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least a nice enough drunk, though. He never got abusive or belligerent and when he’d had enough, he just went to sleep. Just about anywhere too. Either Carl or Almost would just bundle him into their cruiser and take him home to dry out.
    They’ d never charge him either. In order for them to do that he’d have to be drunk and disorderly, or guilty of disturbing the peace. Errol never did either of those things. He was just a nice friendly guy who drank because he had gotten a bad break in his marriage.
    Donna Willis, an older widow lady and a very good neighbor of Errol’s, tried very hard to mend his break for him. Both she, and Pam Tomaso, who had been in Lisa’s diner when the car thief was there, would both be quite happy to comfort him. But apparently the absent Dolly still seemed to have a strong attraction for him.
    Occasionally, one or the other of the ladies would drive him out to the ‘Olde Tyme’ diner for breakfast. They tried to at least get a little food into him before he began his boozing in earnest.
    Of the two of them, it was probably Donna who cared for him the most. She’d go into his place two or three times a week to do his laundry and clean up his place. It was not that he or his home was dirty, just untidy.
    Pam’s main contribution was to cash his monthly pension checks for him. He’d worked in Barre’s huge granite quarries for years until an accident had badly damaged his right leg. He could still walk and work but he’d been pensioned off right afterwards anyway.
    Pam would cas h the checks and make sure his cupboards and refrigerator were well stocked with a month’s supply of food. If somebody hadn’t bothered, he’d have blown the whole month’s check on booze in the first week.
    It’s hard to say if either of the ladies was actually romantically interested in Errol. They both just very felt sorry for him and just enjoyed mothering him. After all, it would be pretty hard for any woman to maintain a romantic interest if her intended partner was constantly falling down drunk, wouldn’t it? When they asked him why he drank so much, he’d just clam up and refuse to discuss it.
    Like other communities everywhere, large or small, Cooper’s Corners had its fair share of teenagers. And an equally fair share of the problems teenagers can generate for the adults. One of the most notable in recent years was the pregnancy of Bessie Conroy.
    The pregnancy was never a secret and neither was the identity of the father. In fact, Jared Thoms was very proud of the fact he’d fathered a child. The problem, as such, was both kids were barely sixteen when the baby was born. They were also both still in school.
    Bessie’s mother and father, finding themselves now as grandparents, had opted to raise the child, a girl, until the kids were old enough to sort themselves out. A further problem arose when, just over a year later, they had themselves another one, a boy this time.
    That one was taken care of by Jared’s widowed mother. However, without being specific, both kids were warned there would be dire personal and surgical consequences, if they ever even thought of doing it again.
    The threat must have worked because they were now both twenty, with Jared gainfully employed by a bank in Newport. Bessie stayed home in their apartment in Cooper’s Corners with the two kids. Next year they planned to get married and hopefully to each other, their respective families fervently prayed.
    Apart from some of the younger school kids stealing candy and cigarettes from the corner store, there was very little other crime in and around Cooper’s Corners. When the kids were caught, Carl or Almost would put the fear of God and the penitentiary into them, and would then drive them home for their parents to deal with. Overall, Cooper’s Corners was a very law abiding community and it always had been.
    Up until now, that is, but now Cooper’s Corners had itself a murder !
    And also, completely unbeknownst to