Christmas Cookie Murder #6 (13 page)

3 days 'til Xmas

A
s soon as Lucy opened the door to the fire station she heard the rumble of the men's voices. She nodded at the dispatcher and went past his desk into the common room, where CPR classes and training sessions were held. The last time Lucy had been there was when she covered the rabies clinic last spring; then the big room had been filled with assorted dogs and cats, and their owners and the conversation had been friendly as people chatted about their pets.

Tonight, the mood was much different. The gathered firefighters were angry and sullen. Lucy could feel the tension when she entered the room, and it made her pause. The only thing that kept her from turning and fleeing was the knowledge that Ted was counting on her to cover the meeting.

Heads turned and people stared at her; someone snickered and she realized she was the only woman in the room. Dot had been right on the mark when she said the Tinker's Cove Volunteer Fire Department was a men's club. “She writes for the paper,” she heard someone say, and the word was passed through the room. Lucy felt uncomfortable under the gaze of so many men and looked for a familiar face. She was relieved when she spotted Bob Goodman, Rachel's husband, and Hank Orenstein sitting in the back. There were empty chairs next to them so she approached them.

“Hi, Lucy,” Bob said with a smile. “Sit yourself down.”

Bob was a tall, lean man with wire-rimmed glasses. He was the only man in the room who was wearing a suit.

“Thanks. For a minute there I felt a bit unwelcome. This doesn't seem like a very friendly group. And thanks for calling Mr. Humphreys. Elizabeth went back to school today.”

Bob nodded. For a lawyer, he was remarkably taciturn.

Raised voices and the crash of a chair falling caught their attention, and Lucy glanced nervously around the room.

“Are these guys always so rowdy?” she asked.

“They're not so bad when you get to know them,” said Hank. “They're just a little upset.”

Hank was shorter and heavier than Bob, with a round face and a beard. He ran a cooperative that sold heating oil and energy-saving devices at discount prices.

“Do you think they'll really strike?” asked Lucy.

“Might,” said Bob.

“A lot of them want to,” said Hank. “At least the ones I talked to today. They feel like those boys are getting a raw deal.”

“Ted says it was an awful lot of stuff—worth thousands of dollars.” Lucy kept her voice low; she didn't want to be overheard.

Hank snorted in disgust. “Those boys were just plain greedy.”

Bob nodded. “This time they went too far.”

“What do you mean?”

The two men exchanged a glance, then Hank broke the silence.

“So, how's Bill doing? Is he keepin' busy this winter?”

“Bill's fine. And you don't have to worry that I'm going to quote you in the paper. Anything you say is off the record. Promise. But I sure could use some background information, and from what you were saying and from what I've been hearing around town it seems like there's been an unofficial policy that it's okay to salvage stuff from fires. Is that true?”

Hank bent closer to Lucy and spoke very softly. “Yeah. I'd say that's true. The boys only get a small stipend—a hundred fifty dollars a year cause it's a volunteer force. And you know what the economy's like in this town. And now with the lobster quota, well, a lot of the guys are really hurting. If they see something they can use, or sell, they're not going to walk away from it. Chief shoulda put a stop to it a long time ago, if you ask me. At first, they didn't take much, but when he never said anything it started to escalate. It's really gotten out of hand.”

“So you think Tom Scott did the right thing?”

“Now I didn't say that.” Hank's face reddened. “It could have been handled differently. There was no cause to put those boys in jail overnight.”

“It wasn't necessary,” added Bob. “They all have families in this town; they weren't going to go anywhere.”

Lucy nodded, aware that the meeting was beginning. A huge man, still wearing his bright yellow fisherman's waterproof pants pulled up over a ragged sweatshirt and a plaid flannel shirt, was banging on a table with a gavel, calling the meeting to order.

“Quiet down,” he roared, his droopy mustache and the bristly whiskers on his chin making him look a little bit like a walrus. “None of us wants to be here all night, so let's get started.”

“Who's that?” asked Lucy.

“Claw Rousseau—he owns the lobster pound out on Cove Road,” whispered Hank.

“That's the same name as two of the men who were arrested….”

“His sons, Rusty and J.J.”

“And he's president of the volunteers' association?”

Hank nodded, and Lucy wrote it all down in her notebook. This could get interesting, she thought.

“This meeting has been called at the request of some of the members,” said Claw. “In fact, I have here a petition signed by more than two-thirds of the members calling for the department to go on strike until criminal charges against four of our members have been dropped.”

“I move we strike,” called out a voice. “Let's vote and get this over with. The Pats are playing Dallas tonight.”

This was greeted with raucous laughter.

“Hold your horses,” said Claw. “We gotta do this by the rules. First, we gotta have discussion. Who wants to go first?”

Before Claw Rousseau could choose one of the men who had raised his hands, a middle-aged man with a white beard got to his feet and took the floor.

“This isn't right,” he began. “What the hell's going on in this town? Here we have four fine young men, willing to risk their lives in order to help other folks, being treated as if they were common criminals. What we have here is a crime all right, but the crime isn't what Lootenant Scott thinks it is. The crime is taking our good men, they hadn't even had a chance to get out of their gear, and throwing them into jail. That's the crime, and we've gotta let them know that we've not gonna take it. You can't throw us in jail and then expect us to come runnin' to save your ass when you've drove into a 'lectric light pole or put a pot on to cook and forgot all about it and all of a sudden the place is goin' up in smoke. Ain't gonna happen.”

The men cheered and stamped their feet in approval, and several jumped to their feet to speak.

“Who was that?” asked Lucy.

“Mike O'Laughlin,” said Hank. “He's always got something to say.”

“Got a big mouth,” added Bob, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms on his chest. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

“He's right!” said a thirtyish man in jeans and work boots. “I say we strike 'til the charges are dropped. Let those guys in Gilead cover for us—make 'em earn their fat salaries for a change.”

The crowd greeted this with hoots of approval.

“A strike's the only thing that'll teach 'em,” said another.

Lucy recognized Gary from the gas station, where he worked as a mechanic.

“I mean, we drop everything when that siren blows, we never hesitate for even a second and we never know what we're gonna face. Last year, Jack Perry and Bill Higgins went to the hospital. Jack had burns and Bill broke his ankle. What do they get for their pain? A big fat nothing. Don't get me wrong. We're all volunteers here, and that's the way it oughta be. People helpin' people. But don't we deserve a little appreciation? A little consideration? That's all we're asking for, and we're gonna get it or they're not gonna get their calls answered.”

This also was met with noisy approval. But when Claw recognized Stan Pulaski, the fire chief, the crowd fell silent. Lucy could almost feel the men bristling as he began speaking.

“I know how upset you all are,” he began, “and I know how proud you all are to be a volunteer force. But if we go on strike, how are people supposed to have confidence in us? They'll say you can't depend on a volunteer force, and next thing you know we'll be a call force taking orders from a bunch of college-educated strangers who're getting paid to tell us what to do. I think a strike's a bad idea.”

“The chief is right,” said Claw. He spoke slowly, and his words had weight. “The people of this town have faith in us, that we will answer their calls for help. They trust us and depend on us; we can't let them down.”

A sullen silence followed his words. A few of the men looked a bit ashamed of themselves; others were clearly angered.

“Whatsa matter, Chief?” demanded one young man. “What happened to sticking together, like you always say?. We gotta work together, isn't that what you're always telling us. Well, we gotta stick behind Rusty and J.J. and the others.”

Lucy followed his pointing finger and recognized the two brothers, sitting along with two others who she assumed were the other men who had been charged with stealing. They shifted uneasily in their seats as their fellow firefighters cheered and applauded. After giving vent to their emotions for several minutes, the men quieted down and a single voice was heard.

“Those men broke the law.” It was Tom Scott, speaking from the doorway.

His entrance wasn't greated with boos, as Lucy expected. Instead, the men seemed subdued, like a classroom of kids who had lost control when their teacher left the room only to scurry back to their desks when she returned. He strode to the front of the room, where he stood next to Claw Rousseau.

“I know you're angry about the arrests,” he began, holding his official blue hat in his hands. “Maybe it'll help if I clear some things up. First of all, I want you to understand that nobody in this town is above the law.”

This drew some chuckles from the firefighters, but Scott wasn't fazed.

“Second, I want you to understand that I respect what you do. You fellas are willing to put your lives on the line for your neighbors, and that's a fine and noble thing to do.

“Finally, the district attorney has informed me that he is open to a plea bargain in this matter and is prepared to be lenient.”

Scott turned to face Claw and extended his hand. Claw hesitated a moment and then grasped it; Scott pulled him close in a bear hug. From the crowd, there were murmurs of approval as well as mutters of discontent. Claw banged his gavel and called the meeting to order once again.

“There's a motion before us,” he said. “We've gotta vote. All in favor, that means a strike, raise your hand.”

Tom Scott remained beside him, watching as he counted the votes.

“I count nineteen in favor.”

Listening closely, Lucy thought she sensed a note of relief in Claw's voice.

“What does it take? Two-thirds?” she asked Bob.

He nodded. “They don't have the votes.”

“Opposed?” called Claw. “A no vote means no strike.”

Hank and Bob were among those who raised their hands.

“I count sixteen. The motion fails. No strike.” Claw disregarded the angry epithets uttered by some of the thwarted strikers. “Any other business?” He banged down the gavel. “Meeting adjourned.”

Lucy got to her feet and tried to make her way to the front of the room to get a comment from Claw. He was already engaged in discussion with several of the firefighters, so Lucy turned to Tom Scott instead.

“Are you pleased with the vote?”

Tom thought for a minute, weighing his words. “I think this is the best possible outcome to an unfortunate situation. A few of the firefighters made a mistake, and that's being addressed by my department and the justice system. I think it's to the credit of the volunteers that they understand their responsibility to the town.”

“A majority voted to strike,” Lucy reminded him. “Do you think there will be friction between your department and the firefighters in the future?”

“There's no room for petty squabbles in this business,” said Scott. “We're public servants, and we work together.”

Lucy wrote as fast as she could, but when she looked up to ask her next question she saw that Scott had walked away and was approaching the firefighters who had been charged with theft. The crowd of supporters gathered around them dissipated as he drew near.

Lucy watched as the four men huddled around Scott, wishing she dared to attempt to overhear their conversation. Instead, she wove her way through the scattered groups of firefighters and greeted Claw.

“Lucy Stone, from
The Pennysaver
. Do you mind if I take your picture?”

Claw shrugged and Lucy produced her camera. When the flash went off there was a moment of silence, then the buzz of conversation resumed. She snapped the shutter a few more times, then tucked the camera away and pulled out her notebook.

“Are you happy with the vote?”

“Like everybody else, I can go home tonight and know that if I need help, help will be there.”

“What about the men who were charged? Two of them are your sons?”

Rousseau's face sagged and Lucy thought he must be older than she had guessed at first, probably closer to sixty than the robust fifty she had noted in her book. “At times like this you have to have faith,” he said.

His answer took her by surprise. She had expected him to defend his sons, or at the very least to point out their heroism at the fire.

“Thank you,” she said, and put away her notebook. She didn't want to bother this clearly troubled man any further.

L
ucy never worried about going out by herself after dark in Tinker's Cove, but tonight she was unpleasantly aware of her vulnerability as she left the fire station and crossed the parking lot to her car. A group of firefighters had followed her out of the building, and although she could hear their gruff voices and heavy footsteps, she couldn't see them without turning her head. She didn't want them to think she was nervous about their presence, so she kept her eyes forward and tightened her grip on the car keys she held ready in her hand.

As soon as she got inside the car she locked the doors, feeling slightly ridiculous as she did so. She rarely bothered with the locks, but tonight she felt uneasy.

She started the car and carefully backed out of her parking space, then drove slowly across the lot to the exit. There she pulled to a stop and looked right and left to make sure the road was clear; she was ready to pull out when her eyes were suddenly hit with a bright glare. A pickup truck had pulled up behind her and its headlights were set so high that they beamed straight into her mirrors and the bright light bounced directly into her eyes. She squinted, trying to avoid the glare and pulled out. She actually never saw the oncoming car; only the blare of the horn and the screech of brakes as it swerved into the opposite lane to avoid a collision gave her any indication of the danger she had been in.

Her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking as she proceeded slowly down the road. The truck was still close behind her, and the glare was so strong that she was practically blinded, even after she flipped the rearview mirror. She considered pulling over and letting the truck pass, but she knew that probably wasn't a good idea. After all, they were in a passing zone, and there was little traffic. There was no reason why the driver of the truck couldn't pass her if he wanted to. Lucy suspected he was harassing her on purpose and was afraid that if she stopped, he, whoever he was, would pull up right behind her and she would be at his mercy. She didn't really have any choice but to keep going, hoping that her tormenter would eventually grow impatient with her slow speed.

After following her for a mile or so, that's exactly what happened. She heard a roar as the truck accelerated, then zoomed past and raced off down the road. A glance in the rearview mirror explained everything—a police cruiser had apparently scared off her pursuer and was now following her.

She didn't know whether to be relieved or worried, expecting any moment that the blue lights would flash, signalling that she should pull over. That didn't happen, however, and it was only a few moments later that she made the familiar turn onto Red Top Road and finally reached her own driveway; the cruiser paused at the edge of the road and waited until she was safely inside the house before pulling away.

Secure in her kitchen, Lucy let out a sigh of relief as she unzipped her parka and hung it among the other coats and jackets that crowded the row of hooks beside the door. She missed its warmth—Bill had turned down the heat before going up to bed and the kitchen was chilly—and rubbed her arms briskly. Realizing she was too keyed up to go to sleep, she poured a mug of milk for herself and set it in the microwave to heat. She stood, watching the seconds count down, and tried to sort out her emotions.

She should have felt grateful for the police escort, she supposed. It was most likely Tom Scott in the cruiser, she thought. He had probably seen the men following her after the meeting and had decided to keep an eye on the situation. Thanks to his intervention the firefighters had stopped harassing her and she had gotten home safely. He had saved her from goodness knows what unpleasantness, and she owed him a big debt of gratitude.

The microwave beeped, and she took out the milk and sat down at the table, wrapping her hands around the warm mug. Any proper person would be dashing off a thank-you note, she thought, but she didn't feel grateful at all. She was angry, she realized. She was furious that she had needed protection and even madder that Scott had presumed to provide it.

She had lived in this town for nearly twenty years and had managed to get along without police protection until now, and she wasn't sure she had really needed it tonight. Her followers had probably just been teasing her; maybe they hadn't even realized the blinding effect of the truck's headlights.

After all, Tinker's Cove was the sort of place where people never locked their houses. Nobody bothered to lock a car, either, and lots of people even left their keys in the ignition when they parked on Main Street. There were occasional crimes of violence, like Tucker's murder, but they were usually the consequence of emotions gone awry, intimate relationships poisoned by jealousy or alcohol or unemployment, not street crimes like you'd expect in a big city.

It was odd, she thought, that she had never felt the least bit unsafe in Tinker's Cove until now. When Chief Crowley was in charge, the letter of the law had been taken rather lightly, but somehow it had worked, or at least it seemed to.

Now, the attitude was zero tolerance. There were no excuses, no exceptions. It didn't matter if you were an honor student helping another student or a kid supplying drugs to your classmates, you were treated the same. And firefighters who had risked their lives were treated like common criminals. Nowadays nobody winked at a minor transgression, nobody trusted their own judgment, everybody got treated the same.

Except they didn't, realized Lucy, taking a sip of the hot milk and grimacing. It tasted awful. She got up and went into the pantry, looking for some vanilla to flavor it. She didn't find any vanilla but she did find a bottle of brandy she had bought to make eggnog. She poured a dollop in her mug and added a spoonful of sugar. Much better, she decided, as the soothing drink flowed over her tongue.

Zero tolerance might be the official line, she thought, but Mr. Humphreys had backed down soon enough when he had been threatened with legal action. Tom Scott had backed down, too, and offered a plea bargain when the firefighters had threatened to strike.

Lucy finished her drink and set the mug in the sink. Then she stretched, enjoying the sensation of warmth and relaxation the drink had induced. She flipped off the kitchen light and tiptoed up the stairs, ready to go to bed. But when she slipped in beside Bill and closed her eyes, listening to Bill's regular breathing, punctuated by an occasional snore, she couldn't clear her mind for sleep. Disturbing thoughts kept flooding in.

First there was the fire. The huge flames breaking through the Ropewalk roof, the sweaty faces of the firefighters caught in the revolving beams from the emergency lights on top of the trucks. That was how she remembered the fire, but she knew that she didn't have the whole picture. While she had been watching all the activity in the front of the building, something else had been going on in the back, where some of the firefighters had been carrying off valuables. She struggled to reconcile the two images: the brave heroism taking place in the front and the sneaky thievery going on in the back.

Then she saw Claw Rousseau's tired, lined face. Unlike Andrea, he didn't make excuses for his boys or try to defend them. Why not, she wondered. She would have expected Claw to be intensely loyal to his sons. She thought of the panic she felt when she got the call from the high school, and the anger she still nurtured in her heart against Mr. Humphreys. If she felt this strongly about the school's disciplinary policy, why wasn't Claw furious with Scott? Was he really able to set aside his own feelings? Had he truly been willing to sacrifice his sons for the general welfare of Tinker's Cove?

Maybe the emotional ties between parents and their children grew weaker as the children grew older; after all, Claw's “boys” must be well into their thirties. Lucy rolled back onto her other side and pressed her fanny against Bill spoon-style. Somehow, she didn't think so. She thought of the Whitneys, devastated by the loss of their grown child. She thought of herself, determined to send Toby off to college where he would do what? Get drunk? Try drugs?

Lucy rolled over and rearranged the pillow. Toby didn't have to go to college to try drugs; drugs were readily available in Tinker's Cove. Barney knew it, Ted knew it. What had he said? That he was grateful he hadn't had to report any arrests in Tinker's Cove?

Why not, wondered Lucy. There were plenty of arrests in neighboring towns; the court report in the Portland daily was full of them. Why weren't drug offenders and dealers getting arrested in Tinker's Cove? Lucy thought of the fire, the heroism out front, and the thievery that was going on behind the scenes. She thought of Main Street, the picture-perfect New England town where people didn't bother to lock their doors but where high-school kids were getting illegal drugs.

And she thought of Tucker, supposedly killed by a jealous lover. Except the lover hadn't been all that jealous, from what she'd heard. And Tucker hadn't really seemed like the sort of girl to encourage attention from a married man twice her age.

Lucy flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling, gray in the dim light from the hall nightlight. Above its smooth blankness, she knew, was a jumble of wires and insulation, a century's worth of dust, insect colonies and, no doubt, families of mice. Tinker's Cove was the same, she thought, a quaint little fishing town with a drug problem.

Under the covers, Lucy shivered and stared at the clock. It was almost two. She had to be up at six, and she had a long day ahead of her. She was going to get to the bottom of this; she was going to find out what was really going on, and a good place to start would be to take another look at Tucker's murder. She snuggled down deeper under the covers and pressed her body against Bill's. She closed her eyes and matched her breathing to his. She slept.

 

Next thing she knew it was morning. She woke feeling tired and a look in the mirror wasn't reassuring; her eyes were puffy, and she suspected it was going to be a bad hair day. In the kitchen, Zoe was singing Christmas carols and pouring milk into a bowl already overflowing with Cheerios.

“For Pete's sake, Zoe, watch what you're doing,” she grumbled, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“Who's Pete?” chirped Zoe.

Lucy gave her an evil look.

“Well, I see we have lots of Christmas spirit this morning,” said Bill.

“Ho, ho, ho,” growled Lucy, hanging on to her coffee mug as if it were a life preserver.

Bill studied her, then sighed. “I'll make the lunches,” he said.

“Thanks.” Lucy fought the impulse to rest her head on the table and took a swallow of coffee.

 

After a shower and two more cups of coffee Lucy felt almost human. Ted didn't even look up when she arrived at
The Pennysaver
, just grunted and told her he needed the story on the meeting ASAP.

“And make it short,” he said. “Space is going to be tight this week.”

Lucy took him at his word and tapped out six inches of copy, reporting the results of the vote and adding a quote or two representing the differing points of view expressed at the meeting. It was still early when she left the office, so she decided to head for the gym. If she hurried she could catch Krissy's ten-thirty workout. Lord knows, she could use it, but what was more to the point, hadn't Sue told her that Tucker took a tai chi class after work?

 

“Hi, Lucy,” Krissy greeted her, annoyingly pert in a high-cut orange leotard. “You look as if you've got the holiday blues.”

“I'm trying my darnedest to get some holiday spirit, but it's awfully hard this year, with the murder and the fire and all.”

Keeping up her spirits never seemed to be a problem for Krissy, who had opened the Body Works a few years ago. Even her ponytail bounced, as if it were full of energy, but her face was solemn as she nodded in agreement.

“I know. I just can't believe that creep killed Tucker….” Her gaze wandered to some other clients who were coming through the door, and she raised her voice a few decibles. “You've come to the right place. We'll warm you up, stretch you out, work those muscles and finish up with a relaxing cooldown. You'll feel like a new person when we're done.”

“Can I talk to you after class?” asked Lucy as she handed over her five dollars.

Krissy nodded grimly and Lucy gave her hand a squeeze, then headed for the locker room.

 

When the session was over, Lucy had to admit that although she didn't feel exactly like a new person, she did feel like a much-improved version of the old one as she headed down the carpeted corridor to Krissy's office.

Krissy was on the phone, but she smiled at Lucy and pointed to a chair. “I'm on hold—I'm trying to get airplane tickets. All of a sudden I have this irrational urge to go home for Christmas.”

“Good luck,” said Lucy.

“Yeah. You're right.” Krissy put the receiver back in its cradle. “I'll never get tickets this close to Christmas.” She rolled her eyes. “I don't know what I was thinking. My family is completely screwed up. I swore I'd never go through another holiday with them, and here I am, ready to spend top dollar to fly to Jersey City just so they can tell me how worthless I am. I think I'll stay here, and have Christmas with Earl.”

Earl was Krissy's black Labrador. Pictures of his progress from puppyhood to maturity were plastered all over her office walls, and Earl himself was sound asleep on a futon in the corner.

“Earl's good company,” said Lucy.

“The best,” affirmed Krissy. “Don't tell him, but I got him a new collar and a squeaky toy for Christmas. Plus a case of tennis balls.”

“Mint-flavored?”

“I thought about it, but I decided he really likes them kind of dirt-flavored, and the mint might interfere with the proper aging process.”

Lucy laughed. “So Earl is the man in your life these days?”

“You know it.” Krissy shook her head. “Face it. There's not much night life in a town like this, except the video store.” She sighed. “I really miss Tucker. We had some good times together.” Krissy stared at a point above Lucy's head and blinked furiously.