Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,46

free on borrowed time because if Clay Lane sent that e-mail, I’m going to get a confession, and if he didn’t, I’m going to find the person who did and we’re going to have an honest to goodness witness. Trust me on that.”

Yay! I wasn’t going to jail!

Johnny Jay continued, “Who knows? Maybe your ex-husband really was trying to frame you.”

“That’s what I believe, Police Chief Jay,” I agreed, politely.

“Then again, you could be his accomplice and he turned on you.”

The clock hands kept moving. The Town Council meeting would begin in ten minutes.

I shook my head. “If I was planning a murder,” I said, “the dead person would be Clay.”

“So you’re capable of murder. Is that what you want to tell me? On the record?”

Johnny Jay dinked around, playing semantics games until I wanted to deck him. Finally, he let me go. I half expected to find Hunter waiting for me outside, but he wasn’t there. Just when I was about to give up on getting to the meeting, Grams pulled up next to me, slid the passenger’s window down, and offered me a ride.

“How’s Mom taking . . . this?” I asked.

“You don’t want to know, sweetie. I’d come into the meeting and help you out, but it’s getting late for me to be driving around. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and it’s almost my bedtime.

“That’s okay. I can handle it.”

We cruised along on the incredibly slow and jerky ride. My only hope of making it in time to state my case was if the meeting started late, which it almost always did.

This time was no exception.

Eighteen

After shouting a big, heartfelt thank-you to my grandmother, I bolted through the library doors as the last of the board members were taking their official positions. Now that I was present, the meeting couldn’t get under way quick enough for me. I had a stream of adrenaline built up and was in fast forward after all the waiting and worrying.

“I have something to say,” I blurted.

“You always do,” Tom Peterson, one of the town supervisors, said. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the service tray and made his way up to take a seat with the other town supervisors. “You have to follow procedure just like everybody else.”

Town hall meetings are not well-attended events. Every two years we make a big deal of elections for the volunteer, yet highly coveted, positions of town supervisor. Campaign signs line our lawns, the local newspaper covers all sides, then we vote and hang out at Stu’s Bar and Grill waiting for the results. The old-timers almost always win, but that doesn’t stop newcomers from trying. Once in a while, one of the old guard will keel over dead from extreme old age, making room for a younger member, almost always related to the deceased. We still haven’t elected any women yet, but that had to change one of these days soon.

Then, after the residents of Moraine make such a big fuss about the election, we disappear back to our own lives and expect our officials to handle things for us the right way. Sometimes that’s a big mistake.

At the moment, Grant Spandle, Lori’s henpecked husband and poor excuse for a town chairman, sat in the middle of a table at the front of the room. Two town supervisors sat on either side of him with little nameplates in front of each of them in case we forgot who they were.

The town board consisted of:• Grant Spandle—chairman of the board and local land developer.

• Tom Peterson—supervisor and long-time dairy farmer.

• Bud Craig—supervisor, Waukesha firefighter, and father of my part-time helpers, the twins Brent and Trent.

• Stanley Peck—supervisor and retired farmer.

• Bruce Cook—third-grade teacher, and our newest supervisor, after the unexpected death of his father, our previous supervisor.

Others present were:• Aurora Tyler—owner of Moraine Gardens, across from my house.

• Emily Nolan—library director.

• Karin Nolan—librarian and Emily’s daughter.

• Larry Koon—frozen custard maker and owner of Koon’s Custard Shop.

• Milly Hopticourt—recipe tester and gifted flower arranger.

• P. P. Patti Dwyre—my neighbor and main town gossip.

• Several others I knew by sight, but not by name. They had paperwork with them, so I guessed they were on the agenda.

Note: My nemesis, Lori Spandle, was MIA. And after all that threatening!

Impatient as I was, I listened to the minutes from the last meeting and the other blah, blah, blah regarding old business. The summaries probably didn’t take as long as they seemed to me. New