Stuck on Murder

by Lucy Lawrence

  Brenna waved as she let the door swing shut behind her. She wished Matt had given her a better idea of what to expect, but it seemed to be beyond his descriptive capabilities. That had to be bad. What could Nate be up to? Hadn’t he caused enough of a ruckus with his sketch of the mayor? What could he have cooked up now?

  In exactly four and a half miles, she could stop speculating. Visible from the main road were big, garish yellow signs that read “Save Morse Point Lake!” and “Down with Dim Dipley!” They were planted all over the lake-front property like oversized, monster dandelions.

  Brenna felt her jaw do a slow drop and stay there as she gaped in wonder at her front lawn. Nate had obviously lost his mind.

  She parked in the small communal lot they all shared and scanned the cabins perched around the lake.

  “Brenna!”

  She turned to see Twyla, one of Nate’s older tenants, skipping, yes skipping, across the lawn toward her. It was quite a sight since Twyla was somewhere in her early sixties. It had taken a few months, but Brenna had grown accustomed to Twyla’s skipping. She said it kept her young, and truth to be told, Brenna had actually tried it in the privacy of her own home. She had to agree that there was something invigorating about skipping.

  Twyla was a character. She wore her long gray hair in a braid that hung down to her waist and she favored brightly patterned broomstick skirts. The matching tops were usually weighed down with a variety of polished stone necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. She was a sculptor of metal by trade and usually had a welder’s helmet perched on her head. Today, however, she wielded a fistful of paintbrushes.

  “Hi, Twyla,” Brenna said faintly. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “You’re just in time.” Twyla grabbed Brenna’s hand in her callused one and dragged her across the lawn toward Nate’s porch.

  The other two tenants, Paul and Portia Cherry, were a married couple who lived in separate cabins because of Paul’s snoring. They were sitting on the porch amid cans of paint with brushes in hand. Like Twyla, Paul and Portia were older than Brenna. She guessed them to be somewhere in their fifties. They both wore glasses and kept their gray hair cropped short, as if their years together had caused them to begin to resemble one another. Being roughly the same height and body shape, they reminded Brenna of a pair of bookends.

  Childless, they had retired young, Paul from being an economist and Portia from a career in nursing, to pursue their artistic dreams. Portia worked in glass, while Paul’s preferred medium was clay. Given that the sight of blood made Paul woozy, they didn’t share studio space either. He had been known to faint whenever Portia nicked her finger on a sharp edge.

  The couple had just finished another sign and were admiring their handiwork when Brenna and Twyla joined them. This one said, “Keep Morse Point Lake Free!”

  The words were bordered by psychedelic swirls of color that were almost blinding in their intensity. Brenna feared there’d be a lot of drivers heading right into the lake if this was placed within eyeshot of the road.

  “Isn’t it fabulous?” Twyla asked.

  “Uh … yeah,” Brenna agreed. The others looked so pleased with themselves that her underwhelming response went unnoticed. “Is Nate around?”

  “He sure is.” Twyla looked away from the sign and pointed toward the far side of the lake. “He’s putting up a few signs down by the swimming hole. Wait ’til he sees this one!”

  On a map, Morse Point Lake looked like a big blue handprint just a few miles from the center of town. It covered 320 acres with one main body of water and several long inlets that ran off into smaller streams and brooks. Nate’s cabins surrounded the thumb part of the handprint, and the property he’d been acquiring over the past few years surrounded the main body of water.

  The locals’ favorite swimming hole was a large sandy beach on the main lake. Nate owned the land, but he let the townspeople use the lake with the stipulation that the town provide lifeguards during the summer. Brenna had not known any of this until a few days ago when the Porter twins had stopped by to swap information. They had been woefully disappointed with what Brenna had brought to the table, which was nothing, but the joy of sharing what they knew overrode their censure.

  Brenna followed the path to the main lake. It had rained during the night and left the path riddled with puddles and slick with mud. It squished up the sides of her shoes and she was glad she had worn her cotton sneakers. At least they were washable.

  It wasn’t long before she could hear the rhythmic banging of a hammer on a stake. As she stepped around a budding maple by the water’s edge, she saw Nate in a bright blue T-shirt and jeans bent over yet another sign. This one read, “Impeach Dim Dipley!”

  “Hi, Nate,” she called.

  He glanced up at her and grinned. Brenna blinked. She’d never seen him look so animated before. He wore a self-satisfied smile, the kind you’d expect to find on someone who was winning an argument.

  “Having fun?” she asked.

  “Nothing like a good cause to get your motor running,” he agreed. He lowered his hammer and stretched his back.

  Brenna had to appreciate the way his eyes crinkled in the corners and his lips turned up in an impudent grin. He looked as happy as she’d ever seen him.

  Still, Matt had said the local business owners weren’t going to be happy with Nate’s eye-popping campaign. Given that Matt had lived here all his life, she trusted his judgment. She also knew she should butt out. After all, hadn’t she learned her lesson from the last go-around?

  And yet, she didn’t want to see Nate get into trouble, and not just because it might affect her living arrangement. He was an outsider in Morse Point like her, and she felt they needed to stick together. Besides, having lived in a wide variety of apartments in Boston over the years, she knew a good landlord was hard to find.

  “You look worried,” he said. He tilted his head to the side and studied her. He didn’t look amused now. His gray eyes were intent upon her face, making her uncomfortable. She had the feeling he knew exactly what she was thinking. His next words confirmed it.

  “The mayor can’t do anything to me,” he said. “And I’m allowed to have a difference of opinion with him and express it.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” she said. “But this is a very small town. Dip … er … Ripley has lived here all of his life, and you’re an outsider.”

  “Do you think they will tar and feather me? Or run me out on a rail?” he asked. The crinkles were back in the corners of his eyes.

  Brenna had no idea why this made her face grow warm. She tried to ignore it. She turned away from him and picked up a long narrow stick. She poked holes in the mud with it.

  “What if he succeeds in levying a massive property tax on you?” she asked.

  “I can handle it,” he said.

  “What if they refuse to let you buy any more land?”

  “There are many ways to acquire property,” he said.

  “What if they try to take possession of the cabins again?” she asked. She knew it was a long shot, but she wanted him to understand that this wasn’t New York. Memories were long in Morse Point, and unless you were a fifth-generation native-born resident, you might as well be from Mars.

  “They won’t. No one wants that to become a precedent. I may be an outsider, but no one in this town went for the mayor’s attempt at eminent domain, and they never will,” he said. His voice was disgusted. “He is the greedi est, most corrupt public official I’ve ever seen. He needs to step down.”

  She looked at him in alarm.

  “Brenna, what are you so worried about?” he asked.

  She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. What could she say? He had a self-assurance that she envied, and he was right. He was allowed to have his opinion and express it, even if it wasn’t popular with the town officials. She just had a bad feeling about this whole business that she couldn’t shake, but how could she explain that to him?

  “I just don’t wa
nt to wake up in the middle of the night and find the villagers marching on us with torches,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment and then threw his head back in a great guffawing laugh that was even more contagious than his grin. She laughed, too. She supposed she was being silly. Realistically, what could happen? Nate and the mayor would work this out, sooner or later, and with any luck, it would be resolved in a way that they all found livable.

  “Nate!” a shriek sounded from the path, halting their laughter. Twyla appeared in a burst of iridescent blues. “The mayor is on a rampage! Come quick!”

  Chapter 5

  For a smooth finish, it is essential to start with a clean and smooth surface.

  Nate and Brenna exchanged a surprised look and hurried up the path toward the cabins. Nate took the lead with his longer stride, leaving Brenna to follow, with a winded Twyla bringing up the rear.

  “I will not stand for this!” Mayor Ripley shouted. He was jumping up and down on the remnants of one of the signs. The bright yellow poster board was covered in his muddy size nine footprints, and the wooden stake it had been perched on was as splintered as kindling.

  “I called the police,” Portia shouted from the porch, where she and Paul stood wearing identical expressions of bemusement.

  The mayor’s head was a bold shade of apple red, his tie was askew, and his suspenders were holding on for all they were worth. When he caught sight of Nate, he gave a primal roar and tugged another sign out of the ground. He charged across the lawn swinging the sign as if hoping to smack Nate out of the figurative ballpark with it.

  “Was there something you wanted to discuss?” Nate asked. The mayor kept charging.

  Nate gave Brenna a half-stunned, half-amused smile and jogged over to stand behind the mayor’s silver Lexus. The mayor chased him around the car, but Nate stayed just ahead of him. With an infuriated grunt, Mayor Ripley switched directions and so did Nate. This game of tag went on for several minutes. It would have been funny, Brenna supposed, if the mayor hadn’t been frothing at the mouth, looking like he planned to shove the business end of the sign through Nate’s heart.

  A screech of tires made Brenna turn to look through the trees that lined the drive to the road beyond. At least twenty cars had stopped to watch the show, the last one almost rear-ending the car ahead of it. Several townspeople had climbed out of their vehicles and were sitting on the trunks, roofs, and hoods to get a better view. If they’d had coolers and hibachis, it’d look like a tailgate party.

  A large white sedan, sporting vintage bubble lights, left the other cars on the street and wound its way up the drive. It was a local police car, obvious from the Morse Point Police Shield on its side, and was being driven by the chief of police himself.

  He parked behind the Lexus and glanced through his windshield as if unsurprised by what he was seeing. Brenna knew that Ray Barker had been with the town police for thirty-five years, and even in an uneventful town like Morse Point, he had probably seen it all and then some.

  “Gentlemen,” he called as he stepped out of his vehicle, “what seems to be the trouble?”

  Ray Barker was six foot three, tall and lanky with close-cropped silver hair and a matching mustache that he’d probably had since the seventies. He spoke soft and slow, but Brenna got the feeling that he’d have you splayed out on the ground before you knew what hit you if you gave him any provocation. He was the very essence of law and order.

  Chief Barker’s gaze slid across the scene, and Brenna knew that he missed nothing from the numerous yellow signs to the two men causing the ruckus to the plump, black and white Muscovy duck swimming for deeper waters in the lake beyond. The chief was cataloging it all. When his gaze rested upon Brenna, she felt her palms get sweaty, which was ridiculous. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Nate and Mayor Ripley abruptly stopped their game of tag. While Nate looked charmingly sheepish, Mayor Ripley was furiously indignant. He threw down the sign he clutched and stomped over toward the chief.

  “About time!” he snapped. “Make him take down all of these signs.”

  The chief just shook his head and spoke in a low drawl that Brenna had to strain to hear. “Can’t. It’s his property. He can put signs wherever he wants.”

  “But it’s libel, it’s slander, why, it’s visual pollution!” Mayor Ripley protested. “There has to be an ordinance against this!”

  “Well, there isn’t,” Chief Barker said.

  “That can be changed!” Mayor Ripley warned.

  “There has been some damage done here, though,” the chief said. He gave the mayor a sideways glance. “It could be considered vandalism.”

  “That is preposterous!” Mayor Ripley protested.

  “Did you do this, Mayor?” Chief Barker asked.

  The mayor glanced around and Brenna had the feeling he would have lied, but there were too many witnesses.

  “I was merely protecting my good name from his lies and propaganda.”

  “Either way, I need to ask Mr. Williams if he wants to press charges,” Chief Barker said.

  If the mayor had been angry before, now he looked positively volcanic, as in about to explode.

  “Press charges? Against me? Need I remind you that I am the mayor?”

  “I think I’m pretty clear on that,” Chief Barker said. Brenna could have sworn he had a laugh tucked neatly under his mustache.

  She caught Nate’s eye over the chief’s shoulder and shook her head. Enough was enough. If he brought charges against the mayor, she feared the town really would show up in the middle of the night to burn them out.

  Nate glanced away as if he hadn’t seen her, and she clenched her teeth. Stubborn man! Why, he made even the most ornery mule seem sweetly dispositioned by comparison. And no, it did not escape her that she was comparing him to a jackass.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Nate said as he leaned against the police cruiser. “Would he have to do jail time?”

  The mayor gasped and clenched his fists.

  “For a few signs?” Chief Barker asked. “No, ’fraid not.”

  “Community service?” Nate asked.

  “Nope.” Chief Barker moved to lean beside Nate. “You’re looking at a citation with a minimal fine.”

  Mayor Ripley looked as if he wanted to yell, but he wisely stayed silent.

  “Hardly seems worth the effort then,” Nate said.

  The chief nodded and said, “Okay, then, you head on home, Mayor, and we’ll forget the whole thing.”

  The mayor’s head snapped between the two men, and he pulled himself up to the fullest of his inconsiderable height.

  “I’ll have your job, Chief Barker,” he said.

  Ray looked at him, and one of his eyebrows lowered skeptically. “I’ve been ready to retire for six years, but no one will let me. Be my guest.”

  The mayor let out a snarl and slammed into the driver’s seat of his Lexus. With a spray of gravel, he sped down the lane toward the main road. Figuring that the drama was over with the arrival of Chief Barker, the glut of traffic had begun to move just in time to let him merge.

  Chief Barker pushed his hat back on his head and looked at Nate. “I’ve known Jim since he was a kid, and even then he was a snot-nosed little bugger. But are the signs really necessary?”

  Nate shrugged. “He’s trying to develop the lake. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop him.”

  “Some folks think development is good for the local economy.”

  “It’ll cause the lake to become overcrowded with water-skiing yahoos and motorboats, and it’ll kill off the brook trout,” Nate said solemnly.

  Chief Barker frowned. “Can’t have that. Maybe I should go and take an informal survey of the wildlife.”

  Nate nodded and it seemed to Brenna that an unspoken understanding passed between them.

  The chief went to the back of his car and opened the trunk. He pulled out a rod and reel and a large tackle box. He slammed the trunk, and with a tip of his ha
t, he disappeared down the path that wound around the inlets.

  Brenna gave Nate a questioning look, and he grinned and said, “It’s all who you know.”

  “Indeed,” she agreed. She felt like smacking her own forehead. How could she have been worried about him? If ever there was a man who did not need looking after, it was Nate Williams.

  Chapter 6

  Usable images can come from such varied sources as wrapping paper, magazines, and paper napkins.

  As Brenna learned over the next few days, the town residents were quite divided in their opinions of Nate versus Mayor Ripley and the future of Morse Point Lake.

  Two days after the mayor’s hissy fit at the lake, she was standing in the checkout line at Mitch’s Hardware Store, which sat across the town square from Vintage Papers, buying a large can of Polycrylic for her next class. She was second in line when Mitch the owner and Bart the store clerk, who, thanks to Tenley, she now knew liked to streak across the green to relive 1972, began to have a heated discussion behind the counter.

  “He’s saving the lake for everyone,” Bart Thompson said. He was wearing his usual tie-dye T-shirt, and his long gray ponytail was tucked into his apron.

  “He’s impeding the growth of the town,” Mitch argued. “How do you think I am going to keep paying your salary if we don’t get some new residents in this town?”

  “You haven’t given me a raise in two years,” Bart growled. “So I know you’re saving money there.”

  “Tree hugger,” Mitch accused.

  “Corporate shill,” Bart snapped back.

  The customer ahead of Brenna hurried through his transaction as if uncomfortable with the sudden tension.

  Brenna felt the same way.

  Mitch barely glanced at her as he rang up her purchase, and Bart bagged it with more exuberance than was necessary.

  She had almost made a clean getaway when Bart called after her, “Hey, don’t you live out there on the lake with Nate Williams?”

  “Uh, not with him, no,” Brenna said. “But I do rent one of his cabins.”

  “Well, you tell him that I think he’s doing the right thing,” he said. “Power to the people!”