A Deadly Snow Fall (27 page)

“The tall, attractive female attorney,” the
reporter explained, “has turned this trial around as if wielding a
magic wand in the eleventh hour.” As he said, “The defendant Edna
Snow has rejected a handful of lawyers in the course of this case,
but she appears to have made the correct choice this time. What
appeared, until just days ago, to be a hanging jury, this legal
eagle has softened into twelve kinder and gentler
adjudicators.”

We all stood as the judge appeared and the
final arguments and sentencing proceeded. Of course, everyone
believed that a case so complex would take days for the jury to
bring to a final verdict. Everyone had been dead wrong. Instead,
the jury marched out and eighteen minutes later, returned with
their verdict.

Emily was given a three year parole and five
hundred hours of community service. She eventually went to work at
the Land’s End Walk-In Medical Clinic. There, she impressed even
the best doctors with her ability to diagnose ailments, either by
holding a patient’s hand or looking into theirs eyes. Of course,
she was just a volunteer receptionist there, but even before a
patient saw the doctors, Emily/Edna wrote down her prognosis on a
pad she kept at her desk. Later, she’d compare her diagnosis to the
official record and only occasionally missed. Some people have a
sixth sense. Emily/Edna was such a person. Eloise might have been
hidden under the desk but she seemed to be gone forever.

After the trial, Edna built a new house on
the site of the Snow mansion using her inheritance. I offered to
give her cat back, but she decided that Jasmine was best living
with her close “relative.”

She slipped right back into her old status of
a pleasant, albeit quirky, little lady. After all, Provincetown’s
leit-motif is nothing if not quirky. Just one more proof of the
cohesiveness of that idiosyncratic, eclectic village.

Oh, yes. I must include the fact that Chet
Henderson retired as Police Chief and James Finneran was appointed
Chief. Two weeks after his retirement, Chet and Edna had their
first date. He continued to call her Emily. They were married three
months later and were off to their honeymoon in Puerto Rico. While
there, Emily purchased a new crystal ball from a local “healer.” By
the time they got back to Provincetown, Chet was pretty much
pain-free. The new crystal ball sat in a place of prominence across
from their bed in Emily’s new house.

On the drive back down-Cape from Barnstable,
Daphne and I chewed over what we had learned that day in court.
Finally, we concluded that it was best to simply forget what was
obviously just one of the strange tricks the universe sometimes
plays on us mere humans. Otherwise, we’d probably drive ourselves
balmy.

The name of Edna Gonsalves Snow’s amazing
defender was Attorney Eloise Ballantine. As Daphne said, “Go
figure!”

###

About the Author

Cynthia Gallant-Simpson was
educated in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and attended a
small college west of London, England. She began her writing career
as a journalist for a small, south of Boston, daily newspaper. From
there, she moved on to writing sailing, cruising and galley
provisioning (recipe) articles for U.S. and Canadian cruising
magazines. 

It was during her time in England that
Cynthia became “addicted” to British mysteries and later added
cozies to her list of favorite reading material. She is the author
of numerous adult mysteries, illustrated children’s books, two
chapter books for middle readers and--more recently—spends her time
writing cozies. She aims to write painterly stories whose
descriptions “paint pictures in the mind’s eyes of my readers.”

She is also a painter of maritime narrative
Americana Primitives--full of  ships, whales, lighthouses and
mermaids.  Relying on the combination of her lifetime love of
maritime history, lots of research, and what she refers to as her
“historic eye,” she easily slips back into the days of “iron men
and wooden ships.”  Her work is shown in fine galleries and
private collections from Nantucket and Cape Cod to New Zealand. One
piece even resides in the permanent collection of the Tokyo, Japan,
National Art Gallery.

Cynthia and her husband are dedicated sailors
and in 2005, the couple sold their antique sea captain’s house and
furniture in Brewster on Cape Cod and moved to a 44 foot boat,
thereby simplifying their lives for their shared pursuit of writing
and her painting.  However, with friends and family still on
Cape Cod, they return home there every summer to live on their boat
and spend their winters in North Carolina and traveling.

Published by
www.cozycatpress.com