"As I was saying, we Shriners should be providing more opportunities," said Carl. He was balding. His salty gray mustache was bushy but well trimmed. He was reclining on an Andirondack chair, wearing heavy winter gear, in his Florida room. The Florida room (a glass-enclosed porch) overlooked the town and waterfront. Although it was about 7pm, it was dark, with a full moon, with streetlights lighting Main Street. Night fell about 5pm in January.
"Pah. We're doing plenty," said Jim. "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." Jim was sitting forward on a lawn chair, in his parka, holding binoculars in his mittened hands. He had a cleanshaven face and a full head of curly hair, which had gone white. His bicycle leaned against a tree outside. "Say, there's the mayor."
Carl squinted, picking out a large man and a smaller figure walking along the riverfront trail away from town. The large man (the mayor Lucas Preston, who had previously run a construction company) wore his habitual backpack. "My word, it is. Who's that with him?"
Jim brought up his binoculars, searched, focused. "Hm, doesn't ring a bell. Purple snow jacket, hood covering her face. But judging by her walk, she's a looker." The figures disappeared into the night behind some trees, walking beside the frozen river.
"He's a menace, that man," said Jim. "I can't believe you voted for him. You dated his mother in high school, right?"
"Now Jim, you know that's got nothing to do with it," said Carl. "We had a choice between a competent menace and a meddlesome idiot. I chose competence, and you ... didn't." Carl fished for his binoculars. There was a break in the trees a bit further down the path. They both focused and waited.
The two figures came into the clearing. The mayor, towering over the woman, gestured across the frozen river. She looked out.
"Can't tell anything but their silhouettes in the moonlight," said Carl, peering through his binoculars.
The mayor hit the woman in the back, and she fell.
"$#@!," said Jim. "That's beneath him even."
The mayor bent down, took off her jacket, and put it in his backpack.
"I think he did more than hit her," said Carl. The two men watched intently.
The mayor picked up her limp body and threw her in an open spot in the river. Ripples sparkled in the moonlight.
"That's a murder," said Carl matter-of-factly. "He's counting on the current to wash the body downstream."
The mayor looked around, methodically, then stopped, staring at Carl's house. He brought a hand to his face for a moment, then purposefully started walking again along the path behind the trees.
"We've been spotted," said Jim.
"I'm calling the police," said Carl. "This is what we pay them for." He went inside and started dialing.
"Ah," said Jim. "This is the mayor. What if the police are in on it?"
Carl paused. "Well this is a fine kettle of fish."
The mayor walked up to Carl's house. Nobody was in the Florida room, but Jim's bike was parked outside and the lights were on. He knocked politely on the door.
"Who is it?" asked Carl.
"The Mayor," said Lucas. "I was wondering if you two saw anything unusual tonight."
Jim choked back a laugh.
"I'll say we did," said Carl. "We called the cops."
A police car silently pulled into their gravel driveway. Officer Darryl Fish got out.
"They saw it," Lucas told Fish quietly.
"Can we come in?" asked officer Fish.
"Why don't you ask Lucas what he has in his backpack?" asked Carl.
"We'd just like to ask you some questions," said officer Fish. "Police inquiry."
"Oh, so that's how it is," said Jim. "We posted to the neighborhood watch mailing list too."
"And called my daughter in California. And your daughter, officer Fish," said Carl.
"You WHAT?"
"Martha! The mayor's here!" called Carl up the stairs.
"Oh! Hello Lucas!" said Martha, coming down, holding a phone. "Just a minute," she said to the phone. To the mayor: "I hear you just murdered someone. I have your mother in law on the phone. Should I put her on speaker?"
"LUCAS IF YOU GET NEAR MY DAUGHTER AGAIN YOU @#$(&!@# I'LL"
"Well maybe not right now, Dear," said Carl. Martha turned the phone off speaker.
"I can't believe you'd try to pull off something like this in Our Town, sir," said Jim. "Everybody knows everybody. I always said you're a menace, but honestly, I thought you were smarter than this."
And as an aside to Carl, "See, I Told you not to vote for that @#$(&!@#."
This was in response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts.