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.
“It was a wooden box, not a coffin,” she said, not even convincing herself.
She expected Martin to bring up the premature death notice that had been faxed to his own newsroom. When he didn’t, Kat realized Henry Goll was telling the truth. He hadn’t informed anyone at the Gazette about it.
Thinking about the obituary writer created a question
