“Wait, I know who you are,” Takai exclaimed, switching her thermostat all the way from icy to toasty warm. “You’re Mitchell Berger. I’ve heard of you. Christ, who hasn’t? You’re one of our local celebrities. I’m Takai. It’s so great to finally meet you. And I’m really sorry if I seemed bitchy, but Father needs protecting.” She pulled a slim black leather card case out of her jacket pocket and handed him her business card. “When you outgrow that starter cottage of yours, and you will, call me, okay? I’m the number-one property mover in town.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mitch said, shaking his head at her.
“Nonsense,” she insisted, looking at him through her eyelashes. “There’s no room there for you to expand.”
“I don’t want to expand. My goal in life is to get smarter, not bigger, and I… Why are you staring at me like I have three heads?”
“Do you have any idea what would happen to our society if everyone were like you?” Takai demanded.
“Yes, we’d all be a lot better off.”
“Wrong! Upward mobility is the American dream. God, if everyone was happy with what they had, our economy would utterly collapse. We’d have breadlines.” Her cell phone rang now, cutting her off. “Yes, yes?” she barked into it. “Fine, not a problem. I’ll show them where to plant it… I know… I’ll be right there. Ten minutes.” She shut it off and turned back to Mitch, shaking her pretty head. “You have no idea how demanding these new power nesters can be. They want it all and they want it now. My God, they think nothing of spending fifty thousand on a trophy tree. A tree.”
Mitch couldn’t tell if she was disgusted by this or awed. Possibly she was both. He also found himself wondering about her. With her looks, famous name and obvious ambition, Takai Frye could write her own ticket in New York, Los Angeles, anywhere. Why was she still here in sleepy little Dorset?
Hangtown was making his way back down the ladder now, clutching a battered copper bucket in one hand. “Don’t let princess sell you a house, Big Mitch.”
“He won’t,” Takai objected, pouting. “He’s decidedly un-American.”
“I know, that’s why I like him.” Hangtown handed him the bucket. It was solid and heavy, and would fetch real money at an antique store. “That do the trick?”
“Perfectly, but are you sure you can spare it?”
“He has seven more just like it up there,” Moose said wearily, descending the ladder. “Father, you have to leave right now or you’ll be late.”
“I guess that tour will have to wait, Big Mitch,” Hangtown said apologetically. “Hey, how about tonight? Can you come over for dinner?”
“I’d like that very much.”
“Outstanding! Bring a girl. You got a girl?”
Takai let out a sharp laugh. “Of course he does, Father. Haven’t you heard?” Clearly she had.
This was the downside of small-town life, Mitch reflected. Being talked about behind your back by people you didn’t even know. “As a matter of fact I do, but she’s tied up tonight.”
“Too bad,” said Hangtown. “Come stag, then. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“Father!” scolded Moose.
A crusty old hippie appeared in the barn doorway now. He had a graying ponytail, a wisp of a beard, eyes that were bloodshot and suspicious, skin that was sunburned and leathery. Cords of muscle stuck out on his wrists. It was impossible to place his age. Mitch guessed he was somewhere between fifty and sixty-five. He wore a filthy denim jacket, torn jeans and oil-stained work boots. In a sheath on his belt he carried a large knife. “Let’s get it on, Chief,” he said to Hangtown in a rasping voice. “Else we won’t beat the rush-hour traffic over the bridge.”
“Not you, too,” Hangtown said sourly. “Say hello to Mitch, Big Jim.”
“How ya doing, man?” Jim Bolan, the ex-con, said guardedly.
“You got our smokes, Big Jim?” Hangtown asked him.
“In the truck,” Jim responded, shooing the old man out the door. “Let’s go, Chief. C’mon, c’mon…”
And out the barn door they went, followed closely by Takai, who was in a hurry to see a man about a tree.
Mitch was left there alone with Moose. “I don’t really have to come for dinner,” he said. “I don’t want to impose on you.”
“No, not at all,” she said quickly. Now that it was just the two of them, she seemed a bit uncomfortable. “You’re invited. Please come.”
Mitch stood there looking around at Wendell Frye’s workshop. “I’m having a little trouble believing that this is really happening.”
“That’s a common misconception. My father’s not as reclusive as everyone thinks. He’s simply reached a point in his life where he believes that very few people are worth knowing. He’s eighty-three years old. He has no time left to waste. And he has an instinct about people. I call it his smell test. Most people fail it. You passed.”
The two of them headed back outside. The old Land Rover was still parked in front of the historic hot pink house. The pickup truck and Porsche were gone. The Porsche was Takai’s, not that Mitch had doubted it for a moment.
“It sure is pink, isn’t it?” he said, gazing at the house.
“Father likes to do the unexpected. That’s what passes for normal around here.”
“How come I passed?” Mitch asked her.
“I don’t know,” Moose replied. “And I probably know that man as well as anyone. The only thing I’ve ever been able to figure out is that he can’t stand anyone who’s selling something.”
“But everyone is selling something, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I do,” she said, turning her gaze on Mitch. There was a scrupulous absence of sexuality in her gaze, especially compared to her sister. Or maybe because of her sister. “What are you selling, Mitch?”
CHAPTER 4
It was the high schoolers in their Jeep Wranglers who were her biggest headache, Des had come to discover as she stood out there in the middle of Dorset Street with her orange reflector vest on, making her official presence felt.
They were just so jacked up on their hormonal energy and deafening suburban hip-hop that the posted speed limit of twenty-five felt like a baby’s crawl. Most of them were doing forty when they hit the high school driveway and that was simply not acceptable, because both the high school and middle school were located directly behind Center School. Dozens of school buses were pulling in and out. Soccer moms in minivans were dropping their kids off. More kids were arriving on their bikes and… well, it was a major public safety situation.
Speeding tickets? She’d tried that, but tickets didn’t mean a thing to these kids in Dorset. Their parents just paid the tickets for them, same as they paid for everything else. Out of sheer frustration, she’d resorted to this- standing in the damned street-holding some of the traffic up, waving some of it on through, trying to keep it under control and moving. Knowing full well that if the Deacon saw her out there like this he would have himself a stroke.
Christ, all I need is a pair of white gloves and a whistle.
In all honesty, becoming a resident trooper was a bigger adjustment than Des had anticipated. She hadn’t just changed jobs-she’d changed careers. She was in community relations now, not law enforcement. Her role was to be a liaison between the state police and this stable gold-coast community that was home to more millionaires per square mile than East Hampton. She handed out free trigger locks for handguns, signed off on fender benders, made sure the kids got home in one piece from their keggers on the beach. If a break-in went down, she picked up the new digital handheld radio that connected her to the Troop F barracks in Westbrook and they took over. Anything hot, Westbrook called Major Crime Squad Central District headquarters in Meriden, her old crew.
Not that she’d had a single hot call yet. In fact, the only ongoing crime problem she’d encountered was a roving late-night gang of high-spirited local boys who liked to spray-paint erect penises on store windows and proudly sign their work-they called themselves the Mod Squad. Lately, they’d also taken to stealing things out of unlocked parked cars. The town fathers were not amused, and Des was under tremendous pressure from First
