the base can be. Some people are mad that Dave and Terry started the company. Says it takes away from their real jobs. That Dave is ROAD and Terry is the civilian equivalent of that.â
Uh-oh. ROAD stood for retired on active dutyâa derogatory term used for people who, in their last year or two before retiring, slacked off or were lazy. âItâs never good if the perception is that he isnât doing his job anymore,â I said.
âSome people have whined about Dave taking time to get all the licensing he needed. But he started before he left his last base, and heâs on terminal leave now, so he can do what he wants.â
Terminal leave always sounded scary to me, but it was just the period of time when you were finished with your official air force duties but could use your accumulated leave before your official retirement or separation. âBubbles probably knew that, once the cheating scandal broke, he wouldnât get promoted again. It makes sense that heâd start preparing for whatâs next.â Most military people lined up or at least looked for jobs before they were officially retired. CJ had already been hired to replace Ellingtonâs retiring chief of police before the scandal with his subordinate last spring. Even after the scandal broke, Nancy insisted he could still have the job. She deemed that one blemish on an otherwise stellar career wasnât enough for the town to go through the search process again.
âI wonder why he decided to set his business up here,â Laura said.
âCJ told me Bubbles grew up in Maine and his ex and kids are in Nashua.â Nashua was a thirty-minute drive up the 3 depending on the time of day. Lots of military people lived up there because New Hampshire didnât have any state sales or income tax. âSince heâs been in the military, he knows what military membersâ investment needs are. It all makes sense.â
âSome people just donât like it when others are successful.â Laura studied me for a minute. âWhy do I get the impression thereâs something else going on that you arenât telling me?â
This is why Laura knew so much about what was going on around the base. She was either an astute judge of character or she just asked everyone that question, and in a fit of guilt everyone coughed up whatever they knew. Either way, it didnât hurt that the wing commanderâs wife stayed on top of what happened on base.
I shook my head. Laura would find out soon enough and probably be mad when she figured out Iâd known when we chatted. But at least I had an outâI didnât know for certain that the victim was Terry McQueen. I wondered when I would.
CHAPTER 7
When someone knocked on my door at six that night, I panicked. Iâd already washed my face, and my hair was pulled back in a headband. I was braless and wearing a tank top and yoga pants. I didnât want anyone to see me now, unless it was CJ; heâd seen me look worse. Besides, Iâd left multiple messages for him, so maybe heâd decided to drop by. Although because of the way weâd left things last night, I hadnât thought heâd be stopping by anytime soon. I whipped off the headband and gave my hair a shake.
I opened the door, and there stood Seth, in a beautifully tailored custom suit. His crisp white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, and a red silk tie peeked out of his right suit-coat pocket. He held a bottle of wine in one hand and a pizza box from DiNapoliâs in the other. I slammed the door in his face. I didnât want him to see me looking like this. Although I guess he already had.
Last spring, not long after Iâd met him, a magazine had named Seth âMassachusettsâs Most Eligible Bachelor.â He usually dated models, which made me wonder why heâd be interested in me. Two weeks ago, weâd argued when Seth asked me to go to some hoity-toity
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