mic stand before a squat man with a shiny pate lumbered forward. It seemed what hair had receded from atop his head had traveled to his eyebrows.

  A woman sat beside the seat he’d just left. Her lips were pinched together, and her eyes squinted in a permanent scowl below hooded lids. Broad shoulders pulled at her floral dress, making Ella wonder again about a gym, as the woman slouched deeper into her chair.

  Up front, the man was forced to twist the mic down to catch his voice. He looked over the audience with beady eyes. “As most of you know, I’m Stan Tanner.”

  In front of Ella, the obnoxiously tall hat and the woman it perched on shifted, and she had a direct-line-of-sight to Wink. The older woman’s body language became agitated, and she dipped her blue head in conversation with the professor again.

  “As you all may know,” Stan continued, “Keystone is in the midst of an energy shortage—”

  Whispers rippled through the room like the rustle of fallen leaves. Stan held a hand up until the church stilled again.

  “Right now, we’re having to cannibalize electricity that’s been allocated to our infrastructure to power homes. We cannot afford to lose any more. As it stands, Keystone’s wind farm is producing at only thirty percent capacity. When we built it, we calculated it at fifty percent.”

  A wave of whispers flowed through before ebbing again.

  “Therefore, I’d like to propose building and installing sixteen more wind turbines. According to my calculations, this will give us just enough to cover the town’s needs.”

  The whispers turned into a hum, and voices spilled out of the audience.

  “How much of a shortage we talkin’?”

  “Where would you put ‘em?”

  “I don’t think we’re there, yet,” Sal the barber said, stepping closer to the microphone. He ran a hand over his smooth hair. “As acting mayor, I think we should consider other options before we extend our l
imited resources to—”

  “Like what?” Stan turned a hard expression on him.

  “Pardon?”

  “What other options should we consider?”

  “Like…” Sal’s liquid eyes roamed the ceiling for help. “Like, reducing consumption. We could even have one day a week where we only power the essentials. Water, the greenhouses, you know.”

  “Brownout? Won’t be enough.”

  In the front row, Wink shook her head. Somewhere on the far side of the church, a man in mud-caked overalls stood. “Don’t believe anything this dirty, rotten scoundrel says.”

  “You have something to say, Jonas?” Sal’s expression filled with relief.

  “Speak up,” someone in the back yelled. “We can’t hear you.”

  Jonas strode to the front. He was at least a head and a half taller than Stan, whose eyes had narrowed to slits.

  Jonas elbowed Stan aside and bent over the mic. “This man here is a snake and a liar. Don’t believe anything he says. When he negotiated to put his wind farm on my land, he promised to drill me a well that tapped into the aquifer under the town.

  “But what’s he done? Stalled my permits. Lost half my crop of corn. What this half-wit fails to understand is, it ain’t just me who suffers when my crops fail. It’s all of us. Now, all I can grow is potatoes. I hope you all like fries, ‘cause that’s all we’re getting for the next several months.”

  The room buzzed with electric conversation. Stan squeezed back to the mic, anger flashing over his face.

  “That’s an exaggeration. He’s twisting my words. If you’re going to tarnish my name and throw accusations, you’d better get your facts straight.” He glared at Jonas.

  The farmer’s biceps flenched, but despite the visible size difference, Stan had more gumption than Ella would’ve expected and he didn’t back down.

  “It’s true I denied his request for more water, but that’s because I did some calculations. At the time, we only had just enough power for the town. Devoting even a small portion of that for his pumps was simply not an option.”

  “It wouldn’t take but another turbine!”

  Stan’s head now looked like the top of a swim cap. He pulled out a handkerchief and swiped it over his forehead. “That’s simply not true, but your peanut brain can’t grasp the intricacies of how electricity—”

  “Fine. I’ll just make an irrigation ditch from the lake to my farm.”

  The room erupted with protests. Jonas held up his hands, yelling over the crowd. “Well, we gotta have crops. What do you want me to do?”

  Ella glanced over at the woman she presumed to be Stan’s wife. Her eyes were down as she stared at her feet, her mouth still pressed in a thin line.

  “How many can you even put on there, anyway?” Jonas yelled at Stan.

  “What’s it to you? It’s not like the expansion will be on your property!”

  The acting mayor’s voice was nearly lost as he asked, “Just where are you proposing to install these new turbines, Mr. Tanner?”

  Stan dabbed at his caterpillar-brows with the handkerchief. “Well, like I said. Adding sixteen new turbines to our grid would get us just by if we continue operating under our current consumption. But you know how the output of the turbine can be more or less, depending on whatever crumby climate we’re in—”

  “Man asked you a question,” the farmer grunted.

  Stan glared at him. “I’m getting to that. My proposed location will produce at a higher capacity, giving us more than adequate amounts. We won’t have to worry about brownouts or the greenhouses, and Jonas can have his stupid well.”

  “Mr. Tanner,” a councilwoman interrupted from the stage, “where are you proposing to build these new turbines?”

  Stan shifted on his feet. “Twin Hills.”

  The room erupted. It took several minutes for the acting mayor to restore order, and when he managed, there were still ripples of whispers.

  Ella glanced on either side of her to see matching expressions on both Flo and Will, then she stared ahead at her boss’s blue hair. No wonder Wink had been acting funny at work, pushing Ella to hang glide.

  “Is there even enough room on the hills?” someone from the audience asked.

  Stan nodded. “I’ve already begun negotiations with several property owners. And as some of you may know, the town owns part of the hills. But as it stands, we can only build eight of the sixteen turbines. However, if the council were to approve this expansion, then we could build all of them.”

  Jonas ripped the mic away. “Are you proposing that the town approves you trespassing onto other people’s property to build your stupid farm?”

  Stan’s face reddened. “We wouldn’t have to demolish houses or anything. But I’m suggesting that if we built on the private properties—”

  “Without their consent, right?” Jonas said. His face had also reddened but to an angry violet. “That’s really what you’re asking the committee to decide on. ‘Cause I guarantee, you won’t get all the folks who live up there to allow you to pitch your gaudy turbines on their property.”

  Stan looked back at the council members, all of whom suddenly became more interested in the table in front of them.

  “I think,” Stan said, snatching the microphone back, “that ours is a unique situation outside the confines of the law. We are our own, independent governing body now, separate from the country. If we don’t have enough electricity, then the crops in our greenhouses die, and we’ll starve. How concerned will you be of the seizing of property then?”

  A pregnant silence filled the sanctuary.

  Grandma Wink jumped to her feet, sending Chester tumbling to her chair. He chattered angrily at her. “You won’t be building on my property!”

  “It would hardly take up any space, Pearl.” A hint of exasperation tinged Stan’s voice. They’d clearly had this conversation before. The way he looked down his nose at Wink gave Ella the urge to run up and deck his head into the next week.

  “It won’t? Where would the substation go?”

  Stan’s mouth worked back and forth, but no words came out.

  “My husband built that house with his own two hands, God rest his soul. I will not see our home tainted by one of those things.”

  Ella looked sideways at Flo who was too preoccupied nipping a sip from the flask in her purse to notice. Wink had never mentioned being married.

  “Those things, as you call them, are the reason you have hot water and lights and heat enough for that varmint you call a pet.”

  Sal held his hands up, stepping in. Behind him, the council members shifted in their seats.

  “We should vote on this,” someone called out. A few murmurs of approval popped up.

  “I’d like to say one last thing,” Stan said. Sal acquiesced and stepped back. Stan’s expression was hard, and the light shifted in the church as the world outside dimmed even more from the incoming storm. “I have started a petition in support of the expansion. I suspect there are those out there who may be too afraid to voice their opinions but are smart enough to know I’m right. If we don’t do something soon, we’re talking brownouts, rolling blackouts…” He let the sentence die as he folded his handkerchief. “I’ll be standing by the backdoor collecting signatures. If you wish for anonymity, you may stop by my home at any time. I highly recommend you sign—unless you like the dark ages.”

  “And what about my water?” Jonas spat. Stan startled as if forgetting the farmer was still up there.

  “Yes, well… I’ll see what I can do.”

  Jonas’s jaw twitched as he crossed his arms over his overalls, his eyes full of hate for the stubby man in front of him.

  CHAPTER 3

  “THAT was an interesting meeting last night,” Ella said, stirring the cream in her coffee until it was the color of caramel. “I mean, no one got hurt this time, so a little dull, but the topics discussed were a bit concerning.”

  Rose nodded in agreement. She sat at the kitc
hen table with Ella, sipping the dark roast. A pin curl wound around her forehead.

  “Did you get a chance to talk to Wink afterward?” Ella asked.

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  The night before, Wink had slipped out, deep in conversation with the professor.

  “What was up with her and the professor? Are they an item now?” Ella tried to imagine the free-spirited lady with the stiff, no-nonsense man. It didn’t fit.

  Rose coughed into her coffee. “Lord have mercy, no.”

  Ella replaced her coffee for a croissant and chewed the buttery, fluffy pastry, wondering why Wink hadn’t mentioned being married before. They had only known each other a little over three weeks, so it wasn’t like she was expecting to know her life story. Still, she thought something like that should’ve come up.

  After changing into the mess of pink gingham that was her waitress uniform, Ella scratched Fluffy on the head then rushed out the front door. Her sneakers slapped over the worn garden path as she walked the few yards to the railcar diner next door.

  Ella stopped short. Stan stood outside Grandma’s Kitchen, clipboard in hand. A woman stood beside him with a matching clipboard that dwarfed her petite frame.

  Rolling her shoulders back, Ella approached the diner.

  “Good morning.” She used her customer service voice while making sure her expression told them to “get lost.”

  Skirting them, she aimed for the door, but Stan stepped in her path.

  “‘Morning. Can you sign our petition?” His face scrunched into something resembling a smile. Ella looked from him to the waif-like woman next to him who’d bowl over in a good breeze. “Our town is in desperate need of more power. And we’d like to expand the wind farm—”

  “I heard. I was at the meeting last night.” Maybe it was the fact that she’d only had one cup of coffee, but Ella’s patience dwindled with each passing second. He was barring her entrance from work—and more coffee.

  “Perfect. Then you know how important this is.” He shoved the clipboard under her nose. Beside him, the woman sniffed and picked at her nail.