The Longest Yard Sale

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Authors: Sherry Harris
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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.”
    Uh-oh. ROAD stood for retired on active duty—a derogatory term used for people who, in their last year or two before retiring, slacked off or were lazy. “It’s never good if the perception is that he isn’t doing his job anymore,” I said.
    â€œSome people have whined about Dave taking time to get all the licensing he needed. But he started before he left his last base, and he’s on terminal leave now, so he can do what he wants.”
    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. “Bubbles probably knew that, once the cheating scandal broke, he wouldn’t get promoted again. It makes sense that he’d start preparing for what’s next.” Most military people lined up or at least looked for jobs before they were officially retired. CJ had already been hired to replace Ellington’s 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 wasn’t enough for the town to go through the search process again.
    â€œI wonder why he decided to set his business up here,” Laura said.
    â€œCJ told me Bubbles grew up in Maine and his ex and kids are in Nashua.” 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 didn’t have any state sales or income tax. “Since he’s been in the military, he knows what military members’ investment needs are. It all makes sense.”
    â€œSome people just don’t like it when others are successful.” Laura studied me for a minute. “Why do I get the impression there’s something else going on that you aren’t telling me?”
    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 didn’t hurt that the wing commander’s 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 I’d known when we chatted. But at least I had an out—I didn’t 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. I’d 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 didn’t want anyone to see me now, unless it was CJ; he’d seen me look worse. Besides, I’d left multiple messages for him, so maybe he’d decided to drop by. Although because of the way we’d left things last night, I hadn’t thought he’d 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 DiNapoli’s in the other. I slammed the door in his face. I didn’t want him to see me looking like this. Although I guess he already had.
    Last spring, not long after I’d met him, a magazine had named Seth “Massachusetts’s Most Eligible Bachelor.” He usually dated models, which made me wonder why he’d be interested in me. Two weeks ago, we’d argued when Seth asked me to go to some hoity-toity

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