The Pickled Piper

by Mary Ellen Hughes

  “No, it couldn’t be,” Piper said. “Though I admit her name crossed my mind.”

  “There! See?” Tina said. “I’ll bet she took her complaints to the town council and got no action. So she took her frustration out in another way.” Tina paused. “She’s also been heard ranting against Nate, wondering why he hasn’t been arrested yet for Alan Rosemont’s murder.”

  Amy gasped.

  “Don’t worry,” Piper assured Amy. “I’m sure Charlotte’s opinion won’t weigh heavily with your father.”

  “Probably not,” Tina agreed. “But now that I think of it, maybe she’s throwing out the accusation as a smoke screen. Maybe she killed Rosemont.”

  “Why do you say that?” Piper asked.

  “Oh,” Tina said, shrugging, “just because she’s so nasty, I suppose. But I’ll bet if we looked hard enough, we’d find a pretty good motive for her to have done it.”

  Piper had to admit the idea of locking Charlotte up for the crime was appealing, but she said, “We’ll keep her in mind. I’ve been thinking we should probably be looking into Alan Rosemont’s background. Maybe there’s something in his past that brought about his murder.”

  Piper’s phone rang. It was one of her spice wholesalers calling with an urgent question concerning Piper’s latest order. Did she want regular yellow mustard seed or whole brown or both? Piper scrambled to find her order list and found that she needed both. She’d barely settled that and hung up when her phone rang again.

  “You got some bricks need cleaning? How soon d’ya need it done?”

  Instantly came to mind, but Piper got into a discussion of method and cost, knowing she’d need to run it by her insurance agent. As she finished with that call, a customer in a bright pink tee walked in.

  “Why don’t I do that background search for you,” Tina offered. She’d been browsing the shelves while Piper was occupied and laid several jars of chutney on the counter. “I’m pretty good on the computer, and I’ll have time.”

  “Would you?” Piper said, happy to have one chore taken off her plate.

  Amy packed up Tina’s purchases as Piper turned to the pink-clad woman, asking, “How can I help you?”

  Clutching her bag of chutneys, the coffee shop owner waggled her fingers and headed for the door, promising, “I’ll get back to you.” Piper waved back, then continued her discussion with her new customer on the various merits of white, cider, and malt vinegars for use in the pickling process. Her phone rang again, but Amy picked up, and as she did, Piper’s empty stomach grumbled its own bid for attention. Piper sighed, mentally telling it to get in line.

  • • •

  For the next couple of hours it seemed half the town popped in—one or two at a time—to ask about the paint on the front of Piper’s shop. With all the repeated explanations—and no return in the form of helpful information on the vandalism—Piper felt her energy draining to near zero despite the two cups of coffee she managed to down from the pot Amy set to brew. As soon as there was a lull, Piper scurried up to her apartment for a bite of lunch, leaving Amy to hold down the fort.

  With the need for speed in mind, Piper popped a cheese sandwich into her toaster oven, then added two homemade bread-and-butter pickles to her plate. She’d just taken her first, absolutely delicious bite when she heard a clear-pitched woman’s voice carry up the stairs.

  “I wish to speak to Miss Lamb. Immediately.”

  The voice was familiar, and Piper found herself inexplicably picturing bunny rabbits and dancing turtles. Then it hit her: her visitor was Lyella Pfiefle, children’s librarian and wife of Gordon Pfiefle, chief suspect on Piper’s murder list!

  Piper coughed, choked, then managed to swallow her food with the help of a gulp of water. About that time, Amy’s head poked up from the stairwell. “There’s a . . .” she began, but Piper nodded.

  “I heard.”

  “She looks mad,” Amy whispered, her eyes wide.

  Amy’s head disappeared from view, and Piper got up to rinse the crumbs from her hands. She could well imagine what Lyella Pfiefle might be mad about. The question was how did she know about it?

  “Miss Lamb,” Lyella said as Piper appeared, then paused and shot Amy a stern look. “Leave us, please.” Amy glanced at Piper—who nodded—then disappeared into the back room.

  With false bravado, Piper said, “How nice to see you again, Mrs. Pfiefle.” The librarian looked dressed for work in a tidy, though bland, blouse and skirt. Her hair was pulled into the same severe ponytail she’d worn before, and though she stood with a ramrod-straight back and chin jutting high, she still didn’t reach five feet above the floor. Her manner, however, did, and more.

  “I’m not here for your pickling spices, and I have to be at the library very soon, so I’ll get right to the point. Miss Lamb, I realize my husband is a very attractive man. You are a single woman, whose heart, I’m sure, must be more than ready to be engaged. I fully understand that, as well as the weaknesses of human nature. Understanding, however, does not mean overlooking. Gordon Pfiefle is my husband and fully intends to remain so. I strongly advise you to keep that in mind and to look elsewhere for your romantic interests.”

  “My—?” Piper’s lips continued to move but produced no intelligible words.

  Lyella misinterpreted Piper’s shock. “There’s not much I miss, I assure you. And believe me, Miss Lamb, you’re not the first woman I’ve had to speak to in this way. I’ve never held it against any of them, and I won’t hold it against you. In fact,” she said, “I feel I’m doing you a favor—saving you from a waste of time and certain disappointment.”

  “I, ah,” Piper stammered, floundering for a response. If she protested that she had no romantic interest whatsoever in Gordon Pfiefle, how would she explain what her true interest was? That she saw him as a possible murderer?

  “That’s all right,” Lyella said, again interpreting Piper’s silence in her own way. “No apologies necessary. We’ll simply leave it at that. There’ll be no need to speak of this again. Good day, Miss Lamb.”

  Piper nodded, knowing she should say something. But since “thank you for coming” seemed totally inappropriate, she simply raised one hand in a weak farewell as Lyella turned and left the shop.

  As the door closed behind the librarian, Amy peeked out from the back room. “Did I hear what I think I heard?”

  Piper turned a stunned face toward her assistant and nodded.

  “She really thinks you’re after her husband?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “But she forgives you!”

  “Generous of her, isn’t it?”

  “Oh!” Amy cried, pulling out a stool to support herself as she collapsed in laughter. “That’s so amazing! Gordon Pfiefle! I mean, he’s nice and all, but . . . And doesn’t she know you and Will Burchett are an item?”

  “We’re not an item,” Piper said. “But since Lyella seems to be the only person in town who hasn’t heard about us, the question is how did she link me up with her husband?”

  “GPS?” Amy suggested, then suddenly grew serious. “What if it’s all a smoke screen? Like what Tina said about Charlotte Hosch? What if she knows you have good reason to be suspicious of her husband and is doing this to throw you off the track?”

  Piper looked at Amy. Good question. “I don’t know if that’s the case. But I’m starting to realize that we probably all need to be much more circumspect in our investigations.”

  14

  Amy had left for A La Carte, and Piper had just been informed by her insurance agent that she needed a second cost estimate on the paint clean-up job, when a woman she recognized from the fair entered the shop.

  “You look like you just bit into a sour pickle,” the woman said.

  “Biting into a sour pickle generally makes me smile,” Piper said. “Having to drum up another handyman in a hurry d
oesn’t.”

  Piper explained the situation as the woman’s name percolated to the top of her brain—Emma Leahy, with whom Piper remembered discussing the many ways of pickling okra. “I can’t stand okra itself,” she remembered Emma stating. “Slimy things, aren’t they? But I remembered trying a pickled okra once, and it was delicious.”

  A no-nonsense type of woman in her late sixties, Emma looked like she might have come straight from digging in her garden (and had looked pretty much the same a few days ago at the fair). She brushed back a loose strand of salt-and-pepper hair, cut sensibly short, and dug into the canvas tote that seemed to be filled with enough items to get her through the night. She pulled out a cell phone and began scrolling through her contact list.

  “Dennis Isley would probably give you the lowest price,” she said as she searched, “but I wouldn’t recommend him. Besides, he’s working on Ira Perkins’s roof right now. I saw him on my way here.”

  Piper nodded, aware that she wouldn’t have chosen to hire Dennis, anyway.

  “Here you go. Max Noland.” Emma recited Noland’s number for Piper to write down.

  “Great! Thanks. Now how can I help you?”

  Emma, as Piper expected, wanted to know more about pickling okra, specifically which recipe Piper could suggest that might come closest to the one Emma had once sampled. Piper walked her through six different recipes, including a no-salt version and a couple with celery and either mustard seeds or hot red peppers, and even found one for candied okra, made with brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves. Emma liked the recipe with green, rather than hot, peppers, plus garlic and mustard seeds, and Piper gathered up the spices and equipment she’d need.

  After Emma left, Piper tried Max Noland’s number and got a “please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you” message. She sighed and did so for perhaps the fifth time that day. Her aggravation was short-lived, however, since she soon spotted Will Burchett’s green van pull up in front of her shop. She watched as Will climbed out and slid open his side door. He reached in and dragged out a four-foot-tall—at least!—potted Christmas tree.

  “What in the world?” Piper ran to her door as Will staggered over with his tree.

  “Hi,” he said, seeing her. He lowered the heavy pot gently to the sidewalk. “I heard about your problem,” he said and jerked his chin toward the now-famous paint splash. “I have plenty of these sitting around and thought you might like one.”

  “A Christmas tree?”

  “Yeah, a spruce.” He looked fondly at it, then suddenly blinked. “Not for Christmas! It’s to keep outside here, as a, you know, decoration, and to maybe make you feel a little better after what some creep did to your wall.” He looked down at his tree, again, doubt crossing his face. “It’ll grow, you know. I probably should have picked a bigger one, except lugging it here might have been a problem.”

  Piper laughed, shaking her head. “That’s so nice! But I really can’t accept such an expensive gift.”

  “No! It’s nothing! I just dug it up and plopped it in the pot. I have plenty of them, you know. I would have thinned out the row, anyway. This way the little guy gets to hang around awhile longer.”

  Piper was skeptical but said, “Well, then, great! That really is very nice of you, Will. Thank you!”

  “I’ll just leave it here for now, okay? So it won’t get in the way of the work. Water it once in a while.”

  “I will.” Piper found herself grinning broadly at her unexpected and unusual gift. It might have been the first tree she’d ever gotten.

  Will checked his watch. “I’ll be off, then. I’ll give you a call, okay?”

  “Please do. And thanks again, so much.”

  Will left, and Piper stood gazing at her new tree. How tall would it grow? Could she put lights on it in December? She’d have to ask Will if that would hurt the tree. Piper went back into her shop but found herself wandering to the window often, just to look at her potted spruce.

  She wasn’t the only one who admired it. Customers who walked in the rest of the afternoon said, “Nice tree!” which was such a welcome change from the comments and questions she’d been fielding about the ugly paint splash. About fifteen minutes before closing time, Aunt Judy surprised Piper by popping in.

  “I had to come see it for myself,” she said, referring to the tree, which told Piper news of her gift had made the rounds. “What a lovely thing for Will to do!”

  Piper agreed. “He tried to downplay it, but I’m sure he went to a lot of trouble. It certainly cheered me up.”

  “Yes, I felt so bad when I heard about the paint being thrown on your wall and was planning to come just on that account. But this is so much better. Your paint mess will go away, but that beautiful tree will last for years.”

  “Will it?”

  “Oh yes. Of course, eventually you’ll have to put it back in the ground. We can bring it to our farm if you like. Or . . .” Aunt Judy paused, her eyes twinkling, then simply said, “Yes, your tree will last a good, long time.”

  Just then, another van pulled up to Piper’s shop. This one was white and had “Flowers by Fredericka” written on it in green paint. Uh-oh, Piper thought, not sure what to make of that.

  “Oh my goodness,” Aunt Judy said as she turned to follow Piper’s gaze. They both watched as a young man of about eighteen bounced out, then reached into the back to lift out a huge bouquet of roses. “Look at that!” Aunt Judy cried, and she hurried to get the door for the teen.

  “Piper Lamb?” the delivery boy asked as he walked in. Close-up, the bouquet he held was even more enormous. When Piper nodded weakly, the young man grinned and set the bouquet on her countertop, saying, “Enjoy!”

  “Thank you,” Piper croaked.

  “There must be two dozen roses in there,” Aunt Judy said, her eyes popping. “How can Wi—, I mean, who sent it?”

  Piper found a white envelope tucked into the blooms and plucked it out. She pulled the flap open and slipped out the card, closing her eyes a moment before she read what was on it. “Oh Lord,” she moaned.

  “What? What is it?”

  Aunt Judy looked so fearful, Piper couldn’t keep her in suspense. “They’re from Scott.”

  “Scott! But I thought you, I mean, he, that is . . . Didn’t you two break up?”

  “We did. At least I did. Scott doesn’t seem to have realized it. He just sent me two dozen roses on the anniversary of our first date.”

  “Oh,” Aunt Judy said. “Oh my.” She looked searchingly at Piper. “Well, that’s . . . very nice. I suppose.”

  At that moment, Nate Purdy walked into the shop, halting as he spotted the roses. “Wow! I was going to say, ‘Good-looking tree out there,’ but that’s one gorgeous bouquet in here. Who’s the lucky guy?”

  Piper groaned, then hustled her bouquet, which seemed to be growing larger by the minute, up to her apartment before anyone else could see and comment on it. Aunt Judy had looked on the verge of asking how Piper felt about it, but all she felt at the moment was confusion.

  Why would Scott make such a romantic gesture? He’d rarely done so when they’d been together, and now that he was half a world away he feels the urge? The phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder” popped into her head, but did Piper want Scott’s heart to grow fonder? She thought she’d ended that episode in her life, partly because she’d felt taken for granted. Now, just when someone new had entered her life, a man who was clearly very thoughtful, Scott suddenly becomes the gallant knight? Had he also become clairvoyant? It seemed as though every time Piper’s feelings toward Will stepped up a notch, Scott did something to shake the ladder.

  “Piper, do you want me to ring up the purchase for Nate?” Aunt Judy called up the stairwell. “He’s picking up tarragon for Amy on his way to A La Carte, and he has to go now.”

  “I’m coming down,” Piper answered, g
iving one of Scott’s wonderfully fragrant roses an impatient tweak. She trotted down to the shop and wrote up a bill that Nate could give to the restaurant owner instead of paying out of pocket.

  “More people have said they intend to go to the restaurant to hear you play,” Aunt Judy told him. “Your fame is spreading.”

  Nate grinned. “I think it’s Amy’s cooking that’s doing it, but either way it’ll be good for both of us. Thanks again.” He made a snappy salute and took off.

  “Want to come by for dinner?” Aunt Judy asked Piper. “It won’t be up to the A La Carte offerings, but I’ve made your favorite chicken and biscuit stew.”

  “Your cooking will always be tops with me,” Piper said. “Just give me a minute to close up shop.” And to get my head together.

  • • •

  Since Aunt Judy had been dropped off by Uncle Frank to run her errands in town, she rode with Piper to the farmhouse, first calling to let her husband know she had a ride back.

  “Take a peek at the Crock-Pot, would you, Frank?” she told him over the phone. “If my stew is bubbling too much, turn the switch to low.”

  As Piper pulled onto the highway on the outskirts of town, they heard sirens in the distance.

  “Oh dear,” Aunt Judy said. “I hope nothing serious has happened.”

  “If it has, we’ll be sure to hear about it soon,” Piper said, checking her mirrors but not spotting any flashing lights.

  “Caitlin Walker’s little boy is prone to asthma attacks. Sometimes it’s a bad one. Or old Mr. O’Hara’s heart might have—”

  “It could just be Ben Schaeffer in his auxiliary officer role catching a driver going five miles over the speed limit. You know how super-seriously he takes things like that.”

  “Maybe . . .” Aunt Judy said.

  Piper glanced over and saw her aunt’s face still looking worried, so she bit the bullet and brought up the subject sure to distract her. “Will’s gift of that live Christmas tree was such a surprise.”

  Aunt Judy’s expression instantly brightened. “He’s such a nice young man. I liked him from the first. I remember saying to your Uncle Frank, ‘That Will Burchett has an honest face.’ Of course, Frank laughed and reminded me that I’d said the same about the man who drove up to the house and offered to reseal our driveway at a big discount with his ‘leftover material from another job.’ That was a long time ago, though. I think I’ve learned a thing or two about scam artists since then.”