Farnsworth stayed on the farm instead of inventing that idiot box we call a television.”
Now she said, “Maybe Brian has a twin.”
“And maybe you need to get a new theory.” I told her I’d bring pizza to her house after work. We’d pack goody bags for Saturday’s dance and be done with the job in no time.
I slid the phone back into my purse as I walked into the bookstore. Lois was sitting on the counter, leaning back on her hands, kicking the heels of her Earth shoes against the wood paneling. The first time she’d worn the shoes, I’d asked what else she had in the box labeled “1970.” She’d huffed and said these were brand-new, thank you very much, and clearly I didn’t know a thing about fashion trends.
True. But I did know ugly when I saw it. Luckily, the thought stayed in my head.
Lois started whistling. I cocked my head, listening. “ ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,’ ” I said.
“Bingo!” Lois slid off the counter and landed on the floor with a light thump. Sixty-one years old and she was as limber as a teenager. It was the yoga, she said. Last year for Christmas she’d given me a yoga DVD. Sadly, the plastic wrapper was still wrapped tight around it.
“But I was whistling sarcastically,” she said. “I haven’t been working at all.”
I glanced around the store. Not a single customer. My stomach lining rolled over and put another knot in itself. “Where’s Yvonne?”
“In the back unpacking a box of special orders.”
“Have we—” My cell phone rang and I fished it out. “Hello?”
“I know who killed Sam,” Marina said.
“Excellent. Now hang up and call Deputy Wheeler. Would you like her number?”
“Don’t you want to hear my theory first?”
“No. I want the killer in jail fast and—” I stopped. It wouldn’t do to worry Marina about the customer-less state of the store. She’d feel guilty about Yvonne and double her investigative efforts.
“And what?”
“And I want life to get back to normal.” Her nose was probably twitching like mad; Marina could scent a lie faster than a first-time mother picked up a dropped pacifier. But it wasn’t a lie, not exactly. “I have to go, okay? There’s a bunch of people coming in.” I clicked off the phone.
Lois went to the door, opened it, and poked her head out. “Hellooo?”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking for that bunch of people.”
On a normal day this would have made me laugh. Today I couldn’t even summon a smile. “I have some errands to run. Call me if you need me.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” She snapped to attention and saluted smartly as I went by.
The salute, silly though it was, made me pick up my chin. Today, if I couldn’t smile, I could do my best to save my store. All I had to do was find Sam’s killer. And to do that all I had to do was find a reason for Sam to be murdered.
Piece of cake.
Flossie Untermayer frowned at me. “Sam Helmstetter didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
“That’s what everybody says,” I said.
Flossie, who was seventy-six and proud of it, frowned at her clipboard and made a note with a pencil tied on with a shoelace. She was the only adult I knew who still used No. 2 pencils. She also knew everyone in town. She was one of my top ten favorite people.
“Quite a contradiction, isn’t it?” She pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling of her downtown grocery store. “The only man in town without an enemy, and he’s the man who is murdered. You and Marina are teaming up again, I imagine.”
I sighed. “How can a reputation be made on one incident?”
Flossie laughed, a silvery run of light. She’d once danced ballet professionally in Chicago. When she’d aged out of that career, she’d turned to stage acting and singing, and when those roles dried up she came home to Rynwood to take over her family’s grocery store.
“A reputation can be made even when the incident never really occurred.” She crouched down, the better to view the bottom shelf of cereal boxes. “You should know that.”
I did, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “So you can’t think of anyone who’d kill Sam?”
She looked up at me from her crouch. If I stayed in that position for more than five seconds my thighs would be screaming, but Flossie looked as if she could stay down there, comfortably, for the rest of the day. “The rule is to look at the spouse first and business partners second,” she said.
“That’s what they say.” The proverbial “they” also claimed that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Ruthless and depraved Nero might have been, but the violin wasn’t invented for another fifteen hundred years.
“Yes.” Flossie adjusted her crouch to sink lower. “But even if Rachel wanted to kill Sam, I don’t see how a woman her size would have the strength to strangle a man of Sam’s size. Simple physiology is against it.”
That’s what Gus had said, back on the night of the murder.
“And we all know where Brian Keller was that evening.” She chuckled. “Talk about building a reputation on one incident.”
Everyone in town knew about Brian Keller. Why was I the last to know? Maybe Marina was losing her touch.
I watched Flossie write a few notes on her clipboard, then asked, “Who do you think killed Sam?” Behind my simple question was a plaintive plea for answers. Please tell me I’ve never met the murderer. Please tell me I don’t go to church with him, walk the same streets, or have him walk into my store, and please, please, keep him away from my children.
Flossie stood, moving to an upright position without visible effort. “Are you all right?” She put the back of her hand to my forehead. “You’re shivering.”
I put on a smile. “Just a chill.”
“Mmm.” She gave me an intense look, but stepped back. “Who do I think killed Sam?” Her tone, usually full of rich inflection, was devoid of life. “I have no idea. He shouldn’t be dead.”
And on that, as on many other topics, Flossie and I agreed completely.
I left the grocery store and pulled back the sleeve of my coat to look at my watch. Just past eleven. Perfect. I walked across the brick street, checked my watch against the Victorian clock the chamber of commerce put up a few years ago, and opened the door of the Green Tractor.
The diner smelled of fried food and grilling beef. I stood by the cash register, eyes closed, breathing in the luscious scents, trying to convince myself that smelling it was just as good as eating it.
“Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes. Ruthie, the diner’s owner, was looking at me in the same way Flossie had. “Why do people keep asking me that?” I asked.
“Maybe because you look like you’re about to keel over.” Ruthie handed me a mug and a plate filled with a cinnamon roll. “Sit down and eat.”
Since I was constitutionally incapable of passing up one of Ruthie’s rolls, and as my life seemed to be full of women telling me what to do, I sat on the closest stool.
The Green Tractor was a leftover from what had once been a dime-store luncheon counter. When the dime store had abandoned Rynwood for good, Ruthie and her husband had bought the building and divided it into two businesses. The other side evolved from a butcher shop to a men’s clothing store to a furniture store and settled on being an eclectic gift shop. The Green Tractor side, after the initial renovation, hadn’t changed a bit.
Ruthie’s husband died a few years ago, clutching his chest with one hand and his trusty pancake flipper with the other, and Ruthie had marched on alone. The only difference was that instead of telling her husband what to do, she told her customers what to do.
I swiped off a fingerful of the roll’s cream cheese filling and licked it down before Ruthie came back with a knife, fork, napkin, and etiquette lessons.
“Here you go.” She set the implements of destruction in front of me and, after a glance across the mostly empty restaurant, sat next to me. “So what’s up? Have you decided to toss in the bookstore towel and come be a
