Clobbered by Camembert

hit hard muscle. The intruder growled, cupped a hand around my head, and hurled me into the wall, face-first.

A loafer flew off my foot. My forehead slammed against wood. I moaned.

To my surprise, the attacker didn’t rush me. He fled through the front door.

A moment passed before I could catch my breath and sprint after him. Wearing only one shoe, I hobbled. The icy cold from the hardwood floor bit through my sock. By the time I reached the porch, the attacker was gone. I remembered hearing a horse whinny. Had the attacker taken off on horseback? I didn’t see tracks. There were no ruts, no footprints. The wind had wiped the area clean.

“Rebecca! Where the heck are you?” Dread clogged my throat. Please, please, let her be okay.

“I’m here!” She trotted around the corner, cell phone cupped in her hand, finger tapping in a message.

“Did you see him?” I rubbed my shoeless foot on my pant leg to warm my toes.

“Who?”

“The person who bolted out of the house.”

“No! I went to Ipo’s to see if he was awake. He wasn’t there.”

At the same time, I heard a vroom. I spun to my left. A Jeep hurtled down the gravel road and skidded to a stop.

Rebecca slapped her cell phone shut and pocketed it. “Oh, goodie, the chief got my first text message.”

Urso bounded from the Wrangler. “What’s going on? Charlotte, you’re hurt.”

“There was an intruder.” I pointed at the bungalow. “We fought. I’ll have a headache. Oscar’s lying on the floor. His pulse is weak.”

Urso rushed past me into the house. I followed, retrieving my wayward loafer on the way. Rebecca trotted behind me.

Urso knelt beside Oscar, who hadn’t budged a muscle. While he checked Oscar’s pulse, he wedged a cell phone to his ear. As Urso called his deputy, I remembered my cell phone and snatched it up. The readout read: Call ended. Urso shared what little he knew, then said, “No, he’s not rousing. Knocked- out cold. Yeah, call an ambulance. Hurry.” He sat back on his heels and put his hand on Oscar’s shoulder. “Help is on the way, pal. Hang in there.” He glanced at me. “What did the attacker look like, Charlotte?”

I described the mask and the clothing. I told him he reminded me of the thief that had attacked me at our tent at the faire.

Urso frowned. “Do you think it was the same person?”

“Could have been. He was taller than me and broader.”

“Are you sure it was a man?”

An image of Georgia Plachette leapt into my mind. Wearing platform shoes, she might have been taller than me but not wider. But I was pretty certain the attacker was male. And why would Georgia want to hurt me, I wondered, until I realized that the attacker hadn’t been there to hurt me. He … or she … had come for Oscar.

I said, “Whoever it was smelled of horses and hay.”

“Horses and hay?” Urso said. “That could be anyone from locals with farms to tourists who take Amish buggy rides.”

Rebecca said, “Could it have been Barton Burrell? He’s got lots of horses on his property.”

I flashed on Emma Burrell, who was a tall, big-boned woman. Had Oscar seen something on Chip’s cell phone that could incriminate her?

Urso rubbed a hand down the side of his neck. “Why did you come here?”

I explained about Oscar shaking that darned cell phone at me at the pub. “I was certain he saw something incriminating on the telephone—a photo or something. Does Oscar have a cell phone on him now?”

Urso rifled through Oscar’s pockets. He came up with a BlackBerry phone.

“That’s not Chip’s,” I said. “His is an iPhone. Is there another one?”

He searched again. A moment later, he said, “No. Why didn’t you ask Chip about it?”

“I tried. He wasn’t at the inn. Coming to Oscar’s was more expeditious.”

“And you couldn’t have waited for me to join you?”

“It’s Sunday. I didn’t want—”

“You didn’t think, that’s what you didn’t do,” Urso barked. “Darn it, Charlotte, you are not a professional.”

Rebecca cleared her throat.

Urso pinned her with a look. “Not a peep out of you, Miss Zook, unless you want me to plunk you in jail for trespassing.”

“But, I—”

“Not a peep!”

She gulped.

Urso returned his stern gaze to me. “You are not trained to put yourself in situations like this, do you hear me?” He jabbed a finger, realized what he was doing, and holstered it in his fist. “At least we know the attacker wasn’t Ipo. I just saw him at church.”

“You did? Hallelujah!” Rebecca said. “Praise be to—”

The screech of tires hushed her. Doors slammed. Footsteps pounded the porch steps. Urso’s deputies stampeded into the room, guns drawn.

Urso scrambled to his feet and moved in front of Rebecca and me. “Okay, hotshots. Guns down. All clear. Where’s the ambulance?”

“On its way,” they said in unison.

CHAPTER

Before taking Oscar to the hospital, the emergency medical technician tended to the wound on my forehead and told me to take it easy. When I returned to The Cheese Shop, my grandfather was much more demanding. He ordered me to lie on the mini-sofa in the office and stay there. If not for the sweet potato–nutmeg quiche that he promised me if I was a good patient, I would have bolted. Within minutes, I fell asleep.

Around noon, I woke from my nap and struggled to a sitting position. The aroma of the quiche tantalized my senses; my mouth watered in anticipation.

“Lie back down,” Pepere said.

“But I’m raring to go. I’m not dizzy.” He was making way too big a deal of things. I had a cut on my head—a nick and, okay, a bump. “C’mon, let me up.”

“Un moment.”

“Ow!” I moaned. The antiseptic solution he was applying to my forehead for the fifth time stung like a you- know-what.

“You’ve got to be more careful,” Pepere said.

“I know. Lesson learned. Now, let me up.”

“You need a bandage.”

“Is it bleeding? No, it’s not. Let me up.”

“You cannot go walking into suspects’ houses alone, cherie.” Grandmere waited in the doorway, her voice crackling with authority. How long had she been standing there?

“I wasn’t alone. I was with Rebecca.”

My grandmother gave me the evil eye.

Agreeing with her, Rags yowled and paced at my feet like a sentry. Rocket yipped from his position on a tiger-striped pillow in the corner. He looked at me with hangdog eyes, as if admitting it was a weak response, but I should forgive him because he was only a puppy. Upon hearing of the incident at Oscar’s, the twins had insisted the pets be brought to Fromagerie Bessette to comfort me. As much as I loved our menagerie, what I wanted was love without the communal judgment. And air to breathe. The tiny office was super cramped. At least my grandmother had convinced the twins to remain in the wine annex.

“Oscar wasn’t a suspect,” I added, trying to defend my actions.