Money Counters and Soul Catchers
by
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Chapter 1
Red-haired and abundantly freckled, Carol Blythe was currently Maple Grove Junction’s most successful realtor, but that had not always been the case.
In its earliest infancy, her then two-woman office had had but one, trifling sale--a gay couple, Steve Mallory and Phil Nadeau, picked up a run-down saltbox near The Orange Acorn for a song--and the commission had been six percent of almost nothing.
After her now ex-business partner’s affair with Seth Parsons put the company’s name in the paper--strike up another one for the winning combo of sex and murder--local gossip kept it in people’s minds; the end of Seth’s life, quite unintentionally, provided a new beginning for a small business that had nearly beaten him to the grave.
Looking absently out her front-facing living room window, Carol gritted her teeth as she told her uncle, “It’s me, Uncle Cars. I just wanted to tell you you’re getting new neighbors.”
Although she tried to maintain her cheerful ‘Nancy Nice’ telephone voice, she knew her uncle would not buy into it.
When he heard all of what she had to say, he would probably compare her to Judas, before anyone else, and would liken her commission to thirty pieces of silver.
After that, he would say she was bringing more of ‘that kind’ onto their street.
The reality of it, at least in her mind, was that she had sentenced a perfectly likeable couple to an unknown term of misery--she lived at the far end of the street, and that was still too close most days.
A bank teller for many years, money had long been the thing that kept her uncle’s heart pumping; now that he was retired, being miserable did the job. The older brother of Carol’s late mother, ‘Uncle Cars’ was always busy perfecting his own faults, but he made time to run other people into the ground.
In the instant before he began his diatribe, Carol wished she had called him sooner; the screaming would have been over.
Wright’s voice, cold and cruel, barked, “I’m not blind…I saw the ‘Sale Pending’ sign out there. What are you trying to hide from me, girl?”
Carol drew a short breath, wishing there was some way around this, but knowing there was not; if she did not tell him, and he found out on his own, it would be worse.
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About the Book
Retired from his job at Maple Grove Savings & Loan Company, Carson Wright no longer counts money on a daily basis, but he still counts souls--and there are a growing number in town that drive him crazy.
Two factors kept him from fussing too much when the first gay couple moved into town--his realtor niece needed the commission, and the ‘fruity pair’, as he shamefully called them, lived far enough away to be ignored--but when the ‘other pair’ bought a house across the street, he affected signs of distress. He also never ignored them, when he could harass them just as easily.
About the Author
After a 23-year ‘office stint’, Connecticut native, Susan M. Hooper, has gone on to create a socially-aware mystery series.