Jumping Rise Read online

  Jumping Rise

  Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Series, Volume 7

  S.W. Hubbard

  Published by S.W. Hubbard, 2021.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  JUMPING RISE

  First edition. April 6, 2021.

  Copyright © 2021 S.W. Hubbard.

  Written by S.W. Hubbard.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  When Frank Bennett opened the door onto his screen porch, the steam from his mug of coffee formed a visible cloud in the cool morning air. He sat in an Adirondack chair, resting his mug on the wide arm, and prepared to watch the sun rise over the mountains. From the bottom of the meadow that formed his back yard, he could hear the sound of Stony Creek rushing along on its journey toward the AuSable River. Picking up the binoculars he kept on the porch end table, Frank zoomed in on the banks of the stream. An adjustment brought a great blue heron into focus. While Frank watched, the bird plunged its long beak into the water and nabbed its breakfast.

  “You’re up early. I thought you were working the late shift today.”

  Frank didn’t know if the bird heard his wife’s voice carry through the quiet morning air, but it took off, broad wings flapping and ungainly legs trailing.

  “Oh, did I scare him?” Penny sat in the other Adirondack chair. She wore a cotton nightgown whose rose pattern had faded to vague pink blobs, and big fluffy slippers. A cowlick at the crown of her head had not yet been tamed by a hairbrush.

  Frank thought she looked beautiful.

  “I woke up at five and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I thought I’d read out here and watch the sunrise,” Frank explained. “Did I wake you banging around in the kitchen?”

  “No, I reached out for you, and found Yogi instead,” Penny explained. The Bennetts’ huge black cat stalked onto the porch and yowled plaintively. “Breakfast is coming. You’re not going to faint,” Penny assured the feline.

  Penny sipped her coffee. “It’s so nice and cool this morning, but the weather report predicts a high of eighty-five.”

  “I suppose I’ll be responding to lots of heat stroke and dehydration calls this afternoon,” Frank said. “What are you doing today?”

  “Putting the finishing touches on my Computer Literacy for Seniors class. I’ve got modules on How to Get Online, Social Media Dos and Don’ts, and Finding Trustworthy Information Sources.” Penny nudged Yogi away from a dead fly he was considering eating. “Would you ask Earl if he’d be willing to speak to the class about online scammers who prey on seniors?”

  “I’m sure he’d do a great job. But you should ask him directly. He’ll be flattered.” Frank’s second, and only, in command had only recently graduated from the police academy, but Frank relied on him for his on-line investigative skills.

  “I’ll tell him I got the idea because you’re always talking about how brilliant he is with technology.” Penny winked. “That’s what he’d find truly flattering.”

  AS FRANK ENTERED THE town office later that morning, he could hear voices coming from behind the police department door.

  “Can you ask him, Earl? Please?” Doris, the town secretary pleaded with Earl. “He’ll listen to you.”

  “I can’t ask him to do that,” Earl objected.

  “Ask me what?” Frank entered the office to find Doris sitting in the visitor’s chair in front of Earl’s desk.

  She jumped up and spun around, running a hand through her unevenly dyed grayish brown hair. “Oh, Frank...you’re here...I mean, er, you’re early. Kind of.”

  Frank glanced at the clock on the wall. He didn’t think he was such a time-card-puncher that anyone would be startled to see him ten minutes before his shift officially began. But the flustered expression on Doris’s face told him his arrival would have rattled her, early or late. He felt his morning happiness fade. When Doris got that deer-in-the-headlights look, it meant she thought he was about to yell at her. Which of course prompted the question, what had she done to merit his ire?

  Frank tossed his backpack beside his desk. “What did you want to ask me?”

  Doris cleared her throat and yanked at the hem of her plaid shirt. “Oh, well...uhm...it’s a favor. Not for me, but for my nephew.”

  Frank looked over Doris’s shoulder to where Earl sat rolling his eyes and shaking his head like a spooked horse. Clearly, whatever the favor was, Earl thought he shouldn’t grant it.

  Which meant the favor must be huge, bordering on unreasonable, since Earl was much more of a pushover than Frank.

  “Your sister Gloria’s boy?” Frank clarified. Doris and Gloria were very close, and Gloria often stopped by the office to visit, usually bearing her outstanding venison sausage casserole or rhubarb pie. Frank would grant a favor to keep that supply coming. Gloria’s son was a gawky teenager, awkward but amiable.

  Doris shook her head, while Earl continued a series of exaggerated grimaces that could have won him a role in a silent movie. “Not Gloria’s son, my husband’s brother’s son, Blaine.”

  Frank sat at his desk and began glancing through the state police reports that had arrived since yesterday. “Blaine—have I met him?” Doris, like Earl, had a vast and complex family tree extending throughout Essex County.

  Doris moved into the chair in front of Frank’s desk. “Mmm—maybe once, at last year’s Labor Day picnic. He doesn’t live in Trout Run. Their family’s up in Keeseville.”

  Earl was now broadly miming drinking from a bottle. Frank kept his eyes averted, afraid he’d crack up laughing if he met Earl’s gaze. Frank leaned across his desk. “So what’s the problem, Doris? Is Blaine in some kind of trouble?”

  Two tears slipped down Doris’s cheeks, carving a white stripe through her too-vivid rouge. Oh, geez—crying! Now he was cooked.

  She rooted a tattered tissue from her cardigan pocket. “Yes,” she sobbed. “He got arrested. He’s in the county jail in Lewis. Can you call the state police, Frank? See if you can get them to let him go? This is just killing our family.”

  “Wait...the state police arrested him?” That was a more serious matter than running afoul of the local cops. “On what charges?”

  Doris looked down at her sturdy shoes. “Drugs,” she whispered. “He was always such a sweet boy. There must be some mistake.”

  “Possession?” Frank enquired hopefully. Maybe th
e state police stopped Blaine for speeding and discovered a bag of weed in his car. Frank might be able to get him a break for that.

  Doris gave her head one short, sharp shake.

  Hmmm—selling.

  Behind her, Earl mimed injecting.

  “Heroin!” The word shot out of Frank’s mouth as he forgot he wasn’t supposed to be watching Earl. “He’s selling heroin?”

  Doris began to sob in earnest. “His parents had no idea. They’re worried he’ll get sent away to Attica or Danemorra. He can’t survive the-e-r-re.” Her sentence ended in a high-pitched wail.

  He should have considered that before he started dealing. But Frank kept that thought to himself. He couldn’t be cruel to Doris, and her nephew’s transgressions weren’t her fault. But Earl was right—no way would he intervene in a heroin-dealing arrest.

  “My recommendation is they hire him a good lawyer. If it’s a first offense, maybe he can get into one of those diversion programs. I assume he’s using as well as selling?”

  Doris offered a miserable shrug. She wouldn’t speak ill of anyone, least of all her own family. “We don’t know any lawyers other than Reid.”

  Reid Burlingame was the chairman of the Trout Run town council and handled everyone’s wills and real estate transactions. Frank didn’t think the old gentleman was well suited for driving a hard bargain with the Essex County DA. “I’ll ask around for advice on a lawyer,” Frank offered. “In the meantime, why don’t you go on home. You’re too upset to work.” His offer wasn’t entirely altruistic. He didn’t want Doris to hear what he’d be saying when he made his calls.

  Doris rubbed her red nose with her shredded tissue. “No, I can’t. I don’t have any more vacation days left.”

  Frank made a shooing gesture. “That’s okay. We won’t count this one.”

  “But that’s not fair to you and Earl,” Doris protested. She wasn’t the world’s most competent secretary, but she was scrupulously honest.

  Earl came over to Doris and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Don’t worry about it, Doris. We’ll manage fine for today. Go on home and take it easy.”

  “You boys are too good to me,” Doris snuffled as she left the office.

  Frank waited until he heard the front door close behind her before he spoke to Earl. “You know this kid?”

  “Yeah—we were in Boy Scouts together back in the day.”

  As Earl had only recently celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday, the day wasn’t all that long ago.

  “He’s bad news.” Earl stared out the office window at Doris’s retreating figure. “He started drinking and smoking weed in middle school. I’m not surprised he’s come to this, even if Doris is.”

  “Damn heroin is everywhere these days,” Frank said. “No place is immune.” He reached for the phone on his desk.

  “Who are you calling?” Earl asked.

  “First, I’m calling the state police to find out exactly how much trouble Blaine is in. Then I’ll reach out to the lawyer. There’s a criminal defense attorney over in Lake Placid,” Frank said. “I met him at some shindig Penny dragged me to. Maybe he can help. But he won’t be cheap.”

  Chapter 2

  The discussions with the state police and the slick criminal defense attorney depressed Frank, and he insisted on doing the afternoon patrol to get out of the confines of the office.

  He needed fresh air and mountain views to cheer him because Blaine Timmons was in a heap of trouble.

  Frank pulled out of the town office parking lot thinking about what he’d learned. The state police had caught Blaine red-handed selling ten-dollar bags of heroin behind a skeevy laundromat in Keeseville. He’d been so high himself he hadn’t resisted arrest, and was now undergoing a very unpleasant cold-turkey detox in a cell of the county jail. If he were released before his trial date, he’d undoubtedly go right back to using and selling to support his habit. The state police knew he wasn’t a big time operator, so Blaine’s one hope of leniency was to rat on his supplier. To date, he’d been uncooperative, but he was still too dopesick to listen to reason.

  The conversation with the lawyer had been even more despair-inducing. The man had a shocking amount of experience with cases just like Blaine’s. He quoted an outrageous price to represent him at trial and promised very little in the way of results.

  Take it or leave it.

  Frank gunned the engine of the patrol vehicle as he headed up the hill and left the town green behind him. Bright sunshine radiated off the blacktop. Ahead of him the rocky peak of Whiteface, finally bare of snow, stood out against the bright blue sky. A fluffy white cloud in the shape of a whale hung suspended to the west, as if drawn by a child with a big new box of crayons. But the beautiful scenery did little to lift Frank’s spirits.

  He envisioned Doris’s extended family all chipping in money from their hard-earned savings, and for what? If the lawyer miraculously succeeded in getting Blaine off without jail time, the kid would probably get arrested again within weeks now that he was on law enforcement’s radar. So the money for the lawyer would be wasted because Doris’s family wouldn’t be able to produce an endless stream of cash to keep bailing out the addict in their midst. Defending Blaine on the current charges was just postponing his inevitable trip to a state prison.

  Or the morgue.

  Frank thought Blaine might actually be better served by five years of hard time, but he knew he’d never convince Doris and her family of that. He made a mental note to call Trudy Massinay, the county social worker, to see what she might be able to line up in the way of drug treatment. But Blaine had to be committed to recovery, and Frank had no idea if he was.

  Two kids, sitting at a roadside table selling tomatoes and zucchini from their garden, waved to Frank as he passed. He waved back, but even this innocent scene brought his thoughts back to Blaine. Surely Doris’s nephew had once been happy and carefree like those kids, full of dreams and love of life. But Earl had said the boy had been heading for trouble since middle school. Frank knew his assistant to have a kind and generous spirit, slow to anger and quick to make allowances for other people’s shortcomings. It took a lot to cause Earl to judge another person harshly. He wondered if Earl knew more details about Blaine than he had mentioned.

  Five miles outside the village center, Frank crested the rise on Rt. 86, and the Mountain Vista Motel came into view. A smile crept onto his face. He could drop by and visit the Patels. He always enjoyed talking to Sanjiv and Mina, and seeing their youngest child, Sarah, was a sure-fire antidote to the miseries of the world. Sarah’s birth had been marked by tragedy, but all signs of that had now been erased.

  Sarah Sheehan Patel was living proof that sometimes life worked out for the best.

  Frank pulled the patrol vehicle into the motel’s parking lot. The Mountain Vista was aptly named—all fifteen units had a commanding view of the Verona range. Before Sanjiv had bought the place nearly a decade ago, the little motel had fallen into disrepair. But through hard work, Sanjiv had turned it around, and when he married Mina, the place had gotten even nicer with the addition of flowerboxes of bright geraniums and snazzy pool-side chaise lounge chairs.

  As Frank walked toward the main office, he saw a young family frolicking in the pool and the cleaning and linens cart parked outside of one of the rooms. At the registration desk, Sanjiv Patel lifted his head from some paperwork at the sound of the door opening. A bright smile lit his eternally youthful face as he recognized his visitor.

  “Farhan—look,” he nudged a boy whose dark head hunched over a computer behind the registration desk. “We are honored with a visit from Police Chief Bennett.”

  The boy’s big, dark eyes glanced up briefly. “Hi,” he said, before immediately returning to tapping the keyboard.

  Sanjiv extended his thin, brown hand to shake across the registration counter. “Farhan contains his excitement very well. But I am delighted to see you, my friend.”

  Frank laughed. He’d been wise to stop—alr
eady he felt better at the sight of a happy family.

  Mina had brought two young sons to the marriage—their father had been killed in a car accident—and Sanjiv had sole custody of his daughter Sarah, whose birth had caused a scandal in Trout Run. But that was all forgotten now. The Patels were the perfect blended family. They never made distinctions like “stepfather” or “stepbrother”—all the kids called both parents mom and dad and all regarded one another as true siblings. Mina doted on six-year-old Sarah, and Sanjiv was clearly proud of 13 year old Farhan and 11 year old Emir.

  “How’s business?” Frank asked.

  “Slow at the beginning of the summer—so much rain and bugs!” Sanjiv glanced skyward. “But now, all our rooms are booked right up until Thanksgiving. We owe our success to Farhan.” He patted his son’s shoulder.

  Farhan squirmed away from his father’s embrace, but Frank could see the boy was pleased by the praise. “What have you been up to, Farhan?” Frank asked.

  “I redesigned our website and installed an online reservation system that integrates with the Adirondack Visitor Center’s site and—”

  “The details would make your head spin,” Sanjiv said, beaming. “He is quite the computer whiz. He will be the next Bill Gates, I think.”

  Farhan rolled his eyes and went back to peering at his screen. “It wasn’t even hard,” he muttered.

  “And Emir is our pool maintenance man. He has studied up on all the necessary water treatments—a true chemist. No more green water for us!” Sanjiv squinted through the big window in the reception area. “Ah, you see he is out there vacuuming the pool right now. And Sarah is watering the flowers. That is her job, and she takes it very seriously. A future horticulturalist.” Sanjiv ushered Frank toward the door. “Come, we will go out to visit with her. Farhan, keep watch for our customers.”

  Frank followed Sanjiv outside. He thought it was great that the three Patel kids all had jobs around the motel. In his opinion, too many parents focused on giving their kids a childhood of endless leisure, when in his experience, kids actually enjoyed feeling productive. Down the sidewalk that ran in front of the room doors, Mina Patel appeared briefly and waved cheerily to Frank.