I grabbed my car keys off the counter and was out the door, Dad calling out, “What’s going on?” I got in my Virtue and headed into town. The only traffic light on Main Street was green, allowing me to sail through Braynor in under a minute. As the houses on the north side began to thin, I looked for Connor Bay Road.
I hung a right. The town was only a quarter mile behind me, but I was back in the woods, tall pines crowding up to the shoulders of the road. I watched the mailboxes, each of them named, and when I saw “Holland” I put on my blinker and turned in.
The trees opened up about fifty yards in, revealing a chalet-like home with pine board siding, a peaked roof, and enough glass that I could see right through the first floor to the bay on the other side. There were a couple of SUVs parked off to the side, and I pulled in behind them.
A large, bearded black man, six feet easy, a couple hundred pounds, emerged from a separate double-wide garage, wiping his hand on a rag. It looked like he’d been doing some mechanical kind of work, but he didn’t have a mechanic’s look about him. He was wearing pleated khakis and an Eddie Bauer–like shirt. He eyed me warily, stepped back into the garage for a moment, and reappeared with a baseball bat in his hand.
Not a good sign.
“Can I help you?” he asked, lightly tapping the bat with his right arm into his left palm.
“My name is Zack Walker,” I said. “I’m a reporter for The Metropolitan. I was looking for Mayor Holland. Are you Mr. Holland?”
“I am. So what do you want the mayor for?” The bat was hanging down at his side now, swinging ever so gently.
“I just wanted to ask her a few questions, that’s all.” He kept swinging the bat. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
“We don’t get The Metropolitan up here much. There’s one place in town I think you can buy it. Why’s someone from a big paper like that interested in talking to a small-town mayor like my wife?”
“Look, is she around?”
“I’ll let her know you’re here.” He stopped swinging the bat, disappeared into the house, and a moment later, Alice Holland appeared at the door.
“Why don’t you come in?” she said, waving me toward her.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I said, stepping in. “I took a chance that you might be home. Your husband doesn’t seem very eager for you to have visitors.”
At a glance, I could see this was no cottage. Modern, Swedish-style furniture, abstract art on what few walls weren’t made of glass, art books and copies of The New Yorker and Harper’s on the coffee table.
“You’ve come a long way to see me,” Alice Holland said. She was a small woman, mid-fifties, I figured, barely five feet. She’d have looked even tinier had she been standing right next to her husband, but he held back, by the door.
“You want me to hang around, hon?” he asked.
“No, George, it’s okay.” He slipped out, and she smiled at me. “He just wants to be sure I’m okay. He’ll be happy to go back to work on his snowmobile anyway,” she said. “Another two or three months and we could have two feet of snow on the ground.” She had a pretty face, even without any makeup. But when she brushed some of her silver hair away from her eyes, I could see how weary they looked.
“I was already in the neighborhood,” I said. “And I’m not sure whether I’m speaking to you as a reporter or as a concerned citizen.”
“Why don’t you sit down,” she said, gesturing toward one of the two leather couches.
“My father owns Denny’s Cabins, south of town. Arlen Walker.”
Alice Holland brightened. “Oh yes, I’m sure I’ve met Arlen once or twice. And I’ve probably been into his place at some point, maybe when I was campaigning. I’ve certainly seen the sign on the highway.” She put her hands on her knees, leaned forward, as if we were sharing a secret. “Isn’t that where the man was killed by the bear? Tracy had a story in the Times.”
I hesitated. “Yes, that’s right.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Actually, I think Tracy writes every story in The Braynor Times. I wouldn’t be surprised they make her deliver it, too. Your father, I trust he’s okay? He wasn’t attacked as well?”
“No, well, he sprained his ankle, which is why I’ve been hanging around for a few days, to help him with the camp.” I cleared my throat. “For a small town like Braynor, there seems to be a lot going on.”
“Yes,” she said. “A man killed by a bear, and then that horrible thing down at the co-op. Did you know Tiff Riley?”
“No.”
“He was a charming man. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but nice. And that’s off the record, by the way. I wouldn’t want to be quoted saying something unflattering about the man, especially one who’s just passed on.”
“I’m not taking notes,” I said. “Braynor also seems to be caught up in a bit of controversy at the moment.”
Now the weariness fell over Alice Holland like a blanket. “Oh yes. Will we or will we not let the gays into our parade?” She moved her hand across the air, like she was pasting up a headline. “The world waits with bated breath.”
“Well, will you?”
“Of course we will. Unless this town wants to be buried in lawsuits.”