Chapter 27 Avery
AVERY
Main Street was cast in a golden glow when I stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the bakery, the town square verdant, pockets of shade providing a cool oasis for the townspeople taking an evening walk.
I kept expecting something apocalyptic to happen: a hurricane or earthquake, a fire, a humanity-ending asteroid.
But nope, every time I stepped outside, Blackwell Hollow was just as quaint as the last time I’d walked its streets.
I opened the door to Sugar Pine Creamery and immediately got a familiar whiff of sweetness. But where the sweetness at the Crumb was laced with the yeasty scent of rising dough, this smell at Sugar Pine carried undertones of vanilla and… waffles?
The vibrant aqua walls cast a cheerful glow over the large room while the ceiling was painted with graphic black and white stripes that met over a fancy crystal chandelier. LED ice cream cones lit up the walls, making the whole place look like an ice cream fever dream.
I was halfway to the glass-fronted freezer case that held barrels of ice cream when I realized the smell of waffles was coming from a petite young woman about my age standing over a waffle maker, her shiny black hair pulled back into a swingy ponytail.
“Hello!” She wore an apron over a faded T-shirt and shorts, and her smile took up half her dainty face. “Welcome to Sugar Pine Creamery!”
“Thanks,” I said, approaching the freezer case.
She pulled a tiny paper cup from a silver dispenser, reached into the freezer case, and scooped a bit of orange-tinted ice cream into a cup. She stuck a small wooden paddle into the cup and passed it to me over the counter. “Try this one. It’s new.”
“Oh, wow… Thanks.” I took the cup from her hand and scooped a little bit of the ice cream into my mouth.
The flavor of sun-ripened peaches burst on my tongue, followed by something earthy and unexpected.
“Is that— ”
“Sage!” She opened the waffle iron and peeled off a thin waffle.
“I’ve never had anything like it.”
Her grin widened as she started to shape the waffle into a cone. “Is it too weird?”
I shook my head. “It’s delicious.”
“I think the key is canned peaches.” Her hands flew over the waffle cone, shaping it this way and that while she spoke.
“I tried fresh peaches last year, but it wasn’t peachy enough, and since peach season isn’t for a couple more months and I had some canned peaches left over from last year, I figured I’d give those a shot. ”
“Definitely peachy,” I said. “In a good way. And the sage is a really nice touch.”
“Thanks! If I asked my regulars what they wanted they’d just say vanilla or chocolate, but that gets so boring. I’d go crazy if that was all I made.”
I surveyed the barrels of ice cream — at least twenty flavors — in the freezer case. “You make all of this yourself?”
She beamed. “Yep!”
“That’s amazing,” I said, finishing off my sample.
“I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.” She laughed. “I guess I was a weird kid.”
“It doesn’t sound weird at all,” I said. “It’s really cool.”
She wiped her hands on a rag and stood in front of the case. “Is this your first time at Sugar Pine?”
I nodded. “Beck sent me from next door.”
“You’re working at the Crumb?”
“Kind of.” I hesitated, wondering how much to say. “It belonged to my Aunt Evelyn.”
Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “You’re Avery!”
I laughed. “Guilty as charged.”
“I thought you’d be… older?”
I smiled. “Sorry to disappoint?”
“Not at all! We could use more young people in town. And I don’t mean thirties-young, I mean like our-age-young.
And yeah, there’s Malcolm and Beck and the other guys who work for Evelyn — I guess you’ve already met them — but other than that almost everyone is in their thirties or older. I’m Lena Kim by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you. Considering how much sugar everyone in this town eats, I’m guessing you’ll be seeing a lot of me.”
She laughed, then froze, like something had just occurred to her. “Oh my gosh… you’re the one who found Harold!”
“Also guilty as charged.” I hurried to clarify. “Not of murdering Harold! Of finding the body.”
She nodded. “That must have been so scary.”
I thought about it. “Not really, although maybe I was just in shock.”
“I bet.” She gestured at the freezer case. “Want me to start dishing your order while we talk?”
“Sure.” I hadn’t realized how much I missed talking to women my own age. Most of my coworkers at Livable Cities were in their twenties.
“Strawberry shortcake sundae for Malcolm, double-fudge brownie for Beck?” I nodded and opened my mouth to give her the rest of Beck’s order but she was way ahead of me. “Extra sprinkles for Beck?”
“Creatures of habit huh?”
“With the ice cream anyway.” Her grin held a hint of innuendo that made my face feel hot. “What can I get for you?”
“I’d take anything with more of that peach ice cream.”
“Okay if I surprise you?” She reached into a big glass jar full of brownies and put two in a paper sundae cup.
“Definitely.” I was getting used to surprises.
“So has Sheriff Crowe said anything about the investigation?” Lena dished chocolate ice cream on top of the brownies. “Do they have any suspects?”
“Not that I know of,” I said. “Although Sheriff Crowe said she couldn’t tell me even if they did.”
“That’s totally normal,” Lena said, crumbling a third brownie on top of the chocolate ice cream. I was going into sugar shock just watching the confection come to life. “I listen to a ton of true crime podcasts. Law enforcement never talks about suspects in an open investigation.”
“I heard Harold opposed the Hearthstone development,” I said. “I can’t help wondering if it has to do with that.”
“Like someone who wanted it to go forward?” Lena’s dark eyes were bright, and I knew she was as intrigued as I was.
“Maybe?”
She artfully topped Beck’s sundae with whipped cream, then added a metric ton of sprinkles. “It would be wild if someone at Hearthstone did it, although I could definitely see that creep Victor taking extreme measures to get the deal through.”
“I heard a lot of the town wanted it though.”
Lena started assembling Malcolm’s sundae: pound cake topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream and a hefty ladle of strawberry sauce.
“I wouldn’t say a lot. It was pretty split between the people who saw dollar signs from the new development and the ones who saw more traffic, higher prices, and a bunch of massive new houses blocking the view of the lake from Main Street. ”
“It sounds like it could be anybody.” I heard the note of frustration in my voice and wondered why I cared so much.
I wasn’t staying in Blackwell Hollow. What did it matter?
“It’s a wide net, that’s for sure.” Lena added three cherries to the top of the sundae and set it aside, then proceeded to place two pieces of shortbread in the bottom of another sundae cup. “You could go to the town meeting.”
“What town meeting?”
“There’s a town council meeting tonight to hear comments about the development.”
“That’s not a bad idea…” It wasn’t like I’d never attended a resident meeting before.
"Everyone will be there.” Lena drizzled my sundae with caramel sauce, then topped it with fresh peaches and a sprig of sage. “Including Victor. And maybe it would help you get a feel for town sentiment, who’s pro-development and who’s opposed, that kind of thing.”
“I’m not really part of the town though.” Which didn’t mean I wasn’t tempted. I’d been puzzling over the question of how to get an introduction to Victor without setting off alarm bells ever since Rosie had mentioned his fight with Harold.
If Victor was Harold’s killer, the last thing I needed was to alert him to the fact that I considered him a suspect, but what was suspicious about running into him at a town meeting?
“Don’t be silly!” Lena loaded the sundaes into a cardboard box and added plastic spoons and napkins. “You’re Evelyn’s niece! You inherited her house and business.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I planned to sell both.
“Besides,” she continued, “I’ll be there too.”
“You will?” Somehow it was easier to imagine going to the meeting with Lena even though we’d just met.
“Are you kidding?” She grinned. “I wouldn’t miss it. You never know what’s going to happen at these things.”
It sounded both ominous and promising. Kind of like Blackwell Hollow.
And she was right: the town meeting was the best of all places to find out who was on which side of the Hearthstone debate, and that might lead me to Harold Pembroke’s killer.
Not that I was looking for Harold’s killer. I was just a temporary resident, asking questions.
“I’ll give you my number,” I said. “We can meet up before.”
“Perfect!” She handed me the cardboard box full of ice cream sundaes.
I heard Sheriff Crowe’s warning in my head: leave the detective work to me.
But I wasn’t doing detective work. Not technically. It was just a town meeting.
And I did live in Blackwell Hollow.
For now.