Inside was a massive Christmas tree decorated with red and gold ball ornaments. Its tiny white lights seemed to sparkle in time with the Christmas music playing over the store’s speaker system. The smell of fresh baked bread and cookies from the bakery hit me, and suddenly I was longing for a cup of eggnog and an evening in front of the fire with Thorn. Our first Christmas together as man and wife.
But, there was work to do.
I wasn’t sure where to start, so I just walked around until I found an employee putting potatoes onto a special display. It had a cutout of a giant bowl of mashed potatoes dancing in elf shoes. Since I didn’t know how to approach the matter subtly, I just came out and asked. The young man putting the potatoes on the display looked bored enough that he might just answer me as a way to escape the doldrums of potato stacking.
“Hi,” I said.
“How can I help you?” he asked as he wiped his hands on his apron. I was right. He was dying to do anything other than potato rearrangement. I could see it in the enthusiastic look on his face, but I was about to crush that. I wanted to talk to someone else.
“I know this is going to sound strange, but I was wondering if there was anyone working in the store who was close to Pepper Howard? I’m a friend of the family, and I need to find someone who can help me with a few things in regard to her estate.”
“Oh, okay, sure,” he said. “Uh, she was good friends with Micah in the bakery. She should be able to help you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Is she working tonight?”
“She is. She’s there until close, but she’s the only one in that department tonight. So, if you don’t see her, it probably because she’s in the back taking stuff out of the oven.”
“Thank you so much,” I said.
“You’re welcome. I don’t suppose there’s anything else I can do for you? Maybe you need to find something in the store or perhaps you need some potatoes,” he said. He was trying to delay going back to his task, but I couldn’t help.
“No thanks,” I said.
I hurried off to the bakery to find Micah. When I got over there, she was putting cakes into the self-serve display cooler near the counter. I checked her nametag and confirmed it was her before I broached the subject.
“Hello,” I said and she jumped a few inches in the air. Micah had been so focused on putting a round black forest cake, that I suddenly wanted, into the cooler that she hadn’t seen me walk up. “Sorry,” I said as she slid the cake into its slot.
“You’re fine,” she said. “I get so focused sometimes that I don’t see people. I apologize. What can I do for you?”
“I was actually looking for you,” I said. “A guy over there,” I said and pointed in the general direction of the new holiday potato display, “said that you were friends with Peppermint Howard. I need to talk to someone about her.”
“I was,” Micah said and let out a sad sigh. “We were good friends both at work and outside. What’s this about?”
“This is going to seem really strange to you, but I’m trying to figure out who killed her.”
“Are you a cop?” she asked. “I was wondering if you were ever going to come talk to me.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m… Let’s just say I’m a concerned citizen. I’m sort of doing my own investigation adjacent to the one the sheriff’s office is conducting,” and then I thought of the ultimate excuse. “I’m working with the Coventry newspaper. The new one. We’re doing some investigative journalism.”
“Oh, okay,” Micah visibly relaxed as soon as she knew I wasn’t just some creeper or a murder tourist. “Well, what do you want to know?”
“Do you know of any guy problems she was having?” I asked. “I’m working the angle that perhaps one of the men she was seeing took their relationship too seriously and got jealous.”
“None of the men she was seeing could have possibly taken anything seriously. She wasn’t dating any of them. Not like you’re thinking. The only one Pepper ever even went on dates with was Tucker, and that’s why people thought they might be an item. The rest she just invited over to her place for… interludes. We’ll leave it at that.”
“I see,” I said. “That’s exactly what Josh told me.”
“Josh?” Micah asked. “Her neighbor?”
“Yes. He said they were really close. Even described her as his best friend,” I said.
That made Micah actually burst out laughing. “Look, maybe she let him think that so he’d take care of her cat or float her some cash when she was short, but they were not friends.”
“What?”
“It’s an easy mistake to make if you talk to him. I’ve met him before, and he asked me out too. I was going to say yes, but Pepper told me to stay far away from him. I didn’t know what was up because he’s not a bad-looking guy. He seems sweet too, but she said he’s a little off. Not like dangerous or anything, but the kind of guy who’s looking for a wife. But not just any wife. The kind of wife who takes care of him like mommy did. She said he was boring and clingy too. Pepper said I wouldn’t like him, and if I gave him a chance, I’d never get rid of him. Like feeding a stray dog.”
“That is a very different version of their relationship than he told me,” I said.
“I’m not
