Chapter Eight
“You’ve got to be kidding. No way does Trinity think you did it. She wouldn’t have let you go if she thought you were a cold-blooded murderer.” Bryce shudders, never mind that he’s wrapped in a moose-print faux-fur robe. He insists on behaving as if we live in Maine instead of a Mid-Atlantic state. His hip against his kitchen counter, he motions for me to down a shot of courage in the form of his own concoction of Irish cream whiskey. I throw it back, not in the mood to savor anything. He makes it special for the holidays, and I would normally have teased him about making it so early this year, but in the moment, I’m grateful for the burn down my throat.
“I’m telling you, you should have seen her face, Bryce. She is one hundred percent hardboiled detective.” As I lick the thick liquor from my lips, the burn hits my gut and I’m reminded why I don’t usually drink.
“She’s Trinity, for goddess’s sake. You’ve known each other for eons.” Bryce isn’t giving into what he sees as my trauma-drama addiction. To be fair, I was a bit of a brat as a kid and often used emotional manipulation to get my older siblings to do my will. But we’re all in our forties and we’re talking murder, not whether I can go to the movies with them.
“Don’t mind him, Angel. Bryce is upset because one of our top suppliers told us today that they can’t deliver in time for our trunk show. You can stay with us as long as you need, honey.” Nico puts an arm around me and escorts me to where he’s unfolded their sleeper sofa and made it up with blue-and-white snowflake flannel sheets. “Let Uncle Nico tuck you in.”
“Thanks, but I think I’d better brush my teeth first.” I sit on the mattress. “You two have to explain to me how someone would be angry enough to hurt, much less murder, Frannie. What on earth could she have ever done to warrant it?”
“Well…” Nico’s face flushes. He hates confrontation, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak poorly about another person. “It’s not for me to say—”
“So let me.” Bryce plops down next to me, his heft launching me several inches into the air and heralding squeaks from the sofa bed frame that rival their Pomeranian’s yipping. Purl, said dog, is curled up under a Rudolph throw on her princess bed—one of three—in the corner of the living room. “Frannie has done a clean sweep of Stonebridge, sister. Nary a friend was left when she got done trying to squeak every last penny from her renters and threatening business owners to participate in her schemes to put Stonebridge on the map or else.”
“That’s what Crystal said. Or else what?”
“Crystal didn’t lie to you, Angel.” His brows raise, and I notice the scruff on his generous chin. I realize I’m keeping them awake, and it’s their busy season in the yarn shop.
But I have to figure some things out before I’ll have a chance of getting any shut-eye. “What are you saying? That the murderer is one of what, thirty or so business owners in Stonebridge?”
“More like two hundred.” Nico, the family’s only CPA, speaks up from the Queen Anne chair where he’s settled, a generous pour of the Irish cream liquor in the whiskey glass he’s holding. “If you count all the commercial properties, insurance agents, real estate agents—there are agents besides the Schrock’s—restaurants, the hair salons and barbershops, the storefronts downtown, it adds up. Don’t forget, Stonebridge’s entire population passed fifteen thousand last census.”
“Downtown proper is still level at fifteen hundred.” Bryce adds.
“But Frannie doesn’t, didn’t, hold the lease on all of those commercial properties. Not by a long shot.” Gratitude that I bought my building instead of leasing it makes my heart swell, until I remember it’s moot. Frannie’s not ever going to threaten my business.
“True, but it doesn’t matter. She knew the ins and outs of local politics and red tape better than anyone. If you were on her good side, you got your building contract and permits in short order.” Bryce winks at Nico. “Right, sweetheart?”
“Right.” Nico shoots me an apologetic grin. “Frannie liked us because we had the money up-front when we purchased the store, and we paid cash for the house, too. Just like you did.”
“So she had a good list and bad list.” So where was I if she broke into the store?
“More like naughty and nice.” Bryce says. “But even with us, she always tried to exert her will. She wanted to know how we were going to vote at the Buddies meetings, if we’d heard any dissention in the ranks.”
“I’m need a list of who you think are Frannie’s enemies.”
“More like frenemies, you mean.” Bryce pats my thigh. “In this town, no one is going to come right out and tell you they hate you. We’re more kill ’em with kindness operators.”
“Someone killed Frannie but it wasn’t with any kindness.”
The next morning the guys agree to let me pay for breakfast at the Sit Down Café, as a big thank-you for taking in a murder suspect. We have to get there by eight, because Stonebridge Skeins and Baahls opens at ten for a special trunk show of high-end yarn.
“Why did you two decide to open on a Sunday? You swore when you quit your corporate jobs you’d never work weekends again.”
“Except knitters love to get together on weekends. Saturday’s our biggest revenue day.” Bryce speaks with the same authority he had when running a Fortune 500 company’s logistics for twenty years. Central Pennsylvania has been a commercial transportation hub since World War II, and attracts some of the world’s largest distributors. Which explains why a small town like ours enjoys such a great economy.
Except Shop ’Round the World. How many businesses survive their first year? The daunting odds against me have been made exponential by the fact that Frannie was murdered there.
Before I can examine how cold-blooded my assessment is, Nico speaks. “Sunday was the only day we could get the designer in to Stonebridge. We’re not DC or Philly, you know.” He digs into his mile-high stack of cranberry pancakes while Bryce has already polished off most of his eggs Benedict. My veggie omelet sits untouched. The toast is all I’ve managed so far.
“If not for your slick talking we wouldn’t have swung it, dear.” Bryce sips his coffee. “Polly Pearlman is a hard cookie to grab.”
“Hmm.” I’m trying to stay in the moment, but, well, I found a body in my shop yesterday.
“Break out of it, Sis. It’s all going to be okay. You’re okay. We’re here.” Bryce squeezes my shoulder. He has always been able to read my heart.
“Will it ever be okay again, though? A childhood friend, a stalwart—even if she’s ticked off a lot of folks—member of the community, has been murdered. In my shop, before it’s opened. And someone wanted it to look like I did it.” I try to drink some tea but it only intensifies the roiling in my gut. Pulling out my phone, I look at Bryce and Nico, make sure they’re paying attention. I don’t want anyone to overhear.
“Quick, off the top of your head, give me the names of people and places you think have a grudge against Frannie.” I open the Notes app on my phone.
“Well, there’s Annie and Mel at the historical society.” Nico says.
“Don’t forget Ken, as in her widowed husband. Haven’t seen them holding hands or giving one another so much as a wink in forever.” Bryce frowns.
“Eloise.” Nico swigs his coffee.
I stop. “Wait, what? Eloise the yoga instructor? My classmate?”
Nico nods. “I took her class for a few years. It wasn’t good.”
“Well, her yoga teaching was fine, dear.” Bryce pats Nico’s shoulder. “It was the other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“She wanted to prove that the weirs were the source of some ancient chakra energy or some such.”
“Weirs, as in the eel weirs that Mom is working with the Penn State researchers on?” An eel weir is a large, V-shaped formation of river rocks that indigenous peoples built in the Susquehanna river to capture eels. They are as wide as four football fields at their start, and narrow down to one point, where the fish are easily captured. Eels used to be plentiful in the Pennsylvania waters, including Jacob’s Run, Stonebridge’s Susquehanna tributary. A couple of years ago, a weir was discovered in Jacob’s Run and had become a bone of contention with all interested local history buffs. Some believed, like Eloise and Mom, that the weir was indeed built by Natives, while most thought it was a mere replica, built by settlers and colonists in more recent centuries. Mom was heavily involved with the community volunteer team that worked alongside student and PhD archaeologists from the university.
It’s hard to imagine now when fishing, canoeing, or rafting on the bucolic creek, but Jacob’s Run used to be full of eels. An involuntary shudder runs down my spine. I’ve eaten all kinds of delicacies in my travels, but never acquired a taste for…eel. Ick.
“Eloise believes the weirs exist over eddies of energy, like the Red Rocks in Arizona.” Nico’s unaware of my gross-out thoughts and has that patient expression he’s adopted over the years for whenever Bryce pulls b.s. out of thin air. “She could be right.”
“Except Frannie didn’t like Eloise’s type of PR. She’s afraid, or, um, was afraid, that Eloise would draw in the van-living crowd, you know, trying to make Stonebridge a mini-Burning Man.”
All I know about Burning Man is a documentary I watched with the girls last year. As part of the Navy, where everything is a team effort, it’s not often that you get the opportunity to attend a self-reliance festival of any sort. Not that it doesn’t intrigue me. But in Stonebridge?
“Wait, I thought Frannie was trying to grow the tourist population.” And who would blame her for that? “That’s a win-win for all of the businesses if you ask me.”
“Frannie wants overnighters to stay in the hotel she and Ken invested in, not pitch camps and altars along Jacob’s Run.”
“Oh yeah. The Stonebridge Shoppe and Stoppe. I hate how she spelled it, by the way.” The out-of-place glass galleria being built at the end of Main and Chestnut. The edifice that reminds me of Naples, Italy.
“That’s the place. But don’t say you hate anything about Frannie right now, dear. You know, being a suspect and all.” Bryce’s lips quiver as he represses a smile.
“The plaza’s not finished yet. Why would she care about people who want to camp? They’re two totally different crowds. Demographics. But they’ll all spend money.” I look at Nico, hoping he’ll back me up, confirm my newbie business owner assessment.
“Frannie’s not one to do anything halfway, Sis.” Bryce casts a critical eye on me, takes in that I’m taking notes on my phone. “When you asked for names last night, I thought you were still in shock. Why do you want to know all of this? Trinity knows this town backward and forward. What she doesn’t know, she has people to provide the answers. You shouldn’t get yourself involved in Frannie’s murder any more than you are.”
“You mean murder investigation. I’m not the murderer!” My voice comes out too loudly, and I slouch down on the booth seat. Too late. No less than three diners walk by, all taking time to look into our booth.
Nico waits for everyone to be out of earshot and clears his throat. “What he said. You’re not in the Navy anymore, you don’t have to solve every problem that crosses your desk.”
“Or drops on your floor.” Bryce deadpans.
“This is a lot more than a work problem for me. It’s an everything problem. I can’t go back to my own home, for heaven’s sake!”
“Pshaw.” Bryce shakes his head.
I stare at him. “Did you just say pshaw?”
“I did, and don’t knock it. It’s perfect for this conversation. Stay out of the investigation, Angel. You’ll look guilty as all get out and tick off Trinity. Lose-lose, hear me?”
“I can’t afford to stay out of it, Bryce. Nico, help me out here. You both know I’m opening in two weeks, and this entire case has to be history by then.”
“I’ve read that some murder cases never get solved. Look at the poor woman who was murdered in Harrisburg in 1978—”
“Bryce.” I grit my teeth. “I’m looking at Frannie Schrock’s murder, which happened yesterday, in the building that houses my entire life!” My voice rises like an out-of-tune chorus belting out the last strains of “Silent Night” as my throat constricts. I don’t dare take my stare off Bryce, because I know the entire restaurant heard me this time. I sense their censure, the shock of my selfish words.
In the Navy, every move I made was my superior’s business, and I had to mind my manners 24/7. For good reason, don’t get me wrong. But I made a commitment to myself and my family to begin a new life in Stonebridge. That means I need to care less about other people’s opinions of me. I’ve got to find Frannie’s killer and prove that Shop ’Round the World had nothing to do with her murder.
Which means I have to leave no clue unturned. If that means angering Trinity, then that’s the price I’ll pay.