by Avery Aames
A shudder cut through me. I glanced overhead and back at Andrew. Did he saw through the railing and push it over the side to hurt his sister? No, impossible. He couldn’t have dashed from the toolshed to the inn and back in the matter of time it took for Erin and me to tend to each other.
“Erin, Erin, Erin,” Andrew chanted as he shuffled toward us. His eyes were pinpoints of worry.
She sprinted to him and comforted him, and a second notion jolted me. Had someone sent the railing off the balcony to strike me and not Erin because I was asking her questions?
“Erin, I’ll be right back,” I said and raced through the inn and up the stairs.
When I arrived at the sitting area beside Jordan’s and my old room, it was unoccupied. There were no telltale signs of anyone having been in the vicinity. No half-drunk beverage; no magazine tossed aside.
The area opened to the overhead porch. I went outside. No one was there. I inspected the wood railing. It was raw-edged and rotten, not evenly sawn. The piece must have plunged to the terrace by accident.
CHAPTER
20
When I returned to the shop, I found Pépère at the counter. He was buzzing with good energy. His cheeks were flushed; his eyes, sparkling with gusto. Six customers stood in line to order. Four more were perusing the shelves or filling their baskets with goodies. One woman was eyeing the display of crystal wineglasses with outright lust. Her basket held four bottles of a pinot noir with cherry overtones that, according to my wine-savvy cousin, paired well with Cheddar cheese.
“We have been overrun,” Pépère said. “The Street Scene is drumming up all sorts of new customers. That is the correct phrase, non? Drumming up?”
I nodded. “Where’s Rebecca?”
“In the office. Weeping. La pauvre fillette triste.”
“Why is she a poor little sad girl?”
He threw his hands out. “Je ne sais pas.”
Why would I expect him to know? “I’ll be right back,” I said and rushed down the hall. I whipped open the door to the office and stepped inside.
Rebecca sat curled in the desk chair, her hair a finger-tousled mess. A wad of used tissues rested on the desk. Rags was nestled in her lap.
“Rebecca,” I said cautiously.
She peeked at me. Tears clung to her eyelashes and streaked her cheeks. Her nose was red and puffy. She had been crying for a while.
I hurried to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Devon.”
My pulse snagged. “Did something happen to him?” Images of horrible accidents popped into my mind.
“He’s fine. He . . .” She hiccupped. “He wants to get married.”
I took a step backward and scowled at her. “Then why are you crying like the world is about to end?”
“Because . . . I’m not ready to get married.”
“You’re not?”
“Devon is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but after being engaged to Ipo and everything . . .” Ipo was the honeybee keeper who broke her heart when he returned home to Hawaii at his parents’ insistence. Rebecca stroked Rags so hard he wriggled free and galloped to his bed. “I’m not sure I’m ready. I want all my ducks in a row.”
“What ducks?”
“My credit cards. I want to be debt free.”
“And you’re doing that. With Devon’s guidance. He’s a good influence on you. He adores you.” I perched on the desk, hands cupping the edge. “What’s the real reason you’re upset?”
She lifted her chin. “I’m a horrible, awful person.”
“Why?”
“Because my eye still wanders. I look at other guys.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. For a naïve Amish girl, I understood how that might freak her out.
“Marriage is sacred and for life!”
“Yes, but it’s normal for your eye to wander.”
“It is?”
“Mine does.”
“Really? But you’re married to Jordan.”
I grinned. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t other attractive men out there. I’m alive and kicking. I can admire. I just wouldn’t, um, dabble because I love Jordan with all my heart and soul.”
“Heart and soul,” she murmured.
“That’s what you have to figure out about Devon. Do you love every aspect of him? I’m not just talking about his good looks. Do you love his mind, his humor, his principles, his dreams?”
“I think so.”
“You’ve got to know so.” I bounded to my feet. “That’s your next step. Tell him you’re not ready because you don’t know him well enough. You’re both young. You’ve only been dating a few months. You have plenty of time.”
Rebecca scrambled out of the chair and threw her arms around me.
I wiggled free and gripped her hands. “When I was your age”—Listen to you, Charlotte, talking like you’re an ancient woman—“I didn’t know what I wanted, either. I thought Chip”—Chippendale Cooper, nicknamed Creep Chef after he ended our engagement and fled to Paris—“was the end-all and be-all. He wasn’t.”
“You’re not kidding.”
“Do your due diligence. Ask questions. Know the man. You’ll have your answer.” I released her and patted her arm. “Go freshen up, and come to the counter when you’re ready. The shop is hopping!”
I returned to the cheese counter and told Pépère he was free to go. He was grateful. His lower back was aching. He needed to stretch before he could help Grandmère with the Street Scene.
Rebecca joined me minutes later looking refreshed. She had fluffed her hair and had applied blush and a dash of lip gloss. “What can I do?”
“Wrap up those.” I indicated chunks of cheese sitting on the prep counter. Pépère had been so busy, he hadn’t had time to rewrap the baby Swiss and Appenzeller.
“I’m on it.”
After the last customer departed, the door opened and Ryan Harris walked in. His face was sunburned. He must have forgotten to apply sunblock. Cool days in the spring can be deceptive and make tourists falsely think they are immune to the sun’s rays. I greeted him. He nodded hello and sauntered to the tasting counter. He paused beside the platter of cheese and peered at the sticker I’d fashioned out of triangular yellow paper.
Reading aloud, he said, “God gave us cheese to ease our burdens and to provide sweet mirth. Nice.” He hooked a thumb toward the street. “Perhaps you should do a reading on the poetry stage.”
“Not likely.”
He grinned. The space between his upper teeth made him look endearing. So why did an unnerving feeling zigzag up the back of my neck? The other day Rebecca suggested that Ryan might have a deep dark secret. Did he? Was I not seeing him clearly? Could he have pushed the inn’s railing over the edge at me, to scare me so I’d stop talking to Erin?
Stop it, Charlotte. That was an accident. Besides, he wouldn’t have risked harming Erin, and he had strolled off with Kandice, hence the sunburn, unless the two of them were in league together, and they had circled back, and . . .
I laughed at the notion. Yeah, right. Had anyone written a song titled “Paranoia”? Perhaps I should do so. I was acting like the poster child for the diagnosis.
“What is Scharfe Maxx?” Ryan asked, cutting off my mental ramblings.
“You haven’t tasted it? It’s yummy. An ultra sharp deliciousness paired with extreme creaminess.”
“Is it a Cheddar?”
“Nope. It’s a Swiss cheese, crafted at Studer Dairy near the Swiss-German border, and one of my favorites. Great for fondue.”
“I’ll take a quarter pound.” He peered past me at Rebecca, who was standing with her back to us. She must have felt his scrutiny; she peeked over her shoulder. “Hey,” he said when their gazes connected.
Her cheeks flushed. “It’s you.�
�� She abandoned her task and moved to the counter.
Aha. I got it now. Ryan was the one who had drawn her eye.
Rebecca hurried to say, “Charlotte, I told you Ryan came into the shop the other day.”
“The day I arrived,” Ryan said.
“He bought a sandwich.”
“Erin hadn’t planned lunch for us,” Ryan explained. “All she had was tuna fish.” He scrunched up his nose. “I hate tuna.”
“Remember how I said Ryan told me about a cheese maker from Texas?” Rebecca chirped. “Pure Luck Dairy.”
“Good memory,” Ryan said. “I’ll write down a few other creamery names for you. They’re small concerns, but they make terrific cheeses.” He jotted the information on a pad next to the register.
“Do you know how many jobs Ryan has had?” Rebecca said. “Farmer, delivery man, dog walker. He even worked at a spy shop.”
Ryan shrugged. “Sold a lot of nanny cams.”
“And he was a waiter.”
“Only lasted a month at that job,” Ryan quipped. “Guess I’m not the customer-is-always-right person.”
“He had to make ends meet for the whole family,” Rebecca continued. “His youngest sister was ill a lot. She has chronic anemia. Ryan has a vitamin B-12 deficiency. That’s why his hair is so . . .” She fluttered her fingers then paused, her face flush with conflicting emotions. Was she wondering how she had learned so much about a man in a matter of minutes? Deputy O’Shea played it close to the chest; Ryan appeared to be more candid. So much for him being a man of secrets. “Ryan needed to pay for insurance,” Rebecca said, picking up where she left off, “so they didn’t go bankrupt again.”
“Is your sister healthy now?” I asked.
“No one can keep her down,” Ryan said. “She’s a bit of a rebel. She paints outside the lines”—he swiped the air to demonstrate—“if you know what I mean.”
“I do.” I packaged up his cheese, wrapped it in our special paper, and sealed it with a gold label. “Need anything else?”
Ryan swung to his left, plucked a box of crackers from a display, and handed them to me. “Lunch.”
“Didn’t you eat with Victor at the inn?”
Ryan’s eyes wavered. “Nah. He lit into me. I lost my appetite.”
“Why did he yell at you?” I asked, happy for an invitation to discuss the set-to I had witnessed.
“He saw me talking with Chief Urso earlier. He demanded to know what I’d told him. I said I couldn’t reveal anything. It was privileged information. Victor accused me of lying to the police to finger him for Lara’s murder.”
“Did you?”
“No, but”—Ryan glanced over his shoulder and back at me—“I told the chief that I saw Victor and Lara on the steps leading to the third floor before dinner that night. They were going at it.”
Rebecca leaned in, totally enthralled with the tale. “At it, as in they were hitting each other?”
“No fists flew, but they were arguing. I think she was warning him.”
“What about?” Rebecca asked.
I threw her a cautionary glance. “Ryan just said it’s privileged information.”
Rebecca fluttered her eyelashes at Ryan and smiled. “Is it really confidential?”
“Nah.” Ryan jammed a hand into a pocket. “I just wanted to jerk Victor’s chain.”
Rebecca shot me a look. The triumph in her gaze was hysterical. Perhaps she should consider a career in law. Any witness on the stand would be putty in her hands. She swung back to face Ryan. “Why was Lara warning him?”
“I’m not entirely sure. She was whispering so I couldn’t catch everything. She said, ‘I saw you text her,’ and Victor said, ‘I did not.’”
“Sounds like she was jealous,” Rebecca suggested.
Ryan nodded. “Lara pressed him. She said, ‘Do you think that kind of stuff vanishes in the wind?’”
Rebecca twirled a finger. “By that ‘kind of stuff,’ I’ll bet she meant digital messages. Hackers can find anything if it’s been sent digitally.”
I rolled my eyes. My assistant and my husband, amateur CSI experts, thanks to television and the Internet.
Ryan continued. “Later, I saw Victor texting someone at the dining table, almost flaunting it at Lara.”
I’d seen Victor typing messages, too.
Rebecca smacked her hands together. “Back to the argument.”
“Right.” Ryan bobbed his head. “Then Victor said, ‘It’s my business,’ and Lara said, ‘Don’t contact her again.’”
“Did they say anything else?”
“Victor said, and I quote”—Ryan bracketed his fingers—“‘You are not the boss of me.’ And Lara said, ‘Is that so?’”
“Wow!” Rebecca gushed. “I wonder who he was texting. We have to see those messages.”
“Uh-uh.” I put a hand on her wrist. “We don’t have to do anything. Chief Urso does.”
Rebecca lasered Ryan with a look. “You told the police all of this?”
“Yup.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and scanned the readout. Talk about timing. Someone had messaged him. “Gotta run. Nice seeing you.” He paid for his purchases, offered Rebecca a flirty wink, and headed out.
“Back to work,” I said to my sweet assistant. “No more sleuthing.” I asked her to go to the cellar to fetch a couple of wheels of Grafton Clothbound Cheddar, our most popular cheese. We had run low. She sulked but did as told.
Just as Ryan was exiting, Kandice entered. She had changed her hairstyle into one of those odd new creations, with little bits and pieces of hair knotted into multiple rubber bands—trendy but unattractive on most females over sixteen.
“Hey, Ryan,” she said and, as she had at the inn, clutched her floral midi dress and swirled the skirt to and fro.
“Hey,” he responded and edged past her to the sidewalk.
I greeted Kandice. She spun around. Her face revealed it all. She cared about Ryan and was stunned that he had snubbed her. She walk-limped toward the barrel that held the wine goblets. She lifted one. “These are lovely.”
“How’s your hip doing?” I asked.
“Fine.” She peeked over her shoulder at the retreating form of Ryan. “Man, he can be aloof.”
“Didn’t you two have a nice walk around the property?”
“Not really. He left me about thirty seconds after joining me. Supposedly, his cell phone buzzed—I think he was lying; I didn’t hear it—but he said he had business to attend to.”
I peered after Ryan, who had stopped on the sidewalk and was talking to someone on his cell phone. Not just talking. Making a point, stabbing the air. His features were hard, his mouth grim. Seeing him so intense—a complete reversal from the sweet guy who had chatted with us seconds ago in the shop—made me zing back to the incident on the porch at the inn. Did he pretend to be interested in taking a walk with Kandice so she could verify his alibi when the wood railing fell? Should I suspect him of foul play?
No, I was reaching for answers that didn’t exist. The wood was rotten. I was sure of it. Ryan had most likely abandoned Kandice because he was truly interested in Erin, and he didn’t want her to be jealous.
“It’s because of the way I look,” Kandice went on. “Most men can’t handle all of”— she flourished a hand along her curvy torso—“this. I’m too much woman. My ex told me so. I think that’s a cop-out response, of course. Some men find a big, klutzy woman hot.”
“You’re not klutzy,” I said.
“I’m certainly not graceful. After the accident at the Street Scene, Lara said—” Kandice hesitated. “Mustn’t speak ill of the dead.” Quickly she reset the goblet on the display barrel.
The move made me flash on Friday night and the way Lara and Kandice had sparred after Kandice made a big deal about the value of some of Erin’
s parents’ treasures. Later that night, did Lara summon Kandice to her room to read her the riot act for making Erin aware of the value of her collectibles? I could just hear her: How dare you give Erin the idea to have her treasures appraised? Kandice, not in her cups as Lara was, retaliated: How dare you put me down in front of the others? Kandice lashed out. Though she resembled a cockatoo, she was rather large and could have easily overpowered Lara, even with an injured arm.
“Kandice,” I said. “Tell me about your relationship with Lara.”
“Why?”
“I’m curious.”
“We were colleagues.”
I plucked a morsel of Marieke Aged Gouda, a sweet, nutty cheese, from the daily tasting tray and extended it to Kandice. “Try this.”
She drew near and received my offering. “Mmm. Nice. Who makes it?”
“The Penterman family, which transplanted from the Netherlands to Wisconsin where there was a ton of land so they could continue the family business of cheese making.” As she took another piece, I said, “When did you and Lara meet?”
“About six years ago. You’d think our paths would have crossed before then, considering all we did within the same circles, but they didn’t.”
“Were you close?”
Kandice hooted out a laugh. “With Lara? Ha! She didn’t do close. She liked to keep a healthy distance between herself and others. When I opened up to her about my divorce, like girlfriends do, she cut me off. ‘Let’s keep this business,’ she said.”
“She hired you?”
“Occasionally.”
“The night she died—”
“I was in my room,” Kandice rushed to say.
“We all were.”
“Not Erin. She stepped out.”
Her brittle tone made my teeth ache. “Why are you so set against Erin?”
“I’m not, but she seems to have the best motive to kill Lara.”
“And you don’t?”
“Why would I kill Lara?” She blinked. Rapidly. She had a motive. I was sure of it. Maybe Lara promised to split the proceeds from selling the violin if Kandice helped her locate it. Maybe that night, Lara reneged on the promise. Or there was something else Lara had on Kandice, something worthy of blackmail.
