Ellen Hart Presents Malice Domestic 15: Mystery Most Theatrical. Karen Cantwell
the continued pleas to participate in the fundraiser. Buck Wheeler was a big deal in the community, they said. A lifelong resident. A member of the Board of Supervisors. A former rock star. His name on the marquee would guarantee a sellout crowd.
Back at home, Buck pulled the old newspaper clipping about his band from the back of his sock drawer. A bittersweet rush of fond memories reminded him of the heady days of his youth, when anything seemed possible. And he said yes.
Now, on opening night, Buck peeked through the stage curtains at the sold-out crowd. The theater was in the basement level of the tavern, with the floor steeply pitched so the owners could cram in as many bodies as the fire marshal would allow. There were a lot of familiar faces in the audience. His wife Margie sat in the front row, along with his children Rollie and Kate, who looked bored as they scrolled through their cell phone feeds. Drew Hughes, who owned the local dry cleaner, and Chuckie Dreyfus, who had recently opened his second barbecue restaurant, sat midway back with their wives. Patty Lewiston, the reporter for the county paper, perched at the end of the second row, talking to those around her, no doubt gathering background for her upcoming review.
And then he spotted Alton Humphrey, trying to blend in with the crowd. Alton was an out-of-state developer who had been pressuring some of the locals to sell their land. He wanted to assemble enough acreage to build a mixed-use development of commercial buildings and high-density residential units.
Buck knew his constituents didn’t want that. There was already too much development in the county, sprawling subdivisions of endless streets and fancy cul-de-sacs. His people wanted wide open spaces, with horses grazing in pastures by the side of the road and geese flocking to scattered lakes. Long-term residents weren’t happy with the influx of commuters whose SUVs caused traffic jams on Foreman’s twisted two-lane roads and whose children overwhelmed the local schools.
Alton wanted to bring even more congestion to the county. He and Buck had already had several contentious meetings. Alton said the development would bring more jobs and lower-cost housing. Buck told him it would bring too many people, too much traffic, and too much crime. Buck was sure that most of the supervisors would never support Alton’s rezoning request.
The weak link in Buck’s crusade was Emmet Ralston, who sat beside Alton as they waited for the musical to start. Emmet had lived in Foreman only five years but had already made a name for himself in county circles, being voted to the Board of Supervisors at the last election. He lived in an enormous brick two-story Colonial in a large-lot subdivision and drove one of those gas-guzzling SUVs that clogged Foreman’s narrow roads during morning commutes.
Emmet wanted to bring more growth to the county. He didn’t care about horse farms or flocking geese. He thought Alton’s proposed development was a great idea, something that would bring in convenient shopping, more jobs, and a broader tax base. If some of the scenic parts of the county had to be sacrificed for wider roads and easier city commutes, well, that was the price of progress.
Sallie Minnows sat a few rows in front of the two men. Buck knew that Humphrey had been pressuring Sallie to sell her land. She was a lifelong resident of Foreman whose husband had been killed in a farming accident years ago. Sallie had raised two children all by herself, hiring seasonal workers to help her manage the hundred acres that had been in her husband’s family for generations, selling corn and tomatoes to local groceries and produce stands.
Buck had met with the feisty, freckled grandmother to encourage her not to sell. He told her that the supervisors would never support the rezoning, that he personally was spearheading the effort to keep the county rural. “I know this is what your husband would want,” he told her as they walked through towering rows of corn, “to keep this land intact for you to pass on to your children.”
“Not sure the children are interested,” she said, pulling her long white braid in front of her shoulder. “You know my daughter’s in California, doing some commercials, hoping to make it as an actress. And my son is in Florida, running a charter fishing boat business down in the Keys. I hardly see ‘em. They didn’t even come here last Christmas.”
“They’re young yet,” Buck told her. “Someday they’ll want to come back to their homeplace. And we’re going to help you save it for them.”
She scratched her sunburned nose. “It’s tough to make a living as a farmer. Remember that drought last year? About wiped out my tomato crop. Alton says if I sell, I’ll have plenty of money and time for fun. I could travel. Take one of those around-the-world cruises.” She sighed. “I’m getting too old to manage all this. I can still drive a tractor, but there’s lot of things I’m not so good at anymore.”
Buck shook his head. “Alton’s one of those guys who always thinks they know more about what our county wants than the people who have lived here for years. You know our folks don’t want change. Foreman is a magical place. We want to keep it that way.”
“Maybe.” She spotted a fat groundhog perched on his hind legs, stretching up to rip ears of corn from the sturdy stalks. Intent on his thievery, he didn’t notice Sallie until she was right beside him. She landed a well-placed kick that sent the animal flying high over the rippling corn tassels. “Get out of here, you devil,” she shouted. He landed with a soft thud in a distant furrow.
“Sallie, that was amazing. Never knew you could run that fast.” Buck laughed. “A kicker couldn’t have shot a football through the goalposts any slicker than that.” He peered through the crowded rows. “Guess he’s buzzard bait now.”
“Naw, I caught him wrong. Kicked him in the butt. Probably only knocked him out for a bit. You gotta kick ‘em in the head if you want to kill ‘em. I learned that the hard way when I got attacked a couple of years back by a rabid dog.”
“You killed a rabid dog? By kicking him?”
“Steel-toed boots,” she said, digging her heel into the soft earth, pointing her toe toward the sky. “A woman on her own has to protect herself, any way she can.”
She wore those same steel-toed boots for tonight’s musical, Buck noted. In fact, she wore them everywhere—out in the fields, through tick-infested woods, to the grocery store, to church. Buck had never seen her with any other type of footwear.
Buck sidled away from the stage curtain as the band members moved out front and began to tune their instruments. He lined up with the other singers for the opening number, nervously straightening his costume and tugging at the clump of dark brown hair stuck to his bald head. He felt ridiculous wearing a wig, but the director insisted, and Margie said it made him look incredibly sexy, so he gave in. He just hoped the audience didn’t laugh too loud when they saw it.
The curtain opened as the band started the first number, a rousing medley of rock songs. Buck pranced out onto the tiny stage. As expected, the audience started laughing as soon as they spotted him and his fellow actors in their elaborate makeup and free-flowing hair. But they soon got into the spirit of the performance, clapping their hands and stomping their feet in time to the music.
By the third song, Buck’s nervousness had disappeared. He was at one with the music, transformed into the performer he had always wanted to be. Suddenly he wasn’t a middle-aged insurance agent explaining the dry details of a high-deductible policy. He wasn’t a chubby, bald dad who fought daily with his two prickly teenagers.
He was a rock star, part of the best band of his age, sharing his amazing talent with adoring fans. His skin tingled. Blood coursed wildly through his veins. He put more energy into his dance, snapping his fingers, shaking his shoulders, pointing from the floor to the ceiling. He grabbed the microphone, threw back his head and hit several measures of falsetto notes with ease.
Suddenly his mic went dead.
Nothing to worry about. Equipment malfunctions happened. The important thing was to keep going, keep the audience involved until the sound guys could get out there and fix the problem. He kept singing, projecting from his diaphragm so his words bounced against the back walls.
He noticed that the people in the first few rows were standing, pointing toward the backstage curtains where gray