An Ale of Two Cities

by Sarah Fox

  The jingling of the bell above the shop’s door announced the arrival of three women. One of them called out to Penny, and she waved back. As the group of women headed our way, I stepped back and smiled.

  “It was nice talking to you.”

  “You too. And the trivia night was great, by the way. I’m looking forward to the next one.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  The new arrivals began chattering to Penny, so I waved to Sibyl and left the shop.

  I had plenty to think about. If Penny had gone to bed with a headache early on Thursday evening, she couldn’t have killed Freddy. But could anyone confirm her alibi? I didn’t know. Aunt Gilda would probably know if she lived alone or not, but finding out if her alibi would hold up would take some more digging. As for Leo, he definitely deserved more scrutiny. I didn’t have any trouble picturing him lashing out at Freddy in a violent way, whether following some planning or in the heat of the moment.

  Investigating that angle would have to wait for the time being, I realized as I checked my phone. Cordelia had replied to my text message, saying she was excited to join the Inkwell’s hockey team. I’d texted Teagan the night before, asking if she would play in the tournament. I had a message from her as well, saying she definitely wanted to be on the team and that Zoe was willing to play too if we needed another person.

  Over coffee that morning, Mel had assured me that she was willing to take part in the tournament. That meant we almost had enough players, but now our team needed jerseys. With the tournament set to start in two days, I didn’t know if I’d have time to get custom-printed jerseys with the Inkwell logo on them, but I was hoping to at least get a set of matching hockey sweaters.

  Shivering, I tucked my phone away and pulled my gloves back on. Damien and Mel were both experienced hockey players and would probably be the most skilled members of the Inkwell team. While Teagan had said in her message that she and her sister had some basic hockey skills, Cordelia had admitted that she’d never played the game. She could skate, though, she’d said, and she was enthusiastic. I figured that put her in pretty much the same category as me.

  When I’d told Grayson that I’d never played hockey in any sort of organized way, what I meant was I’d only played a handful of street hockey games with my younger brother while growing up. But, like Cordelia, I could skate. Hopefully we wouldn’t be a complete disaster during the tournament, because beating the brewery’s team would be so sweet.

  I turned a corner, heading for a store that did custom T-shirt and uniform printing. I stopped short a second later when a police car zoomed past me and pulled up to the curb. As two officers climbed out of the cruiser, a middle-aged woman burst out the front door of a small electronics store.

  “They’ve robbed me!” the woman exclaimed to the officers. “They’ve robbed me blind!”

  Chapter 12

  As much as I wanted to know more about the robbery, I knew the police wouldn’t want me following them into the electronics store. The officers had disappeared from sight now, the shop door drifting shut behind them, so I continued along my intended path to the business next door.

  The picture-framing and custom printing store was small but cute, with a selection of different frames on one wall and T-shirts and uniforms on the opposite one. The counter was straight ahead of me as I stepped in the door. A woman in her fifties stood behind the counter, and a man of about the same age was in the process of making his way around it.

  “I wonder what’s going on,” the man was saying, his gaze on the front window. He sent a distracted smile my way as he moved around me toward the door.

  “Good morning,” the woman greeted me. “It seems the police are next door. Any idea what happened?”

  “All I know is that a woman was saying she was robbed,” I said.

  “Good heavens! That must have been Dolores. I hope she wasn’t hurt. Robbed in broad daylight? How terrible!”

  The man opened the store’s door. “I’m going over there.”

  “Don’t be getting in the way of the police, Ernie!” the woman called after him.

  He gave no indication of whether he heard or not.

  The woman gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. Things like this don’t happen very often, so it causes quite a stir when it does.”

  “I understand,” I assured her.

  “I’m Geraldine.” She took off her glasses and set them on the counter. “What can I do for you?”

  I introduced myself and told her about my need for hockey jerseys.

  “Ah, yes. We’ve been filling several orders like that for the tournament, but I’m afraid you’ve cut it too close if you’re looking for custom printing. The tournament starts on Monday and we’ve already got so many orders that we can’t rush one through.”

  “I was worried about that,” I said, disappointed. “Unfortunately, we didn’t decide to enter a team until last night.”

  “Don’t despair.” Geraldine came out from behind the counter. “There’s nothing in the rules that says you have to have your team name or logo on the jerseys. If you’re happy with your team members simply having the same blank jersey, I can still help you out.”

  “That would be all right.” It wouldn’t be as nice as having custom Inkwell sweaters, but it was definitely better than nothing.

  If we weren’t a disaster as a team and wanted to play again next year, I’d make sure to put our order in earlier.

  “So you’ll be needing seven, right?” Geraldine asked as she sorted through some jerseys on a display rack.

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmmm. We’re almost sold out of most colors, and you won’t want to have the same color as any other team anyway. But I think I have seven of one color in the back, a color no other team has ordered. Not from us, anyway. I won’t be a minute.”

  She bustled behind the counter and disappeared through a doorway leading to the back of the building. As I waited, I wandered toward the front window and peered along the sidewalk to the electronics shop, but I couldn’t see anybody.

  “Here we are!”

  At the sound of Geraldine’s voice, I turned my back on the window. She hoisted an armful of jerseys onto the counter. “The most we have of any other color is five, but I’ve got a dozen of these ones in various sizes, so you can take your pick.”

  She sounded awfully cheery about that, probably because she was faced with an opportunity to sell jerseys that no one else would have wanted. Because who the Holly Golightly would buy mustard yellow hockey sweaters with maroon trim? Nobody who had more than two days to get uniforms together for their team, that was for sure.

  I lifted one of the sweaters up off the counter, trying unsuccessfully to find a redeeming quality of some sort.

  “You really don’t have seven jerseys in another color?” I asked, trying my best not to sound horrified.

  “I’m afraid not. I know they’re not the prettiest, but they’ll do the job.”

  The shop door opened and I turned away from the jerseys with relief. Ernie had returned, his round cheeks pink from the cold. As the door shut behind him, his glasses fogged up.

  “Is Dolores all right?” Geraldine asked. “What happened over there?”

  Ernie removed his glasses. “Dolores forgot to set her alarm last night. When she got to the store this morning, she realized someone had broken in and made off with thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment.”

  “Oh dear. But she wasn’t robbed in broad daylight?”

  “Nope. No one was there when it happened. Except the thieves, of course.”

  “That’s one small mercy.”

  “Does her store have security cameras?” I asked.

  Ernie replaced his glasses on his nose, the lenses now clear. “She does. One out back, one out front, and one inside. She was showing the footage to the cops when I got there.”

  “So the thieves were caught on camera?” Geraldine said.

  “They were, no
t that it does much good. There were two of them, wearing masks and hoods. Dressed all in black.”

  “It must be the same hooligans who committed the other recent break-ins,” Geraldine said. “They hit the souvenir shop a couple of weeks ago, and Audrey Minton’s store before that.”

  “And Vera Anderson’s store the other day,” I added.

  Geraldine shook her head. “I can’t believe this is happening in Shady Creek. And a murder too!”

  “That’s what happens when you get more tourists coming to town,” Ernie said.

  I somehow doubted tourists were responsible for a rash of burglaries spread out over several weeks, but I didn’t say so.

  “Now, how about these jerseys?” Geraldine asked, holding one up.

  I forced myself not to cringe at the sight of it. “I’d better check what sizes I’m going to need.” I sidled toward the door. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Don’t leave it too long or we might be out of these as well,” Geraldine warned as I slipped out of the store.

  I wasn’t too concerned. All the other teams were probably far more organized than ours and already had jerseys—ones that weren’t painful to look at.

  Without being too obvious about it, I tried to peek through the front window of the electronics store as I passed by, but all I saw was the two uniformed officers speaking with Dolores. I hoped the police would find the thieves soon. It was unnerving to know they were sneaking around town at night, targeting businesses. I’d recently had motion-sensitive lights installed outside the pub, but maybe I should have purchased security cameras too.

  I decided to put that thought aside for the time being so I could focus on my current mission: procuring jerseys for the hockey tournament. I knew the garish ones Geraldine had offered me might be my only real option, but I wanted to explore another possibility first. The maroon-trimmed, mustard-yellow sweaters would be a last resort.

  Shivering as I walked down the street, I glanced up at the heavy gray clouds. They’d grown darker since I’d left the Inkwell and I figured there was a good chance we’d be getting fresh snow soon. I tugged my hat down farther over my ears and picked up my pace. A minute or so later I arrived at a secondhand sporting-goods shop.

  I browsed around and spoke to the proprietor, but he couldn’t help me. He didn’t have seven matching jerseys in any size or color.

  “Talk to Geraldine and Ernie over at the Fine Print,” he advised.

  “I was just there,” I said. “They don’t have enough of any color other than yellow.”

  “Nothing wrong with yellow.”

  That was easy for him to say when he hadn’t seen the eyesores.

  I thanked him and trudged back to the Fine Print. I decided to guess at the sizes my teammates would need and purchased seven of the ugly jerseys. Geraldine handed me the bag with a smile, and I couldn’t help but wonder what expressions I’d see on my teammates’ faces when I showed them their uniforms. Hopefully they wouldn’t refuse to play in them.

  With that task out of the way, I set off in the direction of the Inkwell. As I neared the village green, I spotted the first tiny snowflakes of the day, drifting their way down from the leaden sky. Despite how cold I was, I smiled. I might not love shoveling snow, but the flakes dancing down from the sky made the beautiful town even prettier.

  Instead of cutting across the green, I headed for the Treasure Chest, Shontelle’s gift shop, located on Hillview Road. I knew her store would be cozy warm, and I liked to drop in for a chat now and then when there weren’t too many customers keeping my friend busy.

  A woman had just left the shop when I went inside, but I soon saw there were no other customers.

  “Morning,” I called out to Shontelle.

  She was near the back of the shop, carefully removing some snow globes from a box and placing them on a shelf. I wandered over her way for a closer look at the display. I’d always loved snow globes and I’d amassed a good collection of them over the years.

  “You’ve been out shopping, I see,” she said, eyeing the bag in my hand. “Anything interesting?”

  “Jerseys for the Inkwell’s hockey team.”

  I made no move to show them to her. Instead, I picked up one of the snow globes to admire it. A cute polar bear and her adorable cub stood on an iceberg beneath the small glass dome.

  “I didn’t know you were entering the tournament,” Shontelle said.

  I tipped the globe upside down before returning it to the display, snow now falling on the bears. “We only decided last night. We’re still short one player.”

  “Don’t look at me.” Shontelle placed the last snow globe on the shelf. “I can’t even skate.”

  “Who’s going skating?” a voice piped up. Kiandra came bouncing out of the back room. “Can I go too?” Her smile grew brighter when she saw me. “Hi, Sadie.”

  “Hi, sweetie. Are you helping your mom with the store today?”

  “No, I was reading in the back.”

  “Nancy Drew?” I guessed. I’d been lending her books from the series one by one.

  “Yep. I’m almost done.”

  “I’ll have to bring you another one soon then.”

  “Yes, please!” She looked from her mom to me. “Are you going skating?”

  “No one’s going skating today, sweetheart,” Shontelle said. “We were talking about the hockey tournament.”

  Kiandra’s face fell. “Oh.”

  “You like ice-skating?” I asked her.

  “Yes. I’m not very good, though. Last year was the first time I tried. I kept falling.”

  “Falling is part of learning,” I said. “But I can help you, if you’d like.”

  Her face brightened. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Did you hear that, Mom? Sadie’s going to teach me to skate.”

  “She’s much more qualified than I am,” Shontelle said.

  “Can we go today?” Kiandra asked, bouncing up on the balls of her feet.

  “Honey, Sadie has to work today.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s true,” I said. “How about Monday after school?”

  “Chelsea’s birthday party is on Monday,” Kiandra said with disappointment.

  Shontelle ruffled her daughter’s cloud of curly hair. “Don’t sound so sad. You’ve been looking forward to that party.”

  “Yeah. But I really want to learn how to skate better.”

  “The outdoor rink is open all winter,” I said. “And you’ll be on holidays soon. We’ll find a time that works.”

  “Okay.” Her eyes brightened. “Sadie, did you know you can go on sleigh rides during the carnival?”

  “I heard something about that.”

  “They’re horse-drawn sleighs and the horses are so pretty. Have you ever been on a sleigh ride?”

  “I have, but not for a long time,” I said. Not since I’d lived in Minnesota, I realized. It really had been a long time.

  Kiandra radiated excitement. “I’m going on a sleigh ride for Chelsea’s birthday party.”

  “Then it sounds like you’ll have lots of fun on Monday.”

  Shontelle glanced at her phone. “Kiandra, go upstairs and get changed into your dance clothes. Grandma will be here soon to walk you over to your class.”

  “Okay. Bye, Sadie!” She waved and disappeared into the back of the store where a stairway led up to their two-bedroom apartment.

  “So,” Shontelle said once we were alone, “how did things go with Grayson last night?”

  “They didn’t go anywhere.” I pulled off my hat, finally warming up. “He was just there for a drink.”

  “If you say so.”

  I followed her as she headed into the back, carrying the box she’d emptied of snow globes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She tucked the box inside a bigger one and slid them both onto a high shelf in the storeroom. “The man owns a brewery. It’s not like he has to go to the pub to have a drink.”

  �
��Maybe he wanted to have a drink while socializing.”

  “It didn’t look like he was meeting his buddies there.” She headed back into the main part of the store.

  I trailed in her wake. “You’re reading far too much into things.”

  “Or you’re not reading enough,” she countered.

  I decided a swift change of subject was in order. “The electronics store on Mulberry Street was broken into last night.”

  “Another break-in? I’m glad I’ve got an alarm, but it’s still unnerving. Do the police have any suspects?”

  “Not that I know of.” I leaned against the counter while Shontelle checked something on the computer.

  As I took a second to think, it crossed my mind that the disappearance of my books could be related to the recent burglaries, but I quickly dismissed that idea. The theft of two books was hardly on the same level as the other crimes.

  “Speaking of suspects . . .” I said a moment later.

  Shontelle’s gaze snapped my way. “Do you know who killed Freddy Mancini?”

  “No.” Not yet, I added in my head. “But I’ve got a few people on my suspect list.”

  “Like Leo?” she guessed.

  “And Penny Blaine.”

  “I heard he pretended not to recognize her, even though they dated for years. What a lowlife.”

  “Do you know if Penny lives alone?”

  “I think she does. Why?”

  “She told me she was in bed with a headache when Freddy was killed. I was wondering if anyone could confirm that.”

  Shontelle’s eyebrows drew together. “But wasn’t Freddy killed around eight o’clock?”

  “Pretty close to it.”

  “Then I can confirm something,” Shontelle said. “Penny was lying.”

  Chapter 13

  On my way across the village green, I thought over what Shontelle had told me. When she and Kiandra had left the chili supper on the night of Freddy’s death, they’d had to wait at the curb before crossing Hemlock Street because Penny had driven by in her old red Toyota. I’d asked Shontelle if she was absolutely certain it was Penny. She’d assured me that she’d recognized both the driver and the vehicle.