Elected for Death Read online

  “But they didn’t protect the Fromer estate,” Susan reminded him.

  “Exactly. And in my opinion, that was a good reason to establish a Landmark Commission to set standards—so that Hancock doesn’t lose another Fromer estate. Not,” he added, “that I knew anything about any of this until I decided to run for town council. But the original intention seems to have been excellent.”

  “But you’re against giving the Landmark Commission power now,” Kathleen stated.

  “No, I’m against this particular Landmark Commission claiming the power that they seem to think they should have.”

  “You are going to explain that, aren’t you?” Kathleen asked. “I know you’ve been doing that all afternoon, but—”

  “I don’t mind. Especially not to a friendly audience.” He glanced at his watch.

  “You’re sure you have time?” Susan asked anxiously. She was sure that Jed was not getting enough sleep these days. And to think that he would start the week exhausted …

  “I’ll be fine,” her husband insisted. “And my best friends should surely understand my position—or, to be more precise, the position of Anthony Martel and all of us running on his ticket.

  “You see, there are three groups of people running Hancock. There are the citizens who are elected to the town council, there are the professionals who actually run things—like the police and firemen and the office staff down at the town hall—and then there are the people appointed to various boards and commissions. There’s the Parks and Recreation Department, the Board of Health, the Inland Wetlands Commission, the Planning Board, the Zoning Board, the Conservation and Ecological Commission, and there are others as well.”

  “Sounds like it’s a surprise that none of us has been on one,” Susan quipped. A glance at the serious expression on Jed’s face shut her up.

  “Each board or commission has a different number of members and they all serve for different periods of time—these things were determined at the time the group was created,” Jed continued. “The Landmark Commission is the newest commission and one of the smallest. There are only five members and a chairman. Or a chairperson, to be more exact.”

  “That’s right,” Kathleen said. “Penelope Thomas is chairperson, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t like her?” Susan asked Kathleen. She noticed that Jed was looking as though he was interested in Kathleen’s answer.

  “I don’t know her all that well, but she belongs to the garden club and comes to some meetings of the HEC. She’s very opinionated and very persuasive. I know we would never have agreed to participate in the Fall Festival if she hadn’t convinced us to.”

  “By ‘we’ you mean the Hancock Ecological Committee, don’t you?” Susan asked, seeing that Jed was mystified by this detour in the conversation.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s all this about the Fall Festival?” Jed asked. “I got the impression that it was a big success this year.”

  “That’s because you were up on the dais speaking. The HEC was manning a booth in the back corner of the third tent from the entrance. You might have seen us and our display if you needed to use the Porta Pottis.”

  “But that wouldn’t have been the fault of Penelope Thomas. The Fall Festival Committee must have put you there,” her husband protested.

  “They did. They put us there because we signed up late. And we signed up late because we let Penelope Thomas talk us into changing our minds about participating in the festival. She’s the type of person who makes other people do things.”

  “HEC usually doesn’t have a booth?” Susan asked.

  “No. We do so much in the spring and summer and then we have our annual holiday wreath and tree sale. There really isn’t much reason to get everyone together and plan something for the Fall Festival. Besides, our volunteers are so busy mulching and putting the gardens that we’re responsible for in the parks to bed. And with the annual bulb planting—”

  “We get the idea,” Kathleen’s husband stopped her.

  “But why did the group let Penelope talk them into participating in the Fall Festival?” Susan asked.

  “After all, you said she was persuasive, but it’s not as though you all don’t have perfectly good minds of your own,” Jerry suggested.

  “You don’t know Penelope Thomas,” Jed answered for Kathleen. “The woman could talk anyone into anything. She’s a verbal bulldozer.”

  “Absolutely,” Kathleen agreed, nodding vigorously.

  “And that’s why the Landmark Commission, the way it is now, is dangerous to Hancock,” Jed added.

  “You think that’s an explanation?” Jerry asked.

  “No, it’s just that when I start explaining, it all sounds so petty.”

  “We know you,” Susan said gently. “We know you’re not petty. We know that you … have the best interests of Hancock at heart.” She had better watch herself: she had almost said that he thought he had the best interests of Hancock at heart.

  “Well then. As I was saying, the Landmark Commission was created to protect the houses and sites in town that have historical significance.”

  “ ‘Sites’?” Kathleen repeated.

  “Well, there’s the chapel at the hospital—it was an original ward and was actually used during the Civil War. And the old library—the building that is now being used as the headquarters of the historical society—it was the first Carnegie library in the state. Then there’s the mill. That mill was there in the Revolutionary War and may have actually been used to hide local militiamen from the British.”

  “But the mill is part of a condo project down by the river. And everything else you’re talking about has already been changed from its original form,” Kathleen protested. “What is there to preserve? Or is the Landmark Commission demanding that these things be returned to their historical state? And what about 1939? If one other person had mentioned 1939 to me this afternoon, I think I would have screamed.”

  “Two separate issues,” Jed insisted cryptically. “The Landmark Commission exists because there was—and is—a perceived need to protect historical buildings. The group that now makes up the commission, however, decided to broaden their scope. Hancock was founded in 1725, but the official incorporation and acceptance of the boundaries as they are now happened in 1939. So the Landmark Commission decided that every building built before 1939 needed to be protected from ‘unwarranted remodeling, reconstruction, and development.’ Those are their words, not mine.”

  “And the group that decides what is or is not unwarranted is the Landmark Commission,” Susan added.

  “Wow. That sure gives them a lot of power,” Jerry said.

  “It’s absurd,” Susan said. “Why should things be preserved that aren’t even a hundred years old? And why should the decisions to preserve them be left up to five people who aren’t professional preservationists? Why—?”

  “Why, in fact, would anyone want that power?” Jed interrupted his wife to ask gently. “That, I think, is the question.”

  “Yes. Why?” Jerry repeated the question.

  “Money?” Susan suggested.

  “Where is there money to be made in not doing something?” Jed asked.

  “Then it doesn’t make sense,” Susan said.

  “It doesn’t to me. And it doesn’t make sense to Anth—Tony Martel, and that’s one of the reasons that I’m glad to be running on his ticket. The members of the Landmark Commission are only appointed to one-year terms. The next mayor and town council will be appointing new people and those people will be overseeing the adoption of the commission’s final rulings on this matter. If we’re elected, we’ll have enough votes on the council to make sure that the Landmark Commission doesn’t exceed its original mandate.”

  “But if Bradley Chadwick is elected—” Susan began.

  “If Chadwick is elected, you’ll be glad our house was built in the forties,” her husband said. “And that a group of people you hardly kno
w don’t have a say over what you do with your own home.”

  “And what about Ivan Deakin?” Jerry asked. “He’s running as a third-party candidate. According to the information he’s been flooding our mailbox with for the last few weeks, he is convinced that both Martel and Chadwick are wrong about this issue. He apparently has some sort of idea about the Landmark Commission that is going to make everyone in town sit up and notice.”

  “And vote for him,” Kathleen added.

  “But he isn’t even saying what it is,” Susan explained. “All his literature says is that he will make an announcement at the Hancock Women’s Club on Tuesday night. Who is going to show up for something like that?”

  “Probably half the town,” Jed answered, a rueful expression on his face.

  FOUR

  The next twenty-four hours were typical of Susan’s life these days. By the time her son had dashed out the door, as perpetually late during his last year of high school as he had been during his first month of kindergarten, and she had poured herself a cup of coffee, the phone had begun to ring. Four phone calls later she had finished the pot (six cups), filled the dishwasher, wiped down all the counters, glanced through the local paper, The New York Times, and last week’s New Yorker, and was thinking about the pile of laundry waiting for her in the basement. The phone rang again and she quickly reached out and punched a button on the answering machine. True, she didn’t have to really listen to the callers these days, but it did get boring alternating “uh-huh” with “I’m sure Jed will be interested to hear what you think”—and anything else was risky. Arguing didn’t win votes.

  But she had to get some laundry done. The jeans Chad was wearing this morning were his favorites—full of holes. And she was going to be looking worse than her son if she didn’t get a load or two into the washer. Also, there was dry cleaning to pick up … grocery shopping … Clue was almost out of food.… She had an appointment to get her hair trimmed at noon.… And everything would take twice as long as usual since, these days, she did many of her errands in a town almost fifteen miles away.

  Okay, it was the coward’s way out, she admitted it. Not to everyone, mind you, but she had spoken about it to Clue more than once. And being a golden retriever, Clue’s sweet face was fixed permanently in an expression of love and understanding. Although Susan knew perfectly well that the dog’s only real interest was food. She looked down at the animal, napping near the cupboard that contained her dog biscuits, and decided the laundry could wait.

  “Want to go for a ride, Clue?”

  “Ride” was the animal’s fourth favorite word (after dinner, cookie, and walk) so Susan was sure of the response she’d get. Clue leaped up, pranced around, and generally made a nuisance of herself until Susan had confined her in the back of the Cherokee. Then the dog turned around a few times, lay down, and returned to her nap. Susan shrugged and backed out of the driveway. Four blocks from her house she stopped at a light and was signaled by a neighbor with strong views on the Landmark Commission. Susan feigned deafness and pressed on the accelerator rather harder than usual. The Jeep screeched off.

  Susan’s errands took even longer than she had expected and she was late arriving at the beauty parlor. “I’m really sorry,” she began to say to the owner.

  “Not to worry. We’re backed up today. Everyone seems to be late. Go on back to Nadine’s room. It’ll be just a moment.”

  Susan grabbed last month’s Vogue off the coffee table and headed down the narrow hallway to the familiar place where she got her hair done. Not actually a room, it was a booth with walls that didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling. She sat down, glanced in the mirror, and once again considered the question of whether to cover the gray. A barely adolescent model stared off the cover of the magazine in her lap, an expression of unconcealed scorn on her face. Susan was fairly sure she knew what this particular young woman would have told her; she opened the magazine.

  By the time Nadine arrived, she had decided to buy a new dress for the election-night party—a new dress in a color that would contrast nicely with her freshly dyed hair. “What do you think about a shade of red?” she asked Nadine after greeting her.

  “Maybe a dark reddish …” Nadine considered the question that the two of them had been discussing for the past couple of years as though it was new to her. “It would look nice. And you’d look special for the election. Not as splashy as that Mrs. Chadwick.”

  “You cut Cassandra Chadwick’s hair?” Susan didn’t admire the Chadwicks’ politics, but she sure did envy Cassandra’s good looks. Tall, thin, blond, with a classic profile and flawless skin … Susan always felt frumpy standing beside her.

  Nadine gave a ladylike snort. “You think she would trust someone who doesn’t have a place on Madison Avenue? She gets her hair done in the city. We’re only good enough to trim the girls’ hair until they hit puberty. We’re still allowed to cut Brittany’s hair.”

  “She’s the youngest?”

  “Yup. Blake’s the oldest, then comes Brooke, and then Brittany. Their son, Bradley Junior, is actually the oldest, of course.”

  “And they all have their mother’s beautiful hair, don’t they?” Susan could compete here; both Chad and Chrissy were exceptionally good-looking. The Chadwick youngsters may have inherited great hair, but their profiles were about as far from classic as it was possible to get and two of the girls had ears that stuck out.

  “Yeah. They don’t get their parents’ faces until they’re sixteen.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “They don’t get their parents’ faces until they’re sixteen.”

  “As they mature?”

  “As they get old enough for their father to operate on them. You know, nose jobs, chin tucks. I don’t suppose he would perform breast implants on them, but—”

  “You’re talking about plastic surgery,” Susan said, finally catching on.

  “You didn’t know that Bradley Chadwick was a plastic surgeon?”

  “I knew he was a doctor.… But surely he wouldn’t operate on his own children!”

  “Why not? He operated on his wife, didn’t he?” Nadine always had the last word. Susan’s head was tipped back into a deep sink and she felt a rush of warm water on her brow. Nadine chattered on, but she had already given Susan a lot to think about.

  One of life’s small mysteries had been solved for her: she had always wondered how two such attractive people had created four homely children. She had even speculated on the possibility of adoption. Now that she knew the answer, her speculating took a personal turn. Just what would plastic surgery do for her? After all, if she was going to have her hair dyed …

  “So what color have you decided on?” Nadine asked, flipping off the water and deftly swaddling her hair in a large pink towel.

  “Well, maybe not this time,” Susan began, squinting into the mirror. “You can’t see the gray all that well yet.”

  “Okeydokey.” Nadine flipped the towel off and began to comb out Susan’s medium-brown hair. There was a knowing smile on her face.

  “Why don’t we cut off an inch—or two,” Susan suggested courageously.

  “Well, it didn’t help Hillary Clinton, but we can give it a shot.”

  The next hour was spent creating a “new look.” By the time she left the salon, Susan was relaxed and convinced that her new bob was modern and attractive. Glancing in the window of the bakery next door to the beauty parlor, she decided she looked at least five years younger.

  Despite the transformation, Clue recognized her when she returned to the Jeep. As did three women walking down the street.

  “Susan Henshaw, just the person I was hoping to see. I’ve been leaving messages on your answering machine, but it must not be working or something,” one of the three called out so loudly that Susan couldn’t possibly pretend not to hear.

  “Chad sometimes doesn’t give us the messages,” Susan said. It was true, but not in this case. She felt guilty about casting aspersions
on her son’s sense of responsibility, but these days it was anything to get votes. Besides, she paid for it. The next hour was spent listening to the women with an interested expression on her face. If Clue hadn’t started barking at a chocolate Lab walking down the street and given Susan an excuse to leave, she might have been on that street corner until election day.

  “And no one even noticed my new hairdo,” Susan commented, glancing at Clue in the rearview mirror. Clue turned around a few times and resumed her nap. Susan pressed on the accelerator. She was driving to the Martels’ house to help address envelopes for the last preelection mailing. Someone had decided that the personal touch was needed and that this particular mailing shouldn’t be handled by computer. Besides, Susan thought, a handwritten address made it a little more likely that the envelope would actually be opened. She dropped Clue off at home and sped to her destination.

  Susan pulled into the Martels’ driveway and wondered where everyone else was. Her watch indicated she was only an hour late. Maybe they were already finished. The thought disappointed her. Not that she had wanted to spend the afternoon doing drudge work, but she had hoped to get to know Theresa a bit better—as well as get a peek at the Martel home. Well, maybe she would be offered a cup of tea or something, she thought, knocking on the door of the huge home. From a distance the house had a certain elegance, white pillars holding up the large front porch. Many-paned double-hung windows lined the porch and three bay windows jutted out from the second floor. Close up, it became apparent that the windows needed washing and the paint was peeling. The ornate wooden railing around the porch hid piles of papers and plastic garbage bags; from the dust on them, it was clear that they had been sitting there for quite a while.

  The door opened and Theresa Martel appeared. She looked, at two in the afternoon, like she was still hungover. Susan put a perky smile on her face. “Am I too late?”

  Theresa crinkled her lips into an imitation smile. “I gather you think we’re finished for the day? That a horde of enthusiastic supporters has come, written their little hearts out, and gone home to continue to spread the word to vote for Anthony Martel and his ticket?”