“So when did Alanza announce the trails through her property would be closed?”
“She tacked up some of them signs a couple of days after the election at the heads of the trails. An e-mail went out to everyone in the club within the week.”
“So she was swift in her justice.”
“That’s one way to put it. Women can really mess you up, you know?”
“So I’ve been told.” I decided I’d heard about all the things worth telling that Hanley might have in stock. It was time to take off before he invited me into the office a second time. “So you’ll find time soon to come up to Greener Pastures?”
“I’ll be there. Unless I decide to take advantage of Alanza’s unfortunate demise and take my ATV for a spin up to the camp instead of working.” Hanley patted his gut and flashed me a smile. I put him in the mental column of another one who was glad to see Alanza tucked neatly into a crisper drawer at the state morgue. I wondered if he and Jill were lying when they gave each other an alibi. And if Alanza had decided to close the snowmobile trails to keep Hanley from carrying on at his camp with Jill. I climbed into my car and drove off lost in thought. It made me wonder who else might have felt the same way and whether or not they would be as inclined to admit it.
• • •
Village Hardware’s display of fencing choices involved snippets of wire mesh, and an assortment of dusty pickets overlaid with old minutes of town meetings and flyers for long past bake sales and tractor shows. I wanted to pick up a couple of samples to take home to show Grampa, but I wasn’t convinced either would keep out a ravenous mountain lion. After seeing what happened at Connie’s, it seemed like we would be well served to get hold of a zoo designer. The mountain lion wasn’t likely to get any less hungry as the winter drew on.
Up at the counter, Piper’s latest squeeze, Dean Hayes, leaned his gangly frame near the register looking like he didn’t have a thing to do except wait for Piper to get off work. He looked up from a sudoku book he was filling in with a carpenter pencil when I approached, and he gave me a smile. I didn’t think he was right for Piper but he wasn’t a bad guy. Or maybe I was just a little envious of the way my friend picked up new men the way I pick up a cold.
“Hi there, Dani, that sure was some time over at Piper’s on Saturday, wasn’t it?”
“It was. Even without the kangaroo, it was turning into a night worth talking about. Your band sounded great. You guys must practice every available minute.” I felt a little embarrassed at how much I sounded like a small-town groupie.
“No, we usually practice on Friday nights, but we didn’t even get a chance to this week.”
“You could have fooled me. I would have been certain you’d been practicing all week. I know Piper was impressed.” If I was going to pull the groupie card, it might as well be the right groupie.
“Well, normally that would have been the case, but the percussion player, Byron, is off at his wife’s folks’ house, and then Roland called to let me know he couldn’t make it either so we decided to cancel. Not much sense holding the practice with only two of us there to do any practicing.” Dean tucked the pencil behind his ear along with a stray lock of dark curly hair. Piper always was a sucker for curls. The color never much mattered; it was just the wiggle of them that got to her.
“I thought Roland was totally committed to his music when he wasn’t working on the inn. I hope he wasn’t sick or something.”
“Well, the stress with Alanza was taking a toll on him, but he didn’t say he was sick, just that something had come up and he couldn’t make it.” But that wasn’t what he told Felicia. What could have been so important it made him miss his practice? Could he have been at the grange hall sticking something toxic into my syrup? “But you didn’t come in here to talk about Roland, so what can I do you for?” he asked, which is exactly why he isn’t good enough for Piper.
“I was hoping you could cut me off a couple of samples of fencing and give me an estimate of what it will cost to run it round the pasture and up near the barn.”
“That’s gonna cost you a whole lot of money. How come you’re feeling like such a big spender if your business is tanking?”
“Aren’t you in the business of selling stuff? Why do you care why I want it as long as the checks clear?”
“Okay, you don’t need to get huffy about it. I really just meant the job must be awful important to make such a big effort.” Dean rummaged around under the counter and brought up a few small squares of fencing.