The last word, p.1
The Last Word, page 1
The Last Word
A DEADLY DEADLINES MYSTERY
Gerri Lewis
To my husband Bob and my son Christian
No explanations needed!
Chapter One
No sooner had I slid into one of the coveted sidewalk tables outside Tazza when I sensed my mistake. Looking up, I saw the Nosy Parkers at the next table over. Gabby’s back was to me, though her sister and I were nearly face-to-face. I sighed inwardly. With the gossipy Parker sisters within breathing distance, all thoughts of organizing my day with a quiet cup of chamomile faded.
“Look who’s here,” Abby said, clapping her hands in delight—or was she rubbing them in anticipation? “Winter Snow, obituary writer extraordinaire.”
Gabby—a sturdy counterweight to her wiry sister—turned, smiled, and leaned toward me conspiratorially.
“Who died?” she asked, making it sound like a crime.
In fact, the people I would be writing about today had lived fascinating lives, and I couldn’t wait to memorialize them the way they deserved. Instead, I resigned myself and smiled back. Any perceived lack of cordiality on my part and I’d be grist for the rumor mill.
“Ladies, how nice to see you,” I said. “What brings you out so early?”
Clear summer mornings in Ridgefield, Connecticut, are always brimming with walkers pushing strollers, trotting alongside dogs, or power-hiking up Main Street. Looping around the village is one of my favorite ways to start the day, especially when I end up in one of the charming coffee shops that substitutes for my nonexistent office. I noted that the Nosy Parkers, donned in matching flip-flop sandals, weren’t dressed for walking.
“People-watching is always the best in the mornings,” said Gabby in a breathless giggle. “You get the juiciest stories by just sitting here with your coffee.”
And eavesdropping, I added mentally.
“Everyone who’s anyone is out early in this town,” said Abby.
“Not everyone,” corrected her sister. “The Flower Lady doesn’t always get started as early as she should, if you want my opinion.”
“This from a woman who could kill a plant by looking at it,” said Abby with a smirk.
I looked toward the brilliant blues and yellows dripping over the sides of the hanging baskets affixed to the lampposts lining Main Street. The flowers flourished all summer long thanks to Spencer, who rode around in a John Deere Gator with heavy watering equipment loaded in the back and a furry friend named Biscuit panting on the passenger seat. The vision always made me smile.
“Looks to me like she’s doing all right,” I said.
Failing to stir the flowerpot, Gabby shrugged, ready for something more scandalous. The “whisper campaign,” as I called it, could be lightning fast in our small community. It could also linger on, morphing as it went, as in the telephone game. And the Nosy Parkers did much to fuel that change—though they always preserved kernels of truth. As much as townies might cross the street to stay out of the narrative, they would also pull up a chair to hear it.
“Save my seat,” I said, getting up to head inside the coffee shop, where I’d decided on a visit to the unisex bathroom for a welcome break.
A minute later, leaning against the wall and waiting for the door to open, I reviewed my project list. Priority number one was an artist who’d hit his stride later in life. After a brief illness that even the doctors couldn’t put a finger on, he’d left a mourning family and a stunning collection of mixed-media paintings prominently hung on the walls of homes and businesses all over the country. This celebration of his life was an obituary I would enjoy writing.
Priority number two was a woman who’d died at age ninety-three. She had no living kin, so I’d been asked by the funeral home to write her up. Her many friends talked of her light-up-the-room smile, love of all things knickknack, and unmatchable green thumb. She’d been very active in beautifying the grounds of Ballard Green, the charming, affordable cottages just steps from our town park. Donating time for this woman would be my pleasure.
Looming over my head were obituaries for four young men whose remains had been unearthed in the gravel basement of a nineteenth century addition to an eighteenth-century house on Main Street. What started as renovation had quickly turned into excavation after it was determined that they were likely fallen soldiers from the Revolutionary War. While not a major part of the war, the 1777 Battle of Ridgefield was the only inland battle to have been fought in the state of Connecticut, and the town celebrated the anniversary every five years. Our first selectman—a quaint New England term for mayor—had asked me to write up the soldiers for the town’s reenactment brochures. The problem for me was that state archeologists were still unsure if the bones belonged to the British soldiers, or colonists. Talk about tombs for unknown soldiers.
Suddenly the eerie ringtone I’d downloaded last Halloween erupted from my satchel, and all eyes in the café turned on me. I was grateful the Nosy Parkers were outside.
“Winter Snow?”
The stern authoritarian voice reminded me uncomfortably of my sixth-grade history teacher.
“Speaking,” I said, turning my back to the patrons. I hoped the flushing sound on the other side of the bathroom door didn’t reach the phone.
“Would you prefer to call me back?” the woman asked.
“No, it’s fine. Who’s calling?”
I inched past the tank-topped sun worshiper emerging from the bathroom and closed the door behind me. Sans permanent office, this was not my first conference a la cafe commode.
“This is Mrs. Roth Arlington,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
That stopped me short. Mrs. Arlington was a well-known philanthropist in my hometown, and her name was on most thank-you plaques adorning the local walls, from the library to the playhouse, the Aldrich Museum to Founders Hall.
“I need an obituary right away,” she said brusquely.
This sort of urgency was normal in my business.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “Who is it for?”
“No loss,” she replied. “At least not yet. It’s for me, and I will need it by Friday.”
Occasionally I get a pragmatic client who wants to prearrange everything as part of their estate planning. However, those requests are rarely urgent.
Mrs. Arlington now had my full attention.
Despite the fact that all sorts of things can go wrong if you attempt too many obits at once, I was not letting a business booster like Mrs. Arlington slip from my grasp. We settled on three o’clock, and she gave me her address.
“Ms. Snow,” she added before clicking off. “If you can’t write it by Friday, don’t bother coming.”
* * *
Back at the table, the gossipers were leaning conspiratorially together. They looked at each other, communicating in that way siblings can do without words, and I could tell they were debating whether to let me in on their latest secret. I sipped my tea, lost in thought over my odd phone call from Mrs. Arlington.
“Winter,” Abby finally said, her voice hushed for state secrets. “There are twice as many New York cars in town. We don’t think they’re visitors from North or South Salem either. They live here.”
No news there. Since the pandemic, people had been trading the confines of New York City apartments for more spacious homes in the suburbs—especially families with young children. The schools were good here, the air was cleaner, and the newly popular hybrid work models had aptly offset the hour-and-fifteen-minute commute to the city. For two meddlesome women who thrived on infidelity and divorce, out-of-state license plates seemed rather benign.
“Don’t you get it?” asked Abby. “They haven’t registered their cars. It means Ridgefield is not getting all that tax revenue.” She crossed her arms over her slight frame and harrumphed.
Gabby pulled a sheet of paper from her purse and waved it toward me proudly. “We’re writing down all the plate numbers so we can turn them in to the tax assessor.”
I glanced at the list she thrust in front of my face—ten or so plates. “How much do you think we’re talking about?” I asked.
“Well,” said Abby, as if savoring a bite of lemon meringue, “you see what’s on the roads here—BMWs, Audis, Lexuses. Not to mention all the Benzes, Porsches, and high-end Teslas. At the Mobil station yesterday, I even saw a hot-pink Taycan with vanity plates that read SNOB. Anyway, the point is, this next gen is not humble when it comes to cars, especially the New Yorkers moving in.”
While Abby was leaving out a significant cross-section of more affordable sedans and midsize SUVs, not to mention my ’98 Subaru not long for this world, she was right about the wealthier set.
“Let’s say,” Abby continued, “conservatively, the average car in town is fifty thousand, with an assessed value of thirty-five K. Ridgefield taxes are at twenty-eight forty-three, so the lost revenue on that car would be nearly a thousand bucks a year. Follow?”
“So far,” I said, surprised as much by how much some folks shelled out in car taxes as by Abby’s grasp of the local mill rate.
“So, if these ten cars are unregistered,” Gabby chimed in, waving her list again, “that’s about ten grand the town is losing this year.”
“Something to honk at,” I agreed.
“This will flame your cute little Irish face,” said Abby, pausing for drama. “We’ve seen ten cars with New York plates in just the last hour.”
Gabby nodded, a prosecutor resting her case, utterly certain of conviction.
“Y
“What’s the rush?” asked Gabby, looking a little miffed by my lackluster response.
“Deadlines,” I explained.
“It’s weird,” Abby said, “You’d never guess by looking at you that you write about dead people. It gives me the creeps.”
She shuddered and leaned away, as if being near a blue-eyed, fair-haired woman with freckles was akin to sitting next to the devil.
My obit business is still in its infancy, and while I love what I do, I find myself constantly justifying it by pointing out that obituaries aren’t just end-of-life notifications and tributes. They facilitate acceptance for the grief-stricken. They immortalize a person for their earthly accomplishments. They are a piece of history that will live in genealogy research and community memory. In that sense, I am a keeper of the collective conscience.
I smiled, retreated from the table with a wave, and said, “It’s a living.”
* * *
The tone and tenor of Main Street felt different today as I made my way toward the library. Still bustling, it was edgier, with people darting in and out of stores, horns blowing at jaywalkers, cars jockeying for parking spots. It didn’t dawn on me that everyone was in preparation mode for Tropical Storm Holden until I saw a man walking with a triple pack of flashlights in one hand and a propane tank in the other. The town alert text that had startled me awake this morning now came back to me: High wind, flash flood advisory. Expect to shelter in place for at least three days. I could picture the shelves of the town’s single supermarket already picked clean as desert bones.
None of this worried me. I had a generator at my well-stocked cottage on Mamanasco Lake. I’d have company, as I knew my uncle Richard would join me there tonight to ride out the storm. We’d cook and catch up. The lights would flicker. The generator would start to whine. As in storms past, Richard and our elderly neighbor Horace would sip Maker’s Mark at the large window overlooking the water, watching the rippling black mirror spasm with light.
I put these thoughts aside. Save for the wind kicking up, it was still sunny and warm, and I had deadlines to meet.
At Prospect and Main, I entered the architectural anomaly that was the Ridgefield Library. The 120-year-old redbrick building had sprouted contemporary wings in the last decade, thanks to a twenty-two-million-dollar expansion that included automated checkouts, a conveyor-belt book return, and movable shelving to allow for multiuse space. I settled into the same small room with the window facing Prospect Street that I always reserved.
Three hours later, I had working drafts for the mixed-media master and nonagenarian gardener. Both would get final reads before deadline tomorrow.
The darkening sky didn’t look nearly as ominous through the window as it did when I stepped outside. The wind had whipped up, and no amount of swiping could keep the hair from my face. I crossed Prospect and cut through the parking lot to Big Shop Lane. The sky opened up before I reached my car, making dry clothes the new imperative.
Ridgefield Alerts texted again, this time demanding people stay off the roads. Back at home, I changed out of my wet clothes, raked a comb through my shoulder-length tangle of knots, and was back in my clunker twenty minutes later. The town might flood in the lowlands, but not where I was going.
Chapter Two
Between the waterfall West Mountain Road had become, the madly swaying trees, and my overwhelmed windshield wipers, I was starting to wonder about the wisdom of this errand.
Winter Snow, 29, died after being crushed by a fallen oak when she ignored tropical storm warnings to write about dead people …
While the lure of a big client had gotten me into the car, it was my curiosity about Mrs. Arlington’s sudden need to write her death notice that kept my foot on the gas. From the occasional write-up about her in the Ridgefield Press, I knew only that she was a reclusive philanthropist and widow of the late Roth Arlington. I figured she was terminal, or maybe even suicidal.
West Mountain didn’t have great cell service on a good day, so I jumped when my ringtone shattered the white noise of the rain. It was Scoop. I put him on speaker.
“You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel,” he squawked. “Tell me you’re not driving.”
Aka Kevin Blake, Scoop was a reporter for the Ridgefield Press, our weekly newspaper.
“It’s more like boating,” I said.
“Are you crazy? A tornado just tore through Branchville. Where are you going?”
“The estate area.”
“A job?”
Scoop had earned his nickname as a cub reporter when he literally scooped up a litter of kittens abandoned in a fruit stand parking lot. After preventing vehicular feline-slaughter, he had tracked down the culprits and reported it, bringing police interest and eventually fines for animal cruelty. The clincher was that the court ordered the original owners to give up the mama cat too. She now lived comfortably in Scoop’s apartment in town above the funeral home.
I recapped the unexpected call from Mrs. Arlington, omitting the Friday deadline. While Scoop and I weren’t related, we shared the curiosity gene. He let out a low whistle.
“She’s an odd duck,” he said.
“What do you know about her?”
“Not much,” he admitted. “I’ve tried to interview her a few times for various charity causes, and she always declines. The main thing I wonder about is Henry Harmless.”
“Henry who?”
“Harmless,” he repeated. “He lived with them for years when Roth was still alive. There were different rumors about them, probably none of them true—you know this town.”
While I wanted to hear them all, this wasn’t the time. “I’m going to need to pick your brain later,” I said. “Were you calling about something in particular?”
“Right,” said Scoop, his voice bottoming out. “I need an obituary.”
“Not your mom!” I nearly shouted to be heard over the chaos outside.
She was his only family and resided in the Memory Care unit at Meadow Ridge in Redding. I couldn’t count how many offers from bigger papers he’d turned down over the years to stay close to her.
“No,” Scoop said quickly. “Mom’s still ticking away—though she has no idea who I am anymore. It’s for Croak.”
“What happened?” I asked, and picturing the headline, I kept my smile to myself—Beloved Frog Croak, Croaked. “Did Heady or Topper get to him?”
His two rescue cats were named for his favorite beer. In fact, at any given time, Scoop might be fostering a half dozen cats until he could find them homes. He was best friends with the folks at ROAR, our animal rescue shelter.
“They know better,” he said, sighing. “No, I let him go. Now I’m worried he won’t survive.”
“Better to be with his amphibian friends than in captivity.”
“True,” he said. “I just wish there was a way to check on him—you know, to make sure the other frogs accept him back.”
Scoop would ban flyswatters if he could.
“I think until we know otherwise, we should assume the best,” I said. “Anyway, let’s talk about it tonight.”
The turn to Mrs. Arlington’s house had appeared through the spray.
“Be careful out there, Winter.”
As I made my way down the driveway, I was relieved to see there were no overhead wires—likely the utility lines were buried for many of the homes tucked away in the estate area. A quarter of a mile and many muddy ruts later, a stately fieldstone mansion materialized like an oasis. As I rounded the crescent of cobblestone before the front door, I heard a loud crack and looked back in time to see a long mass of leafy tentacles crash down across the driveway. The oak from which it had fallen looked oddly disfigured as it swayed in the wind. Apparently I’d be staying a while.
Chapter Three
The front door whined open before I could ring the bell. A girl somewhere between her late teens and early twenties jumped back in surprise. Her childish hand clapped over the “oh” forming on her lips.
