Christmas Carol Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery) - Hardcover

Meier, Leslie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0758277016 ISBN 13: 9780758277015

Publisher: Kensington, 2013

Synopsis

When Jake Marlowe, a co-owner of Downeast Mortgage in Tinker's Cove, Maine, is murdered, and his partner, Ben Scriber, begins receiving death threats after claiming to be visited by Marlowe's ghost, Lucy Stone is on the case.

About this title

About the Author

Leslie Meier is the New York Times bestselling author of over twenty Lucy Stone mysteries and has also written for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. She is currently at work on the next Lucy Stone mystery. Readers can visit her website at www.LeslieMeier.com

Reviews

The Great Recession casts its shadow over Meier&'s engaging 20th Lucy Stone mystery (after Easter Bunny Murder). The day after Thanksgiving, skinflint Jacob Marlowe, who, as a partner in Downeast Mortgage, is responsible for dozens of recent foreclosures, receives a package in the mail marked Do Not Open Till Christmas. When Jacob tries to open it, the package explodes, killing him and destroying the Victorian mansion where he lived alone in Tinker&'s Cove, Maine. Lucy Stone, a reporter for the town newspaper, has been interviewing locals in financial trouble, and is soon rehearsing for her role as Mrs. Cratchit in a community theater production of A Christmas Carol, so she hasn&'t much time for sleuthing. But when a second suspicious package appears outside the Downeast Mortgage office, Lucy knows she must do what she can to stop a desperate killer. Thanks to Lucy, Jacob&'s Scrooge-like partner has a change of heart at the satisfying conclusion. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Oct.)

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHRISTMAS CAROL MURDER

By LESLIE MEIER

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

Copyright © 2013 Leslie Meier
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7582-7701-5

CHAPTER 1

When the first foreclosure sale of the Great Recessiontook place in Tinker's Cove, Maine, Pennysaverreporter Lucy Stone expected a scene right outof a silent movie. The auctioneer would be a slimy sortof fellow who ran his fingers along his waxed andcurled mustache and cackled evilly, the banker would bea chubby chap whose pocket watch dangled from athick gold chain stretched across his round stomach,and a burly sheriff would be forcibly evicting a noticeablyhungry and poorly clad family from their homewhile his deputies tossed furniture and personal belongingsonto the lawn.

The reality, which she discovered when she joined asmall group of people gathered in front of a modestthree-bedroom ranch, was somewhat different. For onething, the house was vacant. The home owners had leftweeks ago, according to a neighbor. "When Jim lost hisjob at the car dealership they realized they couldn't keepup the payments on Patty's income—she was a homehealth aide—so they packed up their stuff and left.Patty's mom has a B and B on Cape Cod, so she's goingto help out there, and Jim's got himself enrolled in anursing program at a community college."

"That sounds like a good plan," Lucy said, feelingrather disappointed as she'd hoped to write an emotion-packedhuman interest story.

"They're not getting off scot-free," the neighbor said,a young mother with a toddler on her hip. "They'll loseall the money they put in the house—bamboo floors,granite countertops, not to mention all the paymentsthey made—and the foreclosure will be a blot on theircredit rating for years...." Her voice trailed off as theauctioneer called for attention and began reading a lotof legalese.

While he spoke, Lucy studied the individuals in thesmall group, who she assumed were planning to bid onthe property in hopes of snagging a bargain. One or twowere even holding white envelopes, most likely containingcertified checks for the ten thousand dollars downspecified in the ad announcing the sale.

But when the auctioneer called for bids, Ben Scribner,a partner in Downeast Mortgage, which held the note,opened with $185,000, the principal amount. That wasmore than the bargain hunters were prepared to offer,and they began to leave. Seeing no further offers, theauctioneer declared the sale over and the property nowowned by the mortgage company.

Ben, who had thick white hair and ruddy cheeks, wasdressed in the casual outfit of khaki pants and button-downoxford shirt topped by a barn coat favored bybusinessmen in the coastal Maine town. He was aprominent citizen who spoke out at town meetings, generallyagainst any measure that would raise taxes. Hiscompany, Downeast Mortgage, provided financing formuch of the region and there were few people in townwho hadn't done business with him and his partner,Jake Marlowe. Marlowe was well known as a cheapskate,living like a solitary razor clam in that ramshackleVictorian mansion, and he was a fixture on thetown's Finance Committee where he kept an eagle eyeon the town budget.

Since that October day three years ago, there had beenmany more foreclosures in Tinker's Cove as the economyground to a standstill. People moved in with relatives,they rented, or they moved on. What they didn't do waslaunch any sort of protest, at least not until now.

The fax announcing a Black Friday demonstrationhad come into the Pennysaver from a group at WinchesterCollege calling itself the Social Action Committee, orSAC, which claimed to represent "the ninety-nine percent."The group was calling for an immediate end toforeclosures and was planning a demonstration at theDowneast Mortgage office on the Friday after Thanksgiving,which Lucy had been assigned to cover.

When she arrived, a few minutes before the appointedtime of nine a.m., there was no sign of any demonstration.But when the clock on the Community Churchchimed the hour, a row of marchers suddenly issuedfrom the municipal parking lot situated behind thestores that lined Main Street. They were mostly collegestudents who for one reason or other hadn't gone homefor the holiday, as well as a few older people, professorsand local residents Lucy recognized. They were bundledup against the November chill in colorful ski jackets,and they were carrying signs and marching to the beatof a Bruce Springsteen song issuing from a boom box.The leader, wearing a camo jacket and waving a megaphone,was a twenty-something guy with a shaved head.

"What do we want?" he yelled, his voice amplifiedand filling the street.

"Justice!" the crowd yelled back.

"When do we want it?" he cried.

"NOW!" roared the crowd.

Lucy immediately began snapping photos with hercamera, and jogged along beside the group. When theystopped in front of Downeast Mortgage, and the leadergot up on a milk crate to speak, she pulled out her notebook."Who is that guy?" she asked the kid next to her.

"Seth Lesinski," the girl replied.

"Do you know how he spells it?"

"I think it's L-E-S-I-N-S-K-I."

"Got it," Lucy said, raising her eyes and noticing agirl who looked an awful lot like her daughter Sara.With blue eyes, blond hair, and a blue crocheted hatshe'd seen her pull on that very morning, it was definitelySara.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, confrontingher college freshman daughter. "I thought youhave a poli sci class now."

Sara rolled her eyes. "Mo-om," she growled. "Later,okay?"

"No. You're supposed to be in class. Do you knowhow much that class costs? I figured it out. It's over ahundred dollars per hour and you're wasting it."

"Well, if you're so concerned about waste, why aren'tyou worried about all the people losing their homes?"Sara countered. "Huh?"

"I am concerned," Lucy said.

"Well, you haven't shown it. There hasn't been aword in the paper except for those legal ads announcingthe sales."

Lucy realized her daughter had a point. "Well, I'mcovering it now," she said.

"So why don't you be quiet and listen to Seth," Sarasuggested, causing Lucy's eyes to widen in shock. Sarahad never spoken to her like that before, and she wasdefinitely going to have a talk with her. But now, she realized,she was missing Seth's speech.

"Downeast Mortgage is the primary lender in thecounty and they have foreclosed on dozens of properties,and more foreclosures are scheduled...."

The crowd booed, until Seth held up his hand for silence.

"They'll have you believe that people who miss theirpayments are deadbeats, failures, lazy, undeserving, irresponsible.... You've heard it all, right?"

There was general agreement, and people nodded.

"But the truth is different. These borrowers qualifiedfor mortgages, had jobs that provided enough income tocover the payments, but then the recession came and thejobs were gone. Unemployment in this county is overfourteen percent. That's why people are losing theirhomes."

Lucy knew there was an element of truth in whatLesinski was saying. She knew that even the towngovernment, until recently the region's most dependableemployer, had recently laid off a number of employeesand cut the hours of several others. In fact,scanning the crowd, she recognized Lexie Cunningham,who was a clerk in the tax collector's office. Abig guy in a plaid jacket and navy blue watch cap wasstanding beside her, probably her husband. Lucy decidedthey might be good interview subjects and approachedthem.

"Hi, Lucy," Lexie said, with a little smile. She lookedas if she'd lost weight, thought Lucy, and her hair, whichhad been dyed blond, was now showing dark roots andwas pulled back unattractively into a ponytail. "This ismy husband, Zach."

"I'm writing this up for the paper," Lucy began. "Canyou tell me why you're here today?"

"'Cause we're gonna lose our house, that's why,"Zach growled. "Downeast sent us a notice last week."

"My hours were cut, you know," Lexie said. "Now Idon't work enough hours to get the health insurance benefit.Because of that we have to pay the entire premium—it'salmost two thousand dollars a month, which isactually more than I now make. We can't pay both themortgage and the health insurance and we can't drop thehealth insurance because of Angie—she's got juvenilekidney disease."

"I didn't know," Lucy said, realizing they were facedwith an impossible choice.

"We don't qualify for assistance. Zach makes toomuch and we're over the income limit by a couple hundreddollars. But the health insurance is expensive, morethan our mortgage. We were just getting by but thenAngie had a crisis and the bills started coming...."

"But you do have health insurance," Lucy said.

"It doesn't cover everything. There are copays andcoinsurance and exclusions...."

"Downeast is a local company—have you talked toMarlowe and Scribner? I bet they'd understand...."

Zach started laughing, revealing a missing rear molar."Understand? All those guys understand is that I agreedto pay them nine hundred and forty-five dollars everymonth. That's my problem, is what they told me."

"So that's why we're out here, demonstrating," Lexiesaid, as a sudden huge boom shook the ground undertheir feet.

"What the ...?" Everyone was suddenly silent, shockedby the loud noise and the reverberations.

"Gas?" somebody asked. They could hear a dogbarking.

"Fire," said a kid in a North Face jacket, pointing tothe column of black smoke that was rising into the sky.

"Parallel Street," Zach said, as sirens wailed andbright red fire trucks went roaring down the street,lights flashing.

A couple of guys immediately took off down thestreet, running after the fire trucks, and soon the crowdfollowed. Lucy always felt a little uncomfortably ghoulishat times like this, but she knew it was simply humannature to want to see what was going on. She knew itwas the same impulse that caused people to watch CNNand listen to the car radio and even read the Pennysaver.

So she joined the crowd, hurrying along beside Saraand her friend Amy, rounding the corner onto MapleStreet, where the smell of burning was stronger, and onto Parallel Street, which, as its name suggested, ran parallelto Main Street. Unlike Main Street, which was thetown's commercial center, Parallel was a residentialstreet filled with big old houses set on large properties.Most had been built in the nineteenth century by prosperoussea captains, eager to showcase their success.Nowadays, a few were still single family homes ownedby members of the town's professional elite, but othershad been subdivided into apartments and B and Bs. Itwas a pleasant street, lined with trees, and the houseswere generally well maintained. In the summer, geraniumsbloomed in window boxes and the sound of lawnmowers was frequently heard. Now, some houses stilldisplayed pumpkin and gourd decorations for Thanksgivingwhile others were trimmed for Christmas, withwindow boxes filled with evergreen boughs and red-ribbonedwreaths hung on the front doors. All exceptfor one house, a huge Victorian owned by Jake Marlowethat was generally considered a blight on theneighborhood.

The old house was a marvel of Victorian design, boastinga three-story tower, numerous chimneys, bay windows,a sunroom, and a wraparound porch. Passing it,observing the graying siding that had long since lost itspaint and the sagging porch, Lucy always imagined thehouse as it had once been. Then, she thought, the mansionwould have sported a colorful paint job and theporch would have been filled with wicker furniture,where long-skirted ladies once sat and sipped lemonadewhile they observed the passing scene.

It had always seemed odd to her that a man whosebusiness was financing property would take such poorcare of his own, but when she'd interviewed a psychiatristfor a feature story about hoarders she began to understandthat Jake Marlowe's cheapness was a sort ofpathology. "Hoarders can't let anything go; it makesthem unbearably anxious to part with anything," thepsychiatrist had explained to her.

Now, standing in front of the burning house, Lucysaw that Jake Marlowe was going to lose everything.

"Wow," she said, turning to Sara and noticing howher daughter's face was glowing, bathed in rosy lightfrom the fire. Everyone's face was like that, she saw, asthey watched the orange flames leaping from the windows,running across the tired old porch, and evenerupting from the top of the tower. No one could survivesuch a fire, she thought. It was fortunate it startedin the morning, when she assumed Marlowe would beat his Main Street office.

"Back, everybody back," the firemen were saying,pushing the crowd to the opposite side of the street.

They were making no attempt to stop the fire but insteadwere pouring water on the roofs of neighboringhouses, fearing that sparks from the fire would set themalight. More sirens were heard and Lucy realized thecall had gone out to neighboring towns for mutual aid.

"What a shame," Lucy said, to nobody in particular,and a few others murmured in agreement.

Not everyone was sympathetic, however. "Serves themean old bastard right," Zach Cunningham said.

"It's not like he took care of the place," Sara observed.

"He's foreclosed on a lot of people," Lexie Cunninghamsaid. "Now he'll know what it's like to lose hishome."

"You said it, man," Seth said, clapping Zach on theshoulder. "What goes around comes around." Realizingthe crowd was with him, Seth got up on his milk crate."Burn, baby, burn!" he yelled, raising his fist.

Lucy was shocked, but the crowd picked up the chant."Burn, baby, burn!" they yelled back. "Burn, baby, burn."

Disgusted, she tapped Sara on the shoulder, indicatingthey should leave. Sara, however, shrugged her off andjoined the refrain, softly at first but gradually growinglouder as she was caught in the excitement of the moment.

Lucy wanted to leave and she wanted Sara to leave,too, but the girl stubbornly ignored her urgings. Finally,realizing she was alone in her sentiments, she shoulderedher way through the crowd and headed back toMain Street and the Pennysaver office. At the corner,she remembered her job and paused to take a few morepictures for the paper. This would be a front page story,no doubt about it. She was peering through the camera'sviewfinder when the tower fell in a shower of sparksand the crowd gave throat to a celebratory cheer.

You would have thought the football team scored atouchdown, she thought, stomping along the sidewalkthat tilted this way and that from frost heaves. Nobodycared that a precious bit of the town's heritage wasgoing up in smoke. Nobody but her.

The Pennysaver office was empty when she arrived.Phyllis, the receptionist, and Ted, who was publisher,editor, and chief reporter, were most likely at the fire.Good, she thought, he could write the story. She tookoff her parka and hung it on the coatrack, filled the coffeepotand got it brewing, and then she booted up hercomputer. She was checking her e-mails when the littlebell on the door jangled and Ted entered.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, unwrappinghis scarf. "Don't you know Jake Marlowe's house isburning down?" He had removed his Bruins ski cap andwas running his fingers through his short, salt and pepperhair.

"I was there. I left."

"How come?" His face was squarish and clean-shaven,his brow furrowed in concern. "That's not like you,leaving a big story."

"The crowd freaked me out," she said, wrapping herarms across her chest and hugging herself. "Sara wasthere—she was part of it, screaming along with therest."

"You know what they say about a mob. It's only assmart as the dumbest member," Ted said, pouring himselfa mug of coffee. "Want a cup?"

"Sure," Lucy replied. When he gave her the mug shewrapped her fingers around it for warmth. "I alwaysliked that old house," she said, taking a sip. "I sometimesimagined it the way it used to be. A painted lady,that's what they call those fancy Victorians."

(Continues...)

Excerpted from CHRISTMAS CAROL MURDER by LESLIE MEIER. Copyright © 2013 Leslie Meier. Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Kensington
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0758277016
• ISBN 13: 9780758277015
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272