Tonight, however, the mere formality had already ended and a three ring circus was about to begin. EV could tell because they’d already brought in the clown.
After fifteen minutes of fidgeting in his seat and clearing his throat repeatedly before the First Selectman opened the floor for new business, local handyman, Luther Plunkett now held court at the front of the room. Still in his work clothes with an attempt at an earnest expression pasted on his round, freckled face and a liberal sprinkling of sawdust in his curly, mouse-brown hair he stalked back and forth while he made his plea.
“You got my hands tied with all these regulations: recycled materials, energy efficient building. That’s not the way they do things in Warren or in Gilmore. I’m a business man; I gotta be able to make a profit. You all know me. I been good to my customers: always going above and beyond, but I’m losing money on every job,” his voice rose to a whining pitch that grated EV’s nerves and clenched her teeth.
What a phony; and worse, he was a phony with aspirations. More than anything Luther wanted to elevate himself from a lowly handyman to a high-end contractor. Never mind that Ponderosa Pines had neither the population nor the commercial base to support such a desire.
“Bull puckey!” someone called out from the back of the room. “Why don’t you shut up and sit down, Luther?” EV craned her head around to search unsuccessfully through the crowd for the heckler.
Luther’s reputation for bragging about his abilities then providing shoddy construction had not stopped people hiring him. Better the devil you know and all that. His worst critics said he wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and bit his face off. Without scrupulous supervision Luther rushed around doing things to make himself look busy , but supplying homeowners with hurried, slapdash workmanship—for which he charged premium prices.
Customers grumbled about how he never finished a job on schedule or on budget and spent more time talking about what else he could do for them—at an additional cost, of course—than listening to them explain what they actually wanted or needed. Bottom line, Luther had a reputation as a greedy shyster with minimal skills and a big mouth.
Who else moaned and complained about losing money but still bought a new truck every year?
Rising to her feet, EV moved toward the front of the hall, controlled fury giving her the grace of a panther stalking its prey. Tension announced itself in the clench of her fists, the way her eyes narrowed and cooled, the angle of her chin. Long legs carried her forward until she stood toe to toe with Luther. She had six inches of height on him and the authority of age combined with conviction sat well on her strong shoulders.
“Reducing our carbon footprint is part of the town charter, and that means building and maintaining energy efficient homes; but it also means using a percentage of recycled materials. You’re asking us to set aside our goals and regulations, not for the sake of the community, but so you can increase your profit margin?” EV’s voice fell like a rain of dry desert sand. She turned direct, brown eyes toward the crowd and brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear.
Before Luther could answer, John Peterson spoke up, “Maybe you could explain why using reclaimed materials is so much harder on your bottom line. I know my cousin in Warren paid you enough to cover your crew plus exorbitant dump fees for tearing down that old barn of his. You ended up with a load of perfectly good lumber, enough usable steel roofing to do a house, and made a little profit on the job. You got a lot of nerve standing here complaining.”
“I had to pay to haul the materials back here, didn’t I? Then I had to sort everything and store it.”
From the back of the hall, someone’s cough sounded suspiciously like the word jackass.
Looking around the room, EV spotted many annoyed expressions; yet there were still those who listened with interest to his spiel. Their rapt attention chafed her past the point of patience. So what if Luther occasionally did a few repairs for the church on the cheap. Did that mean he should get a pass on upholding the basic tenets of their town?
“Give the man a break.” Evan Plunkett spoke up. No surprise there, the Plunkett brothers were cut from the same cloth. “All this green living stuff is a pipe dream. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee or,” he sneered, “would that be the Chai tea?”
Where Luther was ineptly incompetent, his younger brother Evan intentionally caused chaos. Driven by greed and a need for validation, he spent an inordinate amount of time scheming to gain a measure of control in town affairs.
His most recent shenanigan involved a parcel of land that was currently enrolled in a tree-growth program. Ignoring the fact that the land was protected by the tax-reduced program, he wheeled a deal for the brutal, clear-cut harvest of the mature trees. As the cherry on the sundae, he then offered the land, for pennies on the dollar, to a big city developer with visions of a strip mall or some such monstrosity.
To retain his brother’s support, Evan convinced poor, dumb Luther that he, backed by his motley crew of underpaid workers, would be the general contractor for whatever the developer decided to build. Anyone with half a brain would have seen this for the pipe dream it was but, Luther, blinded by dollar signs, accepted this hogwash as gospel truth.
The plan had hinged on schmoozing the board of selectmen and keeping EV, their most vocal opponent, in the dark.They thought they managed to do it, too—until the erstwhile lumber baron strutted into the
