by Avery Aames
I believed her. Why didn’t Urso? The brick and white wood clock tower had been constructed as a monument in memory of Providence’s war veterans who had given their lives to keep America safe. Grandmère went there often. Sometimes she spent entire mornings sitting beside the clock tower, reading a play or feeding birds. She said she found inspiration at the site where ashes of the fallen lay buried beneath the earth.
“Anybody see you?” Urso said.
“It was dark. The mist—”
“I need a name.”
“But there was no one,” Grandmère pleaded. She turned to Pépère. “Tell them you saw me.”
“Oh, chérie.” Tears pooled in his aging eyes. He reached for her hands. “I am so ashamed—”
“Ashamed of what?” Grandmère said.
I echoed her. Had my grandfather done something that might ruin his life? Or my grandmother’s? I glanced at my grandmother. If I was feeling sucker punched, I could only imagine how she was feeling.
Urso put his hand on my arm. “Charlotte, please.”
I shook him off. Beads of mist scattered into the air. “I need to know where my grandfather was. Pépère, please, what did you do?”
Pépère’s shoulders heaved. “I had . . . a craving.”
A craving? “For what?” I swallowed hard, not sure I wanted to know the answer.
Pépère blew out a long stream of air. “Ice cream. I went to the Igloo.”
“But we had so many hors d’oeuvres at the gala,” I blurted. “So much cheese.”
Urso choked back a laugh. I shot him a hard look, realizing how ridiculous I had just sounded. Somebody had been murdered. Why did I care whether my grandfather ate ice cream instead of cheese? But his jaunt to the Igloo didn’t make sense.
“I always eat cheese. I wanted . . . I had . . . a craving.” Pépère brushed my grandmother’s face with his fingertips. “I’m sorry, chérie.”
Grandmère’s eyes pooled with tears. “It matters not, mon ami. I know how you like sweets.”
Something flicked in Urso’s cheek. Was he moved by their obvious love? His wife had left him three years ago for a tornado buster. Tongues had wagged. He turned away from my grandparents and surveyed the crowd. “Anyone see Mrs. Bessette at the clock tower? Anyone?”
Everyone was as quiet as sleepy sheep.
Urso clasped Grandmère’s elbow. “All right, Mrs. Bessette—”
“Chief Urso, wait!” I yelled.
Jordan slipped up beside me and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Charlotte.”
“Not now,” I snapped. I instantly regretted my tone, but I couldn’t keep my frustration in check. “Chief, please, let her go.”
“Sorry, Charlotte. I’ve got to do my job.” The look in Urso’s eyes said he truly was sorry. “Mrs. Bessette, ma’am, I’m afraid I’ll have to place you under arrest unless we can find a witness who can give you an alibi.”
Jordan whispered, “Charlotte.” He spun me around and riveted me with his gaze. “If you need one, I’ve got a good criminal attorney.”
I didn’t have the wherewithal to ask why he would know a criminal attorney. I simply said, “Yes.”
CHAPTER 5
The following day, as the rain disappeared and the thermometer rose steadily outside, so did the emotional temperature inside Fromagerie Bessette. Customers, abuzz with gossip, roamed the shop. The center display table, where the olive-wood-handled cheese knives had lain, was a popular spot to convene. The crime scene tape that had encircled the table was gone. By midnight, Urso and his deputy had obtained all the fingerprints they were going to catalogue.
“How is Grandmère?” Rebecca asked. She stood at the cheese counter offering tastings of Cabot Clothbound Cheddar and Creminelli Salami Casalingo while I packaged requests. Matthew had yet to appear.
“Not good,” I answered. I had visited my grandmother before opening the shop. The attorney had arranged with Urso for Grandmère to be under house arrest and not confined to a jail cell. While house arrest wouldn’t have been difficult for most, because Grandmère did so much outside her home—the theater production, the dance classes she taught once a week, and acting as mayor—she felt stifled and instantly had gone into a funk. Not that she could be mayor right now. She’d had to relinquish her duties while under house arrest. But sitting tight, as Urso had told her to do, was nearly impossible. Thankfully he hadn’t insisted on her wearing an ankle bracelet. That would have put her over the edge. I had found her wandering through the house, wearing no makeup, her hair as messy as if she had brushed it with a scrub brush.
Rebecca said, “I’m sure this will all be resolved soon.”
“I hope so.”
Out of nowhere, customers started yelling questions rapid-fire.
“Charlotte, did she do it?”
“Did you see her do it?”
“Do you think she did it?”
No, no, and no.
“Did she have a motive?” asked Mr. Nakamura, the cherub of a man who had moved to Providence two years ago and opened a well-stocked hardware store called Nuts for Nails.
“Of course not,” I snapped.
“I saw them coming out of the town hall together last week,” a nun from St. Mary’s said.
My dental hygienist waved her hand like a game show contestant who had the winning answer and yelled, “Me, too!”
I couldn’t refute either of them. I didn’t know my grandmother’s every coming and going. She could have been at the town hall at the same time as Ed. She was the mayor. He did business with the city. All real estate transactions were handled in an office on the second floor.
“Were she and Ed having an affair?” asked the beekeeper, a transplanted Hawaiian who provided The Cheese Shop’s stock of jarred honey. I was surprised by his query. He was a naturalist, not usually drawn in by town gossip.
Fearing the day could only get worse, I didn’t grant him a response.
“Of course they weren’t having an affair, sugar,” Tyanne chimed in as she pushed to the front of the throng, her floral perfume cloying, her plump face looking smooth and unwrinkled but smug enough to pop with glee.
I was surprised to see her. Prior to hooking up with Kristine, Tyanne had often visited The Cheese Shop alone. I’d commiserated with her about losing her home to the hurricane and having to start life anew. We had chatted about good food and interesting books. At that time, I couldn’t get enough of her honey-drenched drawl. But once she became a Kristine groupie, she stopped coming in by herself. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her without the others. Granted, I hadn’t expected Kristine to come to Fromagerie Bessette the day after her husband was found murdered on the sidewalk, but it surprised me that Tyanne was there. Felicia and Prudence, usually at the forefront of town gossip, had yet to surface. Were they flocking together, trying to cement their alibis?
“I heard Ed and Bernadette were in love in high school,” said the older woman standing next to Tyanne, an animal rescuer who had given me Rags.
“That’s ridiculous.” Like a clipper ship in rough waters, Vivian carved a path to the front of the pack and faced the crowd. “Bernadette was twenty years older than Ed.”
And she didn’t move to the United States until she was eighteen, I wanted to say, but kept my mouth shut. I was not fueling this gossip-fest any longer. I filled Vivian’s order first and thanked her for her defense of my grandmother. She patted my hand and said not to worry. She was certain Bernadette was innocent.
By midmorning, my stomach churned with excess acid and my jaw felt screwed together. I wished I could change out of the button-down shirt and long slacks I had worn into something cooler, but I had no time. A half dozen reporters from as far away as Cleveland had descended upon us, each with a camera crew. I had hoped Fromagerie Bessette would get attention from the press, but not for this reason.
In an attempt to dissuade the reporters, I set out a wooden platter arrayed with paper-thin slices of Double Cream Gouda from Pace Hill Farm
, one of the smoothest tasting cheeses around. As the reporters and their crews munched, I talked up the new ownership of the store and its expansion. I enlightened them about how much my grandparents loved Providence and how much they had done to improve the town by adding color and vitality and a sense of joie de vivre, but in the end, the reporters clamored for a story about murder.
“Was Bernadette in love with Ed Woodhouse?” said a weasel of a reporter with bug-eyed glasses who I had seen at the gala.
“Did he reject her?” said another reporter, equally as creepy looking as the weasel.
“Was that why she killed him?” said the youngest reporter in the group, an overly made-up female whose suit was a perfect fit and whose hair was shellacked to a shine.
“No, for heaven’s sake, no!” I shrieked. “My grandmother and grandfather are happily married. My grandmother didn’t kill—”
Rebecca put a hand on my arm and whispered, “Charlotte, why don’t you take a break? I’ll handle this.” With aplomb I didn’t know a twenty-two-year-old could possess—I certainly hadn’t at that age—she sidled around the counter and summoned the reporters to come closer. As she answered the first of their questions, she flipped her hair in a girlish way and smiled at the cameras as if she were a budding actress destined to star in one of Grandmère’s productions.
At the same moment, the owner of Sew Inspired Quilt Shoppe, a freckle-faced forty-year-old who everyone called, no surprise, Freckles, trotted up. She was as cute as a button, loved the color orange, and was the kind of woman who relished life so much that she finished nearly every sentence with a chuckle. “Charlotte, a minute?”
I scooted from my spot behind the counter and followed her into the wine annex. Dozens of people browsed the wines that were for sale. Many carried our decorative six-pack holders. None seemed interested in us.
I said, “What’s the matter?”
“You won’t believe what Kristine Woodhouse is up to.” A happy snort escaped through her nose.
I could always count on Freckles for the latest scoop. Every morning, she homeschooled her daughter. Afternoons and evenings, she worked at her shop and gleaned up-to-the-minute news from other homeschooling mothers and customers.
“What?” I said.
Freckles toyed with the zipper on her hot orange hoodie. “She’s wearing a red, white, and blue dress with a banner strung across her chest like a beauty pageant contestant that reads Vote for Woodhouse, and she’s handing out flyers.”
The day after her husband’s death? I groaned. Leave it to Kristine to take advantage of the situation while my grandmother languished under house arrest. I found myself wishing Kristine ill. Not death, mind you, but a bad hair day or even identity theft.
Choosing my words carefully, I said, “Basic black isn’t always the way. Perhaps she’s celebrating Ed’s life in living color?”
“You are too kind.”
If only she knew what was truly going on in my mind.
Freckles thumped the counter with her palm. “I want to help Bernadette. What do you want me to do? Knock on doors. Arrange a rally? I’ve got a quilting party this afternoon. And a sparkly T-shirt class at eight.” At times Freckles left me breathless. Two afternoons a week, she taught quilting and quilting lore. Three nights a week, she taught women how to make T-shirts decorated with rhinestones. On Saturdays, she held children’s crafting sessions and birthday parties. “But in between I could—”
“Do nothing.”
“Nothing?” Laughter bubbled out of her. “Uh-uh. No, ma’am. It’s guerrilla campaign time.” She clapped me on the shoulder. “C’mon, we’re all in this together. We cannot, I repeat, cannot let Kristine Woodhouse become our new mayor.”
“Perhaps you haven’t heard. My grandmother—”
“Oh, please.” Freckles burst into giggles. “Like Bernadette could hurt anyone. Chief Urso will see that. Now . . .” She rubbed her hands together. “Give me a job.”
Matthew slogged into the annex with hangdog eyes and hunched shoulders, looking more like a basset hound than a Great Dane. His striped shirt wasn’t tucked in. His stone-washed trousers looked slept in. He pushed a trolley filled with our latest shipment of wine.
I said to Freckles. “Let me think about it.”
“I’ll put my thinking cap on, too.” She gave my arm an affectionate squeeze and scurried out of the shop.
Campaigning, worrying about my grandmother, and running a thriving business did not go hand in hand. My stomach felt as tangled as one of Rags’s balls of yarn. But Matthew looked like he needed more reassurance than I did.
“You got home late last night,” I said. After paying the sitter, I had shuffled upstairs, checked on the girls, who were sound asleep, and then stumbled into bed. But I barely slept; I tossed until three A.M. Matthew had wandered in around two.
“I was out . . . talking.” He tied a chef’s apron at the back of his waist. “Trying to make sense of . . .” He shook his head.
I cuffed him on the chin with my knuckles and said, “Perk up. The lawyer tells me everything is going to be okay.” I wasn’t so sure he was right, but other than working out a contract for the transfer of The Cheese Shop from Grandpère to Matthew and myself, I had never had cause to deal with a lawyer. Jordan swore by him.
“But what if it isn’t okay?”
“It will be.”
Matthew shuffled into the wine annex. I followed. “Do the girls know?” I said.
“They heard something on the news this morning. I switched it off.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.” He collected a few bottles of wine and set them out on the bar. Today’s selections for tasting would include three white wines. A sauvignon blanc from Healdsburg, a chardonnay from Napa, and a pinot grigio from Italy. Michael had decided that we would offer limited daily samples, either white or red. He wanted the town of Providence to become educated on the variety of wines from all over the world. Any more than three in a short time span, he said, and the palate couldn’t differentiate. We would offer more expansive tastings once a month and invite wine sellers from around the country to give lectures, staying within the limits of Ohio state laws, of course. “How’s Grandmère holding up?”
“She’s fine,” I lied. I planned to visit her at noon with a picnic of Crackerjack Chicken and Caprese salad on a skewer and see if I could bolster her spirit.
“What’s with all the reporters?” Matthew asked.
“Don’t worry. Rebecca has things under—”
“No way!” Rebecca shouted above the din. “Charlotte’s mother was not the love child of Ed Woodhouse and Bernadette Bessette! They were enemies. As a matter of fact, Ed Woodhouse threatened to evict the Bessettes from the shop.”
My mouth dropped open. So much for Rebecca having things under control.
The reporters reacted to the news like piranhas in a pond full of raw meat. They shoved their microphones toward Rebecca’s pretty face and shouted questions. She stumbled backward into a cheese display. Fifty-pound wheels of Morbier fell to the floor with a thud.
I smacked my forehead with my palm, then marched through the arch. “That’s it. Anybody who’s here for a story, get out of my shop.” I shooed them like a flock of geese until each and everyone exited to the sidewalk. I shut the door and spun around. Customers were gaping at me. I forced a smile and said, “Who wants a taste of Humboldt Fog? On special today.” Humboldt Fog was a gorgeous young goat cheese with a vein of vegetable ash, a white bloomy rind, and a clean lemony taste. “Half price,” I added. I never offered Humboldt Fog at half price. Never. But I was willing to do just about anything to get my customers’ minds off the fracas.
I replaced the Morbier wheels and headed for the cheese counter where Rebecca stood, red-faced, both hands covering her mouth like a spelling bee contestant afraid to speak. “It’s okay,” I whispered.
“I didn’t mean to . . . I wished I had . . .” She clapped her hands over her mouth again.
I patted her s
houlder. “Relax. The truth will come out. Grandmère is innocent.”
But Rebecca simply shook her head and raced to the office.
Bozz came out seconds later, Rags dangling around his neck, and said, “What’s with her?”
“Loose lips,” I said as I handed out a tasting of Humboldt Fog to a regular customer. “What’re you doing here, anyway? Don’t you have school?”
“Teacher/parent conferences. All day, all night.” Bozz snatched a slice of the Double Cream Gouda from a wooden platter sitting on the tasting counter and popped it into his mouth. He swallowed it whole, as only a teenager could. “This is my favorite, I think.”
I smiled. He said that about every cheese he tasted.
“How’s the website coming?” I asked.
“Good. Some snags with the links you want on it, though.”
“What kind of snags?”
“Some of the links are defunct. Probably means the companies have gone out of business or are about to.”
I wanted links on the site to tout those companies who had helped us in the past. My customers could ideally become their patrons. It broke my heart to hear that some couldn’t afford to stay open.
“All the artisanal farmers and wineries around here are good to go, though.” Bozz playfully pulled on one of Rags’s paws. Rags batted him on the ear. “My dad said to say thank you for thinking of that.”
“No problem.” Bozz’s family was salt of the earth. His grandparents and mine had been friends for years. His grandmother was one of the first to visit Grandmère during her confinement. “Take Rags out for a walk, would you?” I hitched a thumb at the blue leash hanging on a hook by the rear exit. Rags, more often than not, thought he was a dog.
As Bozz exited with the cat, in strode Delilah Swain, the owner of the Country Kitchen. She was a curvy raven-haired beauty who had wanted to make a career as an actress and dancer in New York but had returned to Providence five years ago, heartbroken and penniless. Her father ceded his business to her, though he continued to work full shifts.
“Charlotte, your grandmother,” Delilah said, out of breath.
