Gobble, Gobble Murder

by Leslie Meier

  As she drove down the unpaved road, she felt a sense of mounting excitement. This was a lot better than sitting in that awful basement meeting room at the town hall and listening to the local power players argue about authentic historical paint colors or raising the price of a dump sticker. She loved getting out of the office and away from the computer, chasing down stories that really mattered. That was the best part of her job and she didn’t get to do it enough.

  She was really getting pretty fired up. Her sunglasses were getting foggy and she was perspiring. No wonder, she realized, glancing at the indicator on the dashboard. Somebody, probably Bill, had set the heat at seventy degrees. She switched it off and opened the windows, letting the cold air blow in for the last quarter mile or so. Finally reaching the spot she had in mind, she pulled the SUV into a small clearing, parked, and got out.

  Once standing, she discovered she really needed to pee. She should have thought of this before she left the house, and before she’d pulled on all those clothes, she decided as she struggled to undress enough to relieve herself. That task done and her clothing rearranged, she made her way down the path toward the parking area beside the pond, carrying a big tote bag with her camera, notebook, coffee thermos, and energy bars. As she drew nearer, she scouted for a good observation post and was pleased to discover a bushy young fir tree growing beside a large bulletin board where various notices were posted. It was especially good for her purposes because there was a small gap between the tree and the sign which gave her a good view of the parking lot.

  She set her tote bag on the ground and pulled out her camera, checking the battery level and peering through the viewfinder at the empty parking area. Reassured that she could get a clear shot, she looped the cord around her neck, letting the camera rest on her chest, and pulled out her notebook. Flipping it open she wrote down the date, time, and place. Observing there was still no action in the parking area, she tucked the notebook into her pocket and grabbed the thermos. After filling the cup, which felt pleasantly warm in her hands, she wished she’d thought to bring something to sit on. Her back was starting to ache a bit and it would be nice to be able to get off her feet.

  Nevertheless, she told herself, it was a lovely morning. Chickadees were flitting around in the trees, some even perching on nearby branches and giving her a once over.

  “Dee-dee-dee yourself,” she whispered, taking a sip of coffee. There was nothing like hot black coffee on a chilly morning, she decided, savoring each swallow and promptly draining the plastic cup.

  She was beginning to wonder if perhaps she’d arrived too early in the morning to catch any drug-dealing activity. Now that she thought about it, it seemed that drug-dependent individuals might not be early risers. Maybe they had to sleep off their high, like drinkers with hangovers. She poured herself another cup of coffee and sipped it while she peered through her peephole.

  The coffee cooled rapidly in the chilly air, and her cup was soon empty again. She was reaching for the thermos to refill it when she realized she was going to have to pee again, and soon. What to do? She suspected that the moment she finally freed herself from her clothing and squatted down to relieve herself would be the very moment the drug dealer decided to make his appearance. She was simply going to have to hold it, she told herself, noticing that a chickadee had now perched on the handle of her tote bag and was cocking his black-capped head one way and another, apparently believing she kept sunflower seeds in there.

  “Shoo!” she hissed, afraid that the little birds gathering around her were probably used to begging from swimmers and picnickers and would give her away. The birds were unmoved, which was probably for the best. A cloud of birds rising all at once would certainly have tipped off the drug dealer. Not that there was a drug dealer or any customers in the parking area.

  Lucy checked her watch and discovered she’d been watching and waiting for over an hour and nothing had happened. Maybe drugs were only sold on Tuesdays and Thursdays but never on Fridays. Maybe the delivery had been late. Maybe the dealer had been arrested. Maybe it was time to call it a day, head home, and have a nice, long pee in the comfort of her downstairs powder room.

  It was a tempting idea, especially since she was beginning to shiver in the cold. She was stamping her feet and waving her arms, trying to warm up, when she heard the purr of an engine. A car! This was it! She grabbed the camera and raised it to her eyes, clicking away as the black BMW came into view. It was followed by an aged orange pickup truck, a truck that she recognized because it had been parked in her driveway many times last winter.

  Lucy watched with dismay as she recognized the familiar figure of Hank DeVries leaning down from the window of his truck to give something to the person in the BMW. The deal completed, the BMW zoomed off, but Hank lingered, sitting in the truck.

  Horrified, Lucy broke cover and marched right over to the truck. “Hank! What do you think you’re doing?” He’d grown thinner, she saw, and needed a shave and a haircut. It looked as if he’d been wearing the same clothes for too long. His hooded sweatshirt was grubby and shapeless.

  Startled in the act of rolling up his sleeve, Hank jumped and dropped the bit of rubber tubing he was holding. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Bird watching,” said Lucy. “What are you doing?”

  Hank hesitated as if trying to think up a plausible excuse, then gave a big sigh. “You know what I was doing. I was going to shoot up.”

  “That’s terrible. You have to stop. You’ll end up killing yourself.”

  “I’d like to stop. Believe me,” he said.

  Lucy did. “I know it’s hard . . .”

  “It’s more than hard. It’s impossible.” His eyes were dull. He’d lost the sparkle and energy that had made him so attractive last winter.

  “You should go to rehab. There are places that can help you.”

  He snorted. “They’ll help you if you’ve got ten thousand dollars. I don’t.”

  “There must be a way,” said Lucy. “What about your folks?”

  Hank was fidgeting. Dirty fingers picked at the worn, frayed cuff of his sweatshirt. “They’ve got their own problems. They don’t need me to add to them.”

  Lucy guessed that he didn’t want his parents to know about his addiction and she understood why. He wanted them to be proud of him, to approve of him. “There must be programs—”

  “Ten thousand dollars. That’s what they want. Then they’ll let you in.” He was beginning to shake, and Lucy realized he needed his fix.

  She wanted to help him but knew it would be cruel to prolong his agony. “Well, I gotta go. But do you really mean it? Do you really want to go to rehab? If I find something for you, will you go?”

  He was wrapping the rubber tube around his fingers. “I’ll do it,” he said.

  Her heart sinking, Lucy walked away, picturing Hank injecting himself with heroin like the actors she’d seen faking it in countless TV shows. This was real, though, and she knew that sooner or later he’d overdose.

  But please, God, not today.

  Fearful that he might overdose, she went back to her post behind the bush and waited until he drove off. Then she picked up her tote bag and walked slowly back to her car, determined to find a way to help him.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Lucy Stone, you never made those donuts yourself,” accused Sue Finch when Lucy proudly presented them at the festival. Sue had dressed for the Harvest Festival and was wearing a professional chef’s apron over her chic buffalo plaid flannel shirt and skinny black jeans.

  Transporting six dozen donuts had presented quite a challenge, and Lucy was proud of her solution. She’d borrowed the Legos she kept for her grandson Patrick to play with and had constructed a six story tower which she’d placed inside a sturdy picnic cooler. She was carefully unpacking the trays of donuts, arranging them in a neat pyramid on the baked goods table, which was already loaded with a mouth-watering assortment of homemade cakes, cookies, and pies.

/>   “What do you mean?” she protested. “I’m a good cook.”

  Once her donuts were safely arranged on the table, she took a look around. The entire fellowship hall at the Community Church had been turned over for the festival and was filled with row upon row of folding tables offering gently used books and household items, homemade knitted items, baskets, and other crafts, all watched over by volunteer salesladies. The festival was very popular and even though the doors hadn’t yet opened a small crowd had gathered outside. Inside, the volunteers were chatting, catching up on gossip, and admiring each other’s contributions to the sale.

  “You must have bought them!” exclaimed Sue, still dubious about the provenance of Lucy’s donuts. “And if you did, where did you get them? They look fabulous.”

  “I didn’t buy them,” said Lucy. “Zoe made them with help from Matt Rodriguez.”

  “The cute kid with the ’Vette?” asked Sue.

  “He’s no kid,” replied Lucy, “but he is a trained chef. His dad is Rey Rodriguez. You’ve probably seen his TV show.”

  “Oh, right. I have one of his cookbooks. Really creative, delicious recipes.”

  “Well, Rey has bought the Olde Irish Pub and plans to turn it into a fusion restaurant called Cali Kitchen, and Matt is going to manage it. Zoe interviewed for a job there and Matt took a shine to her and that’s how I have these beautiful apple cider donuts.”

  “They sure are beautiful,” said Pam, stopping by for a quick chat before the sale opened. “You’ve put us all to shame.”

  “I can’t take credit for them. Zoe made them with help from Matt Rodriguez,” confessed Lucy again.

  “It looks like the Stone family will be enjoying world-class cuisine if Matt continues to court Zoe,” said Sue.

  “Zoe has a new boyfriend?” asked Pam.

  “I sincerely hope not,” said Lucy. “Matt Rodriguez is much too old and sophisticated for her. The very idea makes me uncomfortable.”

  “You’re sure you’re not being prejudicial?” asked Pam.

  “Oh, probably,” admitted Lucy. “But it’s not his Latino heritage that bothers me. It’s his age. He must be at least thirty, and Zoe’s only eighteen.”

  The sound of a teaspoon tapping on a glass silenced Lucy and the other volunteers. Festival chairman Bessie Bone thanked everyone for their efforts and announced the sale was now open. There was a smattering of applause as the doors were opened and the eager customers rushed in.

  The Harvest Festival had become well-known through the years for the quality of the crafts that were offered, especially the knits and baskets, and there was a good deal of rushing about as patrons searched out their favorites. Lucy and Sue’s table was at the rear of the hall and didn’t attract much attention at first, but word soon spread about the donuts, which people said were better than ever this year. They were all gone when Rachel arrived with Miss Tilley; all that remained on the baked goods table was a single blueberry pie with a rather burnt crust.

  Julia Ward Howe Tilley—nobody but her closest and oldest friends dared to call her by her first name—was the retired librarian of the Broadbrooks Free Library and the town’s oldest resident by at least a decade. Rachel was her home health aide, a position that had evolved from her friendship with the old woman following an automobile accident.

  “Well, where are the donuts?” demanded Miss Tilley. “I always buy a half-dozen.”

  “Sorry,” said Sue, “we’re all sold out. All we have is this blueberry pie.”

  “My mother always used to say a pie doesn’t have to look good to taste good,” said Lucy, attempting to close the deal. “I think we could offer a substantial discount.”

  “Blueberry pie is a Maine tradition,” said Rachel.

  “Are they Maine blueberries?” asked Miss Tilley, eyeing the pie suspiciously.

  “I’m sure they are,” said Sue. “Franny Small made that pie and nobody is more Maine than Franny. She wouldn’t use berries from the supermarket.”

  “You could ask her,” said Pam, waving to Franny, who was standing at a nearby table.

  Franny spotted Pam’s frantic waving and came over, a big smile on her face. “The sale is a big success. My table is sold out.”

  “Miss Tilley is thinking of buying this pie you brought, but she wants to know if it contains Maine berries,” said Sue.

  “Of course it does. I wouldn’t use anything else. I picked them myself out by Blueberry Pond and froze them. Last summer was a good year for berries. I got tons.” Franny paused, and a shadow fell over her face. “But I don’t know if I’ve got the heart to pick next summer—not after that poor girl died at the pond. I know that’s all I’ll think about now, every time I see that pond.”

  They all fell silent, thinking about Alison’s tragic death, and even though they all had something they wanted to say, nobody wanted to be the first to speak.

  It fell to Miss Tilley to break the awkward silence. “So sad when a young person dies.”

  “And a lot are dying from this opioid epidemic,” said Rachel. “They overdose or get tainted drugs.”

  “I’m working on a story about drugs here in town,” said Lucy.

  “Here in Tinker’s Cove. My goodness,” said Franny, her eyes wide.

  “Drugs are everywhere,” said Sue. “It really is an epidemic.”

  “I simply don’t understand why they do it,” said Pam. “I’m high on life. I wouldn’t risk my life for some synthetic version.”

  “I doubt very much that Alison Franklin died of an overdose,” said Miss Tilley.

  They all turned to look at her.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Lucy.

  “Because she was so healthy and athletic. I used to see her running by my house every morning when I opened the door to get my morning paper. She was always on time and she used to give me a big smile and wave at me.”

  “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t using drugs,” said Rachel. “Or maybe it was her first time.”

  “Nonsense,” snapped Miss Tilley. “I’ve been around for a long time and, well, you just get a feeling for people. She gave every impression of being a happy, healthy person. She radiated optimism.”

  Lucy couldn’t help thinking that Miss Tilley was drawing a lot of conclusions from very little evidence, but didn’t want to contradict her.

  Sue had no such compunctions. “That’s ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “You couldn’t tell all that from seeing her run past your house.”

  “Do you know her father is married to a woman the same age as Alison?” asked Franny. “And she’s pregnant.”

  “Her father is Ed Franklin,” said Pam. “Imagine being related to him.”

  “He is terrible, I admit that,” said Miss Tilley. “That big gold F on his chimney! So tasteless. But I have observed that very often the more horrible and vulgar a man is, the nicer his relations are. It’s as if they’re aware of his shortcomings and attempting to make amends. Just think of that basketball coach we had a few years ago. His wife was the loveliest woman.”

  “Well, if you don’t think she overdosed, how exactly do you think Alison died?” asked Lucy.

  “Well, I’ve heard all sorts of theories about drugs and even suicide or a tragic accident,” said Miss Tilley. “But I think she was murdered.” She didn’t even pause for breath after making that astonishing comment but went on to ask, “How much for the pie?”

  * * *

  Lucy was still thinking about Miss Tilley’s provocative comment after the festival was over and she went on to work at the Pennysaver office. Phyllis had taken the afternoon off to help her husband, Wilf, who was having cataract surgery, and Ted was covering a regional conference on flood insurance, so she had the place to herself. After she’d uploaded the photos she took at the sale, she googled drug rehab programs and made a few phone calls. She was surprised to learn that Hank was right and the programs did require up-front payment.

  “These folks are drug addicts,” said the admission couns
elor at a place in New Hampshire called New Beginnings. “We want them to commit to getting clean. Recovery is not easy. Our program is four weeks long and even with the big financial cost we have dropouts.”

  “What about health insurance?” asked Lucy, who had opened a file in her computer and was entering the counselor’s comments with an eye to including them in the series on drug addiction. “Drug addiction is a disease, after all.”

  “It varies depending on the policy,” said the counselor. “But it’s an unusual patient who has coverage. By the time they come to us, they’ve pretty much bottomed out. Health insurance is usually tied to employment and most of our folks don’t have jobs.”

  “So how do they come up with the money?” asked Lucy.

  “Family, friends, people who love them. Parents often patch together the money using several credit cards.”

  “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of love,” said Lucy, “especially if you’re paying twenty percent interest.”

  “It is indeed,” said the counselor. “But it’s not uncommon. We actually have a waiting list.”

  “Let’s add my young friend to the list,” said Lucy on impulse, figuring that it was worth taking a chance. Maybe, just maybe, something would come up and Hank could go to rehab. In any case, the difficulty of getting into a rehab program would definitely be part of the series on drug addiction.

  She remained at her desk after completing the call, cleaning up the file which she’d typed while talking on the phone. The whole situation was depressing, she thought, thinking of the mess these young people got themselves into and the difficulty of getting out. What future did Hank have if he couldn’t get clean? She hated to think of him becoming a homeless straggler, relying on the food pantry for something to eat, or even worse, dying of an overdose. What a waste of a promising young man!