Murder on Old Main Street (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (2 page)

As hectic as our days were, it never occurred to us to complain. MACK Realty was ours. No more strutting, egotistical bosses to humor, as we had endured at the law firm where Margo, Strutter and I had been legal assistants until last summer. As Margo put it so well in the honeyed Georgia drawl that kept the northern fellows hanging on her every word, “No more arrogant, demanding bosses for us to placate, Sugar, not for us spirited, not to mention gorgeous, business women.”

Strutter had concurred dryly, “Yessirree, it’s nothing but arrogant, demanding clients to placate from now on!”

Things were going well for me on other fronts, too. Following a bumpy settling-in period, during which my neighbors and I had snarled regularly at each other as we chafed under the rules and regulations of condominium living, I was enjoying life in my spacious unit at The Birches. Situated on the acreage of one of Wethersfield’s oldest farms, the freestanding Colonial homes were beautifully landscaped and backed by EPA-protected woods and wetlands, which gave Jasmine and Simon, my feline housemates, plenty of visual entertainment from their sunny windowsills.

Perhaps best of all, things were going swimmingly with my longtime love interest, Armando Velasquez, so swimmingly, in fact, that we were considering what both of us had sworn never to consider again: sharing a roof. My roof, to be precise, since home for Armando was a one-bedroom efficiency in a pet-free building in West Hartford. But after luxuriating in our individual spaces for more than a decade following our respective, amicable divorces from our respective, amicable ex-spouses, cohabiting was not something to be entered into lightly. We weren’t kids anymore, and while our attraction to each other was undeniable, we were no longer slaves to the hormones that had driven us at a younger age into marriage. Still, we had been going together for more than five years. Although the idea of marriage still made us both skittish, we were at least beginning to consider combining residences.

So I had plenty to think about on the way to work that morning. I drove down Wells Road and crossed the Silas Deane Highway, Wethersfield’s commercial thoroughfare. A mere hundred yards farther along, a wooden sign pronounced quaintly that I was entering the Village of Wethersfield, “Ye Most Ancient Towne,” established in 1633-34. One long curve to the left, and suburban Connecticut
circa
2006 gave way to the New England ambience of earlier centuries. The 25 m.p.h. speed limit seemed entirely appropriate to the venerable elms and oaks shading stately homes, set well back and interspersed with more contemporary dwellings, on Old Main Street. As always, I enjoyed the transition, noting the spreading colors in the sumac of the hedges and the sugar maples. In late September, the school buses had been on the roads for several weeks already. The two family farm stands on the Broad Street Green were still open for business, but apples and mums had joined the late tomatoes and the last of the sweet corn offered for sale, and pumpkins would soon appear. A third farm around the corner was beginning to offer hayrides. It was my favorite time of year, since I was not fond of Connecticut’s humid summers, but my enjoyment was bittersweet, knowing that the cold rains of November would soon be with us.

In a week, the Autumn Festival would be in full swing with local businesses and nonprofits awaiting the formal judging of the annual Scarecrows Along Main Street competition, in which entries could be almost anything, so long as they were at least partially constructed of straw. Up and down the length of Old Main Street, dozens of whimsical displays already adorned front yards and porches, with dozens more under construction. Some were perennial favorites, welcomed back as old friends, such as the overall-clad farmer holding a lapful of corn as he sat on a sunny bench outside the museum. Many were the work of first-timers, like this year’s “Baby Broomers,” a motley collection of brooms with faces propped against a white picket fence. The “Ghoul-Aid Stand” on the corner of Garden Street gave everyone who passed a chuckle. Old and new, we all enjoyed the collective creative effort.

I pulled the Altima into my favorite space just south of the Law Barn’s driveway. Margo checked her make-up in the visor mirror and winked at herself. “Sugar, nobody would take either one of us for a day over forty,” she pronounced with satisfaction.

“Well,” I demurred, “forty-two maybe …”

“… but a great forty-two!” we chorused, ending our standard gag.

I waved so long as Margo and Rhett disappeared into the building while I stayed in the car to wait for my daughter. At least twice a week, I met Emma before work, and we power-walked to the cove at the end of Old Main Street and back. The exercise cleared the cobwebs from our sleep-fogged heads. It also gave us a chance to catch up with each other’s lives before the demands of the clients we shared crowded into the day. On the return leg of our walk, we stopped into the Village Diner for coffee to go, then sipped and chatted as we completed the circuit at a more leisurely pace.

I laced my feet into white Avias as I waited for Emma. Just thinking of her made me smile, as did the thought of my son Joey, who at the age of 28 was on the road seeing the country as a long-distance trucker. The tractor cab of his “reefer,” which was trucker lingo for the refrigerated trailer he hauled, was better-appointed than most of his friends’ apartments, and he was enjoying the adventure of his gypsy existence. Emma, at 27, preferred her snug loft apartment and job as a residential real estate paralegal, at which she excelled. Both my kids were bright, strong, and funny as hell, and I was proud of them both. Better yet, they seemed to like me, despite all of my parenting mistakes, and to seek out my company without inordinate prodding from me. The same went for their relationship with their father, who had remarried happily a few years back.

Life was good, I congratulated myself on this September morning. Promising shafts of sunlight pierced the low fog that rolled off the nearby Connecticut River, and it looked to be another glorious day. Despite the early hour, I noted a number of cars parked in front of other business establishments, whose owners were also attempting to get a jump on the day. As I waited, I admired the scarecrow in front of the Law Barn, which had been the brainchild of Emma and her colleagues. A stern-faced black crow in a judge’s robe sat behind his bench made of hay bales. Before him stood a braying ass clad in a suit and tie fashioned entirely of writs, deeds, subpoenas, wills and other legal documents. An overflowing briefcase leaned against his left foreleg. The exhibit was entitled, “Lawsuit.” Biased though I was, I thought it might just be a winner.

“Hey, Mamacita!” Emma greeted me, using the nickname she had assigned to me following a long-ago semester of high school Spanish. She flashed me a dazzling smile and U-turned in the empty street to pull her silver Saturn up to the bumper of the Altima. Her face was free of make-up, and she efficiently wound her long hair, which was the same shade of ash blonde as my own short mop, into a casual knot and secured it firmly to the top of her head before hopping out of the car. Within minutes, we were stumping past the small shops, bed-and-breakfasts, and private residences, most with a creative scarecrow out front, that lined the street. “So give with the latest on you and the Colombian,” she said, making reference to Armando’s South American roots.

“We’re talking,” I huffed, struggling to keep pace with her younger legs, “but there are issues. We’ll see.”

Emma rolled her eyes at me. Her brown irises flecked with green were another of our shared traits. “By the time you two get through hashing out your issues, you’ll be sharing a room at the old folks’ home and driving the nurses crazy. It’s been more than five years, ‘Cita. Face it, you’re stuck with each other.”

“What you mean is, at this point no one else would have either one of us.”

Emma prudently didn’t comment. “Armando’s got his kinks, but you’re no walk in the park either. When you come right down to it, everybody has their little weirdnesses. You always told me that the only thing that matters in a relationship is that you can live with his kinks, and he can live with yours. So, do you think you can?

“Hard to say,” I commented tersely, trying to conserve my oxygen. “He likes the TV and music on all the time, and I like silence. He’s a packrat, I’m neat.”
Pant, pant.
“He sleeps late and stays up late, and I’m up at five-thirty and in bed by ten.” I stopped walking and put my foot up on a convenient bench, ostensibly to retie my shoelace. Emma wasn’t fooled.

“Get moving, old woman,” she said, steaming forward mercilessly, “or no bagel with your coffee today.” I groaned and trotted to catch up with her. “Besides, who’s to say you can’t make those differences work in your favor?”

I remained silent but raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Think about it. You’ll each have your own bedroom and bathroom, so you won’t need to tiptoe around each other. When you get up at the crack of dawn, he’ll still be tucked up. You can have your coffee and crossword puzzle in the silence you love, then hit the shower. When you’re ready to leave the house, he’ll just be getting up and can blast the Today show. At night, it’s the reverse. You get to come home to an empty house and wind down in peace. He gets home from work at 8:00 p.m., warms up the extra plate of supper you’ve left in the microwave, you chat a little, and you’re off to bed with a book while he does TV.”

I considered Emma’s scenario as we passed a row of business establishments on the opposite side of the street. The line-up included Antiques on Main, which sold a fascinating collection of antiques and furniture oddments; Blades Salon, where all the really good local gossip was exchanged while hair and skin and fingers and toes were whipped into shape; Mainly Tea, which served up luncheons and high teas to eager locals and tourists alike five days a week; and Heart of the Country, another lovely gift shop, Apparently, the salon and the antiques shop had collaborated on their scarecrow exhibit, which featured two ladies of advanced years seated under old-fashioned dryers. Their hair was in rollers, and they sipped tea from lovely old cups. A third scarecrow presided over the bone chine teapot and antique cash register set atop a hay bale.

“What about weekends?” I demanded as we passed the Village Diner on the corner, unwilling to be so easily swayed. We would stop in on our way back to get coffee to bring to the office. Early morning patrons already sat at the counter and tables, hoping to be waited on soon by surly Prudence Crane, widely acknowledged to be the worst waitress in town. None of us could understand why Abigail Stoddard, the diner’s owner, put up with her.

“Oh, get a grip! You’re together all weekend now. What will be any different?”

She had a point. I trudged on mutely. Then, “How about the packrat versus neat freak thing?” Ha! I had her there, I thought, but Emma remained serene.

“He can get only so much stuff into his room, and if you can’t stand the sight of it, do what you did with Joey and me when we were teenagers. Just close the door. Besides,” she added, playing her ace, “there’s Grace.”

I had almost forgotten about Grace. By this time, we were on the outskirts of the Old Main Street business district and began to descend a small slope into the parking area for Wethersfield Cove. Despite the early hour, a few cars were parked facing the water, a seemly distance apart. Their occupants gazed out at the cove, sipped coffee, or paged through the morning newspaper, according to preference. Henry Ellis, publisher and editor-in-chief of the
Old Wethersfield Gazette
, our weekly newspaper, stood outside his car pointing his digital camera at the birds warming themselves in the early morning sun. Clara Seymour’s old Dodge was tucked into its usual spot under a low-hanging tree limb down by the water’s edge. Clara was the high school principal’s wife. It was an open secret that she sneaked down to the cove mornings to enjoy a cigarette with her coffee, a practice of which her husband did not approve. I lifted a hand to Ephraim Marsh, the owner of Marsh Pharmacy, which had occupied the space across the street from the diner for at least three generations now; but in accordance with local etiquette, we refrained from approaching his Ford, thus intruding on what would probably be the most peaceful few moments of his day.
 
On our way down to the water’s edge, Abby Stoddard passed us in her old van en route back to the diner, her brief respite over. The new ordinance would be particularly hard on Abby, whose smoking customers had been accommodated on the brick patio behind her establishment but would soon be deprived of that privilege.

A few scruffy seagulls argued over the remains of a bran muffin, while the ducks and pigeons feigned indifference. Suddenly, an approaching flock of Canada geese honked us to attention. Emma and I exchanged broad grins and turned to watch the show. At this time of year flocks came and went regularly, flying at night and settling onto any friendly body of water to rest and feed by day. I never tired of watching the landing ritual.

As the volume of the honking increased, the leader appeared over the tree line to our north. The rest of the flock trailed behind in an ever-widening vee-formation. Hundreds of the sleek birds soon darkened the sky above us, honking excitedly at the sight of a potential resting place. Instead of landing immediately, the leader decided to make a scouting pass. He made one complete circle of the cove, then led his troops back over the tree line. Their sounds ebbed, and we held our breath. Had we passed muster? Did the cove meet their stringent criteria for safe harbor, or had some goosey eye spotted a suspicious glint of metal in the marsh grass that might be a hunter’s rifle or some other peril, real or imaginary?