The Secluded Village Murders Read online

  “Signs a letter of intent.”

  “Signs her life away to the GDC at your suggestion.”

  “I want you to stop saying that.”

  “Why? You think my readers are going to buy the idea this all just happened? That Harriet wasn’t feeling so much pressure that she blamed you and skipped town a day earlier than scheduled? That you weren’t counting on Chris Cooper being out of the way so you could railroad this thing through?”

  “Now, wait a second.”

  On a roll, Babs raised her voice and said, “You think you and your cronies really care about the environment and aren’t licking your chops over the revenue and new businesses to come and whatever else you guys lick your chops over? Not to mention where your realtor wife Martha comes in.”

  A troubled look fell across Brian’s face for an instant. Securing the knot in his tie, he rose slowly and reverted to his usual plummy tone. “Good try. Naturally you’re out of your league, but not to worry. Tonight at the hearing, you will learn how things actually work. In any case, I’m sure you didn’t expect me to throw up my hands and say, ‘Gosh, I guess you found me out.’ I’m also sure you’ll excuse me while I take a much-deserved lunch break.”

  Babs reached for another comeback but came up empty. She had no recourse she could think of but to pocket her steno pad and follow him down to the main lobby.

  From there, an over-eager Chuck nodded and attempted to escort her out the door. Babs took his arm instead and said, “Come on, Chuck. It’s high time we switched places.” Pulling back, Chuck said, “Now, now, Miss Babs. Don’t want Mr. Forbes to get any funny ideas and think of replacing me.”

  “No way, man. Unlike me, you’re as safe and predictable as clam chowder.”

  She left Chuck scratching his shiny bald head and shrugging off a disapproving glance from his boss.

  Bounding down the steps, Babs felt pretty good about how the first round went. Tonight she might do even better. She was on the way to getting closer and closer to the bottom of this fiasco.

  Babs knew from experience that hardly anyone attended Lydfield Planning Commission meetings. The agenda usually consisted of someone requesting a variance so they could put up a shed or extend their driveway beyond the setback regulations. In terms of sheer dullness, meetings could get bogged down over the location of a grease trap for a hamburger stand that straddled the village line. Therefore, it was highly unusual to see an army of people in attendance, the majority of whom sported a gold GDC logo on the breast pocket of their navy-blue jackets. As a result, it was standing room only in the little meeting room at the back of the village hall designed to seat, at most, thirty-five people.

  The only ones not clutching plans, charts, drawings, and displays were the seven members of the commission seated up front around an oblong table under the fluorescent lights. Also in attendance were an assortment of onlookers, Babs herself, and three ladies wearing safari jackets, walking shorts, and hiking boots. In addition to their outfits, all three outdoorsy women had weathered faces and gray, cropped hair. Before the meeting started, they pumped Babs’s hand and reminded her they were longtime advocates of the free migratory patterns of birds and mammals. When they asked why in the world her friend Emily wasn’t present, all Babs could answer was, “She’s away again, but I’m her proxy. Except, as a reporter, I can’t speak out and take sides. But I’m still onto it, you bet.”

  Her reply prompted the wildlife champions to bristle and move to the other side of the room. Nonetheless, aside from zeroing in on some supporting data as an investigative reporter, Babs also had it in mind to score some points through Will’s testimony. From what she understood, he had the opportunity to bring up the loophole in question. In the back of her mind, she also entertained the notion to make a play for Will, provided he was as promising in person as he sounded over the phone. Why should Emily get all the action on that front? Why shouldn’t there be a bonus in it for Babs for once in her loopy life? Juicy revelations and sultry prospects to boot were just what the doctor ordered.

  As the time drew near, however, she began to worry that Will might not show up at all. No one else could bring up the issue that the regulations read “may” not “shall” with regards to selling the tract on the high meadow for development. No one else was prepared or even knew about it. No one else was outside the usual wrangling village politics to mention their now-deceased chairman’s discovery and afford the few moderates on the commission the impetus they needed to raise a few objections. Or, failing that, casually call for a referendum establishing the tract as a sanctuary or who knows what else she could get Will to do. As a reporter, Babs was prohibited to even broach the subject, but perhaps she could get Will to do something.

  When the hearing was promptly called to order, and still no sign of Will, things didn’t look promising. The lead attorney for the GDC, a tall, bony man with a mop of dyed black hair, began to lay out the ground rules. He advised the commission that their charge was to approve the site plans only. Now was not the time for deflections about animal rights or complaints about alterations to the historic nature of the village.

  One of the three lady conservationists objected on the grounds it was supposed to be an open hearing and residents and taxpayers had rights. A few onlookers murmured their approval.

  Brian Forbes banged his gavel, waved the lady wildlife champion down, and said, “Yes, yes, Ms. Trumbull. All in due time.”

  From then on it was one suited “expert” after another. And each suit had a presentation longer and more laborious than the one before. At one point, a soil engineer went on and on in a low, garbled monotone about projected sediment loss and recovery ratios that would be handled by his state-of-the-art converter system. By the time he had flipped over diagram number fifteen on his portable easel, Babs couldn’t help but feel useless. The only saving grace was the fact that Ms. Trumbull had also had enough.

  “This is ludicrous!” shouted Ms. Trumbull as she shot up out of her seat. “You call this an open hearing, Brian? When does the public get to speak?”

  “Excuse me,” said Brian. “But we have an agenda.”

  “Wonderful. How long does this filibuster go on? Do we get equal time? And even so, we don’t have an endless bunch of hired guns. We don’t have a slick lawyer. What are we supposed to do?”

  Babs jotted all this down as the GDC lawyer took exception to the “unprofessional mudslinging.”

  Brian assured Ms. Trumbull that after the GDC had presented its case, the public would have its turn.

  “And when will that happen?” hollered Ms. Trumbull. “How old will I be? I know for a fact that the fifteen-minute break is coming up. At the rate this is going, we will never be heard. And what about equal representation?”

  More murmuring agreement by the same few onlookers.

  Babs glanced back over her shoulder and spotted a tall guy in Levi’s leaning by the doorjamb who, by all accounts, had to be Will Farrow. Babs also spotted Martha Forbes slipping into the meeting room and gazing directly at her husband.

  Everything came to a halt. Babs couldn’t tell whether it was Martha’s sudden appearance or Brian’s loss for words over Ms. Trumbull’s allegations that brought proceedings to a standstill. She also wondered why the other six members of the commission hadn’t so much as batted an eyelid during this altercation. Perhaps Brian had them all in his pocket, or they had been paid off by the GDC, or they had never run into a team of high-powered operators and were flabbergasted and cowering over the prospect of using tax payer money to hire legal consultants.

  Brian came up with the slick rejoinder that Ms. Trumbull and her cohorts could file for intervener status, hire their own lawyers and experts, and present their case. When asked where they were supposed to get the money to compete with the GDC’s bottomless pockets, Brian signaled for the break.

  Without Chris Cooper at the helm, it seemed to Babs that just about any corporate scheme could be steamrolled through. Antsy as can be, s
he got up, hoping to see what she could wheedle out of Martha and then find out what was going on with Will. But Will became the first order of business as she spied him ambling toward the exit a few yards behind Ms. Trumbull and the others as they proceeded to barge out in sheer, powerless frustration.

  “Hey,” said Babs, catching up to him. “I’m Babs. You’re not really going, are you?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “But you can’t. What about the ‘shall’ and ‘may’ business? What about doing some good?”

  Most of the onlookers brushed past them on their way out, including Martha Forbes with a self-satisfied look on her face, doubtless realizing it was all a fait accompli, leaving Brian, the rest of the commission members and suits in the meeting room, and Will and Babs lingering in the hallway.

  “No point that I can see,” said Will.

  “You can’t mean that.”

  Babs kept looking up at Will, hoping for something positive. She liked his lean looks but didn’t at all like the way he was sloughing her off.

  “Looks like a stacked deck to me.”

  “Fine. The whole thing is rigged. The B&B goes belly up, Emily’s mom has to pack it in, and you’re out of luck.”

  “Could be.”

  “Come on. How can you show up and then back off one minute later?”

  “Let’s say I’m just not up for this kind of thing.”

  “Then what are you up for?”

  After thinking it over, Will said, “Tell you what. Meet you at Roy’s. I could use a couple of cold ones, and I guess you could use a little advice.”

  Will gave her a nod as he exited the hallway. As an afterthought, he said, “Look for the pickup with the friendly dog. Name’s Oliver, but don’t give him any ideas.”

  “Okay. Be with you in a minute.”

  Babs watched him move out of sight. Looking for some way, any way to regain the initiative, she slipped through the exit and spotted Martha Forbes shaking hands with the lead attorney. Martha abruptly moved off and cut through the gap between the laurel bushes. Babs followed until they were both blocked by a high, wooden fence. It was pitch dark now and there was a slight chill in the air.

  Avoiding the haughty look that went with her tailored suit, Babs used the same ploy she’d used earlier with Martha’s husband.

  “Look, I only need a few seconds to make sure I’ve got this right.”

  “Some other time, all right?” said Martha in her crisp saleswoman tone. “Now if you’ll kindly step aside.”

  “Sure thing. But I only wanted to give you a chance to dispel the rumors.”

  Martha stepped back the few remaining feet, keeping her distance. “Listen, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Babs, but the hearing is about to resume. So let’s drop this nonsense, shall we?”

  “Okay. I’ll just note you’re very chummy with the GDC and, given your iffy track record as a broker, have everything to gain from all this.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m saying, instead of little or no sales in living memory, you’ve got prospects here for commissions on a bunch of upscale condos. If you want to add it all up, it goes something like this. For starters we’ve got Miranda Shaw’s white elephant that you can’t unload. But now, with Chris Cooper out of the way, Brian at the helm of the committee, Harriet Curtis in the GDC’s pocket, and their steamroller in high gear . . . you see what I’m getting at?”

  There was a strained look on Martha Forbes’s face that registered even in the deep shadows. Dispensing with any hint of civility, Martha said, “You print any of that and I’ll sue you.”

  “Funny. That’s exactly what your hubby said.”

  As Martha edged past her, Babs added, “Hey, while we’re at it, how high up does this go? To Hacket, the guy who moves in after the GDC does its hit-and-run?”

  Reentering the glare of the hallway, Martha said, “I’m going to forget this ever happened. And I’m sure you’ll do the same.”

  Answering just before the door clicked shut, Babs said, “That’s what’s called a non-denial denial, Martha.”

  Feeling a tad better about things, Babs drifted over to the parking lot clogged with shiny cars with out-of-town plates and slipped behind the wheel of her beat-up Chevy. She proceeded onto the main road into the darkening stretch that took her out of the historic district all the way to Roy’s Barbeque, its glowing lights the only sign of life by the dark, rippling Housatonic and the shadows of the burgeoning hills.

  She figured this whole thing went all the way to the top of a huge realty enterprise. Brian and Martha were simply cogs in the wheel. If nothing else, she’d latched onto something not as big in scope as Watergate, but around these parts, pretty damn big indeed.

  Pulling in outside Ray’s Barbeque a few minutes later, she spotted the pickup with the chunky golden retriever perched by the rail of the truck bed. Eager to greet her, the dog wagged its bushy tail while letting out a deep-throated bark. Babs hoped the dog’s amiable mood had rubbed off on his master and that Will had something positive to offer.

  In the smoky haze of the bar, the speakers blared the sentiments of a throaty female vocalist declaring that “Looks, sugar, without the touch, don’t cut no ice, won’t get you much.” Babs recalled a time when country gals declared they would stand by their man. Evidently, they’d been replaced by hot babes holding auditions in the bedroom.

  Easing into the pine-paneled restaurant, she spotted Will in a booth in the far corner. Sliding in across from him, she was about to share her observations about the raunchy singer when she noticed his mood had apparently gone downhill. As he drained his Corona, Babs began to get the gist of what was on his mind.

  “You see,” Will said, ever so slowly twirling the neck of the empty beer bottle, “I don’t know anything about this site approval business. All I’m trying to do is keep Emily from any more grief. If I could just show her that there was nothing she could’ve done and how she’s better off steering clear of any trouble.”

  Though it went completely against her get-with-it style, Babs didn’t interrupt. She sat still and waited him out.

  Putting the beer bottle aside, he said, “If I could get this state trooper, this Dave Roberts, to take over, it’d be on him. But now we got this Doc character.”

  When his train of thought broke off again, Babs said, “So? Hey, I’m listening, I swear.”

  Will peered at her as if he was unsure whether to go on. Then he added, “Not that long after Emily left, he came looking for her at the B&B.”

  “The guy from the GDC?”

  “I guess. I brushed him off about how to get hold of her. He shoved Oliver out of the way, walked off, and says, ‘How the hell do you get to the Brit boonies and kill two birds with one stone?’”

  “So you’re saying there’s a lot more to this GDC land grab,” said Babs, thinking about Emily’s remark about Doc’s cellphone call on the high meadow to get Chris “taken care of.”

  “The way things are shaking out . . . how do you make her steer clear, is all?”

  “Steer clear of what?”

  “That’s the point. I don’t rightly know.”

  Will looked at Babs and shook his head, perhaps indicating that confiding in her had been a bad idea or that he was bone tired and wanted to call it a night. He excused himself, paid his tab, and left her to draw her own conclusions.

  The first, and most obvious, was that there was no future in her notion about hooking up with an older guy, at least not in this case. He was solely interested in Emily, and Babs’s sense of humor and availability were worth zilch.

  But more importantly, it looked like this guy Doc had a lot more on his plate. Which meant at the end of this day’s work, either Babs was on the mark, ensconced where the main action was, like she said or . . .

  She shut her mind to the alternative. She was a whiz at this sort of thing, given half a chance. The ball was in her court. Emily was understandably saddened over Chris, not
at all herself, and was far better off out of the picture.

  Looking at it another way, however, given this Doc character’s connection with the GDC, despite Will’s efforts to shield Emily, something might be closing in on her over in what Doc called “the Brit boonies.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  By Thursday afternoon, heading southwest on the M5, Emily had decided to ignore Harriet’s standoffish routine. The elder Curtis, in the front passenger seat to Emily’s left, hadn’t exchanged one word with Pru and Silas who, along with the picnic basket of snacks, occupied the back seat. Babs’s phone message about the stonewalling at the hearing wasn’t at the forefront of her mind either.

  As she passed Wellington, moving closer to the switch-off to the A38 and echoes of Dartmoor, Emily mulled over the “two birds” Doc was going to kill with one stone, which Will had divulged during Emily’s quick call to him that morning. In his trademark style, Will hemmed and hawed and asked her to let it ride, and remember to stay clear of the slightest sign of trouble. To placate him, Emily had replied she would do just that as soon as he owned up to what sign of trouble he had in mind.

  In Emily’s mind, the first bird was probably Harriet or something to do with her. There was Doc’s reference about “taking care of things” and Harriet declaring she was “under the gun” and muttering to herself back at the Warwick, shaking her head about being an accessory. Emily kept wondering when Harriet would be at it again, giving off even stronger signals or making some telltale maneuver. Would it be when Emily turned off at Bovey Tracey for the scheduled cream tea? It stood to reason that Harriet was somehow in cahoots with Doc before she suddenly turned on him and prompted his hot pursuit. In any case, no one except Emily knew the location of their new lodgings, or the fact that the secluded manor house went by the name Penmead and had a hidden track that led to its front gate.

  But the prospect of Doc and Harriet running into each other complicated matters, as if they weren’t already as twisted as could be. Emily had tried keeping her tour on track while keeping her eye out for any telltale slipup on Harriet’s part. Something absolutely “tangible.” But now even that seemed problematic.