Well-Offed in Vermont: A Pret’ Near Perfect Mystery

by Amy Patricia Meade

  “Until when, Josh?” Stella gently asked.

  “ ’Til I found out Mr. Weston meant to blame the whole thing on me. I was supposed to take the rap. I—I couldn’t let him do it …”

  “I understand why you’d be angry; I’d be angry too. But even if he blamed you, it was still Weston’s company,” Nick rejoined. “He’d ultimately be responsible for the damages.”

  “I know, but it’s more than that. I do good work—work I’m proud of. I don’t want my name mixed up with that whole deal. I weren’t the greedy one. I tried to stop it.”

  “But Hank Reid knows that, doesn’t he? You said he overheard the conversation.”

  “Yup, that’s why his lawyer asked me to make a statement.”

  “And, naturally, you agreed. So Weston set out to discredit you.”

  Middleton nodded. “Wanna hear somethin’ else? When I finally got ’round to workin’ on my truck, I found out someone had messed with the starter. I figure Mr. Weston did it so I’d miss my parole meeting. He didn’t ’spect me to ask for the truck. But when I did, he got an even better idea—framin’ me.”

  “Do you have any proof?”

  “That the truck was messed with? Or that Weston did it?”

  “Both.”

  “The wires to the starter were cut. I don’t know who else’d have reason to do it besides Weston.”

  “But you didn’t see him do it.”

  “Nope. But I know it was him.”

  “And now that Weston’s dead, where does that leave you?”

  Middleton became oddly silent.

  “Come on, man. I’m sure you already spoke with your lawyer. What did he say to you? If you don’t tell us, we’ll go look him up.”

  “He said I still have to go to trial,” his voice cracked, “but without Mr. Weston around, the charges prolly won’t stick.”

  “And the Reid civil suit?”

  “I dunno. I didn’t ask. Sounds bad, I know, but I was more worried about going to jail.”

  “Which you’ve luckily avoided.”

  “Look, I know what you’re gettin’ at, but you’re forgetting somethin’ important: how’d I know Mr. Weston was gonna be at your house?”

  “I’m sure you have friends who still worked for Speedy Septic. Besides, Weston was driving one of those bright yellow well service trucks the day he died. It wouldn’t be very difficult to follow him to our place.”

  “I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”

  “Where were you yesterday?”

  “Work.”

  “Where are you working?”

  “Nowhere. No one will hire me with the truck thing hangin’ over my head. I’ve been doin’ odd jobs here and there.”

  “And yesterday?”

  “I was up on the mountain cuttin’ firewood for a friend.”

  “You were there all day?”

  “ ’Til it started raining. Then I packed up and came home.”

  “And this friend can vouch that you were there?”

  “Yup. I’ll give you his number if you want.”

  “Save it for the cops. They’ll want to speak to the person who can give you an alibi for the day. This friend was with you the entire time you were there, right?”

  Middleton’s face grew red. “N-no … he was at work all day. That’s why he had me cut the firewood. He ain’t got the time to do it himself.”

  Nick frowned. “Hmm.”

  “Look, I know what you’re thinking, and I ain’t no murderer!” Middleton rose to his feet again. “If you’re looking to hang someone, check out ol’ man Reid. When I got arrested, he lost his best chance at getting even with Mr. Weston. If that ain’t motive, I don’t know what is.”

  Amidst the barks of Luke, Josh Middleton stormed into the trailer and slammed the aluminum screen door behind him.

  Chapter

  8

  NICK DROVE OUT of the Wiley Campgrounds and back over the railroad tracks into Teignmouth proper. There, the reemergence of the sun combined with the now-milder temperatures had inspired legions of tourists, shopping bags in hand, to take to the town on foot.

  “My god, look at them all,” Stella exclaimed as the Smart car inched along Main Street. “It’s like being at Loehmann’s during tax- free week.”

  “Mills and Alma warned us that today would be busy.”

  “This traffic is almost enough to make me wonder if it’s worth running around town questioning people.”

  Nick looked over in surprise.

  “I said almost. We learned too much this morning to make me think otherwise.”

  “Yeah, we did. Namely, that Josh Middleton probably won’t be inviting us to his next Super Bowl party. Oh, and I wouldn’t expect a Christmas card from him either.”

  “You can’t blame him, Nick. The kid made one mistake in his young life and now he’s expected to take the rap for everything from floating septic tanks to stolen trucks. Then, today, we walk in and suggest he might be involved in murder. It must be frustrating for him.”

  “Yes, it would be, assuming he’s innocent. But what if he isn’t? What if he killed Weston?”

  “Then we’ve probably ticked him off enough to become his next victims,” she joked. “Seriously, though, if his story is accurate, I don’t see how he could have done it. By the time he would have finished chopping wood, Weston had bled to death, and we were already at the house.”

  “You’re assuming a lot, don’t you think?” asked Nick.

  “I know, we have no proof that he was there all day. His friend might not be able to substantiate his story, but maybe someone else saw him. Someone should look into it.”

  “Unless someone watched him all day or remembers the exact time they spotted Middleton, it doesn’t much matter.”

  “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Stella said. “Middleton said he was chopping wood until it started raining. As long as someone saw him just before it started raining, he’s in the clear.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because I clearly remember being in the living room of the farmhouse when the rain started coming down. It was about four thirty or so. By that time, Weston had long been dead.”

  “Yeah, I know. But you should also remember that Middleton wasn’t working here in town.”

  “I know. He said he was working on the mountain. But I don’t see how that changes anything,” Stella said.

  “Mountains tend to receive more precipitation and greater cloud cover than lower-lying areas. If Middleton was working at a higher elevation, he could have seen rain hours before we did. And if the mountain in question lies to the west of town, then he could have seen that front move through even earlier.”

  “Meaning he might have had ample time to shoot Weston and then return to the trailer park.”

  “Or wherever else he wanted to go.”

  “You know, you’re kinda sexy when you talk like a park ranger.”

  “Just kinda?”

  Stella laughed. “The only problem is Middleton didn’t tell us which mountain he was working on.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard to find out. It sounded to me like ‘on the mountain’ is a phrase the locals use to mean a very specific area. We can ask Mills tonight or Alma tomorrah.”

  “Wow, you sound like a true Vermonter …”

  “Yup. Pret’ near.”

  “ … who just came back from a trip to Jersey.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Mmm. I’m a bit troubled by our visit with Alice, though.”

  “What about Alice?” Nick asked.

  “Something about her timeline doesn’t quite add up. If she left our house at a quarter after eleven, she should have had more than enough time to make the closing at noon, but instead she was late.”

  “She said she had phone calls to make.”

  “Okay, so she goes back to her office to make the phone calls and then walks a block to the lawyer’s office where we met. I can buy that. However, what I ca
n’t buy is the fact that when Alice arrived, she was flustered and out of breath.”

  “Maybe the phone calls she made were with a difficult client.”

  “Or maybe she had been at the farmhouse the whole time. Maybe she stuck around to talk to Weston, and maybe that conversation turned ugly, and maybe she shot him.”

  “What motive did she have?” asked Nick.

  “I don’t know, but she was so adamant about never having done business with Weston. In the words of Shakespeare, ‘the lady doth protest too much.’”

  “You know, you’re kinda sexy when you’re quoting Shakespeare.”

  “I’m already sexy. I believe the word you’re looking for is sexier.”

  Having coiled their way through the throng of cars and jaywalking pedestrians, Stella and Nick emerged at the opposite end of the village where, with the exception of the incredibly slow-moving tour bus in front of them, the road opened up, and the noise and congestion of town gradually dissipated.

  Stella watched as Teignmouth’s storefronts gave way to rolling farmland, acres of national forest, and, standing guard in the distance, the rounded, tree-covered peaks of Vermont’s Green Mountains. It was here, in front of an expansive farmstand offering pumpkins, cornstalks, and cider doughnuts, where the bus finally pulled onto the shoulder of the road and joined other buses as they discharged a flock of tourists dressed in jeans, jackets, and sheepskin-lined boots. Some made a beeline for the doughnut stand, others headed directly for the pumpkin patch, and still others stood immediately outside the bus, snapping photos, typing messages onto tiny keypads, or shouting into cell phones.

  Stella drew a heavy sigh and wondered if any of the motor coaches in the farm’s gravel-lined lot had room for two more passengers. Although she and Nick had been in Vermont for just under twenty-four hours, she was already tired of the rural life. She missed the comfort of their Murray Hill apartment and the familiar sounds of car horns, traffic, and the occasional police or ambulance siren. However, she knew that she couldn’t go back.

  Whether it was the experience of finding a dead body in their well, sleeping in a hunting camp, or trying to realize her sleuthing skills, something had transpired to make Stella feel as though she were different from the urban sightseers who, despite having joined the leaf-peeping exodus, did their best to seem unimpressed by it. Not better than nor wiser than, mind you, just different.

  No, Stella resolved, even if it didn’t feel very welcoming at the moment, this place was her home now. And whatever Vermont living meant, she would do her best to embrace it.

  While Stella grappled with the realities of her new environment, Nick longed to enjoy a driving experience seldom known to most city dwellers. Spying the freshly blacktopped, highly scenic, and completely open road that stretched before him, he passed the bus and quickly accelerated.

  But, alas, before he could reach the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, Nick spotted a sign indicating that the turnoff for Hank Reid’s house lay just a few hundred feet ahead. Swearing under his breath, Nick veered onto the dirt and gravel of Deer Run Road and pulled into the driveway of the house designated as number 68.

  Developed on generously subdivided farmland, the residences along Deer Run Road represented over one hundred years of architectural styles. Bungalows stood next to American Foursquares, Colonial revivals neighbored split levels, and ranches sprawled beside quaint cottages. Clad in white aluminum siding with turquoise trim and shutters, Hank Reid’s mid-century undormered Cape Cod not only bridged the gap between the centuries but served as a reminder of a simpler time in America’s history.

  With her hand on the wrought iron handrail, Stella climbed the brick front steps and pressed the doorbell. From inside, she heard the muffled sound of the Westminster chime.

  “I’m going to let you do most of the talking with this one,” Nick instructed. “Since you’ll probably get further than I will.”

  “Why will I get further?”

  “Uh, let’s see. Tall, seemingly fast-talking Jersey guy or good-looking thirty-something blond with, let’s face it, a nice rack. Gee, I wonder which of us the old guy would rather talk to?”

  “You’re a pig. We haven’t even met this guy and you’ve already summed up that he’s a dirty old man.”

  “Most of them are. You know why? Because they can get away with it. Even the most jealous guy on the planet isn’t going to say anything to an old man who flirts with his girl, because once you do that, you look like an insecure jerk. The old guys know it too, ’cause they used to be us,” Nick said, hiking a thumb at his chest. “They’re crafty that way.”

  “You know, just when I start to think that perhaps men are deeper than we women give them credit for, you say or do something to change my mind.”

  “Just keeping it real, babe. My perfection could cause you to have a distorted view of the male gender. As your husband, I feel it’s my duty to demonstrate how other men might act. You know, just to remind you that you’d find most of them offensive.”

  “You’re doing an awesome job, hon. A truly awesome job.”

  As Nick laughed, the front door swung open, revealing a balding, heavyset man in his seventies. “Yes?”

  “Hi, Mr. Reid? I’m Stella Buckley, and this is my husband, Nick. We just bought the old Colton place.”

  Reid’s round face broke into a wide smile. “Ohhh, yes. Come on in. I heard all about you folks when I was down at Alma’s this morning. They failed to mention how pretty you were, though.”

  As Reid held the door ajar to allow Stella admittance, Nick turned on one heel as if to head back to the car. “Well, it looks like you have everything under control. I’ll go get another flashlight and pick you up at—”

  Before he could finish, Stella grabbed him by the arm and yanked him inside the house.

  There, they encountered a tidy living room that might have doubled as the set of a 1950s television sitcom: the mint-green walls were offset by a white drop ceiling, the floor was covered with green tweed carpet squares, and the windows were dressed with metal Venetian blinds and stiff, floral-printed barkcloth drapes. Standing in the center of the room and in stark contrast to the softness of the carpet, seating, and drapes stood a teak coffee table with slender legs and rounded corners. A gooseneck metallic floor lamp with twin sconce shades cast a glow from its spot in the corner. Indeed, the room’s only concession to the current age was a 42-inch LCD flat-screen television, and even that rested upon a Danish-modern maple credenza.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Reid.”

  “I’ll have a glass of water,” Nick answered, although he might as well have been invisible.

  “Please, call me Hank,” the elderly man insisted as he sank into an angular club chair upholstered in green Optik fabric.

  “Hank,” Stella repeated as she sat down on a boxy, pinkish colored Herculon loveseat.

  Nick selected the seat beside his wife but, finding the loveseat’s small scale somewhat prohibitive, opted to perch tentatively on the edge of the sofa cushion.

  “So, Stella—” Reid started. “That is what you said your name was, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, Stella. Stella Thornton Buckley.”

  “Stella,” Reid smiled. “That means ‘star,’ you know. And I’m sure a girl as pretty as you are has been the star of many a young man’s eye.”

  “Here we go,” Nick said under his breath.

  The smile evaporated from Reid’s face. “And what was your name again, young man?” he asked rather curtly.

  “Nick, sir. Nick Buckley.”

  “Dick?”

  “No, Nick,” he corrected, taking great pains to enunciate the letter N.

  “Huh? Rick?”

  “Nick,” he said even louder. “With an N.”

  “Mick?”

  “No, Nick.”

  “Yeah, Dick. That’s what I said the first time.”

  Stella had heard enough of the ridiculous exchan
ge. “Mr. Reid,” she interrupted. “Er, Hank—we’d like to ask you about Allen Weston.”

  “Don’t know what I can tell you ’bout him ’part from the fact he’s dead. Good riddance, I say.”

  “His death is precisely why we’re here. You see, Allen Weston didn’t fall down the well by accident; he was shot.”

  Reid, just like Alice and Josh before him, remained calm.

  “Oh yeah? High time he got what he deserved.”

  “What did he do to you to merit such contempt?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard I was suing him?” He chuckled. “People ’round here ain’t what they used to be if that story hasn’t reached your ears yet.”

  “I heard snippets of the story but not all the details. Besides, I only trust half of what I hear as gossip. When I’m looking for the truth, it’s best to go straight to the source.”

  “You’re as smart as you are pretty,” Reid complimented before recounting the tale of the floating septic tank. Not surprisingly, his story matched Josh Middleton’s almost exactly.

  “So how did you get everything fixed?” Stella asked at the end of his narrative.

  “Wound up calling Jake Brunelle. Should have called him from the get-go, but I was afraid he’d take too long. Hired him to build me a shed once, and I swear the blackbirds might have turned white by the time he finished. A man can live awhile without a shed, but he can’t live long without a …” He threw his hands in the air, as if the gesture somehow signified the unmentionable piece of plumbing.

  “No, I suppose he can’t, can he?”

  “When I saw the ad for Speedy Septic in the Pennysaver, I said, ‘That’s the ticket. That’s what I need: speedy.’ Well, they were fast, all right. Weren’t here more than fifteen minutes before my septic system was screwed up. Awfully fast in leaving, too, though at least the one fella, Middleton, apologized before he left.”

  “Did Middleton explain what had happened?”

  “No. He was pretty worked up about the situation. All he could say was ‘I’m sorry about this, sir.’ But I heard him on the phone talking to his boss, Weston—or, more precisely, I overheard how Weston was talking to him. Tough not to, the way he was hollering and carrying on.”