Maple Mayhem (A Sugar Grove Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

that might be dangerous or expensive provides the right sort of guidance. I’ll need to consult with Nicole before agreeing to anything. We will need a couple of days to think it over.”
    “I’ve already spoken to Tansey and she has agreed to continue her participation. But you go ahead and take all the time you need. The co-op will go ahead if there are enough members to drop the prices on jugs and things. If you want to support it, I’d be glad of your endorsement. If you don’t, people will likely think you are nuts but there won’t be any hard feelings on my part.” I was right about the crazy thing. No one from a dyed-in-the-wool New Hampshire family brags about how much they paid for anything. It would make people think you were touched in the head if they found out you didn’t at least wait for a sale or use a coupon. Bragging rights came in the form of telling how little you paid for something, never how much. It was tacky, uppity, and stupid to admit such a thing. If you absolutely could not get out of overpaying, you bemoaned the occasion ’til your deathbed and made a point to besmirch the merchant who dared to ask so much in the first place.
    People in New Hampshire go to craft fairs not to buy things so much as to get ideas of what they could whip up more cheaply themselves to give as Christmas gifts. If he hadn’t suffered any actual damage to his property, it was going to be difficult for Kenneth to resist the bargain, no matter how much of a show he made of talking it over with his wife before giving me an answer.
    “I expect you are planning on questioning Frank about this?” Kenneth dropped his hands and leaned forward,looking like a seagull eyeing a piece of fried dough someone had dropped on the beach. Frank Lemieux had been doing his darndest to make Kenneth’s public life a misery for years.
    Every time Kenneth ran for an elected post, volunteered on a committee, or even attended a public function as a private citizen, Frank harangued him. It was almost as though they had a past-life rivalry because there didn’t seem to be enough time in this one for so much hostility to get stored up. Generally Kenneth seemed to rise above it and that made Frank even more antagonistic. If Frank could be found guilty of something like this, it would be a coup for Kenneth.
    “I’m headed over there next.” I felt a little queasy just thinking about it but if I wanted to be treated like the person in charge of the sugaring business, I was going to have to take on the bitter jobs as well as the sweet.
    Just then Nicole called out that the coffee was ready and Kenneth and I met her in the kitchen. We chitchatted for a few minutes about the likelihood of snow and where they were planning to go on their vacation. That’s one of the good things about a tree farm. Nothing to milk, nothing to feed every day.
    It’s a long-term game not a short one but there is more flexibility for those who want to be stewards of one bit of land while still being able to see some other lands, too. The trees never hold it against you if you leave them to their own devices even years at a time. Of course if you let things slide too long, you have underbrush problems and trees of sorts you don’t wish to grow volunteering their presence in the woods. But an annual vacation is something even the best foresters among us could manage. I said good-bye, scratched Bingley’s ears, and headed west toward Frank’s place on the outskirts of town.

Three

    I had saved Frank for last for two reasons. One, he had already sent me packing the week before when I had felt obligated to ask him if he wanted to join the cooperative. He had to be asked because he was one of the primary syrup producers in the county, let alone Sugar Grove, but I had gotten an earful once he heard a state inspection was the entrance requirement. Frank was an antigovernment conspiracy nut. He had scoffed and yelled and given me pitying looks about my naïveté and