Trick or Treachery Read Online Free

squad car. “All right, folks, let’s move along now.” Mort’s voice boomed out of his vehicle’s loudspeaker. He got out and waved the crowd away. I looked around. In the short time I’d been listening, Tremaine’s audience had grown. Merchants stood in their shop doorways, their customers spilling out onto the sidewalk. It looked as if all Cabot Cove had stopped what they’d been doing to listen to this madman.
    “Sheriff,” Tremaine yelled from his perch, “this is a legal gathering. Have you never heard of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly? You’re tromping on my rights. I demand to be allowed to communicate with these good people.”
    “You can communicate all you want,” Mort shouted back, “but it’s public safety I’m concerned about, and you’re blocking traffic, not to mention alarming the citizens with your claptrap.”
    Tremaine struck a defiant pose. “See?” he called to the departing crowd. “The officials in Cabot Cove are afraid of us. They know I’m telling you the truth, but they’re hiding the facts from you. It’s a cover-up. Don’t let them get away with it. Join me.”
    Mort took a step toward the bench. Tremaine glared at him before climbing down and thrusting circulars into outstretched hands as he pushed his way through the few remaining listeners. Some teenagers jeered him, and a woman yelled, “You’re nothing but a nut case.”
    Her comment caused Tremaine to stop and turn. I feared he would physically attack her. Instead, he muttered something I couldn’t hear, then stalked away.
    The audience slowly dispersed, and Cabot Cove’s village center, as we refer to downtown, resumed its usual peaceful mien. I looked for Artie Sack, but he’d disappeared.
    When I entered Charles Department Store, it was buzzing with gossip about Tremaine and his predictions of dire happenings. I crossed the creaky wooden floor, skirted the wooden display cabinets, waved to the group gathered at the cashier’s desk and found my way to the men’s department in the back, where bins of socks were located.
    “Exciting afternoon, huh, Jessica?” said David Raneri, one of the store’s owners as he came down the aisle with an armload of sweaters.
    “I don’t know if I’d call it exciting exactly. Disturbing comes closer to mind.”
    “You’re the writer, so I’ll let you pick the words,” he said, grinning.
    Richard Koser turned from the counter where he’d been examining a green cardigan and plucked a deep blue one from the pile in David’s arms. Besides being a wonderful commercial photographer—he’d shot most of the photos for my books’ dust jackets—Richard was one of Cabot Cove’s acknowledged gourmet cooks. “Thanks, Dave,” Richard said. “Just the right color.” He held it up to his chest. “What do you think, Jess?”
    “Looks perfect to me,” I said.
    “Told you about that maniac, didn’t I?” Richard continued. “He’ll probably get a good audience, too. P. T. Barnum was right, about a sucker being born every minute.”
    David turned to me. “Can I help you find something, Jess?”
    “I hope so. I need a pair of long white socks.”
    “For you?”
    “Actually, no. They’re for Seth Hazlitt.”
    Richard and David exchanged amused glances.
    “Not for his everyday use,” I quickly added. “It’s for his Halloween costume. Paul Marshall’s annual party.”
    “What’s Doc going as,” Koser asked, “the lead dancer from The Nutcracker ?” Richard could be as acerbic as he was talented with a camera.
    “No,” I said, “he’s going as a Revolutionary War soldier.”
    “An officer, I assume,” said Koser. “Doc Hazlitt would never be content as an enlisted man.”
    “I think it’s an officer’s uniform,” I said. “I got his costume from Marcia Davis at the theater. I need the long white socks to finish it off.”
    “Come with me,” David said, setting down the sweaters on a table. “Women’s section.”
    In all my travels I