Death of a Coupon Clipper (2 page)

Hayley was in desperate need of a strong cocktail.

And pronto.

After hanging up with her kids, she placed a call to one of her two best friends,
Mona Barnes, a local lobsterwoman, with an all-terrain vehicle that could get her
to the nearest bar, which just happened to be owned by Hayley’s younger brother, Randy.
And with happy hour fast approaching, Hayley also knew at precisely five o’clock her
other BFF, glam Realtor Liddy Crawford, would be seated atop the first bar stool nearest
the entrance, sipping a Rose Kennedy and complaining about the weather to anyone within
spitting distance.

Mona. Randy. Liddy. Her reliable support system.

And she certainly needed them all now.

Mona was happy to leave her six kids—no, wait, seven—in the capable hands of her husband
before dinner in order to hang with Hayley, especially after hearing her bestie’s
tales of woe. Her truck plowed through snow in Hayley’s driveway at ten minutes to
five; the palm of her hand was pressed down on the horn alerting Hayley to her arrival.

Hayley had wiped away her tears with a tissue, as well as some runaway mascara that
had cascaded down her left cheek, and told herself everything was going to be okay
as she zipped up her winter jacket and carefully made her way down the porch steps
to Mona’s truck.

She had quickly arranged a playdate for Leroy with the neighbor’s rambunctious beagle
so Leroy wouldn’t have to stay cooped up in the freezing house.

As Hayley climbed into the passenger seat, Mona cranked up the volume of her car stereo.
She was playing a Brad Paisley CD. The song was “Whiskey Lullaby,” one of Hayley’s
favorites. And she could sure use one right now.

“Thought a little Paisley might cheer you up,” Mona said.

“You’re too good to me, Mona,” Hayley said, smiling.

Mona cranked the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. There wasn’t another
car in sight. Most people had the good sense to sit tight at home and wait out the
nasty weather, but this was a cocktail emergency.

When Hayley and Mona entered Randy’s bar, Drinks Like A Fish, and stomped the excess
snow off their boots onto the welcome mat, Liddy spun around on her bar stool. With
her half-empty Rose Kennedy in hand, she wailed, “Can you believe this god-awful weather?”

Sometimes predictability can be a good source of comfort.

Hayley walked over and gave Liddy a hug.

“I hear you had a pretty bad day,” Liddy said softly, patting Hayley on the back.

“Yeah, it really was.” Hayley nodded, still fighting back tears. “But my kids are
safe and everyone’s healthy, so I guess I should be grateful.”

“That’s the spirit,” Liddy said before she let go of Hayley and took a sip of her
cocktail. “My day was the worst. Two canceled open houses and Eddie Grindle dropped
out of an escrow because the pipes in the house he was buying froze up. I told him,
‘You’re buying a house in Maine during the winter. Pipes are going to freeze!’”

“Would you shut your piehole for once, Liddy, and let Hayley have our sympathy for
at least five more minutes before we put the spotlight back on you?” Mona barked.

“Mona, it’s all right,” Hayley said, not wanting her two buddies to go at it.

“Well, excuse me, Mona, for wanting to share with my two best friends. Go ahead, Hayley,
tell us about your terrible day and I will sit quietly and just listen so Mona doesn’t
go off and hit me or something.”

Too late.

“I really don’t feel like talking about it, actually.” Hayley shrugged.

“See, Mona? I was being a good friend. I was just trying to get Hayley’s mind off
her troubles by sharing
my
problems.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that was it,” Mona said, rolling her eyes.

Hayley’s brother, Randy, ambled over from behind the bar and slid a drink in front
of her. “Hey, sis. Here’s your Jack and Coke. And just in the nick of time, from what
I hear.”

Hayley smiled and nodded; then she took a big gulp and sighed. “Much better.”

“Club soda?” Randy said, pointing at Mona.

“Yeah, whatever. I am so sick of not ever getting to partake in happy hour,” Mona
said, scowling.

“Wait, Mona, don’t tell me,” Hayley said, eyes popping out. “Are you . . . ?”

Mona thought for a moment, and then a smile crept across her face. “No! I’m not! I’m
not pregnant! I just realized that I’m knocked up so much of the time, it just seems
natural for me to lay off the booze! But I’m not pregnant now! My husband’s back went
out and he’s been sleeping on the floor so he hasn’t had the chance to climb on top
of me in weeks. Randy, get me a Bud Light!”

“Great. Mona can slam down a six-pack and get even more loud and obnoxious and combative
than she already is,” Liddy moaned. “It’s a glorious day.”

Hayley chuckled. Despite the fast and furious insults, she knew Liddy and Mona truly
cared about each other. They just didn’t like to display their affection in public.

Randy popped the top off a bottle of Bud Light and placed it on a coaster in front
of Mona. “On the house, Mona. To celebrate the fact there’s not another baby on the
way.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Mona said, chugging down half the bottle.

Hayley felt happy to be among the people closest to her. And for a moment, she was
able to put the dreaded thoughts of her situation out of her mind. She turned to Randy.
“How are you doing?”

“I hate sleeping alone,” Randy said.

Randy’s partner, Sergio Alvares, was in Brazil visiting his family. Randy was unable
to make the trip with him because he had no one to cover the bar in his absence. His
manager, Michelle, was on vacation in Jamaica with her new husband, Ned, and her stepdaughter,
Carrie. Sergio had only been gone a week, but Randy already desperately missed him
and was marking off the days on his calendar until his lover’s return.

“How many days left?” Liddy asked, sliding her empty cocktail glass over to Randy
for a refill.

“Thirteen,” Randy sighed. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it.”

The door to the bar swung open and a gust of bitterly cold wind blew a few napkins
off the bar. Officer Donnie trudged inside, stomping his boots on the mat and slamming
the door behind him.

“From what I hear, I don’t know how Donnie’s going to make it without Sergio either,”
Liddy said, cracking a smile.

Officer Donnie was a young, inexperienced cop in his mid-twenties. He was employed
by the local police force, where Sergio was chief. Donnie was a towering, thin beanpole,
with very little self-confidence and a permanent frightened look on his face. He tentatively
made his way to the bar and put his hands down on the hardwood counter.

“I—I’ll have a Coors, if you g-got one, Randy,” Donnie stammered.

“Sure, Donnie,” Randy said, sliding open the gray-topped cooler behind the bar and
fetching a bottle.

“I certainly hope you’re off duty, Officer Donnie,” Liddy teased.

“I—I most certainly am, Ms. Crawford. I wouldn’t be drinking alcohol if I was on duty!”
Donnie hollered in Randy’s direction, knowing he was his boss’s partner in life.

Donnie had been put in charge while Sergio was away. That wasn’t the original plan,
though. Lieutenant Phil Jenkins, whom Sergio personally hand-picked to be acting chief
while he was in Brazil, was hospitalized with gallstones two days before Sergio was
scheduled to depart. There was talk of him postponing his trip, but Officer Donnie
stepped forward and lobbied hard for the temporary position. Sergio was reluctant
to put someone so young in charge, but Donnie argued that he could handle the responsibility
and was ready to prove himself. Sergio finally agreed; and before the wheels on Sergio’s
plane were up as it left the runway of the Bar Harbor Airport, Donnie’s nerves collapsed
faster than the roof over Hayley’s garage.

Donnie was overwhelmed by the duties of chief. Being in charge of keeping an entire
town safe and secure, he broke out with a case of shingles almost immediately. There
was a discussion of summoning Sergio back. However, since there hadn’t been a crime
reported in Bar Harbor in several weeks, the city council decided just to let things
be and crossed their fingers in hope that nothing bad would happen while Sergio was
in South America.

Unfortunately, for the entire town of Bar Harbor, that would eventually prove to be
a dangerous mistake.

Hayley tried to be a trouper and sleep at her house that first night, bundled up in
her long underwear, with a couple of heavy sweaters, and buried underneath a giant
white down comforter. She snuggled up close with Leroy and shivered throughout the
night. By morning her red nose was stuffed up and a nasty cold was coming her way.

Things just got worse once Billy Parsons arrived at the house shortly after seven.
Billy was a local handyman in his early thirties, portly, with a scruffy face and
an easy smile. There was a charm about Billy that a lot of the local single women
found intoxicating. Now that Billy was going through a divorce and his copper wedding
band had been removed from his pudgy ring finger, interest in Billy as a romantic
prospect had recently spiked. Billy wasn’t Hayley’s type, but he was a hard worker,
so he was the first person she thought to call when her furnace went on the fritz.

Billy showed up on time and trudged down the stairs to the basement; Hayley and Leroy
followed behind.

Fearing the worst, Hayley had a knot in her stomach.

Billy snapped open his tool kit and grabbed a flashlight and a wrench and went to
work inspecting the busted furnace. Hayley stood close behind him, arms tightly folded,
eyes closed as she prayed for a miracle.

She had to bend down and pick up Leroy, who was sniffing around Billy’s butt crack,
which inched up from his scuffed belt as he crouched down to take a look.

Billy started to bang the side of the furnace and then stuck his head inside and looked
around. When he pulled his face out, he had smudges of dirt all over his chubby cheeks.

“What’s the verdict, Billy?” Hayley asked, taking a deep breath.

Billy shook his head, with a grim look on his face. “Not good, Hayley. This thing’s
beyond repair. Looks like you’re going to have to buy a new one.”

“How much is that going to cost?” Hayley said, still holding her breath.

“I’d say you’re looking at three grand.”

Hayley’s heart sank.

She couldn’t afford three hundred, let alone three grand. She had just spent the last
two thousand in her checking account paying her property taxes—and not only that,
she needed to buy both her kids new ski boots when they returned from their dad’s
house.

Billy put a comforting arm around Hayley and squeezed tightly. “Now don’t fret, Hayley.
Ole Billy’s here to help you. I know a guy who can get me a used one. That would knock
off about fifteen hundred.”

It was still more than she had to spend. She didn’t even want to think about what
fixing the roof was going to cost. She was afraid to ask, but sometimes she was just
a glutton for punishment.

“Did you take a look at the roof before you came in?”

“Yes, I did,” Billy said solemnly.

“And?”

“And I think it’s best we deal with one thing at a time. And heating your house in
February should be our biggest concern right now.”

“Billy, I have to know what I’m dealing with,” Hayley said, locking eyes with him.

Billy looked away and down at his Eddie Bauer boots. “I won’t lie to you. It’s going
to be expensive.”

“How much?”

“Another five, six grand.”

Hayley’s knees felt weak. She had to grab the furnace to keep from falling. Luckily,
it was dead, so there was no chance of burning her hand from the heat.

“But I can throw some tarp over it for now and we can deal with it sometime this spring
after the snow melts. Does that sound good to you?”

Hayley nodded.

“Like I said, the heater’s more important. And your car.”

“My car?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty much totaled, I’m sorry to say.” Of course it was.

“But you’ve got insurance, right, Hayley?”

“Yes,” Hayley said, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head, grateful for that.

“Then you got nothing to worry about. You’ll have another one parked in your driveway
in no time,” Billy said with his relaxed smile. “I’m partial to those Kia Sportage
mini-SUVs myself.”

If only she could afford one.

But maybe with the insurance money . . .

 

 

Billy was kind enough to give Hayley a lift to the
Island Times
office. When Hayley sat down at her desk, she immediately picked up the phone and
called her car insurance agent, Gretchen Maxwell, a kind elderly local who had been
handling her policy since Hayley first got her license at sixteen years old.

Gretchen adored Hayley and always commented that Hayley’s laugh was infectious and
put a smile on her face whenever she heard it at the bank or in the grocery store
or even on the street when they were out walking their dogs. Gretchen swore Hayley’s
distinct giggle echoed through town keeping Bar Harbor the happiest place on earth,
a close second to Disney World, where Gretchen took her grandkids every Thanksgiving.

So Hayley knew Gretchen would do her best to make the process of filing a claim as
painless as possible. Hayley heard Gretchen type a few keys on her computer as she
chatted away about her recent hip surgery and how she had to hire a dog walker to
take her poodle out to do her business because her recovery was going too slowly.

“Here we go,” Gretchen said. “I have your policy right here in front of me. Now let’s
see. . . .”

Gretchen suddenly fell silent.

This wasn’t good.

“Gretchen, are you still there?” Hayley asked.

“Uh, yes, dear. Your policy was due for renewal on the fifteenth. That was a week
ago.”

“I know. I remember getting the bill in the mail and I sent the check for the first
installment of my premium the day I got my paycheck, which was on Thursday.”

“We never received it.”

“Well, I know I sent it,” Hayley said confidently as she fished through her bag and
retrieved her checkbook. She opened to the register and scanned down the list of checks
she had written. The last one was a deposit for Gemma’s two-week cheerleading camp
next summer. Before that, she wrote a check to Geddy’s restaurant when she had taken
the kids out for pizza. Nothing to the insurance company. But she distinctly remembered
writing the check and stuffing it in the envelope and mailing it. She must have just
forgotten to record it in the register.

Then it suddenly hit her.

She didn’t have stamps that day and the post office was already closed, so she decided
to do it first thing in the morning before work. But that was the day Dustin missed
the bus for school because he couldn’t drag his lazy butt out of bed and she had to
drive him herself. She was running late for work and forgot to swing by the post office.

That could only mean one thing.

Hayley fumbled around the contents of her bag. Her fingers touched some paper and
she instinctively knew what it was. An envelope. With the check for the insurance
company inside it. She forgot to mail it.

“Gretchen, I am so, so sorry. I have it right here. I can run it by your office during
my lunch hour.”

“That will be fine, dear. Once I have it, I can reinstate your policy.”

“Great, thank you. Now I need to file a claim for the damage to my car. Do you want
to take down the information or have me fill out a form online?”

More silence on the other end of the phone.

Again. Not good.

“Excuse me, dear, the accident happened yesterday?”

“Yes. The roof collapsed on top of my Subaru. There was no other car involved. I’m
covered for something like that, right?”

“Of course, dear. The only problem is when your policy was a week past due, which
would have been yesterday, it was canceled.”

“I understand,” Hayley said. “But I have the check right here in my hand and you said
you could reinstate it.”

“Yes. And you will be covered as of today. Unfortunately, and this is why I am so
ready to retire next year, the vultures at this company will almost certainly deny
your claim because at the time of the accident, you were technically not covered.”

This could not be happening.

“But I’ve been on time with my payments for years. This was a onetime mix-up. I swear
I’ll never be late again.”

“If it were up to me, I’d have you driving a brand-new Infiniti by the end of business
hours tomorrow. But I’m not authorized to process this claim. I have to send it to
corporate headquarters and they decide whether or not to cut you a check. Hayley,
I’m telling you right now, this is the kind of loophole they always look for.”

Hayley felt her eyes welling up with tears again. She couldn’t take much more of this.
She quietly thanked Gretchen for her time and hung up the phone. She sat in stunned
silence the rest of the morning, robotically answering the phone and jotting down
information from local businesses calling to place ads in the paper. She couldn’t
even begin to focus on her column, which was due by the end of the day.

Around noon Randy walked through the door in a stylish navy blue winter coat he bought
while visiting a college friend in Denver and a scarf Sergio’s mother had knitted
for him last Christmas.

“Hey, sis, I’ve come to treat you to lunch. Want to go to Jordan’s and split a large
order of onion rings? I’m feeling naughty.”

He instantly sensed something was wrong.

“What happened now?” he asked.

Hayley recounted the details of her conversation with Gretchen at the insurance company.
And the devastating estimates from Billy Parsons to repair her roof and install a
new furnace.

Randy rushed over to Hayley as she stood up and hugged her tightly. “You know I’d
lend you the money, but we’re cash poor right now because of the money pit we live
in and our astronomical gas bill this winter. And Sergio cleaned out our savings to
buy his plane ticket home to Brazil.”

“I know, I know. This isn’t your problem. I’m the one who got myself into this financial
mess. I’ve been budgeting, but I just didn’t include any unexpected problems. What
am I going to do?”

“You’re going to come stay in my drafty house until we figure out how to get you a
new furnace. We’ll sit by the fire and wrap ourselves up in blankets and drink Irish
coffee with whipped cream and we’ll bake cookies until we both grow a belt size. It’ll
be like one big fun slumber party.”

It sounded heavenly.

And Hayley really needed a lifeline right now.