Free Trick or Treat Murder by Leslie Meier

Understood?"

    Lenk nodded.

    "A word to the wise," she said, leaning forward and waving a gnarled finger at him. "Don't make any changes to that property until you have a certificate of appropriateness from this board. I'm warning you. This board takes violations very seriously."

    From the expression on Lenk's face as he headed for the door, Ted was pretty sure the commission was going to have one hell of a fight on its hands.

    "Anything else? If not, meeting adjourned," Miss Tilley decreed without calling for a vote. "Oh, Bill, do you have a minute? I have a few thoughts I'd like to share with you."

    Poor Bill, thought Ted, standing and slipping his notebook into his pocket. He looked as if he had been caught stuffing over' due books into the Book Return slot. Even though Miss Tilley could no longer charge overdue book fines, she would undoubtedly find some way to make him pay for his insubordination.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    "Did you tape Seinfeld?" Bill asked at breakfiast the next morning.

    Lucy put down the piece of toast she was about to bite and shook her head. "I forgot."

    "How could you forget?" demanded Bill.

    "Well —" said Lucy. "The evening started out peacefully enough but pretty soon the baby began fussing and then Toby couldn't find his gym shoes and Elizabeth needed help finding out why Connecticut is called the Nutmeg State and somehow it was too late and the show was over when I remembered. I'm sorry."

    "I only asked you to do one simple thing," continued Bill, unwilling to drop the matter.

    "It was only a TV show—it will be rerun before you know it. How was the meeting?" Lucy had been asleep when Bill came home.

    "I should never have said I'd be on that damn commission." Bill shook his head and sat down with a cup of coffee. 

    "That bad?"

    "Worse. Miss Tilley was not pleased with me. She told me independence of spirit is a fine thing, but not if it has a negative effect on the community. She also said I was a show-off."

    "You? You're usually so quiet."

    "I voted to let this couple paint their house green. I told them that early houses were often painted in bright colors but they didn't like it. The approved colors are white, off-white, and gray. Maybe yellow, if it's not too bright."

    "It's bound to be a little awkward at first. You all have to get used to one another."

    "They brought me on because I'm a restoration carpenter, right? I know about this stuff. It's how I make my living. But they don't want to listen to me. They've got some half-assed idea of what historic means, and they don't want to hear anything different. To them, a house is colonial if it's white and has shutters. They don't even care if the shutters are the right size for the windows. As long as it's a shutter, it's okay."

    "Maybe you need to compromise a bit, too," said Lucy. "Nobody today wants to spend a lot of money on authentic shutters they'll never use."

    "That's my point. They don't care if it's right. They might as well call it the Pseudo-Historic District, the Disney District. I think I'm gonna resign."

    "You can't resign after one meeting."

    "Why not? Besides it's gonna take a lot more time than I thought. You wouldn't believe the pages and pages of zoning bylaws she gave me. I'm supposed to 'familiarize myself' with them by the next meeting."

    "It'll work out. You'll see. They really need you."

    "I doubt it."

    "Well, at least give it a while longer. You wouldn't let Toby quit Little League last spring, even though he wanted to. What did you tell him. Only quitters are losers?"

    "That's the worst thing about being a parent," said Bill, grinning for the first time that morning. "Your words come back to haunt you."

    "That's for sure," said Lucy, getting up to fetch Zoe, who was demanding her breakfast. "Was I the one who said another baby would be no trouble at all?"

    Later, after Bill had gone to work and the kids had left for school, and Zoe had been bathed and fed and put down for her morning nap, Lucy