'Tis the Season

By Renee Kumor

In this third book in the River Bend Chronicles, Lynn Powers, a fortyish widow with a teenage son, continues to build her new life in River Bend. It’s two weeks before Christmas and the holiday season is going full tilt -- except for Lynn and her son.
In an effort to rekindle their slow starting romance, chief detective Dusty Reid pays a visit and finds Lynn’s household untouched by holiday cheer. Dusty takes Jason on a routine call and starts a series of events that mirrors the death of Lynn’s husband two years ago. In addition to grieving on the anniversary of her husband’s death, Lynn has been advised by one of the board members of the River Bend Philanthropies that his review of a local nonprofit, River Bend Reads, has revealed embezzlement.
This story weaves through the Christmas holidays, with Lynn and Dusty’s big New Year’s Eve date spent in the morgue identifying the body of a staff member of River Bend Reads. And then another body turns up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AbsolutelyAmazingEbooks.com
• Release date: May 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311695604

Renee Kumor

Renee Kumor has lived in North Carolina for over thirty years. The setting for the River Bend Chronicles series reflects her early life in Ohio and her later years in western North Carolina. She was a stay-at-home mom for several years developing a personal ethic of community service. Through the years as her children aged, she became active in the political and non-profit life of the community. She began writing a political opinion column for the local newspaper, but retired from writing when she announced her candidacy for local political office. After eight years as a county commissioner, she returned to non-profit service and began writing a monthly column for the newspaper on non-profit management and service issues. Renee has been married to her husband for forty-four years. They have four children and four grandchildren.

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The River Bend Chronicles

‘Tis the Season

Renee Kumor

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING eBOOKS

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‘Tis the Season copyright © 2013 by Gee Whiz Entertainment LLC. Electronic compilation/ print edition copyright © 2013 by Whiz Bang LLC.

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To friends and families who share love

and make memories in every season.

‘Tis the Season

When people think of Christmas in a small town, River Bend is what they have in mind – sleigh rides, skating parties, and church rites that are a clear reminder of the spiritual meaning of the season. The Christmas holidays begin at Thanksgiving with friends, neighbors and relatives celebrating at festive gatherings and continue until after the New Year. Decades ago local citizens would skate on the river, huddle in small groups along the edges of the river banks, burn bonfires and share hot cider. As time passed, River Park became the center of holiday celebrations. There is the community choir sing on Christmas Eve and the New Year’s Eve gathering in the park for late night sledding and the sharing of a midnight kiss. This year the Christmas holiday season started out as it should - parties, celebrations, sharing. I’ve found embezzlement, H. Lawrence Grayson whispered into his phone. I’ve looked through the financial reports and someone’s doing something funny with that agency’s finances."

Lynn Powers, executive director of the River Bend Philanthropies, was stunned as she tried to process what she was hearing. H. Lawrence, my first response is to ask if you’re sure, but I know you well enough, she replied, If you say you’ve found some real problems, I believe you.

I’ve found real problems, he almost screamed in his hoarse whisper. I’ve found felonies! H. Lawrence Grayson was a high-powered corporate attorney in River Bend.

How do you want to deal with this? Lynn asked, glad that there were no visitors in her office. This isn’t something I’ve had experience handling.

I’m not looking for advice, he said finally calming down. I just want to prepare you. In fact, we won’t talk about this again until I have my case prepared. As part of his board service to the Philanthropies, H. Lawrence had consented to review the finances of the local literacy agency, River Bend Reads, at Lynn’s request.

Then why did you call? Lynn remembered when she had been asked for help by the new River Bend Reads executive director, Haley Kirby.

I just want you to know that something is really bad here in your little corner of paradise. Now there are four of us who know - you, me and Haley, plus whoever is doing this. He sounded serious, and cautious. Lynn shivered.

This phone call from H. Lawrence disturbed her. He was universally judged to be smart, clever and pompous, not a man to have whispered phone conversations about nonprofit finances. This must be really big, she thought.

If I understand you, she nervously recapped his instructions, you just want me to keep this quiet until I hear further from you. Tell no one, not even Robert. Robert O’Hara was the board chairman of the Philanthropies.

That’s right, confirmed H. Lawrence, and don’t tell that skinny boyfriend of yours either. Lynn knew that H. Lawrence was referring to Dusty Reid, the chief detective of the Joint James County-River Bend Investigation Unit. Lynn’s heart sank at his name. They began a relationship during the days before Halloween. But, here it was December and they had been unable to find time for one another. Granted he had gone off to an FBI training and she had been busy with meetings and donor appreciations and end of year solicitations.

I won’t tell anyone until I hear more from you, promised Lynn. In the meantime is there anything I can do to help?

Haley’s still collecting reports and other information. We’ve been doing it slowly so as not to alert anyone.

Is Haley at risk? Lynn asked. After being involved in two murder investigations in the last few months and being assaulted on both occasions, Lynn wanted Haley, and herself, kept safe.

No, I don’t think so, said H. Lawrence with some reservation in his voice, but I’ll make sure she’s doubly careful. Thanks for listening. As an afterthought he added, I won’t see you at Piper and Will’s New Year’s Eve party. I have to take my mother to her sister’s that weekend.

Sorry. We’ll miss you. Lynn hung up as she thought about New Year’s Eve. When Piper, her sister-in-law, told her about the party, Lynn imagined that she and Dusty might go as a couple, or at least hook up once they got there, but she hadn’t seen Dusty in weeks. Maybe he had second thoughts during his time away. Maybe he already had a date and she would just sit home alone on New Year’s Eve. She already knew that her father and her son had plans for that evening. So there it was, she would be alone. Maybe they needed a cat or something at the house for evenings like that.

Returning to River Bend over eighteen months ago after being widowed, Lynn was hired to take on the management of the newly formed community foundation called, River Bend Philanthropies. She had returned to her hometown with her teenage son to care for her father who was undergoing cancer treatment at the time. A fortyish single mother, she had a ready smile and dancing hazel eyes, all framed by reckless, dark brown hair with some threads of gray.

Pulling herself out of her pity mood she gave some thought to the information she received from H. Lawrence. Financial trickery at River Bend Reads, the agency in question, would make sense. How else to explain its anemic financial status? In local nonprofit circles, it was suspected that Haley was managing a faltering operation. She organized fundraisers, did bold and aggressive solicitations and had nothing in the bank except just enough money to get to the next month.

Lynn understood that three years ago the agency had been prosperous with an enviable fund balance. Now it seemed that its small endowed fund managed by the Philanthropies was a necessary income for survival. And H. Lawrence indicated that it wasn’t the fault of not trying, but the fault of someone mismanaging, or possibly stealing, funds.

Shaking her head she forced herself to get back to her day’s schedule as she scanned her calendar. It was almost two weeks until Christmas, three weeks until New Year’s Eve, four weeks since she asked H. Lawrence to help River Bend Reads, six weeks since she had seen Dusty. She looked at the calendar again. She did a quick intake of breath and tears slowly slipped down her cheeks.

≈≈≈

At the River Bend Reads office the bookkeeper panicked. Her personal ledger was missing. Taffy Mills, a small, blonde woman somewhere over thirty-five, thought it should have been under the old pair of shoes she kept in the bottom drawer of her desk. This was unsettling. She had been feeling uncomfortable for weeks. It was as though someone were always behind her, watching. Some mornings when she turned on her computer, she thought the opening screen had been disturbed - icons moved around her desktop. Now a missing ledger.

Taffy carefully organized her search. She took each piece of paper on her desk, read it, then filed it where it should be, or should have been. There it is again, Taffy thought, some of these papers should already have been filed. Clearing her desk only accomplished clearing her desk - still no ledger.

Through her systematic search of the file drawers beside her desk, Taffy finally found the missing ledger. It had been put in the back of the second drawer, behind retired financial reports. She stopped and reviewed her actions for the last few days. Then she remembered, she had been holding the ledger last evening just before closing when Haley asked her to refile some old reports. The finance committee had reviewed them earlier in the day. As Haley approached, Taffy had slipped the ledger into a file folder.

Once located, the little ledger slipped from the file drawer, through Taffy’s grasp, into her desk drawer. She looked around to see if anyone was watching, if that nosey director was watching. But Haley’s head was bowed over her desk as she held the phone in one hand and took notes with the other.

After that scare Taffy sat for a moment thinking over her situation, calming down she stared at her desk calendar. Maybe it was time to start planning her next move.

≈≈≈

Closer to his mid-forties than he liked to admit, Dusty Reid was tall and slender, often referred to as skinny by many, with dark, short cropped hair with the usual gray at the temples. He had dark, penetrating eyes that had made more than one perp crumble under interrogation.

As he arrived home this Friday afternoon he was surprised to find a letter in his mailbox.

He lived in a small bungalow in an older River Bend neighborhood. It’s not that he didn’t get mail, but most of it usually arrived at his police desk. He looked at the small envelop with its crisp feel and handwritten address. To his delight the note on the inside was an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party at Piper and Will Zubov’s. Lynn was the thought that came to Dusty’s mind. After all Lynn was Will’s sister. New Year’s Eve with Lynn had a lot of possibilities. Of course, if escorting Lynn was his plan, he had to find time to see her first.

Life had been so hectic for Dusty that he couldn’t believe it was two weeks before Christmas and he hadn’t found time to see Lynn since Halloween. The FBI training had taken up most of that time. Returning to his job as chief detective for the Joint James County-River Bend Investigation Unit meant he had spent the last two weeks catching up on paperwork and political gossip as well as any new crime.

While he had been away for training, Dusty was grateful that his staff had not been challenged by any outrageous felonies, murders or super sensitive crime like handling a drunken elected official. Drunken elected officials ran second only to sexually indiscreet elected officials as his most dreaded assignment. In a small town scintillating actions by local pols drove the gossips to a frenzy and made Dusty’s team, who handled the unhandleable, get hives.

The chief reviewed his actions for the last weeks wondering why it was taking so long to see Lynn now that he was back in town. Besides his work there had been Thanksgiving, the usual food feast at the Reid family farm. Then the usual holiday gatherings began - relatives, coworkers, special charity events.

Out at the family farm, Dusty’s mother heard a rumor about a woman in his life. He sidestepped her inquiries. But he was unable to deflect the curiosity of his four brothers who used teasing and innuendo to let him know that they heard the stories about his new love interest. In fact, just thinking of Dusty in love was entertaining to his brothers, because he always struggled to keep his private life private.

He and Lynn had exchanged some e-mail over the last six weeks. When he asked about seeing her, once he was back in town, she was always too busy with her job and her family. It seemed the River Bend Philanthropies, her employer, planned several donor holiday functions that Lynn worked on and was required to attend. Finding time for Dusty in her schedule was difficult.

Today he received an e-mail from her in response to his plea to get together this weekend. In her reply, Lynn invited him to the house this evening. Will and Piper were bringing a Christmas tree and her e-mail suggested that Dusty could help get it into the house and into the tree stand. Dusty studied the e-mail. As he read it he wondered what tone of voice she had used when she sent it. It wasn’t warm, or even cordial. It was blah.

He began to wonder if those few embraces and tentative kisses at Halloween had been an illusion. What was wrong with him? Illusion? He was sounding like a poet or something else useless. He became disgusted with his line of thinking. You’re an adult, he told himself, act like one, this isn’t the first woman you’ve ever been interested in. That was true; there had been other women, but it had been a few years since any woman had made him feel this, ah, useless.

The drive to Lynn’s home in The Heights, the house she shared with her father, a former judge, and her teenaged son, Jason, was winter perfect. The snow had come a little early this year, but the quiet Christmas scenes it created made its arrival appreciated. The crèche at St. Bridget’s was glowing. The Baptist Church had a living manger scene that stopped traffic every night. Dusty stretched his long legs under the steering wheel as he stopped at the traffic light opposite the church and wondered where the animals spent the night after the viewing was closed for the evening. Nonetheless, it was a scene that helped people reflect on the spiritual meaning of the season.

In The Heights the neighborhood was sparkling with holiday excitement. Each home had just the correct amount of lights on display to be joyous and not offensive. This is going to be a great holiday, thought Dusty as he focused on New Year’s Eve and knocked at Lynn’s door. Jason answered and gave Dusty a soft smile for a welcome. That was a departure from the youngster’s usual energetic greeting. Jim, Lynn’s father, walked from his office and shook Dusty’s hand. It was a sad and somber greeting.

Hope your training was successful, Jim offered, making conversation.

It’s always a good experience, replied Dusty as he looked around for Lynn.

Dusty, is that you? Lynn shouted from upstairs. Follow Jason and come help us bring down these ornament boxes. Dusty did as he was directed. At the second floor landing he followed Jason up another flight of stairs into the attic. It was chilly at the top of the stairs and there was only a dim light outlining Lynn who was surrounded by boxes and old furniture. She greeted Dusty by saying, Each of you take something. We should be able to get this all in one trip. They all took some boxes and negotiated the return trip.

In the light downstairs Lynn looked as beautiful to Dusty as she had the last time he had seen her, the last time he had kissed her. Tonight she had smudges on her face and cobwebs in her dark brown hair. His first instinct was to move closer, brush aside the dirt and kiss her, but there was the little problem of family. What would he do with her son and her father?

He looked at her again. Something was different. It was different in Jason and Jim, too. Maybe they thought he should have called at the house the first night he was back in town. Maybe he wasn’t meeting their expectations as a potential boyfriend. Dusty was feeling the usual confusion that occurred every time he got close to Lynn. This woman just did things to him.

Fortunately for Dusty, Will and Piper banged on the kitchen door. They pulled the car to the kitchen porch to unload the tree. Come on, yelled Will, it’s cold out here. We want to get back to our place. He stumbled into the kitchen shaking snow off his shoes. Hey, Dusty, he greeted, glad to see you. I need some help getting the tree off the top of the car.

Piper passed them on the porch stairs, Hey, Dusty, she said, good to see you. She continued into the house, Anything warm to drink?

I have some cider and cookies leftover from the Philanthropies party yesterday, offered Lynn.

I’ll take anything, moaned Piper, next year you go with Will to find a tree. She slumped her pixie frame into a chair. Everything was either too big or too thin, or too short, or--

Nag, nag, nag interrupted Will as he and Dusty came in covered with snow and pine needles. We left the tree on the porch. Dusty can help with the tree stand. Will sat at the table and took some cider and a few cookies. So, how was your FBI training?

It was fine, said Dusty, taking a seat at the table and brushing some pine bark from his dark hair.

What did you learn? asked Will. He was a big man with thick, light brown hair flopping across his forehead.

I learned that I’d like a lot more equipment and that my bosses will never go for it. He then told them about some of the classes he had attended as he stretched his long legs under the kitchen table.

Nothing much happened here while you were gone, said Will. Lynn didn’t find any dead bodies.

My staff would have handled it. Dusty toyed with a piece of cookie.

I have to say Dusty, began Will, since I’ve met you I’ve heard some good things about your department.

Thanks, Dusty said in surprise. Usually Will managed to tease and harass about local policing politics and Dusty’s relationship with an assortment of elected officials.

Will and Piper finished their cider. We told the boys we’d get our tree up this evening, said Piper, and if we’re not home soon, they’ll send out patrols to find us. She tucked her short blonde curls under her knit cap.

Dusty and Lynn walked out on the kitchen porch and watched the couple as they plodded through the snow. Piper playfully threw a fist full of snow at Will. He grabbed her and gave her a bear hug. They laughed and ducked into their car.

Lynn and Dusty stood silently and watched the couple as they drove out of the yard. It was chilly and there were snowflakes blowing around the porch. Dusty moved closer to Lynn and put his arm around her. She didn’t move. He could feel her shivering. He glanced back at the kitchen and realized that this might be his only time alone with her.

He looked into those hazel eyes, brushed some flakes from her hair then kissed her with the fervor and longing that he had held at bay since Halloween weekend. She broke from his embrace looking at him with alarm and distress.

God dammit, Lynn, he said with more frustration than anger. She looked at him one more time then ran into the house. Dusty followed her in at a slower pace. Lynn had already climbed the stairs to her bedroom as he walked to the front hall. Jason was standing in the hall and Jim was coming from his office. Dusty looked at them as Jim nodded to Jason.

She’s crying, said Jason. He walked closer to Dusty. Jim came to stand behind his grandson. The boy continued, This is the night my dad died. Dusty blew out his breath and threw an arm around the boy. Jason was about Lynn’s height and the boy’s head rested on Dusty’s chest under his chin.

I’m sorry, pal, said Dusty. He held the boy there and could feel Jason suppress a strangled sob. At that instant Dusty knew why the atmosphere had been so strained this evening.

You know, Dusty, we could use a small hand saw to trim that tree before we bring it in. Jim looked Dusty in the eye and lied.

Do you want me and Jason to go get mine for you? offered Dusty.

You read my mind, nodded Jim as he looked over Jason’s head, and glanced up the stairs.

Come on, pal, Dusty said to Jason, let’s get that saw so we can work on this tree.

As Dusty and Jason were driving into town the dispatcher signaled. Yeah, Dusty answered. After listening to the radio’s instructions he said, I’m on my way. He looked at Jason. There’s a pile up at the mall. Can you handle something like that this evening? Or do you want me to take you home first?

Jason thought for a moment. I think I can do it.

If you change your mind, explained Dusty, I’ll find someone to take you home.

Thanks, said the boy.

CHAPTER TWO

It was a typical pre-Christmas winter evening. Shoppers were not as frantic as they would be in another week, but still drivers were forgetting themselves in the increasingly hectic pace of the season. The roads were icing over as fresh snow began to fall. Near the mall, a car slid on the ice while crossing one of the bridges causing several other cars to skid in various directions. A large truck, unable to respond to the scattering traffic plowed into a car and crushed it against the bridge abutment.

When Dusty and Jason arrived at the accident scene there were already emergency personnel and traffic detail trying to bring order to the