The Devil Don't Knock: A Jennifer Martin Mystery

By Susan Sims Moody

A New South tale with the shadows of the Old South not far in the background. The Devil Dont Knock is a riveting story of intrigue and greed that catapults everyday folk to the center of the stage. It is a story that will keep you on the edge of your chair or awake in your bed, depending on where you do your reading. Once picked up, its hard to put down.
Luke Boyd, author of Coon Dogs and Outhouses, Tall Tales from the Mississippi Delta

An entertaining read. Susan Sims Moody knows how to spin a good yarn.
Jim Fraiser, author of Shadow Seed and Mississippi River Country Tales

SOUTHERN GIRL Jennifer Martin, plucky and independent, returns to Bedford, Mississippi, in the third installment of the mystery series that bears her name.

Usually bold and resilient, the never-say-die Jennifer is plagued by fear and gruesome nightmares. Tommy Capelli, indicted for murder almost a year ago, is scheduled for trial in just five days, and Jennifer is the states star witness. Trying to retain her sanity, she throws herself into her work at The Bedford Sentinel, spending more time at the office than in her new apartment with roommate Magnolia Roan.

Sleep-deprived and exhausted, Jennifer gets an eye-opening phone call from love interest Davis Sanford. Hes in trouble again, and this time its more serious than ever. Throw in an early-morning fire that turns Jennifers world upside down, and when she hears that Capelli has escaped, she must decide if she will run and hide or seek the man she is slated to testify against. Can this homegrown, Mississippi girl dig deep into her Southern roots and use her resources to find the courage she needs?

Susan Sims Moodys The Devil Dont Knock spins a New South tale of greed and deception with Old South charm of small-town Mississippi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450293310

Susan Sims Moody

SUSAN SIMS MOODY is the author of 3 novels in the Jennifer Martin Mystery Series. Born and raised in Mississippi, she now lives in Wisconsin with her husband Tom, their children Emma and Rob, and an island full of pets – Skipper, Mary Ann, Little Buddy, and Lovey. Visit her online at http://susansimsmoody.wordpress.com/

Book preview

Acknowledgments:

Twelve years ago when my husband Tom and I were first dating, I came across a yellow legal pad of his. On it, in his chicken-scratch handwriting, were five pages of description — a hunting scene that he had written. One marriage, two kids, and two books later, I took those very words, and some of them became part of chapter one of this book. Those words of his have been the catalyst for the past four years of stretching myself to complete this work.

Along with mentioning that, I would also like to say thank you to John B. Turner, Jr. and Rebecca Gaines for deciphering legalese and providing me information on the criminal justice system in Mississippi.

Thanks to Pam Perdue, director of Rippavilla Plantation in Spring Hill, Tennessee, for giving me insider information on antebellum architecture.

Thanks to Bonnie Morales for helping me with the ins and outs of hospital paperwork and the ICU, and for her nursing care and compassion when my father was there.

To Heath Ivy, thanks for talking me through all the electrical conundrums I managed to write my characters into.

To Terry Malone, thank you for giving me the scoop on secret handshakes and initiation ceremonies.

To my inside circle of readers who are the trusted, extra sets of eyes — Evelyn Sims (aka Mama), Tracey Malone, and Mike Azlin — thank you for your brutally honest feedback.

To my new editor, Jamie Mercer, who gave me the shot in the arm (or maybe I should call it a kick in the pants) that I needed to get this thing finished, thank you for reading and re-reading and catching my typos and spelling errors. (I hope we found them all.) Thank you for questioning the validity of characters’ motives, and for thinking through the plot points with me. It’s a better book because of your work. I look forward to the next one.

To my best friends and top cheerleaders, Tom, Emma, and Rob, thanks for loving and supporting me in everything I do.

And, to Mr. Elmer Dobbs, I finally got it done.

God’s blessings,

Susan

For Daddy.

James Robert Sims

February 25, 1942 – October 4, 2008

Contents

Acknowledgments:

Thursday

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Friday

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Saturday

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Sunday

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Monday

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

CHAPTER SIXTY

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Two Weeks Later

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Thursday

CHAPTER ONE

HE COULDN’T SAY THAT he hadn’t meant to kill him. He’d hoped he would. He’d prayed he would do more than wound him; he didn’t want him to run. He prayed the arrow would find its mark on that wooded trail to Chancellor’s Point.

Like all roads in the Mississippi Delta, the footpath to Chancellor’s Point was flat, straight and narrow. Just east of the Panther Slough National Wildlife Refuge, the Greek Revival mansion sat overlooking the Hushi River, less than three miles from where it joined forces with the Tallahatchie. A future scallywag had built her before the War of Northern Aggression. When the traitor died in 1880, he did so with no will and no heirs, and the state of Mississippi wasted little time in seizing the property for its own use.

Starting in 1883 when Bedford State was founded, Chancellor’s Point earned its name by serving as the chancellor’s home for nearly 70 years. When the college became a university, the state appropriated funds for a new home near the center of campus. As the old mansion fell into disrepair, it later served as an open-air barn to a small herd of Angus. Later an out-of-town gospel musician purchased and renovated it in post-modern 1970’s gewgaw for a wedding and reception. It stood in that garish state still, decades later, a testament to all that was wrong with the Seventies.

Following footpaths through the woods was nothing new for Davis Sanford. He had come from a long line of outdoorsmen, and he’d spent most of his summers working on a big game preserve in the hills of Mississippi. But it wasn’t summer, and this was the delta. Today Davis made the walk one of pleasure.

For the beginning of October it was surprisingly pleasant in Bedford. The weatherman had predicted unseasonably temperate conditions for the entire week. Not one day in the five-day forecast was expected to top 75 degrees, and lows were expected in the 40’s.

An early-morning delivery had started Davis on his journey into the woods. He stumbled to his front door at half-past eight when an abrupt pounding awakened him. Throwing on a pair of blue jeans he found on the bedroom floor, he buttoned and zipped them on the way to see who had come to call.

He turned off the alarm and unlocked the deadbolt to the front door of his combination office and home, catching only a glimpse of a brown delivery truck pulling back out onto the highway. At his feet lay a package: return address, Mercy, Mississippi.

It was not surprising to receive something from his hometown, but this time the parcel was not from his cousin Annie. He hastily unwrapped it and found a Matthews single-cam bow inside, followed by a short note from his father. Bobby Jack Sanford would never apologize for the six years he’d gone without speaking to his only son. The note was as close as Davis could ever hope for. There were only four words: Practice, then come. Dad

Davis seized the opportunity to accept his father’s invitation. He owned a small, hometown security company that he’d started with seed money from family. Once just an alarm system guy, his business had grown to include home theater and automation, and whole-house audio and video. He was his own boss, and as he had no installations pending for the day, he obtained a hunting license at the brand new Wal-Mart just east of the state college. He then cut across campus and parked his old baby blue Nissan pickup truck at the edge of the wildlife refuge that formed a wedge between the land grant institution, the river, and downtown Bedford, Mississippi. Although he was long out of his hunting routine, he still retained the accoutrements of the pastime: a climbing tree stand, a set of binoculars, and a camouflage outfit to round out the fashion statement.

Panther Slough National Wildlife Refuge was aptly named for its terrain. More than 35,000 acres of bottomland forest, it was not much more than a bog in the winter and spring, although it did dry out enough in the hot months to allow passage for those who knew the territory. Panthers had long since been eradicated from the delta, but folklore still told of bone-chilling screams emanating from giant cats that mysteriously skulked the area. Davis believed none of the panther fables, but did don his snake chaps before diving into the leafy-green underbrush of public land on the opening day of archery season.

His plan was to take the quarter-mile boondoggle from the edge of campus to a clearing just shy of the old mansion. A small soybean field, part of the state agriculture experiment station, lazed behind Chancellor’s Point. Empty and hollow, she posted guard against any naval assault from the west. It would be the perfect spot to hang a stand, and if nothing more, enjoy a delta sunset.

Davis was in the best physical shape of his life: 23 years old, a reformed alcoholic and drug abuser, he was a lean form, just shy of six feet and 150 pounds. He walked quickly and determinedly across the slough toward his goal. Dodging poison ivy and wild blackberry vines, he made it across, found a good tree 20 yards from the edge of the field, and began to climb. Positioned just east of a small draw, there was enough sign to indicate that deer would use it as a path to browse the beans as daylight waned.

Davis adjusted his gear in the stand, and then hoisted his new bow, by a rope and an s-hook, into his perch where he planned to settle in for a carefree afternoon with nature. Chancellor’s Point was a hundred yards to the south-southwest of his position, and the Hushi River chirped along its southbound path, coming up from behind him and along down beside. The river sang a warbling song as it prattled along in its bed that diagonally bisected the national wildlife refuge.

The solitude and silence, pierced only by the intermittent sounds of wildlife, were the perfect lullaby, and in the gathering darkness Davis jerked awake from a warm and dozing nap, 30 feet from the ground. His heart raced when he realized he’d been sleeping. He’d heard too many tales of paraplegic proportions to feel good about falling asleep in a tree stand even with his safety harness.

Regaining his composure, he checked all his gear and shamefacedly wiped his palms over his thinning hair. Then he heard it again — the noise that first had awakened him. Voices came up from the river, from the northeast behind him. His first instinct was that hunters were conversing over a kill. He sat motionless, angry at the disrespect being shown to him and other tree-dwellers. By his estimation there was still another hour of daylight by legal hunting standards, albeit, no one except the slumbering or rabid huntsman would still be out at this hour of the evening.

Davis stood up in his stand and turned around to see if he could spot the offenders. Instead of seeing what he expected, Davis found himself looking at a five-year-old, nine-point, drop-tine buck, not 15 feet from his stand. The buck was frozen, his nose to the air, his head and ears turned and alert to the noises behind him. Adrenaline, in both hunter and prey, surged.

Davis raised his bow, drew back silently and marked the spot directly behind the buck’s shoulder. He held his draw for only a moment as he tried to slow his breathing. Finally, he released. The sound of arrow parting air deafened both the huntsman and quarry. Instinctively, the deer crouched and spun away, and all Davis saw of the escape was a bounding white tail crashing and retreating into the encroaching darkness.

Davis audibly cursed the deer’s natural reflexes and began scanning the ground for his arrow. There it lay, impotent, five yards past its mark. He sighed and resigned himself to returning home without a trophy, turning to thoughts of spending a late Thursday evening with Jennifer.

Tomorrow would mark their 400th day together. He wrestled with the fact that he actually knew the number of days, thinking himself somewhat less of a man for acknowledging — much less celebrating — such an odd anniversary. But, as a recovering addict, everything was about the number of days: how many days sober, how many days felony-free. He thought, How many days before my college-educated, journalist girlfriend gets the real scoop on me and moves on to somebody better?

Again, the sound of crashing limbs and leaves came up from the river, and Davis checked his morose imaginations for a moment. He pulled his binoculars to his eyes, scanning for the water’s edge. He glassed over the vegetation that blocked nearly everything from view and finally found a clearing that corresponded with the noise he’d heard.

A man, looking to be in his late 20s, headed directly down the draw, wielding not a bow and arrow, as might be expected on opening day, but a handgun instead. Davis bristled at the sight and continued to scan for others. He panned over a shock of color and then came back to a grizzly visage. Two more men were struggling to pull what appeared to be a 400-pound man from the driver’s seat of a black SUV. Clearly, the man was dead. Davis squinted to focus on the face of the victim, and though he could not verify, he felt certain he knew who it was. There weren’t too many men of that size in the county.

Davis searched again for the intruder that was headed his way. He found him, then slowly lowered the binoculars to his chest. He waited until he could follow the man with his naked eye, and then Davis became one with the trees.

The interloper was not much on stealth, and Davis clearly saw him as he closed the 50-yard gap between, tripping and stumbling over vines and underbrush. His dark blue jeans and Dallas Mavericks jersey made his movements easy to follow. A dark-skinned man with long black hair, Davis could not tell if he were Latino or Italian. Working close to his chest, he nocked another arrow, attached his release, drew back, and waited.

The man approached, clearly searching for someone or something, his handgun ready to fire. Davis could barely think for the roar of his heartbeat in his ears. His forearm trembled as he held his mark, his elbow high above his ear. He tried furiously to control his breathing, as he was sure the men by the river could hear what felt like gasping. Davis watched as the man paused at 20 yards from his stand, bent down, and retrieved the wayward arrow from the ground.

The man held it questioningly, searching first from the right to the left, and finally looking up, straight into the eyes of the hunter. Within a split second, each had fired on the other. Davis’s mark proving true, his assailant lay motionless where the deer should have dropped, the sound of the gunshot echoing across the river.

He couldn’t say that he hadn’t meant to kill him. He’d hoped he would. He’d prayed he would do more than wound him; he didn’t want him to run, or fire again. One gunshot had certainly alerted the conspirators. Two would have done him in. But now that it had happened, now that he had done what he’d intended, he froze. Davis knew he had less than a minute to move, but he couldn’t find his legs.

Coming to his senses, he realized they would still have to search for him. But once they found the draw, it would be like walking down a lighted path to his stand. He could hear shouting, and it was indeed headed toward him. His truck was a half-mile away, and the only shelter was either Chancellor’s Point or the camouflage of the trees and darkness. He cared for neither option, but decided to maneuver his way back toward campus, using caution and shadows as his aids.

Quickly he hooked his bow and lowered it hand-over-hand to the ground. He turned and began his awkward descent: crouch, stand, crouch, stand. The clatter and clank of the metal stand on the trunk of the tree, the sound of his heaving breath, the pounding of his heart in his chest — each and every noise he made was magnified by his fear. He hurried, but the more he descended, the more it seemed as if the ground grew farther away. After another three feet, Davis unlatched his safety harness and jumped.

He could hear the popping and cracking undergrowth and heavy, hurried footfalls, as at least one individual, perhaps more, charged to find the source of the gunshot. Davis landed with a telling thud. His ankles ached; pain shot up his shins. He began to sweat, even in the cool, damp of the twilight. He looked to the left and then the right, still in a semi-crouched position. His eyes found what he sought, and Davis’s hands shook as he clutched toward the bow, his only means of defense. He unhooked it from the rope, pulled it close to his chest, and turned east against the remaining rays of light.

In the deepening darkness every limb and root seemed to reach out for him to hinder his getaway. He did not run, but walked quickly from one large tree to the next, pausing at each refuge to calm his breathing and check behind. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his camouflaged forearm. The felons had yet to discover the demise of their counterpart, and Davis continued to stretch the distance between himself and his would-be killers.

He gauged the distance to a monster tree, some 15 feet ahead, held his breath, and moved toward his next stopping point. Halfway to his goal, his foot found a slick, wet spot on the ground, and Davis fell forward, slinging his bow to the left. He could hear the voices growing closer, and he scrambled on his stomach toward his weapon, pushing off with his feet against something hard and slick.

Retrieving the gift that had gotten him into this, he turned, and on elbows and ankles pulled himself back to his stumbling point. Beneath his hands he found a metal manhole cover, caked in mud and slippery leaves, implanted in the soil. He brushed the leaves away, and heat rushed up from its holes, hot and thick. Davis peered out into the dusk, inserted his fingers into the cover, and heaved it from its resting place. Setting it slightly aside, he tossed his bow with a clatter into the abyss, then, feet-first, he went in as well. Clinging to a rebar ladder in the tunnel below, Davis pulled the manhole cover back into place and sank beneath it.

The tunnel was seven feet high, four feet wide, and ran southeast and northwest parallel to the Hushi. As his pupils dilated in the darkness, Davis could see that a trickle of water ran down the middle of the concave floor. He straddled it and started toward campus, as quickly and quietly as he could.

CHAPTER TWO

A LUCKY DOG STAND, bedecked with its red-and-yellow umbrella, Coca-Cola emblazoned on the side, sat underneath the shade of a mammoth live oak at the corner of St. Peter and Decatur.

Juxtaposed to the triple steeples of the 300-year-old St. Louis Cathedral, tarot card readers and purveyors of healing crystals and angel readings kept shop. Musicians played on street corners, and artists sat in lawn chairs next to their renditions of giant flowers and fleur de lis, simply displayed by leaning them against the black wrought-iron fencing.

Arcana Ling busied herself setting up her card table at the corner, across the street from the hot dog vendor. The upcoming football games would soon bring in thousands of tourists to Jackson Square, and she was hopeful that she could get enough money from a long weekend to pay the last of the doctor bills. She’d drawn the Empress this morning and felt assured that her needs would continue to be provided for on her journey through remission. That coupled with the fact that the full moon was just three days away, appeared to be a promising start to October.

Her mom and dad had insisted on regular cancer treatments, even though it was something they couldn’t really afford. Being first-generation Chinese immigrants, they’d worked most of their lives in their family restaurant business in the Mississippi Delta, barely making enough money to get by. They’d worked hard and managed to send their three children to Bedford State, but there was never any money for extras — certainly not for oncologists.

She’d been named Amy by her parents, who so wanted her to fit in with others. But being Buddhist in a Baptist world, being neither black nor white, Amy was in a no-man’s land, seeming to fit nowhere.

She’d moved to New Orleans to participate in a minority-based clinical oncology program, but her plans derailed in Jackson Square on an October morning not unlike this one, almost a year ago. Her black hair was still spiky, still growing out from the last chemotherapy treatment. Her body was frail and thin. In two days she would go to the cancer center to sign up for more treatments — experimental treatments — that might save her life.

That Saturday, though, she would first go to Café Du Monde for beignets and coffee. She had come to the conclusion in her short 23 years that if she hadn’t done it yet, there was no time like now, because she never knew how many days were left.

Strolling the sidewalk that day, still with powdered sugar on the corner of her mouth, she’d spied a card reader. She had locked gazes with the psychic, and the woman at the table had called out to her, Metamorphosis comes to those with courage. The excitement of the enlightened ones brings about change.

Amy had stopped dead in her tracks. The psychic continued, holding out the Death card to her: Do not fear change, because you are not in the dark. The world isn’t over; it’s just beginning for you.

Thirty minutes and a $20 card reading later, Amy had begun a new path that did not include the cancer center. Maybe it was the tumor on her brain that had unlocked the lucid dreaming; maybe it was something else. She’d never dabbled in the occult. Her parents hadn’t indoctrinated her or her siblings with their Buddhist beliefs, as they’d hoped their daughters might find a more Western way.

Now, a year later, Arcana — as she preferred to be called — still didn’t know what she thought about tarot cards, but they seemed to speak to her. She’d come to look at them as a mirror into her inner knowledge of the future. Because of that cool autumn morning at the corner of St. Peter and Decatur, she’d decided never set foot in the cancer center, much to her parents’ dismay.

It had been a life-changing decision. In fact, when her parents had forwarded that first oncology bill to her apartment in New Orleans, she knew her decision had been farther-reaching than she’d ever imagined. Somehow she managed to pay the bills, through an installment arrangement with the collections office, and she still managed to eat beignets every Saturday morning. She considered it good karma.

Sitting in her folding chair, she shuffled her deck of cards and then shuffled them again. It was practically a perpetual motion. She’d been taught by others who’d been in the business much longer to mix her personal energy vibrations with the vibrations of the cards; otherwise, she might misinterpret the ideas that tended to gurgle beneath the images.

When she performed a reading it felt as though she were a mere story-teller. The ideas that came to her as she sat with total strangers seemed odd, but somehow fluid and connected — and real. The strangers paid for these stories, and those alms paid the bills. It was an odd arrangement she had manifested for herself, but the pain from the tumor was gone, and the bills were vanishing as well. She still felt a squirmy sense of vaudeville and sleight-of-hand as she sat on Jackson Square, her wide straw hat shading the autumn sun, but she pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and took the wages for her work. She would easily pay the rent this weekend, and have extra to put toward the last of the medical expenses.

Foot traffic was light, and Arcana set her cards down to peruse the headlines of the Thursday Times-Picayune. With Tulane playing Saturday and the Saints on Sunday — both at the Super Dome — she expected the wave of tourists to pick up; if not today, then tomorrow. She began to pull the paper apart, searching for the times of the games.

Below the fold of the front page, the index highlighted a story that caught her eye. Arcana stared at the item, almost afraid to turn to page six as the box instructed. Something was wrong with this news, but she wasn’t sure what it was. She slowly turned through the pages until she found the story, sandwiched between an article on tailgate recipes and another on dog obedience.

Bedford, Mississippi, had been awarded the campus for the Mississippi School of Fine Arts, the story told Arcana. Her hometown, a town she felt was not much more than a four-way stop in the Mississippi Delta, had scored a major victory for itself. She picked up her deck, shuffled it again, and turned over the top card. She wasn’t even sure what the question was, but maybe the card would help. The Tower card revealed itself, and Arcana’s upper lip started to sweat. That certainly was not what she had been expecting.

She laid the card on the table and stared intently at the image of the ivory tower and the lightning bolt destroying it. It seemed in her mind’s eye that perhaps something moved under the ground beneath the tower itself. It was just a fleeting thought, and she could not make the movement repeat itself.

How much for a reading? The walkup customer startled Arcana, but she smiled, took the Tower card, and shuffled it back into the deck, and opened her shop for business, first placing the newspaper below her table, next to her bag and her cup from Café Du Monde.

CHAPTER THREE

HOMECOMING WEEK IN BEDFORD always served up its share of photo opportunities for Jennifer Martin, one of three staff reporters at The Bedford Sentinel. But Jennifer was usually the one behind the camera instead of in front of it. Besides the array of local academies in the city and outlying county areas, South Bedford High School was the powerhouse football team in a three-county area. There was no football team at the state college in town; so, the public school Black Bears were often referred to as the University of South Bedford.

Even though Jennifer wasn’t a big sports fan, she loved taking pictures at homecoming, especially at her father’s old school. The parades, the parties, the dances, and the game itself were like a mini-festival. The one Mardi Gras Jennifer ever attended in New Orleans reminded her of Bedford at homecoming. And with the county fair in town, the atmosphere could not have been more electric.

Jennifer looked forward to the weekend, to Friday night’s game, and to getting Saturday and Sunday behind her. She had had an appointment for Monday morning marked on her calendar for two months now, rescheduled twice. But now as the day was perilously close, she hoped that there would be no more continuances or extensions.

In just three days Jennifer was set to testify for the prosecution against Tommy Capelli, the man who had shot her the year before. If convicted on the aggravated assault charge and several other felonious acts of which the state accused him, he would be sent to the state penitentiary, Parchman, hopefully long enough for Jennifer to get some quality sleep for a few heady decades.

She tried not to think of what those days of the trial would hold for her. She chose instead to focus on work, filling her agenda with stories, stops, and photo ops that would keep her busy until the very small morning hours. While she knew she should probably try to sleep so that she’d be well-prepared for her testimony, she had begun having nightmares when she did. So she chose to stay awake as much as she could.

Sitting at her desk in the main room of the offices of the Sentinel, Jennifer jotted down a list of things to accomplish that Thursday morning. She could smell stale decaf coffee sitting on the burner in the back of the room, so she got up to turn off the heat. Her boss, Charlotte Banks, co-owner and co-editor of the weekly paper, sat in her office in the back, head down, writing out the weekly payroll.

Jennifer pressed the switch on the pot and stuck her head in to speak to Charlotte. Anything big going on today? she asked.

A carnie got his hand cut off setting up the Ferris wheel last night, Charlotte said without looking up.

Jennifer grunted and frowned. Ewww. Anything else?

Charlotte looked up, peering over the top of the bright orange reading glasses that perched on the end of her nose. That’s not enough?

I was thinking something not quite so gruesome.

"Well, groundbreaking on the new school complex is delayed, again," Charlotte said, continuing to press down hard on the checkbook register.

I knew that’d happened. What’s the reason this time?

One of the reasons is that those tree-huggers filed another injunction, this time based on zoning violations.

Zoning violations? This was a new direction for the group that had decided that some indigenous mussels were more important than the artistic youths of the state.

It’s just delay tactics. It’s all about the construction runoff going into the Hushi.

Like anybody’s going to eat those mussels anyway.

"They don’t want to eat them. They want to save them, Charlotte said in her most sarcastic tone. She sighed. The entire community of Bedford had grown weary of the work stoppage, even those who tried to remain impartial and unbiased. They’re grasping at straws, Honey," Charlotte said, going back to her work, painstakingly