by Patti Larsen
Olivia sat, perched really, on the single wingback that capped the two couches, nodding to Vivian who copied her at the other end, before the mayor dropped her borrowed ball cap on the coffee table and, grim, met each of our gazes in turn.
“I called you here for one purpose and one purpose only,” she said. “Geoffrey Jenkins is going to be elected mayor and I need you to help me stop him.”
***
Chapter Three
Olivia had hinted in the past about wanting to have a meeting of the minds, but I wasn’t really expecting her to be here today. When Vivian extended her invitation, Mom included, I’d assumed this had something to do with Petunia’s and the annex, or even my mother’s catering business, not the election. Surely the mayor was far too late to do anything about the pending vote now. From the pinched look on the Queen of Wheat’s face and how Jill seemed to squirm uncomfortably on the couch across from me, I wasn’t the only one aware of Geoffrey’s recent increase in electability compared to the tightly wound woman dressed like a French’s employee.
I just hoped her choice of accoutrement wasn’t foreshadowing for her sake.
“Geoffrey’s really stepped up his efforts,” Vivian said, her tone as calm and icy as usual, though rather careful considering her typical snarkiness. Or maybe that was just with me. “And perhaps the time has come for a change of the guard, Olivia.”
Okay, there was the snark. Not just me then, awesome.
Olivia’s face tightened further, her dark, glossy bob swinging as she shook her head. “I’m going to lose,” she said, “and all of you,” she jabbed a finger at each of us, reminding me of my encounter with Brenda and her judging friends, “are going to lose with me.”
“What can we do to help, Olivia?” Only Mom seemed willing to consider there might be something at this late juncture. Good old Mom, always looking on the bright side. How come she didn’t pass that down to me? Right. I got my former sheriff Dad’s suspicion and curiosity. Fair trade.
Olivia slipped a piece of paper out of her back pocket and unfolded it, smoothing it out carefully as she spoke before handing it to me mid-sentence. “I have proof right here,” she said, her fingers shaking enough as I took it from her the page rattled, “if Geoffrey Jenkins is allowed to take office, Reading will be relegated to its former lackluster nothing backwater status in a matter of months if he has his way.”
I read over the email she’d printed off, the header stating the recipient was none other than Marie Patterson. The old matriarch of the founding family had been poking her nose in lately, though she’d been doing so from the silent halls of her mansion on the mountain, sending out her lackeys and her secret agenda to push and nudge Reading the way she wanted it to lean. No, I didn’t have proof, though the image of a giant, disgusting spider on a web in a dusty old house with the head of a nasty woman and silk threads wrapped around the necks of every resident in my hometown was hard to shake. I’d been assuming a lot about her in the last few years, since I returned home, since discovering Aundrea’s family had some kind of invested interest in keeping Reading the quiet and downtrodden place it had been before Olivia decided to make it her mission to bring us into the twenty-first century.
A scan of the contents made me gasp softly, then pass the letter to Mom while my mind reread what I just saw.
Any means necessary, Geoffrey. Any means. She must be ousted and Reading’s path reverted to the norm. I’m tired of interlopers. Make it happen.
Mom shook her head as she read, lower lip between her teeth, green eyes unhappy before she handed the letter to Vivian who took it with the sort of reserved distaste I equated to a bag of my pug’s recently scooped poop. She scanned it, passed it on without really focusing, as if she already knew what it would say. Jill read it more thoroughly while Mom grasped my hand and squeezed.
“Whatever does that horrible old woman have against Reading’s progress?” Mom was a redhead, just like me, though her temper was a bit harder to set off. But, when she got mad? Lucy Fleming was a force to be reckoned with. And, boy, was she mad.
Olivia sat back, looking tired, worn, about as effective and powerful as a cashier girl at the front counter of French’s. But, when she spoke, there was still energy in her voice, in her attitude and I felt a small surge of hope despite myself. Sure, we had our differences and there were a lot of things about the way Olivia handled her office that made me clench my teeth. But at least she wasn’t trying to dismantle my livelihood for some amorphous reason only known to the all mighty Patterson family.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” Olivia said. “All that matters is finding a way to stop Geoffrey. Because if we can cut off that particular head, the monster might not die, but it will think twice before it comes for me again.” She sounded like she was ready to march to the mansion on the mountain and take a sword and torch to Marie Patterson’s way of life. Well, if the matriarch wanted to cut my business into shreds, I’d be right beside Olivia, thanks.
So, it was weird, right, that Vivian didn’t seem more upset by the revelations in the email? I found my eyes narrowing as I focused on her, free hand not grasped by Mom in a tight squeeze putting a bit too much pressure on the cardboard sides of my coffee cup.
“What do you think, Vivian?” I caught the faint twitch, what I called guilt but could have been something else if I was going to be fair (and since when was I fair when it came to Vivian French?).
She didn’t meet my eyes, hers locked on the tip of her pointed toe, her leg bobbing over her knee. Vivian finally stopped the steady bounce with a firm downward motion of her hands over the front of her skirt, both feet hitting the floor with a solid thunk. “I think we’re a bit too late to do anything,” she said. “I also think you’re overreacting, Olivia, because you know you’re going to lose your job.”
Was Vivian even on our side? I was beginning to wonder.
“That’s just the thing,” Olivia said, leaning forward again. “We couldn’t act before now. I had to wait, to make sure Geoffrey felt secure in his position before I pulled the plug on him. And that meddling old woman.”
Wow, now she really sounded like a general marching to war, rallying her troops. “What do you want us to do?” I assumed she had a plan.
“I agree change has to come,” Olivia said. “But if we can offer enough of a change, it might be sufficient to sway public opinion in our direction. Like offering the constituents a female sheriff, someone from Reading, someone they all respect.”
Hang the hell on just a second. I choked before I could speak, heart pounding. “No way, Olivia,” I said while Mom agreed with me with her own, “Have you lost your mind?”
Not that I wanted to think Mom was that opposed to me becoming sheriff. I had to admit a bit of hurt at her reaction, considering I was her daughter and she should have been supporting me, right?
Fee, seriously. Get over yourself.
But Olivia was already shaking her head, looking irritated. “I knew better than to make that assumption,” she said, turning to Jill who gaped at her in shock and then horror. “I want to present Deputy Wagner as the new sheriff if I’m reelected.”
Whoa, way to throw Crew under the bus. I almost spoke up, but Jill was faster and, in the next few seconds, confirmed why she was my friend and not about to get her butt kicked for betraying her boss.
“No way, Olivia,” she said, tossing the email letter to the coffee table. “Crew is the better choice and we all know it. He’s a fantastic sheriff and I won’t stab him in the back just to keep you in the mayor’s office.” She met my eyes, nodded stiffly and I nodded back.
Olivia’s sudden desperation made me remember why we were here in the first place. “Look,” she said, hands wringing in front of her, whole demeanor now desperate, “I understand that. Sheriff Turner was, and remains, the best candidate who applied when I went looking. I’d hate to lose him. But.” She looked down at her fingers, twined together in an impossible knot. “If public opinion is going to get
Geoffrey elected, then keeping Crew Turner as sheriff will help him. Because there’s enough animosity toward him thanks to Geoffrey’s campaign Crew is on the way out anyway.”
I’d heard the rumors about Geoffrey’s smack talk but I was dating Crew so no one was telling me much of anything. “Like what?”
“Like he ran off and helped the FBI, put them first, instead of solving Lester Patterson’s death.” Olivia shrugged. “Like the Flemings are better investigators, that you, yourself, Fiona, have solved every murder that’s happened in our town since you came home. And that there’s been more murders here in Reading since Crew took office than all the years John Fleming was sheriff combined.”
None of which was Crew’s fault, not really. All circumstantial. But, with enough truth in each statement that I could see why Geoffrey’s argument was succeeding in turning residents against my boyfriend.
Well, that sucked.
“The way things stand,” Olivia said, “if you won’t run, Fiona,” I shook my head at her because hell to the no way, never going to happen, “it’s either Jill or Robert Carlisle.”
Ouch. And all kinds of nope. I’d sell Petunia’s and leave town if I had to put up with Robert as sheriff full time. Well, either that or kill him and hide the body where no one would find him. I’d dealt with enough murders by now I figured I could get away with it.
“There has to be a way to keep you both.” Jill met my eyes as my guilt I was capable of stuffing my cousin into a shallow grave dominated my thoughts. “There has to be.”
“Saving both of us might not be possible.” Olivia sounded grim enough, sadly pessimistic enough, I believed her. “But if you won’t run, I won’t have a choice. I’ll have to carry on and hope what we do is enough.”
“That being?” I still hadn’t heard this grand last minute plan of hers. While pondering that as far as I was concerned, Crew wasn’t the problem, was he? If we could replace Olivia with our own candidate… but it was far too late for that.
Looking for another job, Fee?
Olivia inhaled, shrugged. “It’s a simple idea,” she said. “But hopefully effective. I need every single supporter, everyone in town willing to speak for me, to come out to the debate in exactly one week’s time. Next Friday night. And do their best to turn this thing around.”
***
Chapter Four
While I was all for last-ditch efforts, I wasn’t exactly buying her plan. “What will that accomplish?” I hated to be the voice of doom, but…
Yeah. But.
Olivia actually looked at me like I was an innocent child who needed to be taught a valuable lesson in the way the world worked. “This is a small town, Fee,” she said, “and the residents are easily swayed. Trust me, I’ve done it enough times myself, I know this will work. But if Geoffrey catches wind we’re going to stack the debate, he’ll take steps to cut me off.” She shook her head. “He’s probably going to try anyway. I might have an ace or two up my sleeve I can pull out, a few favors to call in. But it’s a long shot.”
So, not much of a plan, then. “I’m happy to help,” I said.
“Good, thank you.” She gestured at Mom, me, Vivian. “I need all of you to call on your friends in business, anyone who’s benefited from this surge in tourism, to come out and speak. The debate starts officially at 8PM. If we can gather enough speakers to fill the first two hours, we might have a chance to sway those who attend, not to mention the ones watching at home.” She was going to broadcast the debate? Was she nuts? This was small town politics. But Olivia, shrewd as always, seemed to know where my mind was. “I’ve prepared a web presence,” she said. “And Pamela’s going to post the link in that morning’s Gazette as well as on the paper’s website. I also need all of you to share it on your social media. I want every resident in Reading who has access to the internet to hear the voices of our town speaking on behalf of the tourist initiative.” She hesitated. “It might be best if they don’t talk about me directly, but instead about the benefits we’ve derived from the initiative. Then, once the speakers are done, I’ll introduce the email as damning evidence against Geoffrey. Hopefully that will be enough of a whisper of corruption and scandal I’ll win another term and knock him out of the running for good.”
Well, as plans went it actually might have stood a chance after all. I was familiar enough with the gossiping nature of our town’s residents such a strategy stood at least a whisper of a passing glance at maybe turning the tide. With such ringing endorsement, how could she lose?
Olivia left shortly thereafter, ball cap tucked down over her face as she snuck out again. It wasn’t exactly covert operations or anything, so I found her sneaking rather ridiculous but whatever she wanted, she got. Mom and I left together, Jill on our heels, though I paused a moment to meet Vivian’s eyes. Her cold blue ones held nothing of the guilt I was hoping to see and rather than call her on her possible lack of enthusiasm and suspected collusion with the Pattersons, I walked out, wondering who exactly this woman was and why I even bothered with someone I never liked in the first place.
Right, the same woman I suspected rescued my mother from a serious bout of depression not so long ago. Okay then. Benefit of the doubt firmly back in place and hoping I wasn’t about to see my business topple into receivership thanks to Geoffrey Jenkins and the Pattersons, I joined my grim mother and deputy friend on the street outside French’s. Hard to balance our mood with the happy people entering and exiting while the truly delightful aromas of the wares being sold washed over us in an almost constant wave of holy crap I’m hungry all of a sudden.
I averted my eyes from yet another poster with Geoffrey’s face on it, uncomfortable with the recurring memory of him hovering next to me on the steps to the sheriff’s office, skin crawling with the remembered moment of his breath on my skin, of how disgusted and shocked I was he’d hit on me. A fact I’d kept to myself, hadn’t told a soul, not even Daisy. Especially not Daisy, not these days. There’d been a time or two I’d considered telling Crew, except he’d settled into this blasé kind of relaxed happiness, weird for someone in his precarious position, and I didn’t have the heart to worry him further.
“I’ll meet you back at Petunia’s,” Mom said, finally releasing my hand. She’d been holding it all this time and I didn’t even notice until she let me go. I missed the warmth immediately, and not just because the air was so chill. There was a comforting kind of strength to my mother I hoped I’d never have to be without. “I take it you have an errand to run?” She arched an eyebrow, smiling at me in her special Mom way that told me she knew I was thinking about Crew. Maybe it was an outward sign or maybe it was just innate Momness, but regardless, I never seemed to be able to slide a thought about him past her.
Sheesh, was I that transparent?
I hugged and kissed her, tossing my now empty coffee in the trash before heading back across the street toward Sammy’s. It looked quieter, the morning rush over, though I kept my head down as I pulled the door open, peeking out from under my bangs to be sure no one lingered in ambush. But nope, not this time, just a few patrons enjoying their own drinks and snacks. I exhaled in relief and headed for the counter, placing my new order.
The bell at the door rang behind me, loud enough I turned to find out who had decided the amount of force necessary to make it shake that hard was a good idea and caught myself scowling with an instant ball of yucktastic grossness hardening in the middle of my stomach. He was taller than her, though there was nothing impressive about the couple of inches Robert had over my 5’7”. He had, as yet, to shave that disgusting caterpillar of a dark mustache from his lip, and my temptation to tell him the 70’s called and wanted their revolting trend back was so strong I almost laughed out loud. He was out of uniform, a rarity for my cousin, and the tight t-shirt he wore over his round beer belly wasn’t doing much for his attractiveness. At least the khaki shirt he wore every day gave him some semblance of disguise he’d been letting himself go the last few years. As fo
r Rose, she simpered up at him like he hung the moon and while I had no idea what they saw in each other, I had to admit they deserved what they got.
Rosebert (okay, so I couldn’t resist, right? Right?) caught sight of me as if they were one unit, pausing in a dramatic moment of seriously, grow up already before she turned her nose up like she’d been crowned the queen of Reading and he followed her with the glaring attitude of a pompous ten year old whose mommy told him he could, so there.
What, animosity toward the ridiculous pair, who, me? Like I gave a crap she was now shacking up with his hideousness (I honestly had a wave of nausea hit me the day I found out that little tidbit of joy). At least that kept her out of Daisy’s apartment, though it seemed impossible these days to eliminate her from my partner’s life. Trouble was, that made Rose more or less a permanent resident of Reading, didn’t it? Not just visiting from Montpelier anymore, but making my home her home.
I turned my back on both of them, happy not to have a confrontation just now, though honestly it might have been nice to vent a bit of frustration on the two. I chose to take the high road when I heard her sharply-pitched and irritating giggle and his donkey bray guffaw chasing me out. They weren’t laughing at me to piss me off, they weren’t.
They weren’t.
My stride might have been a bit longer than usual as I huffed my way down the street to my next destination. It’s possible I could have covered the distance between Sammy’s and the sheriff’s office in about half the time I usually did and that I may or may not have slammed open the door to said office on my way in with a bit more enthusiasm than I typically offered that portal to Crewy goodness.
