From Tracks, a story collection book.
Also available on Amazon.

“When are they arriving?” Jonathan said, clearly dreading the moment.
“Oh shush,” Mary responded, “They’ll get here when they get here. Never mind. Come help me in the kitchen.”
Jonathan slumped again, trying to show his boredom to his wife, but she was having none of it. She was too busy with last minute fussings. She hustled to the kitchen, Jonathan dragging along behind, and she greeted Martha, the caterer, and Martha’s assistant, Jules, a young woman who seemed eager to be learning the catering business from her older, more mellow boss.
“How are things going?” Mary asked.
“The turkey is browning nicely,” Martha replied, “and the mashed potatoes are underway. Don’t worry about a thing, Mrs. Montelly.”
Mary smiled, but couldn’t help peeking in various pots on the stove and the pastry dough being rolled out on the counter by Jules. That was for the pies, berry and apple, whose ingredients were setting in bowls on the counter, waiting to be stuffed in the crusts.
“Is there anything I can do?” Mary asked, probably for the twentieth time.
Martha smiled. She was used to this kind of nervousness from her employers.
“Perhaps you and Mr. Montelly could decide on which of the wines you’d like to start with.” Martha had a small set of vintages laid out, and she knew the Montellys couldn’t go wrong with any of them. And it gave them something to do.
Jonathan perked up a bit. He led Mary to the pantry area and began reading the labels, though he was no connoisseur and was just guessing. Mary gave him a skeptical eye, but having seen the meal preparations in a good state, was content to let Jonathan have a little something to do.
She was a little more worried about her quest list. Some relatives, some friends, some local business people she was trying to impress. It should be a good blend; she wanted it to be as low-key as possible, but you never knew.
The one pair of guests who were an unknown quantity were the new police chief, Staley Swenson and her husband Tom. Captain Swenson had just been hired as chief in the small mountain town of Pinecrest Meadows, population 5,238 (out of season), and her husband was some kind of semi-retired financier – Mary intended to learn more about him today. The Swensons and Montellys went to the same church, and Mary had decided to have the little Thanksgiving party as a sort of welcome for the chief. There were only two other officers in the Pinecrest Meadows police force, one young man – Tommy Jensen - and one younger woman – Amy… something or other, Mary forgot her last name at the moment.
Mary had told the guests to be there about 6, but she didn’t expect to begin the meal till 7. It was now 4:45.
Just then the phone rang. It was Amy Matthews, the second police officer.
“Oh, hello, Miss Matthews,” Mary said, suddenly a little worried. “Is there something the matter?”
“Yes, Mrs. Montelly, I’m afraid so. We’ve had a call this afternoon about a death in town. The chief asked me to call you and say she wouldn’t be able to make your dinner party tonight.”
“Oh no,” Mary said, upset more at the change in plans than the death. “Are you sure? Was it an accident of something?”
“No, ma’am, I’m afraid it was foul play. At any rate, Chief Swenson sends her regrets.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I understand,” Mary said, though she didn’t understand. But she said, “Duty calls!”
“Yes ma’am. Well, thank you. Good bye.”
“Drat!” Mary said aloud. It was just about the harshest expletive she ever used, so Jonathan turned to her immediately.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked.
“It’s the chief and her husband. I guess there’s been a murder in town and they can’t make it tonight!”
Jonathan knew his wife well and quickly figured out why she was so upset. The dinner party, after all. But he was very interested in the news. He thought of saying something more to his wife, what else she knew, then quickly figured some discretion might be wise. He mumbled and fumbled around a bit, but Mary quickly forgot about him and went into the kitchen to inform the caterer about the change.
Good, Jonathan thought.
He slipped away to his study, a room that had been his office when he had been a lawyer. Now that he was at least semi-retired the room was a quiet spot to read and, on occasion, watch the ball game. Now he called his old friend Bill Williams, the editor of the town’s weekly newspaper the PM Gazette (and also an invitee to this evening’s party).
Jonathan kept his voice low, so Mary wouldn’t hear. “Bill,” he said when his friend answered the phone, “I just heard there’s been a death in town. What have you heard?”
“Hi Jonathan. Yes, we just got word ourselves. It’s Manny Watts.”
“Manny Watts was killed?” Watts was a well know realtor in the city, gregarious and wealthy, and coincidentally, another of their dinner guests.
“Yes. Shot, from what we’ve heard so far.”
“When did it happen? What did you hear?”
“Today, I guess. We’re just learning about it too. I guess his secretary found him in his office.”
“Huh. Any suspects?”
“Well, you’d know as much as I do. You know Watts was rumored to be involved in some funny real estate deals. And then there was his campaign to get the lake front property zoned for commercial development – you know people didn’t like that.”
“Yeah.”
“And of course, there was …um…there was…” He was clearly hesitating.
“You mean the rumors he was fooling around on Betty?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes. I didn’t know if you’d heard that or not.”
“Wow, that leaves kind of a long list of people with a motive.”
“Yep. So anyway, it looks like we won’t make it tonight.”
Jonathan reacted with mixed feelings. Bill was one of his good buddies. Jonathan had counted on him to rescue him from a tedious night. On the other hand, maybe the whole evening …
“Hey, Bill,” Jonathan said, “I gotta go. Let me call you back. And I’ll tell Mary about tonight.”
“Okay, thanks. Talk to you later.”
Jonathan hung up just in time to hear Mary on the house phone saying, “Oh no! Not you too! Oh, this is terrible…”
He put two and two together and guessed someone else was cancelling. Uh oh. It was beginning to look like there wasn’t going to be a party at all – they were going to have a lot of leftovers.
He hesitated, then decided he better face the music and see how his wife was doing. As he followed the sound of her voice to the phone in the kitchen, he braced himself.
One look at the scowl on Mary’s face told him he’d guessed right. Someone cancelled. She hung up the phone and glared at him.
“That was the Bentons. They can’t make it tonight! Because of this death thing! Someone was shot!”
“Yes, hon, I know. I just talked to Bill Williams, they can’t come either.”
“What!”
“Sorry, honey. Bill says it was probably a murder – Manny Watts!”
Mary’s jaw dropped and she couldn’t find the words.
But she recovered quickly. Once again, Jonathan was impressed at his wife’s ability to adapt quickly to surprises – the bigger the surprise, the faster the reaction, as a matter of fact. She began ordering Martha to stop the dinner preparations, told him she was going to cancel the party – “well, I guess that’s best” he managed to say – then she went to the phone in the back room and began dialing – calling the rest of the guests with the news.
But before she finished those calls, Jonathan’s office phone rang. He expected Bill to be calling back, but it was Chief Swensen. She had some questions, she said. Could he and Mary come in to the station, right away?
He went to the back room to hear Mary speaking to someone with her best phone voice, then she hung up, and in her regular tone she muttered to him and to no one in particular, “Drat, drat, drat.”
Three drats. She was upset.
“Did you get a hold of everybody?” he asked.
She nodded, clearly annoyed and unhappy.
“Well, I’m afraid I have some more bad news, honey.”
Mary raised an eyebrow in a clear warning sign, but he had to push on. “Chief Swensen just called. She wants us to drop by her office right away. She has some questions.”
Jonathan thought he could actually see steam coming out of Mary’s ears. On the way to the small police station in town, Mary hardly said a word, except for muttering something about a ‘ruined, just ruined dinner party.’
But nothing could describe Mary’s facial expression when she walked into the station and saw, in chairs and standing, all of her would-have-been dinner guests. What? All of them had information that the police wanted to know?
The two junior officers were trying to make their ‘guests’ comfortable, mostly by apologizing over and over for the inconvenience, this won’t take long, yes, please have a seat.
Just then Chief Swenson came into the outer room from her office. She raised a hand and strangely enough, everyone quieted down.
“Thank you all for coming tonight. I’m Police Chief Staley Swenson. I’m sorry to have to take your time this evening, but a rather serious matter has come up that requires immediate attention. I’m guessing that by now you’ve all heard that someone has been shot, a Mr. Manny Watts.”
She was holding a manila folder with several papers inside. “I believe you all have had dealings with Mr. Watts in one way or another. Since there is some urgency to the case, I’ve called you all in here to ask you a few questions. I believe this won’t take long.”
She glanced at the folder again. “Mr. and Mrs. Williams, if I might speak to you first?” She gestured to her office and the Williams filed in, Chief Swenson gesturing to Officer Jenson to come along and then entering herself and closing the door behind her.
The hubbub sprang up again almost immediately. Jonathan wanted to ask the men in the room what they knew, but thought it wise to check on his wife first. But she was already jabbering away at Muriel Jacobsen, so he figured it was safe.
He cornered Dan Miller and Bill Nash. “Guys, what have you heard?” he said.
Bill responded, “Only that Manny had been shot straight through the heart.”
Dan added, “I heard he been shot multiple times. Like someone really wanted him dead real bad.”
Jonathan shook his head, “Yeah, I guess there’s probably lots of suspects.” He paused, thinking. He looked up. “Any idea why we’re all here?”
His two friends both shook their heads. Jonathan wanted to ask some more questions when the Chief’s door opened and group walked out, Office Jensen, Tommy, still scribbling furiously in a pad in his hand. The chief shook the Williams hands, then asked the Millers to join her. Dan and Betty went in and the door closed again.
Jonathan asked Bill Williams what the chief had wanted to know.
“Mostly where we were last night between ten and two. Of course we were home in bed. Then she asked if we’d heard of a Vito Conchenza. We never heard of him, of course.”
Jonathan had a small flash in his mind, like he’d heard the name before, but nothing firm followed the flash.
“Oh, and Jonathan, she said we should be a bit more careful for the next few days, and be sure and report anything suspicious.”
Jonathan’s eyebrow raised involuntarily. “Humph. That’s mysterious!”
Bill nodded. “Listen,” he said, “I’m gonna take Betty home, then I’m coming back to see if I can get the rest of the story. Do me a favor, keep your ears open till I get back.”
“Okay,” Jonathan said.
The Williams hurried off and in a moment the Millers came out of the Chief’s office. Another couple was called in, the Bentons.
A quick conversation with Dan confirmed to Jonathan that the same questions had been asked, and the same warning given. When they left, Jonathan made his way over to his wife and summed up what he’d learned.
Mary took his hand and for the first time that evening, he could see that the annoyance had gone from her, to be replaced by fear.
Jonathan was surprised when it turned out he and Mary were the last ones to be called into the inner office. Jonathan’s eyes were wide open, scanning everything.
“Mr. and Mrs. Montelly, first let me apologize…”
Mary interrupted. “Please, call me Mary.”
The chief smiled. “Of course, Mary. Please call me Staley. I’m so sorry to spoil your dinner party. I hope you can understand.”
“Of course,” Mary said.
“I’m afraid I must ask you a few questions.”
They both nodded.
“First where were you last night between ten and two a.m.?”
Jonathan answered, “In bed asleep, of course.”
“Yes. And could you tell me how you know Mr. Watts?”
Jonathan summarized their relationship – mostly just friends from church. They hadn’t had any financial dealings with Manny. They sometimes shot a round of golf together.
There was a long pause. Then the chief said calmly, “And have you heard from Mr. Watts wife Betty today?”
They were both taken aback. They had completely forgotten about her. They turned to each other, until finally Mary said, “Umm, no, we haven’t. Is she okay?”
The chief didn’t respond right away, clearly weighing how much to say. Finally she said, “Well, I’m afraid she’s missing.” She stared hard at the Montelly’s, trying to gauge their reaction.
“One other question. What do you know of Vito Conchenza?”
They both shook their heads, and Jonathan said, “Never heard of him.”
Chief Swenson turned to Office Jensen, who continued to write furiously, but finally stopped and looked up.
The Chief rose and it was clear the interview was over, when Mary spoke up. “Chief Swensen, Staley, please, can you tell us what happened? Is Betty all right? Is she in some kind of danger? Are we in danger? And who’s this Vito … whatever his name is?”
Swenson started to speak when suddenly the phone on her desk rang. She picked it up quickly.
“Chief Swenson,” she said, then she listened followed by a “What?” “Where?” and “Well, I’ll be.”
She listened a few more moments, then finally said, “Yes I guess that will do for now. I’ll contact the District Attorney and we’ll let the lawyers work out the next steps. Okay. Thank you.”
She hung up, shaking her head, and then suddenly realized she had the Montelly’s in the office with her still.
“I’m sorry,” she began. She gave a little chuckle, then said, “I guess I may as well tell you what’s happened. That was the State Police. They’ve arrested Mrs. Watts. She was fleeing the state when they pulled her over – we’d put out an APB on her. When they brought her in for questioning, she confessed to everything. She said she shot her husband. She’d apparently found out he’d been cheating on her.”
Jonathan blinked several times. Mary thought of saying something, but no words came.
“The thing is, at the crime scene we found some strange notes. One looked like a confession from Mr. Watts about a bad deal he was in with a Mr. Vito Conchenza. But that was just a nonsense name she invented to throw us off the track. The note said Conchenza was going to “get” everyone who’d cheated on him. But what threw us off with another note that mentioned your dinner party tonight, Mrs., Monte…Mary.
“We didn’t know what to think – if all of those at the party were involved, or if they were in danger… Anyway, she, Mrs. Watts, confessed to the whole thing.”
Swenson shook her head and gave a little smile. “That’s gotta be the quickest I’ve ever “solved” a case!”
Jonathan and Mary returned the smile.
As they were leaving, Bill Williams appeared in the doorway.
“Did you learn anything I can put in the paper?” he asked Jonathan.
Jonathan smiled. “Better ask the chief.”
He turned to Mary. “And I guess we’ll be rescheduling the dinner party for …?”
Mary let out a long sigh. “Next Friday, I guess.”
Well, Jonathan thought, at least that party won’t be boring!