Christmas Carol Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery) by Leslie Meier Read Free Book Online

their relationship. It seemed it might have been somewhat strained, considering Scribner’s reaction to his dead partner’s reappearance. According to Elsie, Marlowe had warned Scribner that he was going to meet a fiery end, just as he did. But from what she’d seen, it seemed that Scribner was actually terrified of his deceased partner. Why should that be? she wondered, turning into the parking area behind the Pennysaver office. They’d been partners for decades, the company was a fixture in town, and the two men had always seemed to be of similar minds. Why should Scribner suddenly be afraid of his longtime partner? Lucy could think of only one reason: guilt. If Scribner had a guilty conscience he might well fear the return of a revenge-seeking Jake Marlowe.
    Ted and Phyllis were already at work when Lucy arrived. “You’re late,” Ted said, glancing at the clock. It wasn’t a criticism, merely an observation.
    “There was an emergency at Downeast Mortgage and I went to see what it was all about,” she explained, hanging up her coat.
    “Another explosion?” Phyllis asked.
    “No, nothing like that. Ben Scribner had a panic attack, that’s all.”
    “Understandable, I guess,” Ted said. “He must be feeling kind of paranoid. After all, the fire that killed Marlowe was started by a bomb, disguised as a Christmas package.”
    Lucy sat down with a thud in her desk chair. “I think that is so mean,” she said.
    “Yeah,” Phyllis agreed, with a nod that shook her double chin. “Sending a bomb is bad enough, but wrapping it up in Christmas paper is . . . Well, I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s not nice.”
    “Really not nice,” Lucy said. “It kind of makes you feel bad for poor old Marlowe. He was such a miser, he was probably really excited about getting a present.”
    “For a minute or two he must have thought somebody actually liked him,” Phyllis said.
    “Which really wasn’t the case,” Lucy mused. “He wasn’t very popular.”
    “Truth is, he worked pretty hard to make himself unpopular,” Phyllis added.
    “Ahem.” Ted cleared his throat. “If you ladies don’t mind, we have work to do.”
    They both fell silent and folded their hands in their laps, waiting for instructions.
    “Phyllis, this is a list of advertisers who haven’t renewed their contracts. I want you to call them, offer them these new reduced rates for our holiday issues.” He handed her a couple of sheets of paper, then turned to Lucy. “As for you, Lucy, I want you to check the legal ads for the last year or so and find out how many people have actually lost their homes to Downeast Mortgage. Once you get the properties you’ll have to follow up at the Registry of Deeds.”
    “Sounds like you’re planning a big story,” Lucy said.
    “We’ll see,” Ted said. “Let’s find out the facts first.”
    This was the sort of assignment Lucy loved. There was nothing better than digging through old papers for nuggets of truth. She loved the big, oversized volumes of bound papers that went back over a hundred years to the days of the old Courier and Advertiser . It was unfortunate, in her opinion, that Ted had switched to digitized versions of the more recent papers. She loved leafing through the brown and brittle pages that revealed past times: ads for corsets and transistor radios and cans of Campbell’s tomato soup for ten cents. Not that the computer versions didn’t have advantages. The computer wasn’t dusty, for one thing, and it was a lot easier and faster to find what you were looking for.
    By lunchtime, Lucy had made an interesting discovery. Not only had Downeast Mortgage foreclosed on dozens of homes in the county, at least one of those properties was owned by a town employee.
    Harbormaster Harry Crawford stood to lose the remaining hundred and twenty acres of his family’s waterfront farm, a property that the Crawfords had held for at least two hundred years. Lucy was willing to bet the amount