All About the Pie

... is based on Star Lake, a sister community to the hamlet of Wanakena, where the novels in the Love and Murder in the Adirondacks series are set. 

It was published in a nifty online journal currently on hiatus – Tough.

Enjoy!

Gene Polson had a keen mind, a woodworker’s hands, and an appetite for sweet treats and women, not necessarily in that order. Everyone in Star Lake knew the man. Most liked him. However, they shook their heads and sighed whenever they saw him escorting a new lady friend to The Sand Bar, named after the actual sandy bar visible in the lake. The natural formation served as a gathering spot for pontoon boats during the summer season. Tourists loved the watery drinking hole. Locals, not so much. Too raucous. Too down-state. For residents, the bricks-and-mortar establishment remained the only place in town where one could get a beer, cop a feel, and savor a yummy dessert without moving off the barstool. Over the years, the mirrored ceiling had witnessed most of Gene’s liaisons, beginning with the one that produced his only child. But it never saw the final hookup coming, the one that left the town reeling and the philandering Polson’s disappearance a puzzle no one could solve.

Gene and I had established a tenuous relationship ever since we fought to a draw in fourth grade over who would be best friends with Jeri Liotta, Star Lake’s perennial queen of hearts. While Gene and I remained friendly rivals, he and Jeri were an on-again, off-again romantic couple. After Gene’s divorce from the bitch from Syracuse, he and Jeri established a friends-with-benefits relationship that shocked no one. After all, Peyton Place had nothing on the randy behaviors of the inhabitants of an isolated Adirondack hamlet with nothing but forests and each other to explore.

The gossip mill had pretty much ground to a halt the year a Maryland couple with more money than brains gobbled up four cabins, intending to rent them out during tourist season and rake in the money. Of course, the Iversons had no clue about maintenance and needed a caretaker to spruce up the dated homes. I helped them out until I passed the bar and my legal practice took off. When Gregor Iverson died suddenly of a heart attack, his widow Malva inherited his estate. That included the ill-advised investment in Star Lake tourism. With no home improvement skills and less interest in learning any, she begged me for help. Not thinking things through, I referred her to Gene.

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