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“Right,” said Lucy, sitting at her desk and powering up her computer. She was scrolling through a long list of emails when the bell jangled once again and Randy Lewis entered. He was a bit out of breath, Lucy noticed, thinking perhaps it was because he was a bit overdressed for the weather in a puffy down parka and was lugging a bulky Staples bag.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said, unzipping and looking from Lucy to Phyllis. “I’ve got a press release for you.”
“Great, give it here,” said Phyllis, stepping up to the reception counter. He withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his parka’s inside pocket and handed it to Phyllis, who looked it over. “Closest to the pin, eh? Lucy, maybe you want to do a little feature. It’s a fundraiser for the library.”
“Sure,” said Lucy, who was always happy to promote the Broadbrooks Free Library. Her dear friend, Miss Julia Ward Howe Tilley, who was Miss Tilley to everyone but her closest and oldest friends, had once reigned supreme as the head and only librarian, but was now retired. She had befriended Lucy, who’d visited the library regularly as a young mother with a lively brood in tow, and the relationship had endured despite a huge difference in age. Miss Tilley was now the town’s oldest resident and had recently confided in Lucy, “Like my namesake, I ‘begin to have fears that I may not be, after all, the greatest woman alive.’ ” Lucy had, of course, reassured her that her fears on that score were entirely unfounded, but Miss Tilley’s increasing age weighed on Lucy. For how much longer would she have Miss T’s advice and encouragement?
For Lucy, the library was Miss T’s legacy to the town and was therefore something she wanted to support and strengthen. “Sit on down and tell me all about it,” she invited Randy, indicating the chair she kept for visitors. “Can I take your jacket?” asked Lucy, noticing his face was red and a bit sweaty.
“Thanks,” he said, sounding grateful as he dropped the bag with a thunk and shrugged out of the bulky parka. “My wife thought it was going to be much colder today than it turned out to be.”
Lucy added his parka to the jackets on the coat stand, then joined him at her desk. “Closest to the pin? I’m not familiar with that.”
“Never done it but we’ve heard they can be very successful. I’m on the board of directors at the library, you know, and we asked the town golf course if they’d let us do it on opening day, which is this coming weekend.”
“So how does it work?”
“We’ll set up at the putting green. A ten-dollar donation to the library gives a golfer a chance to compete by getting his ball closest to the pin, or even better, a hole in one. The prize is a gift certificate for dinner at the Cali Kitchen.”
“Not bad. A ten-dollar night out for the lucky winner,” said Phyllis.
“Yeah. And the guys who’ve run them before say a lot of golfers tend to toss in an extra bill or two. I did a bit of research and the pro over at Gray Owl said they had one last year that raised over a thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of books,” said Lucy, who had been typing it all into her PC. “What if it rains?”
“We’ve got that covered, we have a rain date,” he said, naming it. “I’m in insurance, Lucy, I believe in risk assessment. No sense taking chances, especially this time of year. Spring is notoriously fickle in Maine.”
“So true,” said Lucy, hitting the period key and turning to him. “Speaking of risk, any progress on recovering that Klaus egg?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.” He paused. “As you know, I strongly urged the Chamber to insure the egg, but I got voted down. They all scoffed at the notion that anyone in Tinker’s Cove would steal it. Couldn’t imagine such a thing, but I guess now, with 20-20 hindsight, they think differently. It wasn’t expensive, the insurance I mean, and a relatively small investment could’ve saved the Chamber a lot of grief.”
“So true,” said Lucy, somewhat amused at Randy’s self-serving insistence that he was right when everybody else was wrong. She imagined it was a theme he was only too happy to expand upon with everyone he met. “Any idea who might’ve done the evil deed?”
“Could be anyone, really. Another thing that the Chamber didn’t take into account is the fact that crime rates are up. Not just here but nationwide. Old-fashioned values are disappearing, folks don’t seem to know right from wrong.”
“Are you sure about that?” asked Lucy. “I mean I’ve heard it on the news, about the nationwide increase, but I haven’t noticed a crime wave here in Tinker’s Cove.”
“What do you mean?” scoffed Randy. “Somebody took that egg. Stole it. That’s grand larceny, for your information.”
“If you ask me, my homeowner’s insurance rate is grand larceny,” offered Phyllis. “Not to mention the auto insurance.”
“Well, talk to your neighbors,” advised Randy, sounding a bit testy. “Rates only go up because there’s more claims. Like I said, more theft, more crashes, up go the rates.”
“And, of course, there’s climate change. Storms are worse.”
“I don’t know about that,” he snapped. “If you ask me, we’re seeing a moral decline, and we all have to foot the bill for a few bad apples.”
Lucy was beginning to feel uncomfortable and wanted to return the conversation to less controversial subjects. “Well, there’s a lot of good folks like you, working hard to support our town’s treasures, like the library.”
“It’s just part of being a good citizen,” he said, shrugging off the compliment.
“Well, I’ll do my best to get the preview a good spot in the paper. Thanks for stopping by.”
“No problem,” he said, getting to his feet and grabbing his parka off the stand and pulling it on. He picked up the bag and sighed loudly. “No rest for the wicked, I’m afraid. I’ve got to distribute these flyers, convince folks to let me put ’em up.”
“We’ll take one,” offered Phyllis. “I’ll tape it right to the front of the reception counter.”
“Okay,” he said, handing one over. He paused at the door, said “Good day,” and pushed it open, letting it jangle shut behind him.
