***
With Lydia gone, the group of citizens opposed to the new ditch renewed their efforts to get the town to put a stop to the job. By their logic, with the work half done, half the money could go back into the town coffers to be spent on more important things—necessary things. Fear of Lydia’s sharp-tongued displeasure no longer a factor, the group quickly doubled in size. It was a hot topic for debate over the coffee and pastries Adriel served on her days in the bakery, until something happened that made for an even better story.
“Did you hear anything?” Pam fired the question at Adriel the second she walked through the door. Adriel’s expression was all the answer she needed. “I guess that’s a no. Someone poured sand into the gas tanks of every piece of ditch digging equipment last night.”
It was news to Adriel. The culprit must have been very quiet.
“I guess I slept right through it, because I didn’t hear a thing.” Joy. A respite from the incessant hooting and banging. Okay, that was just mean, but she didn’t care. “Why would anyone do a thing like that?”
“To make a point about how ridiculous it is to spend money and time on spurious projects? There’s a group of us still arguing for it to be filled in and done with. I can’t believe anyone in the group would jeopardize our position by taking things this far, though. Maybe it was teenagers pulling a prank.”
“Does that kind of thing happen a lot?” Adriel made a beeline for the coffee station. At home, she was still at war with the coffee maker from hell, and had switched to a morning cup of tea most days. Even she couldn’t screw up dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot water. Getting a decent caffeine fix either meant playing mad scientist with the coffeemaker or walking to town.
“No, not really. Our kids aren’t perfect angels by any means, but in a small community like this, malicious vandalism is rare.”
“What do you think will happen now? With the ditch digging, I mean.” Adriel came down firmly on the side of everyone else who opposed the digging. Not for the same reasons, since she had no stake in the financial side of things, but so what?
“I can answer that,” Damien Oliver spoke up. Adriel hadn’t noticed him sitting quietly at a corner table. “Someone’s gonna have to go up there and drain the gas out of every piece of equipment, then they’re going to have to flush all the tanks and drain the lines. They only started up one of the rigs before Gideon figured out what happened. Take a couple days at most to have them all back on the job. Anyone who knows anything about vehicles would have taken a pair of snips to the wiring harness. Devil of a job to trace that kind of thing back to the source.”
“Who do you think might have done it?” Adriel was curious to hear his opinion, but all she got out of him was a shrug of indifference before he hustled out the door leaving the exact change for his meal on the table. Damien wasn’t much of a tipper.
“The list of people who might want to stop the work is longer than the list of people who want it to go forward. It’s a pretty big pool to fish in, but I can’t picture anyone taking things this far.” Worry furrowed Pam’s brow.
It might have been a leap, but Adriel voiced an errant thought, “Seems to me they went a lot farther than that.”
Pam frowned until she caught the implication, then her eyes shot wide in shock, “Are you saying you think Lydia’s death might be connected to the vandalism?”
Shrugging, Adriel replied, “It’s a stretch, but I can’t help thinking someone is deeply invested in stopping the ditch from being dug.”
Head tilted, Pam considered. “A stretch?” Skepticism dripped from her lips, “One that would take a rubber band the size of Texas. Lydia had plenty of enemies. Not that I can picture any of them actually killing her. Or it having anything to do with this ditch.”
“Maybe,” but Adriel wasn’t convinced.
***
Several days of silence while the machines were repaired gave Adriel the opportunity to catch up on her sleep. When they started back up again bright and early on Monday morning, she heaved a resigned sigh and wandered into the kitchen to glare at her nemesis.
The coffee maker was evil. There was no doubt in her mind as she squared off against it again. Fully half of the time, the product it produced was absolutely undrinkable. Precisely measuring the grounds and water each time made little difference in the random results. The paper filters were flimsy at best, and tore at the gentlest touch. Using two of them for added stability only made the coffee taste worse. Twice, before she abandoned the infernal machine in favor of walking to town to nip into Just Desserts, the drip area somehow became plugged with grounds. Before she could stop it, the basket overflowed and dumped a gritty mess all over the counter.
Between the trouble with it; the cell phone that dumped its charge twice a day, alternated between no service and calling itself three times a day; and the cash register at Just Desserts, she was beginning to suspect she had some sort of negative effect on electronics.
Regardless, she wanted coffee and she wanted it now. Running through a mental checklist, Adriel filled the reservoir with water. She checked the basket for stray grounds and inserted a clean filter. Moving carefully, she added scoops of ground coffee, making sure the filter stayed firmly in place. Everything seemed in
