Sheesh, I just couldn’t escape that kind of terminology, could I? Stuttered a bit at his seriousness, swallowed some coffee, then tried a softening tactic.
“You could have come to the office,” I said as gently as I could, still not sure this wasn’t just some overblown conspiracy something or another. Oliver was known for his written history of Reading, of taking some, shall we say, literary liberties with the truth. Then again, I’d never known him to come to anyone for help, least of all me.
“If it was safe to do that, I’d have taken care of things on my own.” A little waspish there, old fella. But there was fear behind his anger, enough I knew better than to belittle his worries any further. Oliver might have been a blowhard and a gossip, but if he was afraid and showing it?
I needed to pay attention.
“Sorry, Oliver,” I said, my soothing tone doing the job, apparently, because he grunted in reply and looked out the passenger window, hands now tucked tightly together in his lap under the round of his belly. “What can you tell me about the case and whose life is in danger?”
“All of ours,” he whispered into the glass, fogging it up for a moment while I shuddered at the deep and desperate sound of his voice.
Big breath, Fiona Fleming.
But just when I was ready to tell myself he was being paranoid, Oliver’s head whipped around, and those watery eyes met mine with enough intensity and focus I held my breath and listened as he went on.
“You don’t believe me,” he said then. Calm again, himself. Looked like he was about to brush me off, then thought better of it. Poked at me with one index finger still inside his mitten, making him look like a little kid trying to make a point. “Fine, then, missy. You just do something for me, then we’ll talk about how safe we are and what’s wrong with this town.”
“What do you want me to do?” I already knew something rotten was going on. Not a big shocker or anything. Thing was, there had always been an undercurrent of darkness running beneath the sparkly, happy, we’re just folks surface of my hometown. Thanks to the Pattersons and their whole mess of a disaster that happened finally and was supposed to leave Reading in better shape than before. Oliver had never brought anything to me in the past, even when things were at their worst. I’d always had to go to him for what I needed, and grudgingly on both our parts.
Did that mean he was actually paying attention finally? Or that he knew more than I did and taking this case might get me the answers I needed from a different source?
“Check into our oh-so-dishonorable town council.” Oliver reached for the door handle, shoving the way open, letting cold air inside as he grunted his way out of my car. Wait, that was it? Apparently, I’d lost my window to find out what he knew. The old fart was being purposely obtuse now because I hadn’t taken him seriously. I leaned over to protest his exit while he stopped and looked down and in at me, one hand on the top of the door. “Do you know what’s happening to us?”
Okay, so I’d been a bit out of touch lately. Hey, I almost died for heaven’s sake. Though, I had to admit this wasn’t the first time I’d heard funny things might be happening behind the closed doors of town hall. Hadn’t Terri Jacobs, the owner of our local flower shop and former councilor herself, mentioned as much to me? I might have lost track of some of what I’d learned up the mountain at the yoga retreat. Partly because I almost died.
Gimme a break, will you?
Oliver wasn’t in the mood to cut anyone any such slack, least of all me. “This whole town has gone to sleep, lulled into false security thanks to you and your father, your husband, that mayor of ours. You think this is over, Fiona Fleming?” I gaped at Oliver as, shaking and now enraged, he almost bellowed at me. “You have no idea.” He pulled himself together after a moment, staggering a little in the snow, big boots slipping beneath him. My car rocked when he used his grip on the door to hold himself upright, but the near collapse at least helped cool his temper. “How many towns like ours host secret by-elections? How many towns like ours are being bought up by foreigners? How many towns like ours, Fiona?” He huffed a breath. “You do what you want, but if you decide to actually wake up and look into what’s going on in Reading, you email that account I used, and we’ll see if you’re worth hiring.”
With that, he closed my door firmly and trudged off into the snow, disappearing into the darkness and the forest path by the edge of the lake, leaving me to battle guilt, frustration, anger and my own sense of unease about our hometown for a long few minutes before I had the wherewithal to put the car in gear and head for home.
It was a short drive but felt like forever, my mind a tumbling hamster wheel of squeaking activity, the critters on overdrive while I considered what Oliver said. It was fair to say I’d been distracted lately, and not just by my illness. With our new house under construction on the land where my bed and breakfast used to stand well underway, with a Christmas move-in date promised by my friend, Jared Wilkins, who we contracted for the job making me misty-eyed over decorations and cutting down trees in softly snowy woods with my darling beloved, sipping hot chocolate and eggnog and celebrating our very first holiday season in our new home, I had let some things slide. And I’d been trusting Olivia to handle the mess she’d, frankly, been part of since she’d become mayor, rather than pushing her harder for answers.
There was more I could have been doing, though I did finally sigh into the heat of my car’s blasting vents as I parked in the driveway at Crew’s little house, my sedan tucked in next to his big, black SUV. This little excursion had tired me out. I had to accept I wasn’t one hundred percent yet. And be okay with it.
But digging into Reading’s inner workings? Just jumped to priority number one.
And not out of the guilt trip Oliver had laid in my lap, either. As I climbed out of the car and tucked my coat around me in the cold night air, heading for the front door with my boots crunching on the salt pellets my thoughtful husband spread out to prevent ice and slips, I accepted my inner busybody needed prompting sometimes to go into overdrive.
Well, consider me a dog with a bone.
I was surprised to find Crew was out, Petunia absent as well, realizing he’d probably taken the pug for a walk or to The Iris to visit my mother in the bed and breakfast she ran. I was going to have to tell him where I went. I’d left when he’d gone to the office for a little bit, so he was likely as surprised I’d been missing as I was at his absence now. I checked my phone, grateful he hadn’t texted or called to check up on me.
Because my loving, caring, protective husband knew I could take care of myself.
Phone out and at the ready, I made a call as I put my coat and boots away. But when I only reached the voice mail of Pat and Ashley Champville, (You’ve reached Champville Realty in Reading, Vermont—let us find you the home and lifestyle of your dreams!), I pondered calling back too long and finally asked them to return my call when the song and dance ended at the beep.
There had to be more I could do. The sofa summoned me, knees a bit weak, muscles still recovering, so I sat with my laptop in my lap and took a look at the Reading town website. Whatever the truth of the council, someone had removed the page that listed the names and bios of all who sat on it, including Olivia’s mayoral message. That was weird. Maybe they were just updating it? Then again, I’d had my suspicions about the return of the crime family who the Pattersons paired with so many years ago, the same crime family that supposedly fell on hard times after the end of the Patterson affair.
The O’Sheas hadn’t been blatant about their presence all this time, only The Orange and their lieutenant, Malcolm Murray, a continual reminder that something wasn’t right. But my godfather’s retirement from crime and his happily ever after (well earned) with the love of his life, Siobhan Doyle, had meant the shuttering of the doors to the pub and the disappearance to Irish shores for the happy couple.
I called Terri then, no answer either, left a message. She’d claimed, if I recalled correctly from my unwell state at the time, that something wasn’t right in town. And Olivia herself had come to see me in the hospital, to beg me to stay out of it, to trust her and have her back until that time she was ready to act. I’d let it go in the two weeks since then, hadn’t heard another word. Were things escalating and I’d missed it being sick—and sheltered from truths by my loving husband and my father, the other former sheriff in my life who liked to keep me in the dark when he thought I didn’t need to know but really, really did?
I’d be talking to Dad in short order, better believe it. Because something had to have happened to wire up someone like Oliver Watters.
Right?
My final call—I’d be confronting John Fleming in person, the best way to get things out of the stoic head of Fleming Investigations—was to someone who might know what was going on and would be, at least, amenable to some answers if I had something to give her in return.
Not that my friend, that award-winning newspaperwoman from Boston now running our local Reading Reader Gazette like it wasn’t a giant step down, didn’t have her own penchant for secret-keeping that made me mental. But at least a trade made her more willing to discuss things that might otherwise remain grasped tightly in her possession, unlike my father who refused to negotiate.
We’d just see about that.
Again with the voicemail. No one in Reading wanted to talk to me tonight and it was beginning to feel a bit like a conspiracy. Had Dad told everyone to screen my calls and keep me in the dark? Grumble, mumble. I tossed my phone aside and glared at it while knowing I was being unreasonable and that it was likely far from the case.
Still. Wouldn’t put it past him. Nope.
I gave up for the night at the sound of footsteps at the door, the heaving, panting chuff of the pug as she entered from the cold, Crew right behind her. He smiled at me, letting go of her leash so she could come right to me and sit on my feet. His hello kiss almost distracted me from what I’d been up to, but he must have sensed my lingering frustration because he sat next to me and hugged me while I told him where I’d been.
Just like Crew Turner not to say a word until I was done talking, bless him. When I finished with my own worries and the snarky suggestion Dad asked everyone in town to ignore me until I went back to work officially tomorrow, Crew chuckled at last.
“He didn’t,” he said. Paused. “I don’t think.” Laughed out loud. “That would be like John. But I doubt it, Fee. He’s been busy with me here.”
I immediately went to guilt, even as my husband grasped my chin in his fingers and made me meet his beautiful, blue eyes, faint crinkles around the edges from squinting into the sun all cowboy-like making him even more attractive, as far as I was concerned. I might have been getting old(er), but Crew was more delicious than ever.
“I wanted to be here,” he said, “your father is more than capable of handling things, and the business is fine. And you, my gorgeous redheaded love, are going back to work in the morning.” He said that without emotion, which meant he wasn’t sure it was the best idea but wasn’t going to stop me.
Because Crew Turner was the best husband ever.
***