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  “That’s not the first time you’ve had a go-round with Spinner,” Patsy reminded him.

  The physical contrast between Stu and Patsy could not have been more pronounced. Not only was her skin as pale as new-fallen snow, but she was tall and almost cadaverously thin. Liss had never been able to figure out why Patsy didn’t gain weight. She spent hours every day baking the most delicious breads, buns, doughnuts, muffins, pastries, and cookies known to man and selling them in her combination coffee house and café. Since this establishment was located just at the end of the street, Liss was a regular patron. The pounds would have piled on had she not regularly worked out at the dance studio Sandy and Zara owned.

  “You should talk, Patsy,” Stu shot back.

  Patsy’s grimace spoke louder than words, making it clear that she, too, had at some point exchanged heated words with Hadley Spinner. She and Stu continued sniping at each other as they left the party.

  After they’d gone, Liss turned back to her mother, only to find that Vi’s attention had shifted to her sister-in-law.

  “I hope she doesn’t get involved.”

  “Margaret? Why should she? She no longer works at the hotel.”

  “Because it’s Hadley Spinner, of course.” And with that enigmatic statement, Violet MacCrimmon wandered off, working the crowd with a casual style that Liss couldn’t help but envy.

  Now that she was tuned into the subject, Liss realized that Spinner’s vendetta against The Spruces was the topic of the evening. As she tried to follow her mother’s example and mingle, she overheard more bits and pieces of conversation.

  “Any publicity is good publicity,” someone said.

  Liss had her doubts about the truth of that old saying, but she was heartened to discover that most people agreed with Patsy’s opinion that no one in their right mind would pay any attention to a screwball like Hadley Spinner. He’d annoyed more than a few of her guests, although the run-ins they recounted didn’t seem to amount to much. Spinner’s pattern was to make impossible demands, provoke arguments, and get into a snit when he was refused. As far as she could tell, he’d never sued anyone and his quarrel with Joe appeared to be the first time that he’d gone after someone online.

  “He’s like a kid with a new toy,” Margaret declared. “He’ll get tired of it soon enough.”

  Since the crowd had thinned out to the point where Liss was able to have a private word with her aunt, she attempted to satisfy her curiosity. “You sound as if you have personal experience with him.”

  Margaret stared off into space for a moment, looking uncharacteristically pensive. “Nothing I care to remember,” she said. “In fact, I think it’s time for a change of subject. Who wants to waste time talking about unpleasant subjects, especially when we’ve gathered together for a celebration?” She lifted her rum and cola and raised her voice. “A toast to the birthday girl!”

  The party improved from then on. By the time the last straggler left and Liss was alone with Dan, she’d reluctantly admitted that, for the most part, she’d enjoyed herself.

  Chapter Two

  Since Halloween fell on a Tuesday, the powers-that-be in Moosetookalook had decreed that the costume parade and trick-or-treating should be held a few days earlier, on Saturday. With no school schedules to interfere, activities could start at noon and everyone would be safely back home, or at a community-sponsored party, by the time it got dark. In western Maine at the end of October, that was shortly after five-thirty.

  The sun cooperated by beaming brightly down on the proceedings, but it did not deliver much in the way of warmth. Liss bundled up in a wool coat and added gloves, a scarf, and a hat to protect herself from the wind before she ventured out onto the porch of Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium to watch laughing, chattering children gather in the town square across the street.

  At this time of year, the square did not look its best. The flowers in the beds planted on both sides of the paths had gone by, the trees had lost their spectacular fall foliage, and the grass had the look of dirty straw. The only bright colors to be seen were in the Halloween costumes and on the bandstand. Painted a gleaming white, it was festooned with orange and black bunting and balloons.

  The town square was a comfortably large expanse of grass, paths, and flower beds, and contained all the features typical of New England towns. In addition to the bandstand, there was a flagpole, the stars and stripes fluttering from the top. On this day meant for merriment, the monument to the Civil War dead, a statue of a Union soldier with a plaque beneath that listed the local men who had died between 1861 and 1865, was largely ignored, but the playground, furnished with a jungle gym, slide, small merry-go-round, and swings, was crowded with masked youngsters.

  Paved walking paths crisscrossed the entire area. Unless she was in a hurry, it took Liss several minutes to walk from the Emporium to the municipal building. Today she didn’t intend to go farther afield than this porch. She was content to watch the spectacle from a distance. To be honest, she felt a deep sense of relief that she was not responsible for making sure everything ran smoothly.

  From her vantage point, she spotted other shopkeepers doing the same thing she was. The Emporium was one of a number of businesses that surrounded the town square. It stood in the middle on Pine Street with Stu’s Ski Shop on one side and Carrabassett County Wood Crafts on the other. Stu was sitting on his front steps, keeping an eye on the proceedings.

  The post office, with the Clip and Curl in the back half of the structure, was located at the corner of Pine and Ash. After she waved to the postmaster, Liss’s gaze moved north along Ash Street, lingering for a moment on a jewelry store that specialized in pieces made with Maine gemstones, especially tourmaline and garnet, before continuing on to the local history museum that occupied the corner of Ash and Main Street. Once upon a time, it had been a funeral home. The docent was standing in the doorway, shading her eyes against the sun.

  Main Street was directly across the square from Pine. Liss didn’t see anyone on the porch at Angie’s Books, but there were several people in front of the redbrick municipal building that housed the town office, the police station, the garage for the fire truck, and the library. In an upstairs window, she could just make out Dolores Mayfield’s silhouette as the librarian looked down on the scene from her domain.

  Patsy’s Coffee House completed the trio of buildings on Main Street. At the corner, Birch Street began, running along the east side of the town square. There were two private homes on Birch, the Farleys’ on the corner and Liss and Dan’s house in the middle of the block, but even they were commercial to some extent. John Farley offered accounting and tax services from the comfort of his living room and Dan’s woodworking shop was situated behind their home in what had once been a carriage house.

  The building at the corner of Birch and Pine housed Zara and Sandy’s dance studio on the first floor and their apartment above. There were apartments above most of the businesses. Stu lived over his shop, and so did the couple who owned the jewelry store. Liss’s aunt, who had owned Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium before Liss bought it from her, still occupied the rooms above the store, while the apartments above Carrabassett County Wood Crafts and the post office were rental units.

  As if thinking about her had been a cue for her to enter the scene, Margaret Boyd emerged from between the buildings. She’d used the external stairs instead of the ones that came out behind Liss’s sales counter. Spotting her niece, she called out a greeting but kept going, crossing the street to enter the square.

  Liss saw many other familiar faces among the people milling about, but Zara’s red hair made her stand out. She had her two carrot-topped children with her. They were dressed as characters from the Harry Potter books. So were several other children who lived in the immediate area.

  Early on, Liss’s mother had divided the town into districts, recruiting group leaders from among the moms living in each. Then she’d assigned a theme to each group. The half-dozen kids and
one adult closest to Liss’s side of the square carried a sign that read MAPLE STREET ZOO. She recognized a lion, a tiger, and a monkey, but the other animals were not so easy to identify.

  The outlying villages of Lower Mooseside, Little Moose, and Ripley were represented as well. The “Ripley Superheroes” took up a position next to the zoo creatures. Superman, Batman, Ironman, and the Hulk were warmly dressed in costumes that covered their arms and legs, but Wonder Woman’s outfit was considerably more skimpy. A girl of no more than ten had to wrap herself in her cape—fortunately a long one—in an effort to keep warm. Even from a distance, Liss could see the goosebumps on her bare legs. What on earth had her parents been thinking? A pair of flesh-colored tights wouldn’t have made that much difference in the way the costume looked.

  Her gaze left the superheroes to pass over other clusters of colorfully costumed children. It wasn’t until a pocket of darkness caught her eye that she paused and stared. For a moment she assumed she was looking at Goths, or perhaps children dressed as vampires, but she knew that couldn’t be right. Although she had listened with only half an ear when her mother was sharing her plans, she remembered that Vi had said, multiple times, that she was assigning only upbeat themes to the participating groups. This Halloween there would be no motorcycle gangs, no characters from horror movies, and no fangs dripping blood.

  By narrowing her eyes, Liss was able to make out more. One of the black-clad figures held a sign of the same size and shape as the other groups but she was too far away to make out what it said. What she could see was that the people in this dreary little cluster weren’t children at all. She was looking at a delegation of men from the New Age Pilgrims. Their somber black suits were a blight on the otherwise cheerful gathering.

  When Vi began to shepherd everyone into neat lines, Liss lost sight of Hadley Spinner and his followers. She put them out of her mind as well. For the next quarter of an hour, she gave herself over to her enjoyment of the Halloween parade.

  Interspersed between groups of costumed children were several floats, the local high school band and color guard, a drum and bugle corps, and Liss’s father with his bagpipes. Once they formed up, they set off from the corner of Birch and Pine, passed the Emporium, and continued around the perimeter of the square until they were headed east on Main Street. Their route would take them to High Street, which ran south and eventually connected with the far end of Pine, which would bring them back to the town square. They’d then be released to go trick-or-treating. Later, everyone would gather at the gazebo-style bandstand where the winners of the best-costume awards would be announced.

  When the music had faded into the distance, Liss left the porch for the welcome warmth of the Emporium. She stripped off her outer garments as she crossed to the counter, rubbing her icy hands together to restore circulation. Mittens would have been better than gloves for keeping out the cold.

  Liss didn’t expect to have many customers during the celebrations. Foot traffic was slow most days and she relied on online and mail-order sales to stay in the black. If her aunt hadn’t owned the building, the overhead would probably have forced her to close the brick-and-mortar store altogether, but Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium had been founded in this location in 1955 by her grandfather and it went against the grain to shut it down. Besides, she did have bursts of walk-in business, especially in November, when most people did their Christmas shopping.

  Promotional efforts the town had undertaken a few years earlier had resulted in an uptick in business. There were now several “shoppers’ specials” bus tours that came to Moosetookalook on a regular basis. In addition to the Emporium, which featured Scottish imports and Scottish-themed gift items, and the other specialty shops around the town square, several more stores of interest to tourists were within easy walking distance.

  Liss had just deposited her coat in the stockroom and was making herself a fresh mug of coffee when the bell over the front door jangled and Sherri Campbell called out a greeting.

  “I’ll be right out,” Liss called back. “Do you want coffee?”

  “Any more coffee and I’ll float away,” Sherri said from the doorway.

  Liss turned, unsurprised to see that her friend was in uniform, her long blond hair neatly pulled back in a single braid. As Moosetookalook’s chief of police, Sherri was always on call, even when she was off-duty and despite the fact that she was also a mother with three children, two of them still quite young. The smile that had started to form on Liss’s lips dissolved the moment she caught sight of Sherri’s expression.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Have you seen these flyers?” Sherri held out a folded sheet of plain multipurpose white paper.

  Before she accepted the offering, Liss took a fortifying slurp of her coffee. Then she abandoned her mug on the worktable, grabbed hold of the flyer, and unfolded it. The bold black words leapt out at her:

  JOIN WITH US TO DEFEND FAMILY VALUES

  THE ONLY LAWFUL CONNECTION IS THE

  MARRIAGE BED

  Show Your Support

  Saturday, November 4

  10 AM

  Moosetookalook Town Square

  Boycott All Businesses With Ties To The Spruces

  “I don’t believe this,” Liss muttered.

  In a line across the bottom of the page was a list of the three businesses that were specific targets of the protest. Ruskin Construction, the family enterprise run by Sam Ruskin, came first, then Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium, and finally Dan’s jigsaw-puzzle-table-making operation. One more line, in even smaller print, consisted of phone numbers. When Liss recognized the one for Ruskin Construction she stopped reading. From the look of this, she was going to have to start letting the answering machine screen all calls to the Emporium.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked.

  “The New Age Pilgrims were passing them out. They also applied for, and were granted, a permit to hold a rally in the town square.”

  “Can’t you ungrant it?”

  “It’s not up to me. By the time I heard about it, it was a done deal.” Sherri held both hands up, palms out. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “What idiot thought it was a good idea to let them protest against legitimate businesses?”

  “That would be my mother-in-law, the selectwoman. I don’t suppose Hadley Spinner’s rhetoric goes over any better with Thea than it does with us, but she had no grounds to deny their request.”

  Thea Campbell had been on Moosetookalook’s board of selectpersons for years and had a hand in everything that went on in the four villages that made up the town.

  “As citizens of our little community,” Sherri went on, “they have the right to express themselves, even if the ideas they advocate are offensive to you and me. Sad to say, some people will probably support them. This area isn’t exactly a hotbed of liberal ideas.”

  Much as Liss disliked the idea of a demonstration right in front of her shop, especially one targeting her business, she couldn’t argue with the group’s right to free speech. She was considering the possibility of mounting a counterdemonstration when yet another appalling thought occurred to her.

  “Oh, no! Sherri, we can’t have people picketing in Moosetookalook this coming weekend. We have a busful of shoppers scheduled. These are people ready and willing to spend money on unique Christmas gifts. They aren’t going to appreciate it if they have to cross a picket line.”

  “They won’t need to cross anything. The demonstration is confined to the square. I’ll put extra men on and we’ll make sure everyone obeys the law. And I do mean everyone.”

  But Liss was shaking her head. “It will still be disruptive.”

  “I think that’s the idea.” Sherri’s tone was as dry as a pile of dead leaves.

  “The other merchants are going to be fit to be tied.”

  “I’m sorry, Liss, but they’ll just have to lump it. Spinner’s done everything by the book.”

  “Maybe I can reason
with him. Get him to change his mind.”

  Sherri’s eyebrows shot up. “Have you met this guy?”

  Liss pictured Spinner as she had seen him harassing Joe at the hotel. “We haven’t been formally introduced.”

  “Consider yourself lucky. My advice is to ignore the New Age Pilgrims. They’ll make a nuisance of themselves for a bit, realize they aren’t convincing very many local people to agree with them, and go away.”

  “I don’t know, Sherri. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Liss had always prided herself on being open-minded about other people’s beliefs, respecting them even when they differed from her own, but for that very reason she objected to any one group trying to force an opinion down her throat. What Joe had said about Spinner’s complaints was borne out by the flyer she held crumpled in her fist. Spinner saw the hotel’s promotion as an attack on family values because his own definition of family was so narrow.

  “How much do you know about the New Age Pilgrims?” she asked.

  “Not a lot.” Sherri toyed with a roll of packing tape. “There are a dozen or so individuals living on Spinner’s farm. Except for occasionally annoying people they disagree with, they keep to themselves and stay out of trouble. And before you ask, being obnoxious isn’t a crime.”

  “Does Spinner have a wife? Kids? Are the other people who live in that community married couples?”

  “Huh,” Sherri said. “I hadn’t thought about it. If there are any children living on the property, they’re being home-schooled. As for marital status, what difference does it make?”

  “Quite a bit, given Spinner’s objection to unmarried and same-sex couples taking advantage of Joe’s promotion. That’s why he’s claiming the hotel is opposed to family values and should be boycotted.”

  “Well, that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Anyone with any sense can see he has no basis for such a claim.”