Gunshy by Sharon Lee Advance Snippet

Coming In August from SRM Publisher Ltd!

Gunshy

Sharon Lee

Central Maine

December 1989

CHAPTER ONE

The radio was playing "Winter Wonderland" when I blew into Mainely Manes. The wind and I tussled for the door, which contest of brute strength I won, but not easily.

"Brr!" I told Stacy the receptionist, and she nodded, screwing her tiny face up into an eloquent grimace of distaste. I sighed and went to hang up my parka.

"Winter Wonderland" burbled merrily on and I wondered, as I struggled with the parka's zipper, if it had been written by a Floridian, a Californian or a citizen of the southwestern desert. Clearly it had never been written by anyone who had actually experienced winter, Maine-style.

"Is it only December first?" I demanded, crossing the room to Philip's station.

"It gets worse before it gets better, darling." He shook the apron out with a magician's swirl and fastened it around my neck while I held my hair high. "You ought to be used to this by now," he said, coming around to the counter for his comb. "An old Mainer like you."

"Every Mainer I talk to hates winter," I told him. "The bangs need to be cut."

"Talk to the ice-fishing and snowmobile crowd," Philip recommended. Abruptly, he shook his head, put the comb down with a small, petulant click and stepped behind the chair. He used both hands to lift my hair and caught my eye in the mirror.

"You really ought to do something with this."

"I am doing something with it," I said. "I'm letting it grow."

"Don't be a bitch, darling." Philip said placidly. "Letting it grow was one of your better ideas -- you're light years ahead of that butch do you had when you hit town. Now, we need to refine the look."

I eyed his reflection. "This sounds suspiciously like the sell for a fifty-dollar perm."

"Good God, do I look like a barbarian?" he demanded, stung to the core of his artistic soul. "What you absolutely do not need is more mass around that face!"

"I knew it was going to come down to my face," I said resignedly. "It always does. Forget the bangs, OK? I'll grow 'em to my knees."

Philip sighed and lowered my hair gently to my shoulders before coming around to the front of the chair. He leaned one hip against the counter and crossed his arms over his meager chest.

"It's not a bad face -- in fact, it's rather -- interesting. Thin and interesting. Thin is the operative word, darling. All those thick, luscious waves simply overpower you. It's time for A Look."

"It's time for my bangs to get cut," I told him. "And then it's time for me to finish the rest of my errands and go to work. I'm thirty-five years old -- I don't need A Look, I need a retirement account."

Philip shook his head, shifted and reached for the comb and scissors. "Do me a favor, will you, Jen?" he asked, combing my bangs over my eyebrows.

I squinted my eyes shut. "What's that?"

"Don't tell anybody you get your hair cut here."

The wind blew me up and down Main Street, releasing and reclaiming me in turn at Laverdiere's drug store, Dore's Hardware and Mother's Pantry. I tucked the last of my purchases into a canvas carryall, zipped the top and slung the thing over my shoulder before surrendering myself to the wind for the two block walk to the offices of the Wimsy Voice. I would be forty-five minutes ahead of my shift, but I would be out of the wind. If God and the ancient steam heat plant were good, I'd even be warm.

I crossed Main Street with the wind at my back and turned the corner into Preble just as a particularly playful gust descended.

The new wind snatched the bag on my shoulder, twisted it and jerked it to my elbow, at the same time flinging a scatter of gravel into my face. I swore, grabbed, then staggered as the wind whooshed around me like a pack of high-spirited puppies and roared off, abruptly abandoning me to gravity.

A hand caught my elbow, steadying me. City reflexes kicked in and I jerked back. The hand tightened slightly, keeping me on my feet. I shook the hair out of my face and the gravel out of my eyes, looked -- and smiled.

"Fox."

"Jennifer," he returned seriously. "Nice day."

"I've seen nicer," I told him. He raised an eyebrow and released my elbow.

"Recently?"

I laughed. "Point."

He turned and walked with me down Preble, toward the river and the Voice building.

"Done shopping for the day?"

I nodded. "Heading for work, frigid but early. Murphy's Law dictates that the steam plant will either not be working at all or so well we'll have to open the windows, and that it won't matter anyhow, because Bill Jacques will send me out to do a man-on-the-street."

Fox smiled his slight smile. "That sounds remarkably like Bill," he agreed and tipped his head. "Are you early enough so you can stop for a cup of coffee?"

Michaelson's Gourmet Coffee Shop and Café was right across Preble Street, and a steaming cup of Swiss-chocolate-almond sounded like pure heaven. I smiled.

"Good idea."

We hung our jackets on pegs by the door and found a table in an alcove dominated by a large plant of the type known as "foliage". Micky Michaelson came bustling over, pad ready, smile on his mustached face.

"Mr. Foxwell," he said, nodding respectfully, as one does to summer people or other privileged classes. For me, it was a wider smile and a casual, "Hi, Jenny."

We ordered -- hazelnut for Fox, Swiss-chocolate-almond for me -- and Micky swooped away, returning in less than a minute with two thick white mugs, gently steaming, and a pitcher of honest-to-goodness cow's cream.

"Enjoy," he said, and left us to it.

I poured cream, stirred, and Fox did the same. Neither of us bothered with sugar.

Fox is David Foxwell, American citizen of various foreign parts, most lately out of Austin, Texas. He calls himself a computer geek, which is understatement. In the computer geek world -- cyberspace -- he's royalty: Lord Fox. In Wimsy, he runs a computer bulletin board called Random Access, which is where I met him. He's thirty-five years old, a widower, and he came to Maine to kill a man.

I wrapped my hands around the warm white mug and breathed in Swiss-chocolate-almond steam. "Yum," I said and sighed in bliss.

"Reconciled to winter now?" Fox murmured and I glanced over to him.

Fox looks more or less like his namesake -- auburn hair and honey skin, long nose and pointed chin. His eyes are an extremely dark blue, black in dim lighting. He smiles, very slightly. I've yet to hear him laugh.

"You do not reconcile with a Maine winter, you grit your teeth and endure it," I told him. "If I didn't live here, I wouldn't."

He sipped his coffee, watching me over the mug's rim. "You could move back to Baltimore."

I shook my head. "I own that house on the Point. I'd have to sell to afford the move and the housing market in Maine doesn't exist -- especially for beat-up old farmhouses and ten acres of overgrown field."

"So you're stuck."

I frowned, considering that while I sipped coffee.

"I don't think stuck," I said, slowly. "I don't think that. See, when Aunt Jen left me the house, I came up here with the intention of putting it right on the market. Take the money and run. Thought maybe I'd get enough for a down payment on one of those tiny rowhouses on Tyson Street --" Like Fox would know where Tyson Street was. I threw him an apologetic glance. "Right downtown," I explained. "Walking distance of the harbor and the music clubs, Lexington Market..."

He nodded. "But you didn't sell," he prompted. "Why not?"

I shrugged, feeling rather inadequate to the task of explaining Wimsy's lure.

"It was -- quiet," I managed eventually. "I grew up in the suburbs -- moved to the city at seventeen and never moved out. Three a.m., four -- there's always some noise, somewhere. Traffic, sirens, radios, the conversation from the apartment next door... The first morning I woke up in that house -- my house -- you know what I heard?" I didn't wait for him to shake his head. "Birds. Not pigeons. Birds. I must've laid in bed an hour, listening to the birds sing." I shook my head.

"I don't like winter," I said, "but I can put up with it, for the rest of the year." I sipped coffee and glanced over. Fox was watching me with quiet attention, long fingers wrapped loosely 'round his mug.

"There's one thing I do like about the winter," I said. "When it gets cold enough -- when ice is in as Harry says? You can walk right out on the Smoke -- walk across to Waterville, if you want to." I hesitated, suddenly wondering...

"Are you leaving?" I blurted, because Fox's business was done and there was nothing to tie him here. "No reason for you to put up with a Wimsy winter. Just pack up your computers and head back to Texas."

"Texas does not lie particularly close to my heart," he said calmly. "And I don't think I've seen a real winter since we were in Germany, when I was fourteen." He finished his coffee and gave me one of his slight smiles. "I think I'd enjoy walking across the Smoke."

I returned the smile, then moved my eyes on the pretext of finishing my own coffee. Fox would be in Wimsy for the winter. It was ridiculous how happy that made me.

"When does your shift start?"

I put the mug down. "Six."

"Ah." He glanced down at his wrist. "Five-fifty-four."

"Time to move on." I reached for my pocketbook.

Fox waved a lazy hand. "I'll get it," he said and was gone before I could protest.

Shaking my head, I wriggled out from beneath the foliage and retrieved my jacket from its peg. I was still struggling with the damned zipper when Fox reappeared and pulled on his own coat. His zipper went up in one effortless glide; he pulled the hood over his hair.

I finally conquered my zipper and pulled the parka's collar up in lieu of the hood I didn't have. Fox opened the door and we went out together, into a wind that seemed not as cold as it had been.

CHAPTER TWO

Maine has its share of odd town names -- Mars Hill, Skowhegan, Argyle, Rosemary -- and there's nothing all that odd about Wimsy, once you know it was called after Jebediah Wimsy, who settled the Point along about 1780.

Waterville is the nearest city, two miles from Wimsy Main Street, across the Big Smoke River. Next town beyond that is Winslow, across two more rivers -- Sebasticook and Kennebec. Three or four miles south, where the Smoke gets swallowed by the Kennebec, is Twin Rivers State Park, at the Vassalboro town line.

Fox left me at the Voice's front door. I crossed the tiny lobby and went up the fire stairs, ignoring the two-bit elevator. I hate elevators.

Bill Jacques nodded as I strode into the newsroom. "Ms. Pierce. Glad you could make it."

I resisted the temptation to stick my tongue out at him; settling instead for a frosty, "Good evening, Mr. Jacques," as I swept past on the way to third desk, my reportorial perch for the last twenty months.

Second desk is Sue Danforth, a pinch-faced woman who looks years older than the thirty-two life has handed her so far. She looked up with her version of a smile as I went past. "Good evening, Jennifer."

"Hi." I paused, smiling down into her tired blue eyes. "Working tonight?"

"Just finishing up," she said. "Pam's watching Molly, so I can be a couple minutes late."

Pam is Sue's sister; Molly is Sue's daughter. Molly's dad is Jimmy Danforth, who works in the woods when he's sober. Unfortunately, he's not sober all that often, and tends toward belligerence, drunk or not. He cost Sue a small fortune in bail, broken furniture and bruises before she finally got fed up, changed the locks and filed a protection order.

The last I'd heard, Jimmy was "on the town," as the phrase goes -- getting food stamps and drunk more often than ever. His name was in the cop log every week or so: Disorderly conduct, driving while intoxicated, shoplifting -- that one was cigarettes, mostly.

"I've got a call into the state police," Sue said, easing back into her chair like she thought a sudden move would pain her. She reached for her notebook, flipped pages, and nodded.

"Hit and run out on the School Road -- Angel Bolduc, sixteen -- apparently hit while she was walking home from hockey practice, slid into the ditch. Guy in a truck happened to glance down, saw the red coat and got on the radio. The hospital's supposed to call, too, with an update." She glanced up at me. "The file name's run. Fill in the blanks for me and send it when it's ready?"

"Sure."

"Thanks," she said, and shook her head. "What kind of person do you have to be, to hit somebody like that and just drive away?"

"Maybe they didn't know," I offered half-heartedly. Sue snorted.

"They knew," she said darkly, and eased toward her screen. "I've got another couple graphs on this one..."

I took the hint and moved on to my desk, reached behind the old CPU and flicked up the switch, then went back to the cloakroom to struggle free of the parka.

The computer had loaded by the time I returned. The heading above the four-choice menu read Karen's Computer.

Karen Hopkins had been third-desk reporter before me. She'd fled back to her native California two years ago and I'd succeeded to her position a bare four months after her departure, but I'd never gotten around to changing the name on the menu. If asked, I would have professed it a matter of utter indifference to me, whose name headed the menu.

This evening, finger poised over '1' for 'Write', I frowned at the menu head, unaccountably annoyed.

Really, Jennifer, how indolent can you be?

Before I finished chiding myself, my fingers had moved, dropping me into DOS and pulling up the .BAT file. It took approximately three seconds to find and alter the proper line, save the batch and reboot.

The computer groaned, struggled, beeped. The screen ghosted, then offered up the menu: Jen's Computer it announced. I nodded, absurdly pleased with myself, and hit '1' for 'Write'.

I've worked as a secretary, an advertising copy writer, a computer sales person, and a waitress in my time, but reporting takes the cake for sheer unstructured wackiness. You go out, you interview someone, you go in, you write, you go out for the cop log, you come back, you take a couple obits, make a few phone calls, check something in the story morgue, go out for another interview -- or maybe a meeting -- write, set up interviews for tomorrow or the next day, clarify points or rewrite to editorial direction, all the while keeping one ear on the scanner and writing like hell, especially if you're on late shift, because the deadline for all stories is 11 p.m., sharp.

The first couple weeks I worked at the Voice, I thought I was going to go crazy.

Then, I started to like it.

Now, I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing as paying work.

Reporters carry a license to pry. Armed with only a pad, a Bic and a couple questions, I take on townspeople, police officers, shopkeepers, dissidents, selectpersons, school board officials and occasional bad asses. It's astonishing, the information people will happily give to "the press." All I have to do is -- ask.

I've had assignments I haven't liked: Talking to the mother of a four-year-old drowning victim. Interviewing the old man whose equally old dog was shot dead in the dooryard by hunters who swore they'd thought the animal was a deer. Car crashes... I really don't like to cover car crashes.

Mostly, though -- taken on average -- I like my job. I like getting out and around and meeting the people in my new hometown. I like the weirdness, and the chaos. I like the way that a newspaper actually comes out of all it, three days a week, every week, regular as winter.

The phone rang. I cradled it between cheek and shoulder while I uncapped the Bic one-handed and flipped my pad to a clean sheet.

It was Second Selectman Lyle Saunders, calling to be sure I'd be at meeting this evening -- selectperson's meeting, that would be, my every-other-Tuesday assignment.

"Be some interesting tonight," Lyle confided. "Comprehensive Plan Committee's going to present its recommendations."

"Hot stuff," I said, deadpan.

"That's all right." Lyle chuckled. "Be coffee, anyway, and a place in from the weather."

I grinned and put the Bic down. "You've convinced me. I'll see you there."

"Well, naturally," he said, and broke the connection.

"Mail for you, Jen." Carly the copy editor was standing at my right shoulder, fluttering a meager fan of number ten envelopes.

"Hey, thanks." I took them, then made a snatch as a shorter, classier envelope slid free, catching it before it hit the floor.

"What's this?" I asked, putting the other letters on my desk and turning the thick, textured square over in my hands. My name was written in full cursive on the front: Jennifer Anne Pierce, it said; and Guest.

I looked up at Carly. "You getting married?"

"No such luck," she said and tapped the envelope with a square forefinger. "You're going to like this one. The Twins are throwing a party."

"The Twins are throwing a party?" I repeated in stark disbelief. "Has anyone told them it's winter ?"

Carly shrugged -- a gesture that draws the eye to her most prominent features. "Read and weep," she advised, and sashayed away, Earth Mother hips swinging.

I slid my finger under the flap and opened the envelope.

The Wimsy Voice is owned by John and Jerry Talbot -- Jay-Two, Tee-Two, as they are known to certain of their fond employees -- who reside in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, and make three or four lightning trips to Maine every year, always during the summer. They acquired the newspaper from Barbara and Tilden Rancourt, who had never been further south than Portland until they retired, sold the paper and moved to Miami on the proceeds.

Since we were now officially embarked upon winter, the Voice should have been safe from the Twins until at least May.

You are invited, read the pretty silver script, to a Christmas party to be held at the Mill Hotel on Friday, December 11, from eight until midnight. Black tie. Open bar.

"Black tie?" I demanded incredulously and heard Carly give her trademark "Hah!" of laughter behind me.

"Don't you have a black tie, Ms. Pierce?" That was Bill Jacques. I spun my chair to face him, across the aisle and down.

"There's peyote in the tap water in Phoenix."

"Could be," Bill allowed judiciously.

"How can they think anybody's going to come to this thing?" I demanded, waving the card for emphasis. "Black tie? Most of the guys in the press room are doing well to have a tie. Period."

"They'll come all right," he said, looking at me over his half-glasses. "You get to the part about 'open bar'?"

I sighed, hard, and glared at him. "Why?"

"Now, that," said my editor, "is a home question. We'll make a reporter out of you yet."

"I'm going to win the lottery," I told him loftily. "And live a life of ease and comfort. In the Caribbean." I spun around to face my desk.

"I think it's nice," Sue Danforth said softly from my right. She had pushed close to the half-wall that separated our desks, and was looking at me seriously. "I mean, the Twins have owned this paper for almost five years and they've never made any effort to – to get to know the staff, or to – to find out what people think, how to improve things..." She smiled at me, nervously. "Maybe they've turned over a new leaf, you know? Decided to – take an interest."

"I guess it's possible," I said, since, theoretically, anything is.

She nodded vigorously. "I think that's it. They've decided to get more involved with us here – make a difference. And they've decided throwing a Christmas party is a good way to -- to..." she floundered.

"To soften us up," I finished. She looked doubtful, but nodded again.

"That's right." She pushed her chair back. "I think it's a good sign," she said firmly, and stood up.

"Well, I hope you're right," I said, while privately considering a black tie affair at the swankiest establishment in town the least efficient way of softening up the Voice's staff. A pizza-and-beer party at the local sports bar, now...

I smiled up at Sue. "Have a good night. Say hi to Molly for me."

"I will. Thanks for taking care of that story."

"No problem."

"'Night," she said and was gone.

Shaking my head, I began to open the rest of my mail.

As predicted, the Comprehensive Plan Committee's recommendations were dull as ditch-water. I dutifully took notes in between knocking back two Styrofoam cups of truck-stop coffee lightened with non-dairy powder, then went out into the frigid windy blackness of eight p.m. and got into my car.

The car is new – a replacement for the one I totaled, back in mid-October. A black Camaro, genus Z28, with the five-point-seven liter V8 engine. Electronic automatic transmission. Rear-wheel drive. Platinum-tipped spark plugs. Anti-lock brakes. Stereo CD player. Plush red bucket seats.

You'd have to work a bit to produce a stupider car for slogging through a Maine winter, and I loved it like my own child.

I pulled the seatbelt tight, turned the key, brought up the lights and rolled silently out of the dark lot. I drifted through downtown at precisely the 25-mile-an-hour limit and pulled behind the police station, slipping between two Town of Wimsy cruisers.

Officer Ken Aube lifted a hand as I came in.

"Nice night," he offered, over the squawk of the dispatch box.

"If you like freezing wind," I agreed. "Anything new on the log?"

"Nothing much. This time of year, the town just sort of settles down to freeze." He moved his shoulders. "It'll get busy around Christmas, New Year's. Then we'll all go to sleep again 'til spring."

Small town life. Wimsy's cop log hardly ever ran longer than a dozen events, and a murder or rape was front page news that got everyone exclaiming and excited. Far different from the paper in my home town, which had simply stopped reporting rapes: Too common; too tedious.

I went over to the dispatch station, weaving around the computer boxes that had been stacked in various not-really-out-of-the-way spots for the past three months.

I nodded to the earphoned dispatcher, who pushed the log book toward me without raising her eyes from the paperback romance she was reading.

"You got anybody to install these things yet?" I asked Ken over my shoulder, flipping log pages until I came to the pencil tick showing where Milt had stopped that afternoon.

"Matter of fact, we do," he said, as I wrote down that Barry Grenier had been summoned on a charge of assault. I looked over my shoulder.

"Who? If you don't mind my asking."

It would be some so-called pro out of Portland, I thought. It always was. A pro out of Portland had gotten them into this mess in the first place, ordering up a bunch of expensive network computers for the cop station – and disappearing when it came down to the nitty-gritty of actually installing the idiot things. It was my own private opinion that the computers would be found to be seconds or random fire-sale discards when opened, and not an integrated network at all. Which would be just too bad: The Town had spent a lot of money on this system, not to mention the consultant's fee.

"New guy in town," Ken was saying, taking a swig out of his Big Apple Convenience Store plastic mug. "Heard he was from Texas." He put the mug down with a sigh. "Foxwell, I think his name is."

Well, why not? I thought. The Town of Wimsy might as well pay Fox as a fraudulent pro from Portland.

"I hope he can make some sense out of it for you," I said, truthfully.

He shrugged. "Don't know what we need the damn' thing for anyhow," he said. "Got along without it this long."

"Welcome to the twentieth century," I said with a grin. "The Information Highway has just put a ramp into Wimsy."

"Just what we need," Ken grunted. "More speeders."

I laughed and went back to the log, noting a High Street resident had reported a boy throwing stones at her parked car and that a woman on Spring Street had been playing her stereo too loud.

"Well," I said eventually, dutifully checking off the last entry I had noted and flipping my notebook closed. "That's that." I threaded my way through the boxes to Ken's desk and dawdled there a second until he looked up.

"Know anything about the hit-and-run up by the high school?"

He shrugged. "Not my shift."

And no scuttlebutt, I added silently. Or none that Ken was willing to share.

"OK," I said equitably. "See you later."

"Stay warm."

CHAPTER THREE

The State Police didn't have anything new on the hit-and-run and, according to the spokesman at headquarters, weren't likely to get anything new.

"That time of day, that stretch of road..." He paused and I could picture him shaking his head. "Unless there was somebody walking right behind her, or somebody driving the opposite direction happened to look in their mirror... We're still asking around. But it looks like we're going to have to get lucky." He sighed, lightly. "Sometimes we get lucky."

The hospital was even less encouraging. Angel Bolduc was still unconscious, her condition guarded. I hung the phone up and went over to lean on the half-wall behind Bill Jacques' computer. He glanced up over the rims of his glasses, fingers still pattering along his keyboard.

"The kid who was hit is in guarded condition -- unconscious," I said, and my voice sounded tired in my own ears -- tired and grim. "Hospital's only giving the bare bones. You want me to call her parents?"

Bill's fingers stopped moving. He pulled his glasses off, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning up into my face.

"What've you got?"

I shrugged. "Preliminary report Sue got this afternoon. State cops don't have anything -- don't think they will have anything, unless somebody unexpected comes forward with an eyewitness report. Hospital's telling me what I just told you."

He nodded, which only meant he'd heard me, and stared off beyond my shoulder for a couple seconds.

"Send it over," he said, abruptly uncrossing his arms and re-settling his glasses. "It's Sue's story. She can follow up tomorrow."

"Right."

I slid into the chair at second desk, opened "Run", added my couple lines of non-information and ran the spell-check. Then I closed the file, copied it, reformatted the copy, saved it and hit control-alt-S, the sequence that in a just world would transmit the story from Sue's computer to Bill and Carly's network.

"Coming across now," I announced to the room at large. "Run-point-Sue."

"Got it!" Carly called, then: "Down to thirty."

Another miracle of the electronic age accomplished. I shut down Sue's computer and turned out the desk lamp, then moved to my desk and did the same before going back to the cloakroom.

The parka's zipper went up easy, for a change. I stopped by Bill Jacques' computer on my way out.

"Questions on any of that?" I asked, fingering the car keys out of my pocketbook.

He shook his head without raising his eyes. "Looks clean."

"See you tomorrow."

"Good-night."

I waved to Carly, walked past Sports and Features – both dark at eleven-thirty on a wintery Tuesday night – down the hall, down the stairs and for the last time tonight, out into the cold.

I parked the Camaro in the barn, walked up the dark, unheated ell, pushed open the plank door and stepped into the kitchen.

Jasper the cat blinked at me from the middle of the kitchen table.

"C'mon, cat, you know the rules," I said, peeling out of the parka and hanging it on its peg. "Get down."

He did, leisurely, and sauntered over to his plate, which was empty, of course.

"Going to put you out in the barn," I told him, bending down for plate and water dish. "Going to make you catch mice for your dinner."

Jasper did not dignify this with a response. He did follow me to the counter and amuse himself by stropping against my legs while I ran water into the bowl and measured cat crunchies onto the plate, purring loudly all the while.

Jasper had been my Aunt Jen's cat and she had left him to me, along with the farmhouse, the ten acres, and the gravel pit. Harry Pelletier, who had lately taken it upon herself to instruct me in the various uses to which the resources of my land might be put, is very taken with the gravel pit. She seems to be even fonder of it than she is of the ancient grove of cedar down by the river.

"Get some money for that gravel, come winter," she'd said, along back November. "Sell a couple yards to the Town, for the roads."

Which I suppose is a reasonable enough idea, but what do I need with more money? I'm not rich, but I own my house; my job brings in enough for groceries, car payment, books, and music, with a little left over to put against that "rainy day" I devoutly hope will never come.

Besides, I don't want the Town trucks coming in, messing up my land – disturbing things. I like it fine the way it is.

"Sell some of that cedar, now," Harry'd suggested, seeing she was getting nowhere with the gravel pit. "Cedar brings a good price."

But I was a city-dweller, blood and bone, and the acres of trees I had inherited were

– well, holy.

"Cut down the cedar grove?" I demanded, staring at Harry in disbelief. "For money?"

"Money's plenty useful, come to find out," she'd said, looking up at me with a squint in her eye. After a minute, she decided to placate me: "Isn't like you'd have to sell 'em all."

"Isn't like I have to sell any," I told her. "I've got a job."

She'd shrugged. "Just take a few out," she urged. "Enough to buy some of them new windows, so you won't have to be running the plastic every winter."

"The plastic works fine," I'd said, icily, but, standing in my kitchen – midnight now, with the wind sobbing and the mercury hovering at five – I had to admit that the plastic didn't work as fine as all that. And this was just this beginning. It was going to get colder – a lot colder – before winter let me go.

"So you get another sweater," I told myself, carrying Jasper's food and water back to the proper place while he cavorted 'round my legs.

I straightened. Jasper gave me one more over-exuberant bump before diving in to supper.

"Get some thermals," I continued talking to myself as I went across the chilly kitchen to the refrigerator. "Just like a real Mainer."

I pulled out a bottle of white wine, a block of cheese, carried them to the counter, poured, sliced, and put away. A handful of crackers went onto the cheese plate, then I gathered up my snack and headed for the hall.

"I'm going to pick up my mail," I called to Jasper. He didn't bother to answer.

Upstairs, I let myself into my room – the only room in the house that's different now than when Aunt Jen died – settled the glass and plate and flicked on my computer.

It purred to life, ran a rapid systems check and sat waiting patiently while I had a sip of wine and a nibble of cheese.

I'd hit the Net first, I thought, and collect my mail. Then I'd check in at Random Access. And then, if I was as smart as everybody seemed to think I was, I'd go to bed.

Mail on the Net was light: An email from Paolo in Argentina; another from Suzanne in London; the latest issue of Cyberspace Review, the tongue-in-cheek "hyper-mag" that served as gossip rag and newspaper of the virtual community. I downloaded it all for later reading and reply, decided against visiting any of the live-time salons, and logged off.

Two minutes later, my computer was dialing the seven-digit number for Random Access. A phone rang, quietly, in the depths of my machine – once, twice. On the third ring, there was a spray of static, a strung-out beee-eep as my computer and the host computer negotiated with each other, followed by a chime as the connection was made. My screen went still for a moment, then words began to appear.

Welcome

You have reached

RANDOM ACCESS BBS

A place exactly like

No place you've ever been

Your sysop is

Fox

The screen froze for perhaps half-a-minute, then another line appeared, asking for my full name and password. Dutifully, I provided these and the door to Random Access opened wide.

There was mail waiting – a note from Marian Younger asking me to pick up a copy of Programmable C for her the next time I was by the Central Processing Unit, Wimsy's home-grown computer store.

Marian will be thirteen years old on New Year's day. She's confined to a wheelchair and is fascinated by computers. For awhile, her attention seemed focused on hardware -- repair and installation of the actual machine of the computer – but over the last month I've seen a shift of interest toward software – the brains that tell the machine what to do. I suspect Fox has had something to do with that.

I wrote a quick reply, telling Marian I would buy the book tomorrow and drop it off Friday after she was home from school, unless she needed it sooner. Two keystrokes mailed the note and I moved on to the main board – the Speakeasy.

Today's first message was from Skip Leterneau, a regular, though one who had heretofore been more interested in the substantial file areas than the social chit-chat of the Speakeasy. Skip had lately been reading up on a new notion in hydroelectric dams, which would utilize an air turbine and require significantly less head – fall of water – in order to work. He apparently found the concept terribly exciting and went on at length, waxing nearly poetical in the density of his technical description. I reached the end and heaved a sigh of relief.

The next message was from Lisa Gagnon. I reached for my wine and had a sip.

Lisa had reached Random Access days after her eight-month marriage had fallen messily apart, a circumstance she blamed almost entirely on having lost her job as a stitcher at the Welltread Shoe factory. Lisa had worked at the factory for five years, but during the six months prior to her firing had experienced trouble making her daily quota. She claimed her hands bothered her – fingers numb; wrists achy. Her shift boss chose to believe otherwise and Lisa was out of a job.

Shortly thereafter, her truck driver husband packed his clothes and moved out, leaving behind his wife, his ancient Tandy computer and very little else.

All, however, was not lost: The Tandy had a working modem in it. Carl, owner and chief tech at CPU, gave Lisa the number to Random Access. And Lisa was hooked.

Over the couple months she had been a regular user of the board, Lisa had regaled the rest of us with painstakingly detailed synopses of her days -- days so dismal, so full of rejection and self-doubt, that I for one counted it a miracle that she hadn't simply turned her face to the wall and called it quits.

We heard how she was denied unemployment benefits because her former employer stated she'd been fired for cause. We heard about having to fill out the form for food stamps and how nice that lady had been, at least.

We heard how the Town refused to give her a tank of oil when winter came howling into Wimsy in mid-November. And a few days later, we heard how the oil truck came down to the trailer and the driver told her it was all paid, but wouldn't tell her who had paid it, so she couldn't even thank the person – her "good angel", as she had it.

We heard how there was a waiting list for the job retraining classes and how the Federal money was running out. We heard about the dismal, dismal job market, and the people who were cruel to her when she walked in, cold, to ask for work.

I put the wine glass down, wondering what today's disaster was going to be. Hoping that maybe the "good angel" had come through with another minor miracle to lighten Lisa's load...

I GOT A JOB!!!! The message shouted, almost deafening in reflected joy and relief. It's at the Mill and I'm going to be cleaning rooms, mostly, but they're going to train me to do other things -- coat check and maybe front desk and maybe they'll teach me how to wait tables in the restaurant. I've got a friend says the tips are wicked good. I start tomorrow morning and I GOT A JOB!!

The rest of the messages were notes of congratulation from other users, urging her to get plenty of sleep and leave early so she would make a good impression her first day at work. I added a note of my own, telling her how happy I was for her – which looked trite on the screen, but the truth was that I was happy for her – not to mention relieved and somewhat ashamed. That someone could be so joyful over landing a job cleaning hotel rooms after living through two months of concentrated hell... I shook my head and closed my letter, glancing at the clock at the corner of my screen.

"Bedtime, Jen," I told myself and moved my hand toward <G> for <G>oodbye.

The screen broke – reformed into a plain blue playing field, bisected by a thin white line. Letters appeared – quickly, smoothly – beneath the line.

Good evening, Jennifer.

I smiled and typed. Fox. Don't you ever sleep?

Certainly, he typed back. Don't you?

As often as I can, I answered, and then: I see Lisa's finally had some good luck.

It's about time, Fox commented. I hope this is just the first of many positive reverses. I've noticed that having a job tends to make many things easier.

Speaking of jobs, I said, I hear you've landed a plum, yourself.

There was a moment of hesitation, then: The police station. That's quick work, Jennifer. I only got the final approval this evening.

I saw Ken Aube tonight and he already had the scuttlebutt, I told him, grinning. There are no secrets in a small town, Mr. Foxwell.

So I begin to learn. Tell me, what do you know about the former consultant?

I didn't know much -- my fingers danced across the keys, giving Fox the little I had.

His name is John Custer and his office is in Portland. He wore a suit and tie and talked the talk. Carl's pissed at him because he ordered all the stuff himself instead of going through CPU. He milked the analysis part of the contract for all it was worth, then booked when the machines hit town. I hesitated, then added, I didn't get the idea he knew what he was doing.

A fine mess I've gotten myself into, Fox typed, and I could almost hear his sigh through the screen.. Ah, well. Isn't penance good for the soul?

You're asking me?

Jennifer, you really have too low an opinion of yourself. Am I keeping you?

I hesitated. I should go, I typed reluctantly, then thought of something else. Fox?

Yes.

Marian asked me to pick her up a copy of Programmable C. Is that a good place for her to start or are there other books I should get for her while I'm at Carl's?

There was a pause and I leaned back in my chair, reaching for my wine. I'd had a sip and replaced the glass before he began to type again.

If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to her before you buy any books. C can be a bit of a bear, and in any case it's not the place to begin. There's a...progression of study. Like math.

Sure, I typed. Talk to her. After all, you're the resident expert.

A dubious honor, I suspect, Fox returned. Good night, Jennifer. Sleep well.

Good night, Fox, I typed, and the bisected screen was gone, replaced by Random Access' main menu.

I touched <G> for <G>oodbye and the board logged me off.

NO CARRIER, my computer reported and I sighed lightly, for no reason that I could name, and shut down for the night.

CHAPTER FOUR

My usual schedule is Sunday through Thursday, with Friday and Saturday off.

But not this Friday.

This Friday, I was assigned to cover the JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS, WIMSY! rally at the high school, Milt Vane having turned the job down cold.

Sometimes, I wonder how Milt Vane got to be first desk.

The rally was set for seven o'clock. I arrived at six-thirty, parked the Camaro in the bus loop behind an old Chevy van and walked across the wide pavement, toward the light spilling from the big front doors. It was snowing tonight – spiteful little spits of ice that stung my face and melted the instant they hit cement.

The banner stretched across the lobby was black, with JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS! in bright red letters. There were about two dozen assorted students and adults about, all wearing the intent expressions of people who suspect they've forgotten something vital. I saw Dan Skat, the Voice's photographer, over by the far wall and moseyed in that direction.

"Hey, Jen."

"Hey, yourself. I thought this was your day off."

He grinned. "My daughter's dance class is on the program, so I figured, since I had to be here anyway..."

"You might as well get paid for it," I finished and nodded. "I understand entirely. Now, if Milt had your work ethic –"

"We'd be living in a whole different world," Dan said, shaking his head. "I wonder how long Bill's going to let him play prima donna before he brings down the boom."

He straightened suddenly, like a cat hearing the sound of a can opener touching a tuna can, and swung his camera into position. I craned my head around looking for what he'd seen, and spied a tallish blonde in a green parka, tight black jeans and high black boots sweeping into the lobby. The parka was unzipped, showing the shine of gold lame beneath.

"Who's that?" I asked Dan.

"Peggy Neuman," he said, naming Wimsy's own rock legend. "See you later, Jen."

"Right," I said, but Dan was already gone, stalking his celebrity obliquely through the bustle.

I unzipped my own parka, made certain of notebook and Bic, settled my pocketbook more comfortably across my shoulder and surveyed the situation.

It was now quarter to show time and the audience was beginning to arrive. Six high school kids took up stations by the busy doors, handing out flyers that had been photocopied onto the ever-popular goldenrod paper. I went forward, moving against the crowd, and claimed a program from a boy with a buzz cut and a varsity sweater.

"Just say no," he told me, serious as stone.

"No," I said obediently, and slipped the flyer from between his fingers with a smile.

Forty-five minutes and several presentations later – including a close personal chat with Varny the Drug-Sniffing Dog and his partner, Trooper Ron of the Maine State Police – I put the Bic in my lap and carefully flexed my fingers. On-stage, the denizens of Darby's Dance Studio were performing a parable for our times.

In turn, each child in the troupe was approached by a single child in a black T-shirt emblazoned, front and back, with a bright yellow DRUGS. All, after an inexpertly but enthusiastically pantomimed struggle with their conscience, resisted the blandishments of the black-clad child, who turned out to be none other than Abby, Dan Skat's nine-year-old.

Finally, all the children who had Said No looked at each other, counted their numbers, and turned as one to look at the solitary dusky figure in the center of the stage. DRUGS shifted nervously. The mob moved one step forward. DRUGS prudently did not pause to negotiate: She turned tail and exited, running, stage left, whereupon all the Say-Noers cheered, joined hands and danced an exuberant ring-around-the-rosey before also darting off, stage left. Applause was long and good-natured.

Deep in my center aisle seat, I sighed and looked about me. The auditorium was packed – adults, children, old people – and everyone seemed to be having a wicked good time. Earlier, I'd seen Harry Pelletier and Morris DuChamp jockeying for seats front and center. Harry'd been wearing a black baseball cap with DARE emblazoned in strident orange italics just above the peak. Morris had a button instructing the world to DARE TO KEEP KIDS OFF DRUGS pinned to the front of his good wool coat.

Well, I thought, as entertainment we're doing fine. But did this kind of community feeding frenzy actually keep kids off dope? I had my doubts.

Around me, the applause pattered down, the crowd settled, voices easing, chairs creaking slightly as people hunched forward in their places. I glanced at the flyer on my knee: last act of the evening.

Peggy Neuman, the listing ran, rhythm and rap.

I sat up a little straighter, myself.

The house lights dimmed and the audience sound went down, too, like it was wired to the same rheostat. A spot lanced out of the growing murk and made a bull's eye in the center of the stage, waiting.

The silence was broken by a child's shrill question, quickly shushed.

And from the darkness of stage right came a blonde woman in black jeans and a glittering golden shirt. She carried a wooden stool in one hand and a battered, big-bellied acoustic guitar in the other.

Unhurriedly, she crossed the stage to the spot, set the stool upright with an effortless swing of her arm, then smiled over the dark auditorium before she sat down, hitched one leg up and got the guitar into position.

"Hi, there," she said, and her voice was a mellow alto, husking along the edges, as if she smoked, or used to. She ran her fingers over the strings, testing their mettle, shook her head at a sour note.

"I'm Peggy Neuman," she said, working the pin and the string. Once again, she looked out over the audience she couldn't see. "Some of you know me. I grew up on the Town Farm Road -- didn't quite graduate from the old high school, downtown." There was a flutter of laughter at that; up on the stage, she grinned.

"That's all right," she said, trying the strings again. This time, the chording pleased her and she nodded, blonde hair curving along the line of her cheek.

"So, anyway," she said, crossing her arms on the guitar and leaning toward us. "I been out of town awhile – twenty, twenty-two years. Since I've been back home, people've been stopping me on the street –" she paused and aimed a slow grin outward. "I forgot how that happens, in a town like Wimsy." There was an appreciative ruffle of laughter from the audience.

"People stop me on the street," Peggy Neuman continued, "and they ask me where I've been and what I've done and I've tried to say, but it's hard to fit everything in, standing between the IGA and the parking lot, with the wind off the Smoke freezing your ears and other delicate parts." More laughter. I smiled in the deeps of my seat and the woman on stage nodded easily, companionably.

"What I thought I'd do tonight, while I have you all in one place –" She paused, letting the laugh run through while she fingered the strings and ghosted out the beginning of a line. "I thought I'd tell you where I've been and what I've been doing – and I hope you'll take it to heart."

The ghost line solidified, spinning out into the quiet, a silvery cable of rhythm. She let it build until it could almost be seen against the dark, and then she began.

I would have called it talking blues rather than rap, but why quibble? The lady was a master, and she had the whole place in her hand.

"The things I done, the things I seen," was the irregular refrain. We heard how she left home at seventeen, joined her first band, got introduced to grass – "just a little toke, now and then, to feel the music cleaner" – how she formed her own band and made a name, did gigs and cut records, how the booze got important, and the dope even more, how she ran out on her marriage, and how her band finally left her.

"But I didn't quit, then, oh my no. I could still look down and see bottom."

This being a teaching parable, she did hit bottom. We heard about the horrors of kicking cocaine. We heard about the daily grind of AA. We heard how, straight, she pulled together another band and began again, until one of her band members died of an overdose – how she took that as a sign, and came home.

"The things I seen, the things I done," she sighed within her spotlight, and flattened her palm on the strings before looking out over the dark, silent audience. "And I'm one of the lucky ones."

The audience was absolutely silent. On stage, Peggy Neuman stood, a long-legged, deep-bosomed blonde in black and gold, holding a beat-up guitar by the neck. She bowed into the silence, and straightened.

"It's good to be home," she said, and without further fanfare walked off into the blackness of stage left.

More silence, for a long beat of three. I dropped the Bic into my lap, raised my hands and began to clap.

Two seconds later, the rest of the audience joined in.

To Be Continued...

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