by Maia Chance
“What were you thinking?”
“I really wasn’t thinking, Agnes dear. I was so consumed with the idea of protecting the inn—my inn—that I panicked. I can’t afford any delays on the inn’s wiring while I loaf around in a jail cell. Not with that demolition date set. No, I must avoid arrest this week at any cost. After the inn passes inspection and the demolition is canceled, then I’ll come clean to the police.” She beamed at me, perfect teeth flashing. “I can always resume work on the inn after serving my sentence. Now. I’m giving you my phone”—she passed it—“but I am begging you to be discreet about the sound machine.”
I stared down at the phone’s dark screen. Somehow, Effie made lying to the cops seem like the best way for her to avoid arrest. She lived in la-la land, and scarily, she was sucking me in.
“Okay, fine, I won’t mention the sound machine,” I said. “I’m going to tell Albright that I just have a hunch that the murderer started the rumor.”
“A hunch?”
“That’s the best I can do.” I woke up Effie’s phone and punched in the number from the sticky note. It went straight to Albright’s voice mail, so I sent him a text: Important clue, please call ASAP—Agnes Blythe. “I should call Dad,” I said.
“I already tried his cell and his house,” Effie said. “No answer.”
“Does he have your number?”
“I don’t think I gave it to him, no.”
With any luck, Dad was still on the golf course and blissfully oblivious to this mess. “Great,” I said. “I have this pivotal clue, but the police won’t even pick up the phone, and meanwhile, there’s a murderer roaming the town trying to frame us.”
“Do something with the clue.”
“You mean . . . investigate?”
“Why not? At least until Albright calls back.”
“I can think of about a dozen reasons why not, Aunt Effie.” I stared blankly through the windshield. The day before yesterday, I had my life totally together. Professor fiancé. Top-notch graduate school program. Planet-friendly car. Cute apartment. And now? It was like my life had been mangled by one of those car crushers at the dump. To say nothing of my future, which had gone from being one half of a bifocals-wearing academic power couple to a big, juicy question mark.
So what did I have to lose? Quite frankly, not a whole lot.
“You know what I’m going to do?” I said to Effie.
“What?”
“I’m going to track down the source of that rumor. If I do that, I’ll probably have identified the murderer. Okay?”
“Fine, but I’ve got to get to the hardware store,” Effie said.
“Are you in denial about the fact that we are under suspicion for murder?”
“I have only one week to fix the wiring. It’s a monumental task, according to Chester. I’ll help you with your inquiries, Agnes, as long as you help me with the inn.”
“Deal.”
The rational little voice inside of my head (I picture it like a cartoon bug in a waistcoat) told me that trying to track down a murderer was, well, idiotic. I told the little voice to stuff it. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 4
Effie tossed me her purse. “Let’s make a list for the hardware store. There’s a pad of paper and a pencil in there somewhere.” She reversed out of the parking spot. The Cadillac’s cushy suspension felt like one of those kids’ bouncy houses. I was queasy already.
When Effie cranked into drive, she dinged the rear bumper of a parked car. She swore under her breath and kept going.
“Stop!” I said. “You just hit that car. You have to leave your insurance information.”
“What do you think bumpers are for?” Effie turned and gassed it down the street. “And it’s just that this isn’t exactly my car.”
“It’s a rental?”
“Ahhh . . . no. No, not a rental.”
“Is this a hot car?”
I’d been joking, so when Effie replied, “In a manner of speaking,” I swung on her.
“Wait a minute! What’s going on here?”
“Don’t look at me like that, Agnes. You don’t think I’m a murderer after all, do you?”
“Maybe. You clearly have no respect for the law.”
“I can’t go into details about the car. Just forget about it, mm-kay?”
I rolled my eyes and excavated paper and a mechanical pencil from Effie’s handbag. I clicked the mechanical pencil lead. “What’s on the list?” I said in a distant, professional voice.
“Come on, Agnes, let’s have fun.”
“Fun? We’re suspected murderers, your inheritance is about to be razed, and I have low blood sugar and motion sickness. No. No fun. What’s on the list?”
“Voltage tester. Wire stripper. Metal fish tape. Oh, and masks.”
“Masks?”
“For the dust. And there are some funny smells.”
Right. Of a corpse.
Effie dictated more of the hardware store list as we zoomed into the heart of town. The sky arched blue and cloudless. Trees and beautiful old buildings were mere blurs; Effie had a lead foot.
“So who do you think killed Kathleen?” I asked, buzzing my window down.
“Put that window up,” Effie snapped. “The wind will ruin my hair.”
“I’m carsick!”
“I would be delighted if Paul got this car back smelling of vomit.”
“Paul? Who’s he?”
“A pustule.”
“That clarifies so much.” I didn’t roll the window up, and Effie pursed her shrimp-pink lipsticked mouth. “Who do you think killed Kathleen?” I asked again.
“God knows. Everyone hated her. Do you know, when I had my little run-in with her at the supermarket, I had a full audience, and someone actually cheered me on?”
“Whoever killed her got really, really close to her in order to crank her scarf up with that washing machine wringer,” I said. “That makes it seem like they knew her. It was personal. Plus, the murderer was angry.”
“It might’ve been a sociopath.”
“But whoever it was must have lured her to the inn at midnight, right? That makes it seem like it was someone she knew too.”
“They say no one is more likely to kill you than someone in your own family.”
Effie and I exchanged brief sidelong glances. Then we quickly looked away. Awwwkwaaard.
“What the hell is this?” Effie braked hard. White wooden barricades blocked the entrance to the business section of Main Street. Beyond the barricades, bright awnings flapped, and people milled around.
“The farmer’s market,” I said.
“But how will we get to the hardware store? It’s down there.” Effie pointed into the farmer’s market.
“We’ll have to walk.”
“Oh, diddle,” Effie said.
“I know.”
* * *
We parked the car two blocks from Main, on Lake Street, which meant that our net cardio savings in taking the car from the police station was three blocks.
“We should’ve just walked the whole way,” I said.
“It’s the principle of the thing, darling.”
Secretly, I thought she had a point.
We walked into the bustle of the market. Stalls of colorful fruits and vegetables, shoppers, babies in strollers, and panting dogs stretched two blocks. An accordion player squawked in front of Polly’s Ice Cream Parlor. Shop doors in historic brick and stone buildings stood open to the fresh air. Tables and chairs filled the sidewalk in front of the crêperie and the Thai restaurant.
Naneda’s economy rests on two things: the university and tourism. Naneda University was founded in 1865 and is a cherished safety school for overachievers. And the tourism? I get it. Naneda’s a beautiful place with a rich history that includes the Iroquois Confederacy, colonial-era shenanigans, stops on the Underground Railroad, and pivotal moments in women’s suffrage. Year-round visitors guzzle local Riesling and Pinot Noir, stalk the famous lake trout, goggle at
fall foliage, bicycle along pastoral woodland and farm roads, and poke through antique shops. We even have tourists in winter, because although the name Naneda derives from an Iroquois word that means you need warm clothes, Naneda Lake somehow protects the town from the outer-space-cold blasts of winter weather that torment nearby Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse.
“I suppose I ought to buy some nibbles while we’re here at the market,” Effie said. She headed toward a produce stall.
Couldn’t she focus? “Well I’m going to the smoothie stand to—” I stopped in my tracks. Just to the left of the produce stall, I saw Roger. His back was turned, but I’d recognize that bald spot anywhere.
What if I threw myself weeping into his arms and told him I’d been accused of murder? I’d never played the damsel card before, but hey, maybe it would work.
The crowd parted, and I saw the woman with him. She was lightly suntanned and wearing capri leggings, flip-flops, and a pink athletic top that exposed pancake-flat abs. Her straight blonde hair was in a high ponytail, and she clung to Roger’s arm, laughing.
Crud. I turned and started speed walking down the sidewalk. Had to get away. Far, far away.
“Agnes!” Effie called after me. “Yoo-hoo! Ag-nesssss!”
I stopped. I turned.
Roger and Shelby were staring at me, their smiles slipping off.
Effie waggled a bunch of celery at me. “Agnes, come here and hold this celery for me, won’t you?”
Making a point of not meeting Roger’s eye, I trudged back to Effie. My orange sneakers suddenly felt as ungainly as astronaut boots.
“I forgot to ask—do you like bloody marys?” Effie dumped the dripping celery in my arms.
“She doesn’t drink,” Roger said in his clear, didactic voice.
Aunt Effie studied Roger over the tops of her sunglasses. “And you are—? Oh, wait. You must be Roger.”
Roger cleared his throat. “Hello, Agnes.”
“Hi.” This was a croak.
“Agnes doesn’t drink alcohol,” Roger told Effie. “It gives her a rash.”
“Just as well,” Shelby said in a chipper voice. “Alcohol makes you so bloated.” Her big blue eyes flicked to my middle. “I mean, it makes everyone bloated.” She forced a cutesy smile.
I turned to Effie. “I love bloody marys.”
“I spoke with the police about you this morning, Agnes,” Roger said in a concerned-yet-still-pompous voice.
“Yeah.” My eyes narrowed. “I heard. Thanks so much for telling them I’m erratic, because now I’m a murder suspect.”
Shelby gasped.
“Remember,” Roger told me, “as Ovid so famously said, ‘Fortune and love favor the brave.’” With Shelby clinging to his arm, he strolled away into the crowd.
“He’s vile,” Effie said. She surveyed the piles of vegetables. “You can do better.”
“Yeah,” the girl behind the veggies said to me. “You could do better. Probably.”
I felt a pair of eyes on me, belonging to a woman in mom shorts pushing a double stroller. Mom Shorts looked from me to Effie and veered the stroller in a wide arc as though we were exhibiting symptoms of the bubonic plague.
“I guess the news that we’re murder suspects has made the rounds,” I said. Will not think about Roger and Shelby. Will not think about Roger and Shelby. And what is with this lump in my throat?
Effie finished up her transaction with the produce stand girl. She stuffed two oranges into her handbag.
“OJ?” I asked.
“God, no. Manhattans with a twist.”
“I see the smoothie stand,” I said.
We went to a stand with a banner that read Super Smoothies Save the Day! A woman with frizzy hair and an apron was wrangling a noisy blender, surrounded by piles of bananas and kale. She switched off the blender when Effie and I stopped.
“What can I get ya?” she chirped. “You two look like you haven’t been eating your kale!”
“Are you Rosalie?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t you know who we are?” I asked.
“Can’t say that I do.”
“I’m Agnes Blythe, and this is my great-aunt, Mrs. Winters.”
Rosalie’s eyes went round. “Oh.”
“Oh is right,” I said softly, leaning over her bananas. “You’ve been spreading a rumor about us, and I want to know who you heard it from.”
“I haven’t been spreading a rumor,” Rosalie said. “I only told Mrs. Wassmuth about what I heard, about you guys arguing with Mrs. Todd last night at the inn, because she works at the police station, and we got to talking when she came for her green smoothie.”
“And who told you the rumor?” I asked.
“Dr. Gupta,” Rosalie said. “He’s telling everyone.”
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“You’ve never heard of Dr. Gupta?”
“Nope.”
“He’s the town gossip. He cannot shut up.” Rosalie rolled her eyes. “Everyone who goes to his office to have a cavity filled comes out knowing all the latest dish. You just lie there with your mouth open, and this guy blabs on and on. You’re a captive audience. And he doesn’t shut up even on his days off. He’s been at the market all day today jawing to everyone.”
“Is Dr. Gupta still here?” I asked.
“He’s right over there.” Rosalie pointed to the row of stalls across the way. “Mr. Popularity with the black hair and the blue button-down? That’s him.”
I squinted over. At a fresh-fried donut stall (because yeah, this is America, and people want donuts at the farmer’s market, dammit), a small man with gleaming black hair stood inside a cluster of people. He said something and tossed his head back in laughter. The others laughed too.
Effie and I backed away from the smoothie stand.
“Let’s go have a word with this Dr. Gupta guy,” I said.
“Oh, look at those gorgeous plums!” Effie said, stopping at a stall called Shakti Organic Farm. Fruits and vegetables filled wooden crates, and flowers burst from metal buckets. “Such a pity they have so many grams of sugar.”
“You could use a few extra calories,” I said. “You can’t seem to focus on the task at hand.”
“Sounds like you could use a few extra calories, Agnes dear. Didn’t you eat breakfast?”
I thought of the pile of strawberry muffins I’d inhaled. “Plenty, but then I puked.”
“Now you sound like a fashion model.” Effie leaned over to regard the young woman crouched behind the Shakti Organic Farm table. The woman had a pretty freckled face and blonde dreads, and she was hastily piling cucumbers into a crate. A long-haired little kid—boy or girl, I couldn’t tell—stood shirtless beside her, eating a peach. Peach juice dribbled everywhere. “Three plums, please,” Effie said.
“Hell no,” the dreadlocks woman said, glancing up. “Get out of here, Euphemia Winters. Your money’s not welcome here.”
“Good gracious,” Effie said. “Might I enquire why?”
“You know why, you crazy bitch.”
“Such a shame. I do adore plums.”
Effie and I hurried away from the Shakti Organic Farm stall.
“Did you see how that woman’s eyes were puffy and red?” I whispered to Effie. “I’ll bet she was one of Kathleen Todd’s family, or a friend. She must have just heard the bad news. Didn’t it look like she was packing up to leave?”
As we made our way through the crowd toward Dr. Gupta, we endured furtive glances from behind sacks of apples. Dirty looks from the fresh-baked bread stall. Pointing fingers.
“Not exactly Norman Rockwell land, is it?” Effie said.
“No. More like ‘The Lottery.’”
* * *
We drew up to Dr. Gupta. His audience had dispersed, and he was paying for a sack of donuts. He caught sight of Effie. “Well hello, Mrs. Winters! Do you remember me from the supermarket yesterday?”
“Yes, although I didn’t catch your name,” Effie
said. She whispered to me, “He’s the one who cheered me on when I was having words with Kathleen Todd.”
“Dr. Gupta, DDS.” Dr. Gupta had a compact potbelly, huge ears, and a smile as white as a porcelain sink. “But call me Avi, you darling, you.” He grabbed Effie’s hand and yanked her close. “I didn’t have a chance to thank you for putting the wicked witch of the east in her place yesterday at the Green Apple.”
Effie tugged her hand free. “It was nothing, really. To tell the truth, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to set people like that to rights.”
“Who’s this?” Avi said. He gave my too-tight jeans, backpack, and celery a disapproving look. He was wearing small designer jeans that had—yes—ironed creases, and his blue button-down looked starched.
“Agnes Blythe. My niece, my personal assistant—oh, and the mayor’s daughter.”
“Oooooh,” Avi crowed. “Local gentry!”
Yeah, right.
Avi said, “Your auntie, Agnes, leaped to my defense like an avenging angel yesterday evening at the supermarket. There I was, minding my own business, when that vile she-wolf accosted me in front of the Lean Cuisines. She had an axe to grind about my chicken coop, you see, even though it’s well within the bounds of the historical society bylaws—I even put historically accurate gingerbread on it and that precious little weather vane from Angel’s Antiques that took Doug absolutely ages to find—but was that enough for her? No! I even withdrew my raspberry jam entry in the contest at the county fair next weekend because I knew Kathleen—she was going to be the judge—would never judge me fairly. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why everyone was always groveling to Kathleen. She had some way of making everyone do just as she wanted, and let me tell you, it wasn’t charm. I have an alibi, of course, but if I hadn’t, I would’ve gleefully taken a crack at strangling that cow. And”—Avi sidled closer, widening his dewy brown eyes—“don’t mind the rumors, sweeties.”
“Yeah,” I said. “About the rumors—”
“People are just jealous, that’s all, because they can’t bear to have any ladies in town who’ve got any style.” Avi’s eyes flicked to my outfit. “A lady with style,” he corrected, smiling up at Effie. “And the rumors—I thought you’d already know. Rumor has it—not that I believe this for a second—that you, Effie—may I call you Effie?”