by Kathi Daley
“Where was it?” I had to ask.
“It was in the town’s impound lot. Originally, it was parked in the back parking lot of the Ramble Mountain Ski Resort.”
I frowned. “Okay, that’s strange. Right?”
He nodded. “The car was actually parked in an overflow lot that’s only used during peak periods. I’m not sure how long the car had been there, but it was noticed by resort security when it was sitting in the lot when they opened the lot on Saturday. At the time, security made a note of the car and issued a citation since the vehicle didn’t seem to have a parking pass. When it was still there at the end of the day on Sunday, security had it towed. I didn’t think to check the impound lot until this morning.”
“I’m glad you found the car and the tablet and computer, but I do have to wonder if the fact that the car was in the back parking lot of the ski resort might be a clue as to what happened.”
“Maybe. It does seem as if the car was moved before the fire was called in. I suppose the person who set the fire could have made his or her escape in the car and then abandoned it in the lot, which wasn’t in use on Friday. I’m having the vehicle checked for prints.”
“Maybe you’ll find something.”
“Maybe.”
I glanced at the phone records on the screen. “Or maybe the phone records will provide the clue you need.”
“Maybe.” Cass looked at me. “This is going to take a while, and I know you have your interview with Lettie, so maybe we can catch up later. We have our volunteer shift at the shelter. We can talk while we play with the dogs and maybe grab a bite after.”
“That sounds good, and I do need to go. I’ll see you at the shelter this afternoon.”
After leaving Cass’s office, I headed to Lettie’s sewing and craft store. She figured she’d be slow on a Tuesday morning, and I figured that the craft store was as good a place to meet as any.
“Morning, Lettie,” I greeted after she came into the retail area from the back after the bell over the door announced my arrival.
“Morning, Callie. You’re right on time.”
I nodded. “I try to be prompt, and I promise not to take up any more of your time than I need to.”
“I’ve read your columns since you’ve been working at the newspaper. You have a real talent. I was thrilled when Dex told me that you were going to cover the dance this year. Brock’s covered it in the past, but his articles make the whole thing seem routine and heartless.”
I was thrilled to hear Lettie say that. I really did hope I brought a unique perspective to the newspaper staff. “I’ll need all the specifics, time, place, cost, ticket sales, etc., but I’m going to ask you to email all that to me to save time now. What I really want to talk about is the heart of the event. Why the town holds it each year and how this year might be the best one yet.”
“Let’s have a seat in the office in the back. I’ll hear the bell if someone comes in.”
I nodded and then followed Lettie down the short hallway to her office. I sat down across the desk from her. After a moment, she began to speak. “The Sweetheart Ball has been around since I was a girl. A man named Bryson Newberry decided he wanted to ask a woman named Martha Stanwell out on a date. Martha was a teacher who had moved to the area from the city and from what I remember, she was a beautiful woman who all the men were after. Bryson was a simple farm boy, but he was determined to make Martha his own, so he vowed to plan a date so special that the woman of his dreams would immediately fall in love with him. Back then, there was a single diner and a couple of bars, but nowhere really special to take her. Bryson knew that Martha was never going to be happy with dinner at the diner or an evening at one of the local bars, so he decided to hold a dance in his barn on Valentine’s Day. Now a barn might not seem like the most romantic place for a dance, but Bryson went all out. Not only did he clean the place up so that it was almost unrecognizable as a barn, but he also built a dance floor, hung lights from the rafters, and even hired a live band. Once he had the place ready, he invited the entire community to the event. His plan was to invite Martha as his date once he got everything in place, but his timing was off, and by the time he actually got around to asking Martha to be his date, she’d already accepted an invitation from someone else.”
“Oh, no,” I laughed. “What did he do?”
“From what I’ve been told, he was pretty upset, but knew he needed to attend the dance he was hosting, so he asked the girl who lived on the next farm over to be his date. They’d been friends for a long time, and he figured that if she attended with him, then once everyone arrived, he’d simply ask Martha for a dance at which time he’d make his move.”
I was loving this story. It was going to be perfect for my column. “So, what happened? Did he make his move?”
“Actually, he tried, but Martha made it clear that she wasn’t interested in a simple farm boy, so Bryson spent the evening dancing with Susan, the neighbor I mentioned. At some point, they fell in love, married, and had eight children.”
“Eight?” Yikes, that was a lot.
“Yep and every one of those eight children grew up to be happy, successful adults. Both Bryson and Susan have passed on, and all eight of their offspring have moved away, but the dance lives on. At some point, someone had the idea to use the dance as a fundraiser for the town, so rather than being free, as it was in the beginning, tickets are sold now. And while the dance continued as a barn dance for quite a few years, it’s held at the community center now. I’m not sure there are many folks left in town who even remember Bryson and the over-the-top date he tried to plan to snare a woman he would never have been happy with. I think it will be fun to get the story out there again, especially with all the hoopla being created this year due to the whole Ms. Cupid thing.”
“So, about that.” I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the desk. “I don’t suppose you have any idea who Ms. Cupid is?”
She shook her head. “I really don’t. I’ve gone over it in my mind, but I’ve come up empty. I’m not sure how much you know about Ms. Cupid, but she seems to know a lot about the people who live in the community, so I’m thinking she lives here. She also knows a lot about folks who haven’t even signed up for her service, so I’m thinking she’s lived here for a long time. I’ve tried and tried to figure out who might be behind these matches, but no one jumps out to me as an obvious candidate. Going through all those applications must be time consuming. While Ms. Cupid has made less than a dozen matches, the matches she’s made have all taken, so while the service might not have been given much notice at first, it seems like single men and women of all ages have been applying like crazy.”
“I guess you make a good point about the amount of time that must be involved. And Ms. Cupid doesn’t charge anything, so her motivation is something other than monetary.”
“I suppose the woman might just be one of those people who loves love. I will admit the whole thing has struck a romantic chord in me. If I’d thought of it first, I might have been the one to try my hand at the whole matchmaker thing, but I didn’t think of it first, so if you were wondering, no, I’m not Ms. Cupid.”
“The thought had entered my mind,” I admitted.
Lettie and I spoke a while longer. She provided some tidbits and stories about past Sweetheart Dances that were going to provide entertaining filler for my series. When I’d entered into the conversation, I’d considered the dance to be nothing more than one of many town fundraisers, but now I could see that it was actually something so much more.
Chapter 6
The town council was made up of six council members, four men and two women, plus Mayor Frank White. Mayor White didn’t vote unless there was a tie, and then he provided the tie-breaking vote, which in my mind, gave him a lot more power than I would like to see. Of course, I was new to town, and he had been elected, so there seemed to be reason to believe he was a better person and better mayor that I’d observed so far.
As for the c
ouncil as a whole, since I’d been back, I’d noticed a lot of infighting, which, as far as I could tell, was getting them nowhere fast. The current hot topic was a philosophical one having to do with growth. There were residents and members of the council who felt that it was important to maintain the small-town culture of Foxtail Lake, while other residents, as well as certain council members, wanted to see growth and prosperity and had been campaigning hard to court large resort chains to build in the area.
Personally, I thought Colorado already had plenty of upscale communities like Vail and Aspen, and while I did understand that it was getting harder and harder to make a living in tiny Foxtail Lake, I hated to see the mom and pop shops and family feel of the place replaced by five-star restaurants and high-end shopping. I also hated the idea that our local inns and B&B’s might go by the wayside should large hotel chains get their feet in the door.
But my job today wasn’t to offer an opinion. My job today was to report the events of the meeting as they unfolded. Being an impartial observer wasn’t easy for me, but I knew if I wanted to make it as a journalist, impartial was what I was going to learn to be.
The entire two-hour meeting seemed to consist of one hotly debated topic followed by another. By the time the meeting was over, I felt like I’d been through the ringer and I’d only been observing the exchange. I didn’t see how these folks did this on a regular basis. It was obvious that the council members were a passionate group who cared deeply one way or the other about the issues they came together to discuss. I really wasn’t sure how this particular debate was going to play out, but I suspected a resolution wasn’t going to be evident anytime soon.
After the meeting adjourned, I approached a couple of the council members I knew better than some of the others, hoping for a quote or two to add to my story. While I was speaking with our mayor, Frank White, he said something shocking.
“Guess you must be the new reporter I’ve heard about.”
“Yes, sir. Callie Collins. We’ve actually met once. Deputy Wylander introduced us a while back.”
“Yes. I see. I can’t rightly remember the conversation we had, but I would like to take this opportunity to offer you a word of caution.”
“Caution?”
“As a reporter, it’s your job to report the truth and only the truth. I know there has been talk around town that Dale Conover was murdered and that the fire at his home was intentionally set, but I can assure you that those rumors are far from the truth and shouldn’t be reported.”
“But the man appears to have been shot, and the fire appears to have been the result of a small explosion,” I argued. “That sounds like murder to me.”
“The reality is that the remains were burnt to the point where it was pretty much impossible to say anything conclusively,” White reminded me. “What the coroner actually said is that he found skeletal evidence consistent with the idea that Dale Conover might have suffered from a gunshot wound at some point. He doesn’t know whether or not the man had been shot just before the fire. For all we know, the fire was started by something like an electrical short, and the man simply died due to a terrible accident.”
“But...”
“There is no but about it, young lady. The facts are unclear in this case, and I won’t have that newspaper of yours printing speculation that is sure to bring a sense of panic to the town. Haven’t we already had more than our share of tragedy to deal with in the past six months?”
“Well, yes, I guess the town has suffered from an abnormally high murder rate lately. But just because it’s inconvenient for Dale Conover to have been murdered, doesn’t mean he wasn’t.”
“Like I said, everything you think you know is based on nothing more than speculation. I suggest that you remember that when you write your story.”
This guy was a real piece of work. I understood that he wouldn’t want to cause panic amongst the town folk for no reason, but since I’d known him, he’d demonstrated a consistent willingness to ignore evidence that would point toward murder, even when that outcome seemed likely. “Actually, I’m not writing the piece about the fire. Brock Green is.”
He frowned. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. “I really need to go. I have an appointment to get to. It was nice chatting with you.” Or not, I thought to myself. Of course, as much as the guy annoyed me, I did wonder if he was right. Cass said that it looked as if Dale had been shot and had probably died as a result of the gunshot wound to the chest and not as a result of the fire, but I also remembered the gunshot wound was based on a bone fragment, which in my mind, made the whole scenario far from conclusive.
When I last spoke to Cass, he’d shared that he was going to look into it further, but I wasn’t sure if he’d had the time to do so. I wasn’t writing that particular story, so while I didn’t need to gain clarity concerning the cause of death, I really wanted to call Cass and ask him about Mayor White’s assertions. The thing was, I had an interview to get to, which seemed to be time-sensitive, so I supposed it could wait until I saw him later in the day.
I headed toward my car and then headed toward the area referred to by many as the downtown area of Foxtail Lake. The downtown area was about four square blocks, but it was the general geographic location where many of the local businesses were housed. My first interview of the two I’d set up for today was with a woman named Constance Long. She was a recent match who’d apparently found true love with a man named Steve Winston. I didn’t know either Constance or Steve, but I had spoken to both briefly on the phone. Constance expressed a willingness to speak to me, but Steve told me to get lost. At first, I was irritated by his rude reply and abrasive attitude, but then I realized that an interview with half the couple was better than no interview at all.
Constance was a hairdresser who owned her own salon, so I arranged to meet her between clients. She was booked fairly solid, but she had found a twenty-minute break this afternoon and informed me that if I could work with that twenty minutes, she’d take the time to speak to me. It seemed tight, but twenty minutes was better than nothing, so I agreed.
“Constance?” I asked the redheaded woman who was standing at the cash register, chatting with a blond with streaks of blue in her hair.
“Yes, I’m Constance. You must be Callie.” The redheaded woman turned toward the blond. “This is Kim. She is a client of mine who was also matched by Ms. Cupid. She came in for a blowout, and I asked her to stay. I figured you might want to speak to both of us as long as you are here.”
I frowned. “Kim? I don’t think your name has come up to this point.”
“It probably hasn’t come up because, unlike most of the matches, mine was a bust. Constance thought you should have both sides of the story, so I agreed to stay and meet you.”
“I appreciate that.” I glanced at Constance. “And thank you for asking Kim to stay.” I looked around the salon. “Do you want to talk here or would you prefer to move to another location where we can sit down?”
“Here is fine,” Constance said. “I need to listen for the phone, and since our conversation is going to brief, there is no reason to get too comfortable.”
“Okay, then.” I took out my notepad and set it down on the counter. I supposed I could just use it to write on if we were going to stand. I would think Constance, who probably spent most of the day on her feet, would want to sit down, but whatever. I glanced at Kim. “Since we haven’t spoken, I’d like to start by getting your full name, the full name of the man you were matched with, and the reason you felt the match was a dud.”
She twirled one of her blue streaks with the index finger of her left hand. “My name is Kim Cromwell. I prefer not to mention the name of the man I was matched with since I don’t have his permission to do so. The guy was a really nice guy with a great sense of humor and a fantastic job. I can see why Ms. Cupid thought he’d be a good match, but the truth is, I wasn’t looking for anything serious. We had a lot of fun,
but after the first date with my one true love, I could see that he had marriage and kids on his mind. I’m only thirty-two. Much too young to settle down.”
“I see.” I paused and then continued. “Had you been ready to settle down, do you feel the man you were matched with would have been a good fit?”
She nodded. “Totally. He’s handsome and athletic. He loves to travel and had a lot of stories to tell. In many ways, he would have been the perfect life mate if I’d been looking for something like that, which I’m not.”
“So if you weren’t looking for happily ever after, why did you sign up with Ms. Cupid, who is known for making matches of the forever kind?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I was curious about who Ms. Cupid would come up with. I’ve done other dating sites in the past. I recently did this one program with apps that allowed you to track the movements of the men you’d indicated that you were interested in. At first, it was fun to see where these men went during the day, but then someone pointed out that I’d basically become a stalker, so I quit the service. I’ve joined other dating sites that rely less on technology, but most of the guys were losers. Ms. Cupid has a reputation for weeding out the losers, which appealed to me, so I decided to answer the questions and see what happened. Looking back, I guess I should have thought it through before I agreed to go on a date with a guy who really is perfect for me.”
“Seems to me instead of dumping Mr. Right, you might want to reexamine your attitude about settling down,” Constance said.
Kim crossed her arms across her chest. “Just because you seem to be ready for babies and stretch marks doesn’t mean we all are.”
I turned to Constance. “So tell me about your first date with Steve Winston.”
Her face softened. “It was magical and absolutely perfect. I love fishing, which you may not guess by looking at me, but I do. My first date with Steve was a fishing date on Foxtail Lake, followed by a romantic picnic with some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. It was a gorgeous fall day, and the mountainside was rich with color. I really did feel like I was in some sort of Hallmark movie.” She took a breath and then continued. “We spent the day fishing, eating, and getting to know each other. We laughed and talked and shared our dreams for the future, and by the end of the date, I knew I’d just met the man I would marry.” Constance looked at Kim. “No, I wasn’t sure I was ready for that level of commitment before meeting Steve. Like Kim, I suppose I was curious and willing to give it a try and see how things worked out, but unlike Kim, I have no intention of throwing back the perfect guy just because my timeline had been moved up a bit.”
