Live Free or Die

by Jessie Crockett

  “Isn’t it strange that with your concern about the museum as well as the favors you and your husband did for Beulah, she gave me the curator job instead of you? Could it be that she thought you were not capable of doing the job? Or was it something else? Didn’t Beulah trust you?” Ethel pursed her magenta lips as she scanned the room, watching her words sink in.

  Feeling the tension in the room made me wonder again whether the fire was as simple as it seemed. Enough animosity existed between Pauline and Ethel to have fueled a raging fire. I could picture Pauline hating Ethel enough to kill her. Had she killed Beulah by accident? Or was it something else after all? Beulah choosing Ethel for the curator job over Pauline had started a lot of speculation.

  “What about you? You bent over backwards to make Beulah like you. Everyone knows it isn’t in your nature to be nice, let alone for no reason. What were you up to?” Pauline made a good point. Ethel didn’t douse her cereal with the milk of human kindness. So why had she tried so hard to charm Beulah?

  “Let’s return to the topic of the meeting. I’m sure we’ve all got more to attend to this evening than listening to unfounded accusations.” Gene said.

  “What about a First Night Winslow Falls celebration?” suggested Clara.

  “That’s a great idea. You could charge a ticket price for admission and have a bake sale and an auction. Maybe even a sleigh ride,” Augusta said.

  “The Historical Society could make a presentation about the steeple and the history of the museum to make the case for repairs stronger,” I said.

  “That makes more sense than lewd calendars,” said Ethel, staring at Augusta again. “I’ve got a bunch of photos and clippings at the museum you could use, Gwen. Stop by tomorrow and pick them up. I’ll be meeting the insurance appraiser there at noon.”

  “You be careful Ethel. It would be a real shame if the building was structurally unsound and you had an accident,” said Pauline.

  “I’ll talk to Winston about flooding the Hartwell Church parking lot for a skating rink,” said Clara before Ethel could respond to Pauline and drag the meeting out longer with their quarreling.

  “You do that. Any other suggestions?” Ethel glowered at Gene who could usually be counted on for anything that brought business into the community.

  “I could run the auction, I suppose,” he said. “Still, I remain unconvinced it wouldn’t be wiser to simply close.”

  “That’s settled then. We’ve got less than two weeks to get everything taken care of. I expect all of you to rise to the challenge no matter what other obligations you think you have. Gwen, you can start by helping me with the refreshment tray.” Ethel wriggled forward in her chair and heaved herself up from its cushy depths. Glad to stretch my legs, I followed at a safe distance. If her swinging hips were going to knock anything over, I didn’t want to be blamed for it. Never let it be said that I sent any yard sale kittens to an early grave.

  The air in the kitchen was fresh and frigid. It made me think of those TV ghost hunting programs where true believers describe atmospheric changes when a ghost is present. No ghosts appeared, but I noticed a disassembled window that solved the mystery. Someone had covered it with plastic wrap anchored by duct tape. That bit of Yankee ingenuity held out the wind pumping the plastic like a bellows but did little for the cold.

  “It’s a bad time of year for replacement windows, Ethel. You didn’t fall prey to one of those companies that took your money and didn’t finish the job, did you?” One had gotten away with scamming a new couple out on Mill Street just a few weeks ago.

  “No. It was those damn DaSilva kids. Chris said he’d fix it for me, but it’s one of those old ones with the pulleys. It doesn’t stay open without something to prop it, so I asked him if he could repair it, too. Apparently, the weight fell down in between the walls, and he figured that getting a replacement from somewhere else would be easier than fishing it out. Now that he’s finally found the part, he hasn’t the time to fix the darn thing. Kids these days,” Ethel said.

  “Maybe you should leave town until he gets it fixed,” Pauline suggested from the doorway.

  “I manage okay except for when I get up to take my pills in the night. Then it really is miserable,” Ethel said.

  “Glad to hear it.” Pauline slammed the kitchen door behind her as she left.

  “What makes you so sure it was the DaSilva kids?” I asked.

  “Who else would it be? We all know they’re up to no good, always sneaking around.” Ethel pressed her knuckles on her fleshy hips.

  “Sneaking around?” I asked.

  “That oldest one, Diego, I think his name is. He was at the museum fire. I saw him hanging around beside the building. Clive said he was at the fire at the lumberyard, too.”

  ‘When did Clive say that?” I hadn’t heard him mention it, and it’s been my experience that if he thinks something is even remotely interesting, he will repeat it until your ears fall off.

  “Well, I don’t remember when exactly. Sometime recently. Now what was it we came in here for?”

  “The refreshment tray,” I said. Ethel glanced toward the Formica table on the far side of the room. Packaged cookies fanned out on a plate in the center of the tray. A white cat sprawled on top of them, helping itself to cream from a crystal pitcher.

  “Oh, Jasper, aren’t you a little dickens?” Ethel lifted it off the tray, nuzzled noses with it, then blew the cat hairs off the cookies. She restacked them and added more cream to the pitcher. “You can go ahead and carry that out now.”

  “No way. You want to serve your guests hairy food, feel free, but I want nothing to do with it. My reputation as a cook is bad enough without people saying I messed up store bought cookies.”

  “Suit yourself.” Ethel shoved Jasper straight into my chest. I automatically grabbed him and felt my throat constrict. My eyes began to water. I should have brought an emergency inhaler. Jasper rubbed his whiskers across my neck before I could drop him. Sneezing and gasping, I staggered back to the living room and scouted for a box of tissues. I spotted a three-dimensional cat worked in plastic canvas. A tissue poked out the bottom like a tail. Lord, have mercy.

  Clara dug into the cookies with a will. I thought about giving Gene and Augusta a signal that they should give the refreshments a miss, but they were too busy flirting to pay any attention. They stirred cat spit cream into their coffee without noticing a thing. Clara stopped eating long enough to pick a cat hair off her tongue. I decided my part in the meeting was done, and I needed some fresh air. I left Augusta my keys and sneezed my way to the door.

  The moon hung above the village and kept me company as I made my way home. I trudged along in the street since no one had plowed the sidewalks since the last storm. It wasn’t the first time I’d walked the streets of Winslow Falls alone after dark, but it was the first time that I’d ever felt scared. Even with the friendly moon I kept casting looks back over my shoulder. Each creak of a tree branch dangling above my head or flash of a night prowling cat hurried me along more urgently. I broke into an awkward trot, my legs wobbling from the unfamiliar effort of running.

  It isn’t that small towns don’t have arsonists and burglars and people who mess with kids. It’s that we all know who they are and behave accordingly. You know which kids were most likely to be found smoking behind the barn and catching it alight “by accident.” So you shoo those kids from your property. You know which woman is hiding bruises and find ways to hire her quietly for odd jobs to help her build a nest egg for flight. You know years ahead of time which girls will be buying back-to-school clothes in the maternity department some September. You send your son to visit relatives out of state if he starts dating one of them one summer. Not knowing who could be acting this way was the scary thing. Faces of the people at the meeting and post office patrons flitted through my mind as I pounded along as well as the image of Beulah’s charred body.

  Winslow Falls had been good to me and to my boys when Peter died. If it hadn’
t been for people like Clara, Winston and Dinah, I don’t know how we would have held on, which made it all the worse that I was asking myself if one of them could be lighting the village on fire.

  And if one of them had set out to kill Beulah.

  Five

  Clive Merrill was the first customer at the post office the next morning. Even for an old guy, he was out early. Usually the geezers spend the early morning with Dinah at the store, getting coffee and filling her ears with nonsense. Once Dinah’s patience has worn out they move the whole operation to post office lobby and repeat it for me. I always plan on being able to put up the mail without benefit of their company until around nine-thirty.

  Here it was only seven-fifteen, and Clive was giving me a grin that turned his face into a jack-o-lantern—missing teeth, wild, swirling eyebrows and pointy, wrinkled ears. Someone once told me that men with ear wrinkles were destined for heart attacks. If that’s true, Clive was in my post office on borrowed time.

  “Morning, Gwen. Have you seen the paper this morning?”

  “No, Clive. I have to be here bright and early. As much as I’d like the mail to stuff itself into these boxes, it hasn’t happened yet. Unlike you gentlemen of leisure, I don’t have the opportunity during the week to read the paper over a cup of coffee.”

  I’m not as patient as Dinah. She’s an independent business owner. I’m endowed with the inalienable right as a postal employee to provide whatever level of customer service I see fit.

  “That’s what we all thought over at Dinah’s, so I took it upon myself to bring you a copy of today’s issue. I knew you’d want to know how thoroughly the press is covering the trouble with the fires.”

  Clive slapped a newspaper on the counter and tapped his finger on a large color photo. Local Postmistress Takes Charge at Fatal Blaze read the caption. My sushi pajamas and I filled the foreground of the shot. My head was turned sideways with a double chin clearly silhouetted against the fire truck’s headlights. I scrutinized the photo. Photographic credit was given to Ray Twombley. I should have known.

  “Thank you for bringing this in, Clive. May I keep it?”

  “I bought it especially for you.” He grinned some more. “You want me to buy up the rest of the copies at the store before anyone else sees them? Winston and I could get some guys together and clear ‘em out of all the home delivery boxes, too. I expect that you don’t want your lingerie getting so much publicity.”

  “On the contrary. Not everyone has the opportunity to make the front page.” I forced a smile as I tore the photo from the paper. I came around in front of the window and taped the picture at eye level for all the customers to see. That ought to take the sparkle out of his cider. Still smiling, I handed him his mail. His shoulders sagged, and his feet scuffed as he trudged back out the door.

  All morning long patrons filed in with copies of the paper in hand. I smiled until my face ached. By the time lunch hour rolled around, word must have gotten out that I’d seen the photo. The last six people I waited on were empty-handed when they came in. By then I felt I really deserved a juicy cheeseburger from Dinah’s. Instead, I had a lunch date with Ethel to pick up those photos.

  Ethel glanced at me as I came through the door and hurriedly shoved some sort of book into her desk drawer. Was there something she didn’t want me to see? Beulah’s death was making me question things I never would have before.

  “You’re having a real problem with punctuality lately, aren’t you?” She marched to the filing cabinet at the other side of the office and yanked open a drawer.

  “I closed for lunch two minutes ago. How fast do you think I can walk over here? Do you have the clippings?”

  “I said I did, didn’t I? Fortunately, the water damage didn’t reach this section of the building.” She lifted up on her tiptoes and peered into the drawer. Flicking through the contents, she pulled out a folder.

  “Is this everything?” I reached for the folder.

  “Those are the only copies, unless there are more at Beulah’s. So don’t spill anything on them or any other nonsense.” Ethel slammed the drawer shut and then screwed her magenta lips into a smile at the sound of footsteps from behind. The insurance appraiser had arrived. I escaped while she was greeting him.

  On the way out, I met Hugh coming in. The wind slipped under the end of his red beard and flapped it like laundry on a line. I gazed up at the clouds creeping across the sky and inhaled deeply. The air smelled like snow was on the way. I planned to go to visit Harold at the hospital after work, but I hated driving in a storm. That was one more of the things Peter did that I really still missed, even after seven years.

  “Anything new?” I asked, hoping the medical examiner finished Beulah’s autopsy and we could schedule the memorial service.

  “Nothing significant. I was just at the store getting my ears filled up with reasons the DaSilvas are responsible for everything from missing dogs to grand theft auto. Some guy named Chris really hates them.”

  “He’s married to my clerk Trina. He has lots of opinions and thinks people are interested in them.” I glanced at my watch to see if there was still time to grab something at Dinah’s before I had to reopen the window.

  “Got to be somewhere?” Hugh asked.

  “Too many places. I have to be at work in twenty minutes. I want to grab a cheeseburger, and I feel guilty that I’m not visiting the fire chief at the hospital,” I said.

  “I can’t help with your work schedule, and I don’t have a cheeseburger on me, but I’m planning on going to Riverton this evening to ask Harold some questions. It’s supposed to snow, but my truck’s got four-wheel drive. Want to carpool?”

  “Five-thirty?”

  “I’ll stop in at the post office.” Hugh climbed up the museum stairs two at a time and was out of sight. Despite the looming clouds, my day suddenly felt brighter. Lost in thought, I was back at the post office and open for business before I realized I hadn’t stopped for lunch after all.

  "Nothing on but those damn soap operas," Harold said. Hugh had dropped me at the front entrance, since the snow was already falling, and I found my way to Harold’s room on my own.

  "I'm surprised they allow something so exciting in the cardiac unit. Your heart rate might spike dangerously."

  "As bad as these actors are," said Harold, “they won’t coax a tremor, let alone a spike. Did you bring anything to eat?"

  "Don't they feed you in here?"

  "I've had fake scrambled eggs, Popsicles and watery tomato juice."

  "Sounds sensible,” I said, “considering."

  "Considering," Harold said, "they're trying to starve me to death. Haven't you got a candy bar or some such a thing in that bag of yours?"

  "I could be prosecuted by the chief of surgery for feeding a sick man that crap.” Cards, flowers and balloons crowded the top of the television. I added the stuffed Dalmatian I’d brought to the other gifts.

  "In my condition every meal could be my last meal," Harold said. "Prisoners on death row get Kentucky Fried Chicken if they want it."

  "Fried food’s what got you into this mess. When's the surgery?"

  "Day after tomorrow." Harold pleated the top sheet on his bed with his gnarled hands. Hard to believe just a couple of days ago he'd been hauling an eighty-pound hose and shouting orders to the crew.

  "Where's Bernadette? I was told she was watching over you morning to night."

  "I sent her down to the cafeteria. No reason both of us should waste away.” I'd never thought of Bernadette being in danger of becoming too thin, but you never knew.

  "We missed her at the Historical Society meeting yesterday," I said. "We're putting on a fundraiser to repair the clock tower."

  "I hear the state's sent someone to investigate." Harold pleated harder on the bed sheet.

  "That's right," I said. "How'd you hear about him?"

  "I may be down, but I've still got my sources."

  "Unlike you, he’s taking the problem seriously,"
I said.

  "I took it plenty serious," said Harold, "as serious as a heart attack."

  "That really surprised me," I said. "Were you closer to Beulah than I knew?"

  "How could I be?" Harold said. "You know everything worth knowing in town.” The beeping on Harold's heart monitor sped up a bit. It was like watching a lie detector test in front of my eyes.

  "What do you think happened in there?"

  "I guess a heater used by the construction crew probably caused it. A gust of wind could’ve come through the opening in the roof and blown it over.”

  "Chief Seeton?" a deep voice called from the open doorway. Hugh stood there, a potted geranium clutched in his giant grip.

  "Come in,” Harold said. "Come on in. Everyone’s been telling me about the guy from the state.” Standing nigh onto seven feet and sporting a smoldering red beard, Hugh would be easy to describe.

  "I drove down with Gwen to get your opinion on the fires," Hugh said. "I've heard a lot around town and figured I'd better go straight to the top guy.” I rolled my eyes and settled down farther into my chair.

  "Gwen means well," Harold said, winking at Hugh, “but the truth is she ain’t got the foggiest notion what she's doing. She only joined the fire department to be closer to her boys."

  "So," Hugh said, “whatever she thinks should be discounted?"

  "I wouldn't like to say that,” Harold said. "She’s just a little overzealous. Typical hysterical woman."

  "I'm not the one who had a heart attack,” I said. "Talk about an overreaction."

  "But you did lose your supper all over my boot,” Hugh reminded me.

  Harold looked over and shook his head. "Have you come up with anything?" he asked. "Have they finished the autopsy?"

  "I’ve asked for the lab to hurry,” Hugh said, "but it’ll take a couple more days."