Death Notice

That was news to Troy, who shot Amber a disappointed look. She apparently forgot to tell him about Kat’s strict no-boys-allowed policy.

“Whatever,” he said. “I’ve got to hit the gym anyway.”

“See ya, Troy.” Kat patted him on the back as he stomped down the porch steps. “Hit it hard.”

She remembered Lou’s earlier comment about Amber as she watched Troy cross the yard to his vintage green Mustang. Yes, she knew what she was getting herself into.

The babysitter came from one of the most respected families in town. Reverend Lefferts was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. His wife volunteered with every organization in town, despite having to raise seven children, all of them blond, pale-skinned, and squeaky-clean. They were Perry Hollow’s own von Trapp family, only without the lederhosen.

Except for Amber.

Barely fifteen, the youngest of the Lefferts children was by far the wildest. She smoked behind the high school, stayed out after curfew, and altered her clothing to reveal as much as she could get away with. In spite of the winter weather, that afternoon she sported a pink T-shirt, white Keds, and a denim skirt so short it might as well have been a belt. Despite being a natural blonde, she had put streaks in her hair that were practically white. Combined with her porcelain-doll skin tone, it almost made her look like an albino.

No one had high hopes for Amber, including Kat, but she was an angel with James. Unlike other sitters, Amber talked to James and not at him. Since she showed no signs of being uncomfortable around him, James responded in kind. Amber was the only babysitter he looked forward to spending time with. For that reason, she was always the first person Kat called.

When he got out of the car, James bolted onto the porch and gave Amber a hug.

“Do you wanna play Wii with me?” he asked. “I got a new dog game.”

“Sure,” Amber said, shaking off the sting of Troy’s abrupt departure. “We’ll do whatever you want.”

Kat opened her wallet and took out a twenty.

“This is for pizza. I have no idea what time I’ll be home. If it’s past ten, I’ll pay you overtime.”

Amber accepted the money with a shrug and tucked it into a fake Gucci purse slung over her shoulder. “It’s cool.”

Before leaving, Kat pulled James aside. Although she knew what his answer would be, she asked, “Are you going to behave for Amber?”

“Yes, Mom,” he said, his voice tinged with the sarcasm he was just beginning to learn. For that, Kat blamed Jeremy.

“Now, on the hug scale, how much do you love me?”

When James wrapped his arms around her and squeezed, Kat felt overwhelmed with love. Moments like that made all the hard work it took to raise him worthwhile. Moments like that made Kat realize she would do anything for her son.

“Go have fun with Amber,” she said, reluctant to let him go. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

James smiled and waved before running inside the house. Kat trudged back to the car, dreading the long evening ahead and wanting only to stay home with her son.

Ten years ago, while still a rookie officer with everything to prove, Kat never thought she would one day feel this way. At the time, she considered her pregnancy to be an unwanted burden.

So did the father.

His name was Jackson Moore—Jack, for short—formerly the other half of Perry Hollow’s two-person police force. Back then, he and Kat considered themselves a couple, although not a serious one. Kat’s focus was on her career, and she knew that when the time came to settle down, it wouldn’t be with someone as undependable as Jack. Despite a killer smile, a quick wit, and being an animal in bed, he wasn’t husband or father material.

Then Kat got pregnant, forcing both of them to make major decisions. The first was whether to keep the baby, a question Kat wrestled with more than she cared to admit. When she told Jack she’d decided to have his child, he did the honorable thing and proposed. Kat said yes, not because she wanted to be his wife but because she felt it was the right thing to do.

The wedding ceremony lasted ten minutes and was followed by beer, chips, and a cake Lou had baked the night before. Their honeymoon trip consisted of moving Kat’s belongings from her mother’s house to Jack’s apartment. They pretended to be happy while waiting out the remainder of her pregnancy. But the fact Kat kept her maiden name should have been a signal to everyone that she assumed it wouldn’t last.

When James was born with Down’s Syndrome, Kat vowed to love and protect her son for the rest of her life. Jack assured her he was also up to the challenge of raising a child with special needs, and Kat wanted to believe him. But deep down, she couldn’t. She expected the marriage to last at least a year. She got ten months.

Kat felt no anger when Jack filed for divorce, quit the force, and moved to Montana. Nor did she harbor any bitterness toward him after he abandoned all contact by the time James turned three. Jack was weak, and she forgave him for that. Besides, she knew her love for James would get them through whatever difficulties they faced.

That love, so strong it sometimes frightened her, prompted her to pursue the job of police chief when James was seven. As a mother, it was her duty to protect her child. And like her father before her, Kat thought protecting the entire town was the best way to go about it. If Perry Hollow remained safe, then so did James.

Other than a few adult variations of the Amber Lefferts model, Perry Hollow was a cinch to monitor. It was small, sleepy, dull.

Until today.

Driving up Main Street, Kat wondered how the town would handle something as disturbing as George Winnick’s death. It left her rattled and uncertain. She assumed the town felt the same way.

Tucked among the mountains of southeastern Pennsylvania, the town bore the name of Mr. Irwin R. Perry, who had deemed the area a worthy enough place to build a lumber mill. Fueled by abundant forests of pine, the mill prospered and the town grew. Perry Hollow was never large; nor was it ever rich. But it was comfortable, which was good enough for the folks who lived there.

The whole town had revolved around Perry Mill, which stood at the far end of Lake Squall. Homes were built to house the mill’s workers, who frequented stores that kept track of every mill payday. Even Kat was a product of the mill—her grandparents met while working there.

The first blow came in the sixties, when demand for lumber faltered. It only got worse in the ensuing decades. When the mill closed in 1990, Perry Hollow shuttered itself along with it. Residents left in droves, and a drive through town was a depressing tour of vacant storefronts and crumbling homes.

In 2000, when a restaurateur from New York City chose Perry Hollow as the location for a fancy French bistro, no one thought it would last very long. The food was so expensive that no one in town could actually afford to eat there. But out-of-towners could, and the restaurant thrived. “Destination dining” it was called, and it worked. For the first time in years, people actually stopped in Perry Hollow instead of cutting through it on their way to the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Other businesses eventually followed. A gourmet bakery opened next to a bed-and-breakfast. An art gallery specializing in modern painting moved in, along with several upscale dress shops. Longtime residents such as Kat suddenly and surreally found themselves living in an arts community.

No one who lived there could have predicted that the town would experience such a rebirth. But whether one liked it or not—and Kat did—it looked like Perry Hollow was there to stay.

While she drove up Main Street, Kat scanned the thoroughfare. There was Big Joe’s, doing steady business both day and night. Beyond it sat Awesome Blossoms, where Jasper Fox probably still waited in vain for his missing delivery van, Gunzelman Antiques, and Wellington’s, the dress shop. The other side of the street boasted a bakery called Neverland Cakes and a store specializing in designer handbags.

Each storefront was decked out oh-so-tastefully for the upcoming Spring Fling, one of Perry Hollow’s numerous festivals designed to bring in day-trippers from Philadelphia and New Jersey. The festivals worked. Last year’s Spring Fling, with its flower sales and Ferris wheel, had drawn thousands of visitors. Attendance for that was surpassed only by July’s Independence Day street fair, which advertised food, fun, and fireworks, and October’s Halloween Festival, which lured tourists with the promise of fall foliage and hot apple cider.

How much of a draw the events would be now that Perry Hollow was the location of a brutal murder remained to be seen. As Kat drove, every pedestrian on Main Street glanced at the Crown Vic. When she looked into their eyes, Kat saw fear reflected back at her. Every man, woman, and child in town had by now heard about the murder. Kat was certain those staring bystanders on Main Street wondered where she was heading—all the while hoping it would be to catch a killer.

Only one person didn’t pause when Kat passed. Dressed in a shirt and tie, he sprinted off the sidewalk and into the street in front of her so fast she had to slam on her brakes to avoid hitting him. The man hurried to the car and gestured for Kat to roll down her window.

“Afternoon, Martin,” she said.

Like Kat herself, Martin Swan was one of those people who never got around to getting out of town. To his credit, Martin made it farther than Kat had, getting all the way to Temple University. Then his mother died, forcing him to come back home with only three years of journalism school under his belt. It was enough for the Gazette, which hired him as a reporter, and it seemed to be enough for Martin himself.

“You got a minute, Chief?” he asked. “I wanted to ask you a few questions about George Winnick.”

“The investigation is still ongoing,” Kat said. “So I don’t have much information to give. When I have something, I’ll tell you.”

Her statement—or lack of one—didn’t deter the reporter. Whipping a pen and small notebook out of his shirt pocket, he asked, “Was George murdered?”

The answer was yes. George didn’t sew his own mouth shut before he died. Nor did he deposit his corpse on the side of the road. Yet she wasn’t going to tell Martin that until there was an official cause of death.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “We’ll have a better picture after the autopsy is conducted.”

“Is it true he was found in a homemade coffin?”

Unfortunately, Kat couldn’t lie about that. A truck driver saw it. So did several dozen cops.