The Fire Chief had received an anonymous phone call informing him that smoke was filling the museum building. The truth was that an hour before the fire department swarmed upon the museum's auditorium, smokeless incense had been lit. As Neil would report to Board Chairperson Veronica Pillsbury, the arrival of the Firemen came as a complete surprise. "I was at the foot of the stairs, by the Meeting Room doors, when the furor of the many firemen spilled forth, filling the stairs with clamor, commotion, and the dozen or more dazzling yellow uniforms. I acted quickly, asking politely if any one fireman could please stand aside with me for one moment to clarify for me the reason for their being there. One did so. He moved with me from the staircase to the auditorium kitchen. I showed him the remains of the stick of incense that had been burned. It was there, in the kitchen, at this juncture, that the Chief appeared."

The newspaper article had closed with the comment, "At the Chief's direction, the source of the emergency was snuffed." The reporter could have written, in such a vein, that an elephant had been flying through the room.

The firemen had entered the museum through the front doors. Fran Micheline and Lizzie Cunningham, standing at the entrance, had efficiently waved them in and right on down the stairs. "After the firemen departed," Bokman reported to Veronica, "Fran Micheline informed me a patron had told her there was smoke in the building, and that she and Lizzie had responded appropriately, telephoning the fire department. I mumbled, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' My memory tells me I mumbled 'Yeah, yeah, yeah' three times, not (as Fran now adamantly maintains) five times. It would be an exercise in futility to share the considerations in my mind at that moment, when I mumbled 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' I did indeed sigh and look absently at the staff schedule, just as Fran maintains. And, as Fran insists, I did in silence turn away from the schedule and return to the auditorium. That Fran says she then expected I would order an evacuation of the building -- that is news. At that point, with the firemen leaving, it would have made no sense to evacuate the building.

"As concerns the newspaper's quoting Fran's claiming that Hayden Brown told her I said somebody 'finally got even' with somebody for something," Neil reported to Veronica, "I have no control over what Fran says to Hayden, or what Hayden says to Fran, or what Fran says Hayden said. I do know that I did not say to Hayden what Fran says I said, and that Hayden says he didn't say what Fran is saying he said I said -- for what that's worth. I insinuated nothing to anyone. I said plainly and frankly that I found it extraordinary that the Fire Department had showed up as they did, when they did. I may well have muttered, under my breath, something like,"here we go again."

Something peculiar and familiar and fishy about all this. It did feel as if some seed planted had been reaped, in the manner of so many other incidents and embarassments through the years. Right down to the newspaper flourish on the heels of the incident. "Business as usual" -- mischief an entrenched tradition now. "By the way," Neil wrote Veronica, "the Chief was very unhappy about his having to respond to the urgent call he'd received, only to snuff out a stick of smokeless incense. I told him I appreciated their consideration in not bringing stroke or heart failure to any of those in attendance at the program that was then in progress. The Chief is admant that there should never be smoke or even anything like smoke in the building again, ever. He asked me if there was anywhere in the museum where there might be, or might have been, smoke," Neil reported. "I informed him that, yes, museum trustee Cunningham and maintenance man Hayden Brown smoked occasionally inside the building. Again the Chief warned me sternly, 'never permit smoke or anything even resembling smoke in any part of this building ever again.' I said okay. By this we will abide.

"After that conversation," Neil continued, "the Chief and his men left the building. I heard nothing of what Mr. Barrow is now claiming transpired -- some sort of 'obscenities' spoken? I know nothing of this. Concerning the Camperdene Daily Journal's report, I spoke with the Journal's editorial office and was told the Fire Chief indeed said these things to reporter Alice Armour Armstrong, who wrote the article. The Chief, however, contrarily told me he never spoke with a reporter about it.

A few days passed, and Veronica got back to Neil, presenting him with a letter sent by Fran Micheline, assering that Neil was "incompetent -- and a pyromaniac." incompetency and pyromaniac."

"In light of my record of consistently encouraging and supporting Fran in her professional and leadership skills and growth," Neil responed, "her impassioned assertions of my incompetency and pyromania are very painful. The concoctions seem constructed in order to provoke -- to elicit anger and perpetuate confusion."

In the days following, Fran took to parking her car in the space designated for the museum curator. In mid-June Neil wrote to Veronica Pillsbury, "I have given formal notice to all staff members that the curator's parking space is available to any staffer on the basis of 'space of last recourse' -- when the other spaces are all filled. Anybody parking in the space when there are still other spaces available is missing the point." Neil also reported that, in the staff parking lot, just as one entered, the pavement had been sinking -- apparently due to problems with an underlying sewer pipe. Hayden Brown had said he'd keep Neil informed of consultations with the Town Engineer and others concerning this problem. He'd seek three bids from different contractors able to make appropriate repairs.

It was at this juncture that Neil was told of yet another complaint. Lizzie Cunningham had told a museum visitor to "take a hike" fifteen minutes after Lizzie's noon lunch break had begun. The vitior had kept Lizzie busy till a quarter past noon. Instead of eating, Lizzie sat down and wrote a formal complaint to Neil, with a courtesy copy for the board of museum trustees.

"Obviously, this is an area of concern," Neil responded to Veronica Pillsbury's inquiry about Lizzie's returning 15 minutes late from lunch, and his filling in for her at the Circulation desk in her absence -- and Lizzie's taking comp time for 15 minutes. "Quite apart from all this," Neil wrote, "what is your opinion of corrupt and mischievous people?"

One evening a kindly, softspoken, silver-haired old man came into the museum, sought out Neil and, looking left and then right of him, then looked straight into Neil's eyes and whispered, ominously, "My advice to you is, watch your back."

One night at midnight, while Neil's darling family slept, even as assorted museum trustees and staff slept or plotted fresh mischief, madness, and hardship, Neil got a call from Museum Board Chairwoman Pillsbury. She informed Neil the Trustees had, in Executive Session, voted to place a reprimand in his Personnel file, stemming from "discrepancies" in Neil's Christmas/NewYear's scheduling.

The next day, reporter Alice Armour Armstrong disclosed, on the front page of the Camperdene Daily Journal, that the Trustees had, in Executive Session, voted to place the reprimand in Neil's file. Museum trustee Wheel Barrow was quoted in the article, him saying "Mister Wright had again done wrong," displaying "utter professional incompetence in the execution of his administrative duties."

Neil later learned that Trustee Chairperson Pillsbury had issued a severe, angry reprimand to Trustee Barrow, decrying his passion for character assassination and media attention.

"Relative to Mr. Barrow's wrongful actions in this and related matters," Neil wrote to Veronica, "involving libelous, injurious patterns and practices, rest easy that no specific legal action will be taken by me -- at this time." Neil informed Veronica of other issues, like his having entered the museum the day before via the Custodial area, there encountering Captain Cunningham smoking a pipe. "You'll remember the Fire Chief's recently giving me the sternest possible warning against there being smoke of any kind in any part of this building," Neil wrote, "and my.agreeing with it -- that we'd enforce it. Captain Cunningham should understand there is to be no more smoking inside the museum building. I am forwarding a courtesy copy of this letter to the Fire Chief. I want him to know he is being taken seriously, and that his demand is not being mocked, but enforced."

If this rebuke or slight affected Powderkeg one way or another, he did not let on. There were no immediate repurcussions. It was not until autumn that the other shoe fell.

In mid September, around four in the morning, Neil got a phone call, at home, from the police. They had received an anonymous phone tip. The desk officer had called back, and had reached the museum's answering machine. Two patrol cars were in front of the museum, at that moment, awaiting Neil's arrival, to assist them. Neil arose, dressed, and drove to the museum. There were two cruisers out front; three officers were already inside. They had entered the building through an emergency exit. The latchbolt there ahd not been set securely in the doorjam receptacle -- the door was not locked. The alarm had not gone off.

Neil switched off the alarm system and they together made a thorough search of the building, room by room. There were no signs of a break-in (and no "bum in the bathroom" as Wheel Barrow would later explain away the event). Neil re-secured the building, re-set the alarm, and left with the officers.

The next day, word came that the Governor of Massachusetts had appointed a new member to the trustee board of the Massachusetts Museums Coalition -- Veronica Pillsbury. "Congratulations," Neil wrote Veronica. "I am pleased by this news, though I'm sorry at your having to leave the Board of the Museum of the Year 2012. Through several years now of questionable, most unprofessional (often blatantly unethical or just plain vile) words and deeds of at least one trustee and that trustee's mischievous circle of adherrents, amid perpetual, contrived turmoil, you have stood your ground with clarity and dignity, offering valuable counsel and encouragement. I am grateful, and feel sincere appreciation, that you have served on the Board. I trust yours will continue to be a clear, strong voice, amid whatever debate or turmoil, advocating that Massachusetts museums will be among the finest in our nation, second to none. Good luck to you in your continuing journey."

Neil arrived home that evening to find the house empty. Minna and the kids were gone. Taped to the refrigerator door was a simple note his wife had left for him: "We are not soulmates."