Town in a Wild Moose Chase by B. B. Haywood Read Free Book Online

PRESS to the collar of her vest. The spiral wire of a reporter’s notebook stuck out of one of her jacket pockets.
    “I’ve already had time to interview the ice sculptors and post my first story of the day online,” Wanda continued in a self-congratulatory tone, “and here you come, traipsing in after all the hard work’s been done. They’ve already un-loaded the ice blocks, you know.”
    “They have?” Candy looked expectantly across the park and noticed a colony of busy worker bees hovering aroundlarge blocks of ice. She could hear the voices of the workers and sculptors as they moved and positioned the blocks into what looked like a huge, white, drawn-out Lego construction.
    “They have,” Wanda confirmed, “and you missed it.” She gave Candy a tight, knowing smile. “So what have you been up to? Taking long walks in the woods?”
    Candy turned back to Wanda, her brow falling into a questioning look. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
    “Oh, but I’m sure you are,” Wanda said in a smooth tone. “I’ve heard you had some trouble out at Blueberry Acres this morning. Something involving the police. And a body, right?”
    “A body?” Preston Smith interjected himself into the conversation as his expression changed to one of alarm. He looked from one face to the other. “Has someone been hurt?”
    “Not that we know of,” Candy told him truthfully, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Wanda. “There’s been a report of an injury, yes, but nothing’s been confirmed. The police are checking it out.”
    “The police! Good gracious!” Preston looked around worriedly. “I hope there’s no trouble—anything that might interfere with this weekend’s activities.”
    “I’m sure everything will be fine,” Candy reassured him. To Wanda, she added curiously, “How did you hear about that?”
    Wanda feigned a bored look, as if the answer were obvious. “I have my sources. You’re not the only one in town who has good reporter instincts, you know.” She paused, tightening her birdlike gaze on Candy. “So spill the beans. What really happened out at the farm this morning with Solomon Hatch? Was he wounded, like I’ve heard? Or was it just something you made up to get attention?”
    Where did that come from?
“You think I need attention?”Candy asked as she shook her head and let out a breath. The old wounds between her and Wanda just didn’t seem to want to heal, especially with Wanda always picking at them. She was still offended Candy had left her son’s name out of a newspaper column more than a year ago, and despite Candy’s apologies, and the fact that they had collaborated—in the loosest sense of the word—on a murder mystery last May, Wanda apparently had no intentions of letting bygones be bygones.
    In fact, she’d upped the ante. Upset she hadn’t been hired as the community editor for the town’s local newspaper, the
Cape Crier
, Wanda had started her own online community blog and website, which she called the
Cape Crusader
. She updated the blog daily and posted news items, photos, calendar events, and other tidbits regularly, and had quickly drummed up traffic using social media sites. She was also handy with her smart phone, regularly sending out instant messages, texts, and tweets. She was a veritable digital multitasker.
    Her newfound media voice had emboldened her, and she relished the fact that in some ways she’d left her rival in the dust. Candy, after all, just wrote a community column for a print newspaper that came out bimonthly in the winter. Without the frequency of writing for the paper’s summer editions, which were published twice a week, Candy and the newspaper had fallen behind in the up-to-date news category. At least that’s how Wanda probably viewed the situation, Candy thought, and Wanda exploited it in every way possible. Admittedly, there hadn’t been much to write about over the past few weeks as winter had settled snugly into the