“Well,” said Becker, speaking slowly, “that was my girl here, Abby. She overheard Franklin threatening me and when Rodriguez called she said she wasn’t sure if we could take on more business. I’ll, uh, I’ll give them a call and straighten it out.”
“So it was just a misunderstanding?” persisted Lucy, suspecting it was nothing of the kind. She figured Walt had done a quick calculation and concluded that the bad publicity from a mention in the Pennysaver would be worse for his business than Ed Franklin’s threats.
“Yeah,” he said, quick to agree. “That’s all it was. It was a misunderstanding.”
There sure seemed to be a lot of misunderstanding going on these days, thought Lucy.
CHAPTER 6
The next morning, Lucy was dismayed to see, was a beautiful sunshiny day. A classic New England autumn morning with clear skies, golden-leaved trees, and crisp air. A perfect day for running and resuming her training program for the Turkey Trot, which she’d been neglecting.
She knew full well that she’d been avoiding running, using every excuse she could come up with—too rainy, too windy, she got a late start and didn’t want to be late for work or for meeting the girls for breakfast. The truth was that Zoe wasn’t the only one who was haunted by Alison’s death. Lucy hadn’t wanted to go back on the old logging road. The last time she ran there she’d discovered Alison’s body and didn’t want to relive that experience.
But she knew that she needed to train if she was going to be a serious competitor in the Turkey Trot and today was the perfect opportunity. It was early so she had plenty of time, and the weather was absolutely perfect. She had run out of excuses. It was time to lace up and face her ghosts.
When Libby saw her come into the kitchen in her running clothes, she leaped out of her doggy bed and began prancing around, tail wagging, eager to get going. The dog’s enthusiasm was contagious and Lucy was smiling as she grabbed the leash and opened the door. She paused on the back porch and took a few deep breaths, then began her stretches.
Libby didn’t approve of stretches. She was halfway across the yard when she stopped, realizing she was alone. She turned and barked a few times, as if to say “What’s the holdup?”
“I’m coming,” yelled Lucy, smiling to herself when she realized she was making excuses to her dog.
Then they were off, Lucy moving at an easy jog and Libby running just ahead, her tail up and ears flapping, her mouth spread open in a doggy smile. Lucy felt nicely loose and warmed up by the time the trail entered the woods, and she began to run harder along a flat stretch of dirt road that extended for a mile or so. She was panting and had worked up a sweat by the time the road began its uneven descent to the pond.
Her thoughts inevitably turned to Alison. What was she doing, going out on the ice? It was such a foolish thing to do and she must have known the danger. Was she on drugs, like everybody thought? Or had there been a reason, like a dog or other animal in trouble?
Lucy hadn’t seen any sign of a struggling animal but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been there and either managed to get free or succumbed and sank below the surface of the icy water.
The other possibility, which nobody said out loud but which she was sure a lot of people were thinking, was that Alison committed suicide. A lot of young people encountered emotional difficulties in their early twenties, which was also the age at which mental illnesses like depression and schizophrenia manifested themselves. Suicide, sadly, was not uncommon at that age.
Lucy ran carefully, watching her footing as the path became more challenging due to ruts and rocks, but part of her mind was back in the community church, replaying Alison’s funeral. She remembered Alison’s birth mother Eudora, who had been so emotional and dramatic. Lucy had never quite overcome her somewhat repressive Calvinist upbringing, and couldn’t help wondering if Eudora wasn’t a bit of a drama queen. Then she sternly reminded herself that you never knew what people really felt inside, and that everyone dealt with grief in their own unique way. But still, it did seem a bit odd that Alison had been living with her father and his new young wife instead of with her birth mother.
Why did Alison choose to live with her father? Ed Franklin was a difficult man, to say the least, and Lucy suspected that Alison must have found him somewhat embarrassing. A young person of her generation was unlikely to share his bigotry, and even though she benefitted from his wealth, she would probably have been uncomfortable with the way he flaunted it. And then there was the young wife, Mireille, who was only a few years older than Alison and was pregnant. As Rachel had said, that must have been a difficult situation for Alison to deal with.
The fragrant balsam fir trees that lined the path, giving it a sense of enclosure, thinned as she approached the pond, opening up to reveal an open expanse of sky. Libby, who had been running ahead, suddenly stopped and began to whine; Lucy remembered her doing the same thing after they’d encountered a black snake sunning itself on a rocky part of the path last spring.
She must be remembering the dead girl, thought Lucy, bending down to grab the dog’s ears and smooth her raised hackles. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she murmured. “Nobody here but us chickens.”
She snapped on the leash and was about to resume her run. She knew a few tugs on the leash were all it would take to get Libby moving again. The old logging road circled the pond on one side, but
