“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.”
“So the gay and lesbian organization, they have your support?”
“Ha!” said Alice Holland. “They’re nothing but a bunch of shit disturbers, pardon my French. Honestly, can you imagine any gay and lesbian group even wanting to be part of a fall fair parade that features lawn tractor racing? It’s all I can do to sit in the back of the convertible from Braynor Ford. Those gay activists’ll have the Braynor High School band in front of them performing ‘Feelings’ with trombones and tubas and coming from behind will be Eagleton’s Bait and Tackle, which, last I heard, was going to have choreographed, dancing night crawlers. People in worm suits. I mean, isn’t the gay community a tad too sophisticated for something like that? The only reason they want to be in the parade is because there are so many people who don’t want them in the parade. If Charles Henry, who, by the way, can kiss my skinny white ass, got rid of his petition and put a sign out front of his grocery store saying “Welcome Homos!” they’d pack up and go back to the city and forget this whole damn thing.”
I said, “You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”
Alice Holland smiled. “You’re very astute.”
“How long have you lived in Braynor?”
“George and I moved up here from the city almost fifteen years ago. He was a set designer, and I practiced law, and then we came into a shitload of money when his mother died, and we figured, let’s get out. We moved up here, didn’t have to work right away, but then we got interested in the area, about attempts to overdevelop it, and I ran for a seat on council and won, and then a couple of elections later, ran for mayor, and won. Who’d have thunk it?”
“Don’t suppose you ever thought of opening a law office up here?”
She shrugged. “Not really.”
“Think about it,” I said. “Some of the local talent leaves something to be desired.”
“Yeah, well, what can you do? You should meet our chief of police.”
It was my turn to smile. “I’ve had the pleasure. Speaking of overdevelopment, which way’s council leaning on that big fishing-resort proposal south of town? The one Leonard Colebert’s pitching?”
“Oh, that,” Mayor Holland said. “I was looking at the plans for that again only yesterday. Every time he submits new ones, there’s something new added. Another floor on the hotel, or a new outbuilding, or a casino. The day that goes in is the day I let them run over me with an Evinrude.”
“So council’s unlikely to approve it?”
“Well, there are a few members, they’re tempted by the extra jobs, the increased tax base. But they’d bring in a fucking nuclear waste dump if it brought in enough taxes to buy a new snowplow.”
I really liked this woman.
She leaned back on her couch. “So, what the hell are you actually doing here, anyway? I mean, I’m having a lovely chat and all, but are you doing a story, or what?”
I paused. “I have a bad feeling,” I said with some hesitation.
Mayor Holland’s eyebrows went up a notch. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“And why do you have this bad feeling?”
I sensed that part of her was humoring me, that she was starting to find me amusing.
“I have to tell you, first of all, that I’m something of a worrier. I’m a worst-case-scenario kind of guy. I’m not some kind of conspiracy nut. I just think that if there’s a chance that things might go really bad, they will.”
Alice Holland said, “Some people would call that being a realist.”
“Yes, well, I can appreciate that. It’s just that, the things I’ve seen happening in Braynor, and out at my dad’s place, I have a sense that these events are linked and leading toward something very bad.”
Alice Holland said nothing.
“Are you familiar with the people who’ve rented the farmhouse out on my dad’s property?”
“Refresh my memory,” she said.
“Timmy Wickens. And his family. A wife, her two sons, his daughter and grandson.”
“Ah yes. Are they friends of yours?”
I was taken aback. “Not at all.”
“Then you won’t be offended if I categorize them as a bunch of whacko-nutcase-racist-survivalists.”