“You know, Mom, you’re every bit as bigoted as Ed Franklin! People of color, people with Hispanic names, they get arrested all the time for crimes they didn’t commit.”
“That may be true but I don’t think that’s the case here—” Lucy broke off in midsentence, aware that Ted was frantically waving his arms like a demented sailor signaling by semaphore to get her attention.
“He’s the darkest person in Tinker’s Cove, Mom. Face it!”
“Right. Look, I’ll get right on it,” said Lucy. “I gotta go.”
“Let me know what you find out, okay?” Zoe’s voice had changed; she sounded like the little girl who used to beg Lucy not to go to work and leave her home in the care of her older brother and sisters.
Ted was waving his hand in a circle, signaling to Lucy to wrap it up, and she glared back at him in response, holding her free hand up in a “hold-on-a-sec” signal. She couldn’t leave Zoe out on a limb. “I will, sweetie. I’ll call as soon as I find out anything. Hang in there. Try not to worry.”
“Are you kidding?” Angry Zoe was back. “Innocent people get convicted all the time. Our so-called justice system’s rigged—”
“Maybe it is sometimes and some places,” said Lucy, “but our system is made up of people, people like Phil Aucoin and Lt. Horowitz and Barney and all those Kirwan kids. They’ll do what’s right.”
“I suppose,” said Zoe, sounding chagrined. “I guess I forgot.”
Reassured that Zoe had calmed down, Lucy ended the call. As soon as she said good-bye, Ted was on her.
“Pam wants you to call her—” he began, only to be interrupted by Lucy.
“Hold on a sec. My daughter got a call from Matt Rodriguez in California. He says Aucoin is charging him with Ed Franklin’s murder and he’s supposed to turn himself in and await extradition.”
Ted looked puzzled. “Matt Rodriguez? Really?”
“The good-looking Mexican kid with the Corvette?” asked Phyllis, equally puzzled.
“Yeah,” said Lucy, who was also struggling to reconcile the young man she knew with this disturbing new information. “Apparently he dated Alison, which means he was personally involved with Ed Franklin. It wasn’t just the business about the restaurant.” As she spoke, it occurred to her that Mireille hadn’t shared this bit of information with her, and began to wonder if Mireille had really been as open and forthright as she’d thought. What else was she hiding?
“Thwarted love,” mused Phyllis. “That’s a strong motive.”
“Well, I think they need more than a motive,” said Ted. “There are plenty of people in this town with a motive to kill Ed Franklin.”
“Like pretty much anyone who had to deal with the board of health,” said Lucy.
Ted was already on the phone, calling the DA’s office. “Hey, Phil,” he began, in a friendly tone that implied they were old buddies. “What’s this I hear about Matt Rodriguez being charged with Ed Franklin’s murder?”
Lucy and Phyllis were all ears, but all they got was a series of “I sees” and “Oh, reallys” and finally a “Thanks for your time.”
Ted replaced the receiver thoughtfully and swiveled around in his desk chair, facing his two employees. Moving slowly and deliberately, he placed one hand on each thigh and pressed his lips together.
“So what did he say?” demanded Phyllis.
“What have they got on him?” asked Lucy.
“The murder weapon,” said Ted, sounding surprised. “It was hidden inside the restaurant, dropped between two studs behind new Sheetrock.”
“How’d they find it?” wondered Phyllis.
“She’s right,” said Lucy. “Unless they used a metal detector. And what were they doing searching the restaurant, anyway?”
“Aucoin said they got a tip and were legally obligated to get a warrant and follow up.”
“This is fishy,” said Lucy, beginning to wonder if Zoe might be on to something. “It sounds to me like somebody planted the gun to set him up.”
“Like who?” asked Ted.
“Well, there’s the anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican bunch.”
“I don’t think they’re smart enough to think up something like this,” said Phyllis.
“It doesn’t take a lot of smarts to hide a gun, especially if you used it to kill somebody,” said Lucy.
“I don’t see those guys as killers,” protested Ted.
“Well, there’s Ed Franklin Enterprises,” Lucy pointed out. “That’s a major operation that we don’t know much about.”
“Right,” said Ted, looking as if a lightbulb had turned on in the vacant space over his head. “We’ve got to find out who they are and what they do.”
The phone rang and Phyllis answered, promptly transferring the call to Lucy. “It’s your wife, Ted, and she wants to talk to Lucy.”
Lucy picked up her extension and heard Pam’s somewhat breathless voice. “Finally!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t my husband tell you to call me?”
“He did,” admitted Lucy, “but we’re kind of caught up in a breaking story—”
“Well, this is breaking news, too. And good news, for a change. I want to get it in the paper. I’m here with the members of the Harvest Festival planning committee . . .”
Lucy could just picture the scene at Pam’s kitchen table, where a group of earnest church ladies were listening as she made this big announcement.
“And we’ve just done the accounting and it turns out this year’s festival was a record breaker, clearing just under ten thousand dollars!”
“That’s terrific,” said Lucy, eager to get back to the big story about Matt Rodriguez’s arrest.
“It gets better,” said Pam. “As you know, we usually distribute the money from the festival to local charities, but this year we decided to do something different.”
Lucy had a somewhat disturbing thought, picturing the church ladies taking part in one of Pam’s early-morning yoga classes on a Caribbean beach.
“We were discussing various options and one of our members mentioned that her nephew had become addicted to opioids and couldn’t afford rehab and, well, everyone seemed to know someone affected by this opioid crisis and we came up with the idea of helping people who want to go to rehab.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Lucy, “but ten thousand dollars will send only
