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

owed on the mortgage was a mere fraction of what that property was worth. It was prime waterfront, perfect for a resort.
    As the afternoon wore on Lucy discovered Crawford wasn’t the only town employee to lose a unique piece of property. It seemed that Downeast Mortgage stood to profit handsomely from Marlowe’s FinCom vote to reduce town employees’ hours. Assistant building inspector Phil Watkins had lost his LEED-certified green home. Lucy remembered writing a story about the house, which had special shingles equipped with solar cells that provided electricity. Watkins had boasted that the house produced so much electricity, in fact, that his meter ran backward and the electric company was paying him. He’d been terribly proud of that fact and Lucy knew he must be heartbroken about losing his energy-efficient home.
    Health department secretary Annie Kraus’s loss wasn’t so remarkable; her home was a simple two-bedroom ranch. Nothing fancy or special about it, except that it was her home. Natural resources officer Nelson Macmillan also lost his property, but it was only a building lot, probably bought as an investment. Or maybe he’d dreamed of building himself the perfect house there one day.
    Lucy stared at the list she’d made and sighed. It seemed a sad record of shattered hopes and diminished dreams. She remembered when she and Bill had first moved to Tinker’s Cove and settled into the ramshackle handyman’s special they’d bought on Red Top Road. The place had a failing furnace, cracked walls and ceilings, peeling wallpaper, and no insulation in the walls except for seaweed and newspaper. She remembered going into baby Toby’s nursery one morning and finding him cozy and warm in his footed sleeper, sound asleep in his crib, the covers dusted with snow that had blown through a gap in the wall. They’d worked hard, scraping and painting and repairing, and turned the old house into a cozy, attractive, comfortable home that was now worth many times what they originally paid for it. But it wasn’t the thought of profit that had motivated them, it was the desire to make a home for their growing family.
    When Lucy finally emerged from the morgue the office was empty and it was dark outside; as often happened when she did research, she’d lost track of the time. It was nearly five according to the regulator clock that hung on the wall above Ted’s desk. She had to get a move on if she wasn’t going to be late for rehearsal. When she got home she discovered Bill had dinner well in hand and was frying up hamburgers. Even so, the rehearsal was in full swing when she arrived at the Community Church, where some twenty or so cast members were sitting around a table.
    “ ‘Are there no workhouses?’ ” Bob was reading from the script. “ ‘Has the treadmill stopped its useful work?’ ”
    “Ah, Lucy, you’re here,” Rachel interjected. “Before I forget, I need to measure you for your costume.... What did I do with that tape measure? Let’s take ten.”
    While Rachel searched for the tape measure, Lucy got settled, removing her coat and taking the seat at the table indicated by a copy of the script with her name in big block letters. There was also a bottle of water so she took a few sips while she flipped through the pages, looking for the scene they were reading. When she found the line Bob had been reading, she smiled. “Bob, I had no idea you’d be such a terrific Scrooge,” she said.
    “Isn’t he wonderful?” Florence asked, leaning forward in such a way that her blouse fell open, revealing a good bit of lacy black bra. “I had no idea he could be so downright mean!”
    There was something in the way she was batting her eyelashes, something in the almost Southern accent that had crept into her voice, that made Lucy wonder if this was Gone with the Wind rather than A Christmas Carol .
    “Bob has hidden talents,” Rachel said in a rather snappish voice. “Stand up, Lucy,” she ordered,