A Biscuit, a Casket (6 page)

Em’s eyes didn’t brighten when she saw her visitors. In fact, Stan could swear she
heard her sigh. “Leigh-Anne. Mary.” She rose for the obligatory hug, taking the casserole
dishes and depositing them on the counter. She didn’t even try to fit them in the
fridge. “You’ve met Stan. This is Char.”

“Pleased to meet y’all,” Char said, waving her whisk. Egg yolk splattered on the floor.

Mary had pulled Em back into a suffocating hug. “We are so, so, so sorry,” she crooned.
“Emmy, how are you holding up?” Despite the saccharine oozing from her voice, Stan
didn’t get the sense that Mary felt all that sad. She could see it in the way Mary’s
eyes assessed the room over Em’s shoulder, taking in the clutter and disorganization.
Which begged the question—how well did all these co-op farmers really get along?

“I’m okay,” Em said, trying to pull away. “I have to be. For the boys.”

Leigh-Anne clucked sympathetically. “Of course. The boys. How terrible. You must be
feeling so overwhelmed right now!”

“A little,” Em admitted, though Stan couldn’t tell if she meant by Hal’s death or
by the outpouring of sympathy.

“And terrified,” Leigh-Anne went on. “I mean, these are things that happen in big
cities! New York and Chicago! Not in Frog Ledge.” She shuddered. “It makes me nervous
and I don’t even live in this town. But I feel like it’s becoming an epidemic. After
all, I’m only an hour away. No one is safe anymore. Imagine, a crazed killer wandering
onto a farm and stabbing a farmer! What is our world coming to?”

“It’s just unfathomable.” Mary shook her head in agreement. “And Amy sends her regrets,
Emmy. She had some things to attend to. Don’t think she’s upset, because she isn’t,”
she added hastily. “She completely understands the police have to do their jobs.”

Stan glanced at Em. Em didn’t respond. She just gazed at Mary as if to say,
I don’t really care if she understands or not.
She folded her arms and tapped her foot.

“Amy?” Stan asked. “Amy who?”

All eyes turned her way. “Amy Fink. Asher’s wife,” Mary said. “Of course it was very
difficult for her to be woken up in the middle of the night to have her husband dragged
in for questioning in a murder case. And something about his shoes being confiscated.
But of course, we want the innocent people identified early so they can focus on finding
the real killer. I, for one, can’t imagine who would do such a thing,” Mary went on,
oblivious to Em’s body language.

“Me either,” Char broke in, always the peacemaker. “But I think Leigh-Anne’s right.
This had to be a random, horrible act. You know, Cyril—our newspaperman—has been keeping
tabs on a rash of break-ins, both in Frog Ledge and some of our little towns around
it. I wonder if this was a burglary attempt gone wrong.”

In the corn maze? Unlikely.
Stan kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to get in the middle of this discussion,
which seemed to have undertones galore. But she was intrigued by the confiscated shoes.
What were they looking for? Evidence of dirt? They were all farmers, for goodness’
sake. Dirt was a way of life. Stan made a mental note to ask Jake if Jessie had mentioned
anything about a shoe to him. Or perhaps a suspicious footprint. But with all the
people walking around the farm, that seemed like a long shot.

“They’ll find whoever did it,” Leigh-Anne declared. “The police won’t let it rest.
Especially in a close-knit town like this one. Emmy, please let me know what I can
do. Especially when you start planning”—she dropped her voice an octave—“the services.
Funding them, even. I’m happy to help.”

Em bristled visibly. When she spoke, her voice was sharper than the sickle that had
killed her husband. “That’s lovely of you,” she said in a tone indicating it wasn’t,
“but I’m sure I can pay for my husband’s funeral.”

Leigh-Anne, to her credit, flushed. “Emmy, that was not an insult. I know what it’s
been like for you—for all of us!—and I just want to make sure this is as easy as possible.”

This was about to get ugly. Time to go. Stan edged nearer to the chair where she’d
tossed her jacket, but the doorbell rang again. Maybe she could sneak out in the rush
of new visitors. But she couldn’t get past Leigh-Anne Sutton to get her jacket, so
she gave up and ducked into the front hall and opened the door. Betty Meany, the Frog
Ledge librarian, and Lorinda Walters, who worked the research desk, waited. Each held
a shopping bag full of more food, if the delightful smells coming from the bags were
any indication. Funny how death brought out people’s appetites. Or maybe they just
wanted to eat because it was such an alive activity.

“Hi there,” Stan said. “Come on in.”

“Well, hello!” Betty exclaimed.

“Hey, Stan!” Lorinda had dressed for the occasion with leopard print stretch pants
and black heels—more five-inchers. Had these women all coordinated their shoes, or
was this the new dress code for condolence visits? Stan felt out of place in her running
sneakers and yoga pants, although she did look better than Mary Michelli.

Betty pinched Stan’s cheek and breezed by, sweeping off her cherry red beret as she
entered the kitchen, full of comforting words for Em.

“So awful,” Lorinda confided. “I almost don’t know what to say to the poor woman.”

“I know. Terrible.”

They stood there for another minute, pondering the situation, then Lorinda sighed.
“I better go in.”

“I’m going to have to get going, so I’ll just grab my stuff,” Stan said. She followed
her into the kitchen.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Em was saying to the mini-crowd gathered. “Leigh-Anne
and Mary, I appreciate your offers, but you have your own farms to run. Same with
Asher and Ted. The guys and gals can’t come over here twice a day and do my chores.
I have to do what’s right. Not like I haven’t been doing it anyway.”

Francine, who had reentered the room while Stan had been in the hall, snorted. “Damn
right,” she said. “You did too much, Emmy. We have to figure out a better way.”

“Now, now,” Leigh-Anne interrupted. “We are here to help, Emmy. You just stop that
right now.”

Em ignored both of them. “I know I need help on the farm. Have for a long time. But
laborers aren’t too hard to find. What I’m really gonna need help with are the dang
books. Hal was better with a ledger than I was, let’s face it. And I can’t have Tyler
running over here from college to do it. He needs to do his own homework. I don’t
even know where Hal left off most of the time.”

Stan saw an opening and snuck in to retrieve her jacket, finally.

“It’s just too bad I don’t have someone with that expertise standing right in front
of me,” Em said, and then she stopped talking and turned to stare at Stan. The other
women’s gazes followed.

“What?” Stan said, frozen with one arm in her sleeve.

Em tapped her lip with her index finger. “Didn’t you work for a money company?”

“Me?” Stan stared at her. Char turned from the stove now, too, a thoughtful look on
her face. “I, um, technically, yes . . . I worked in insurance financial services.
But I did public relations. I didn’t do
money.”

“But,” Char said, “you’re a whiz with investments.”

Stan felt her face turning red. It was true. Her financial situation was quite positive
even after losing her job, because of her investment savvy and careful money management.
She hadn’t had to worry about working again and could focus on her new business. Which
was, of course, all good. The bad part was, well, people knew it. Which meant there
could be no good outcome to this conversation. The theme song from
Jaws
began playing in her head. She felt like prey being circled by the most lethal of
hunters.

“I don’t . . .” she tried again, but Em had gotten up and was standing in front of
her, hands clasped as if in prayer.

“Stan. Would you please help me with the office work? Just until I figure out . .
. what I’m going to do. Please. It would mean so much, and be such a big help.” Her
puppy dog eyes reminded Stan of Scruffy when she wanted something.

Stan felt all eyes in the room on her. What on earth was she supposed to say? No?
To a grieving woman who could very well lose her livelihood? She may as well have
just put a sign on her front door proclaiming herself the scarlet
U
of Frog Ledge—“unneighborly”—if she did that. Then she could rest assured her new
business would spoil faster than a gallon of milk left out in the sun too long.

Stifling a sigh, she forced a smile. “Well, sure, Em. I’d be glad to help out.”

“Oh, thank you!” Em hurled herself at Stan and locked her in a hug. Stan took a step
back to keep her balance as the other ladies clapped.

“You’re such a love,” Char said, sliding plates of omelets onto the table. “Sit and
eat.”

“I really should get going,” Stan said. She didn’t think she could eat another bite
this morning, after Izzy’s quiche.

“Nonsense!” Em grabbed her hand and led her back to her chair. “Eat. You’re going
to need to keep your strength up.” She smiled a bit, but Stan sensed something other
than mirth. “This place can be a handful.”

“You need to go shopping for overalls.” Brenna leaned forward on the shiny mahogany
bar that served as the center of McSwigg’s, her chin resting in her palm, eyes filled
with humor.

“Shut up,” Stan grumbled. “I’m just doing the books.” She’d foregone her run and gone
right to McSwigg’s after leaving Em’s, hoping for some sympathy.

Clearly she’d come to the wrong place. From his spot behind the bar stacking glasses,
Jake guffawed. He turned to look at his sister and they both cracked up. “That’s what
you think, kiddo,” he said when he could stop laughing.

Stan glared at them. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Neither of them said anything.
They just continued smiling, which annoyed Stan. She looked around the pub. It was
still early. Only a few customers were in the bar. Two young women sat at a table
near the window eating nachos and gossiping. A lone man sat across the room with a
beer glass and a book, the title of which Stan couldn’t see. The place had a much
different feel during the day than it did at night when people filled every corner
and the music weaved Irish spells over the crowd, but it was still appealing. Jake
had revamped the entire building two years ago. He turned the first floor into the
bar and pub. The upper level served as the living space he, Duncan, and presently
Brenna, called home. Both floors had that wide-open space design going for them. The
pub had tall and short tables scattered around surrounded by padded stools in greens
and golds, their wooden legs carved with Celtic knots, gleaming wooden floors, and
Irish landscapes dotting the walls.

The bar had drop lights positioned every few feet above it. An Irish flag matching
its counterpart over the front door was proudly displayed on the far wall behind the
bar, and a carved wooden sign with a Gaelic saying hung above it:
An áit a bhfuil do chroí is ann a thabharfas do chosa thú
: Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.

Stan loved that sign. But today, it didn’t make her feel any better. Her heart wasn’t
on the dairy farm, so she had no idea why her feet had landed her there earlier. “I
have no clue why they think I’m qualified as an office worker. I don’t even know why
I’m doing books. I’ve never done books for anyone in my life. People just assume since
I worked in financial services I’m an accountant or an investment manager or something.”

Duncan, who had been sitting at her feet since she came in, stood and pushed his face
into her hands, watching anxiously to see if she was upset. She rubbed his nose and
fed him a treat.

“I think it’s sweet. It’ll be good practice. You’ll have to do books for your business,”
Brenna pointed out.

Stan thought about that. It was true, but still. Doing books for a five-hundred-cow
dairy farm was a bit beyond the scale of her meager little pet food business.

“I’d recommend a heavy pair of boots,” Jake said. He pulled out a knife and began
slicing through a pile of lemons and limes. “Gets cold this time of year.”

“What are you talking about?” Stan demanded. “I’m not working
outside
on the dairy farm! I don’t even think I like dairy farms. Aren’t they mean to the
cows? That’s what Nikki says.” She lowered her voice as a couple of members of Jake’s
staff stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

“Mean? I don’t think so,” Jake said. “It’s not like a factory farm. I don’t think
cows have the best deal around, but I don’t think they’re treated badly. It’s not
like beef cows. Think about it. Even if the farmers aren’t as . . . animal-sensitive
as someone like you, the cows are their livelihood. If they mess that up, they’re
just hurting themselves.”

“They better not be,” Stan said. “Because I don’t care about buying local if that’s
the case. And I certainly wouldn’t want to work for a place like that. I just said
yes because everyone was watching me and I felt bad for Em. I mean, jeez, she just
lost her husband. What was I supposed to say?”

Brenna looked sympathetic. “And once Em gets something in her head, good luck getting
it out. Right, Jake?”

“Yep. Once she’s got you, she’s got you. Trust me, it’s happened to us,” Jake said.

“Why do you think I used to babysit those kids?” Brenna rolled her eyes and shuddered.
“Because of our mother. She promised Em. Danny, the one with the chain saw? That kid
was a nightmare.”

“Was?” Stan asked at the same moment Jake repeated, “Chain saw?”

“Yeah, I see your point,” Brenna said to Stan. To Jake, “He thought it would be funny
to greet guests with a real chain saw when they came in for the maze. Almost took
Stan’s head off.” She grinned. “That’s nothing. One time when I was babysitting he
got his hands on a butcher knife and locked me out of the house. I had to explain
that to Em and Hal when they got home. Kid’s a piece of work. But I guess we all know
where he got that.”

“Yeah, Hal was a handful,” Jake said, his eyes on the limes he was slicing fast and
furiously. Stan watched his fingers, almost a blur as they moved through their task.

Brenna snorted. “My brother, the king of understatement.”

Jake filled a lime tray and covered it with plastic, then focused on the lemons with
a shrug. “No understatement about it. He was a handful. He spent a lot of time here.”

“Like every night. When he wasn’t out playing poker or doing whatever else he did
for his opening act,” Brenna said.

Stan was surprised to hear Brenna, so normally carefree, sound almost . . . bitter.

Jake noticed it, too. “Bren, leave it alone.”

Brenna’s voice ratcheted up. “Why? It’s the truth. And it’s about time people stopped
pussyfooting around and protecting him. Em doesn’t deserve that.”

“Protecting him from what?” Stan piped in. Both Jake and Brenna turned and stared
at her as if they’d forgotten she sat there.

“Nothing,” Jake said.

“Nothing?” It came out as a shriek, startling the other patrons. They all looked up
from their tables at Brenna, who appeared to be about to hit Jake over the head with
her plate of French fries.

Jake shot her a look. “Hal didn’t spend a lot of time at home,” he said to Stan.

“He didn’t spend
any
time at home. He let Em deal with everything—the farm, the kids, the bills—and all
he did was go out and play. We all know what he was like. Why are you defending him?”
Brenna shoved her plate away, rose, and stomped off. Stan watched her disappear through
the entrance to the apartment she shared with Jake. She hoped Brenna came back, because
they were supposed to have a planning session on upcoming batches of treats that needed
baking.

Stan looked back at Jake. He met her gaze steadily, still slicing the lemons.

“So Hal Hoffman was . . . not a family man,” she said.

“None of my business. Or Brenna’s.”

“She seems to think otherwise,” Stan said.

“Well, she’s wrong.”

“She’s close to the family.”

“We’re all close to the family. I told you, our mother is one of Em’s closest friends.
She was there at the crack of dawn this morning, before everyone else showed up with
their casseroles. Probably beating pillows with her in Hal’s name or something.”

Stan had seen Jake’s mother around town but never officially met her. Jessie looked
a lot like her, so Stan had shied away, wondering if the personalities were the same,
too. But she thought she might like a woman who beat pillows in her friend’s dead
husband’s name. “So why shouldn’t Brenna have an opinion? If someone was hurting my
friend I’d be angry at them, too. What was he doing, anyway?”

Jake used the edge of his knife to push the lemon slices into his tray. His exquisite
green-brown eyes were troubled. “Nobody should be judging anyone else’s life, even
if they think they know what it’s like. Brenna cares about them, of course. But she
doesn’t know the whole story. Neither do I, before you ask,” he said as Stan opened
her mouth.

Reluctantly, she closed it again. “But he used to hang out here a lot.”

“Course he did. It’s the coolest place in town.” He winked. “Part of being cool means
not asking a lot of questions.”

Stan didn’t agree. In fact, she wanted to ask more questions, but the front door opened.
Jake glanced up to see who it was, and his whole face changed—eyebrows drawing together
in a slight frown, lips narrowed. She turned to look, too. His sister, Trooper Jessie
Pasquale, stood in the doorway, in full uniform. Her eyes roamed the room, assessing
her surroundings, before stopping on Jake and Stan. The other patrons watched her
entrance with interest.

Great. Just what she needed. Stan sighed inwardly, watched as Pasquale moved to the
bar, no nonsense as usual. “I should probably go,” she said, but Jake shook his head.

“No need. Jess,” he said with a nod as his sister reached them. “I can’t say I remember
the last time you set foot in McSwigg’s. Welcome.”

Pasquale’s face remained impassive. She didn’t acknowledge her brother’s comment,
probably recognizing it as sarcasm. She nodded at Stan, then turned back to her brother.
“Got a minute?”

He shrugged. “Sure. I’m setting up for tonight, but we can talk.”

She hesitated. “I meant in private. It’s about Hal Hoffman.”

Stan saw the annoyance flicker across his face. “I’m busy, but I’m happy to talk here
while I’m working.”

Stan started to rise, hoping to fade away without them noticing, but Jake turned to
her. “No need to leave. We were in the middle of a conversation.”

Her face heated. She perched back on the edge of the stool. “I don’t want to interrupt.”

“You were already here,” Jake pointed out.

Pasquale sighed. “Don’t worry about leaving, Ms. Connor. I won’t be long. It’s nothing
you won’t hear about anyway.”

“Okay, but can you please call me Stan? I mean, now that you don’t think I killed
anyone anymore. I hope. Oh, God, you don’t think I killed Hoffman, do you?” A vicious
wave of déjà vu washed over her. It hadn’t been that long ago that Pasquale had considered
her at the top of the suspect pool for the unfortunate murder of the local veterinarian.

Now Pasquale looked annoyed. She gave Stan the stink-eye for a minute as if to say,
Are you done?
Then turned back to her brother. “I need to know if Hoffman was here yesterday.”

“Not sure. I wasn’t working. I was bringing Duncan to the birthday party.”

“The dog party? At the Hoffmans’?”

Jake nodded.

“You didn’t come down at all?”

“For a few minutes, but I was mostly in the kitchen making sure everything was good
with the menu. We’ve got a new dish. Bangers and mash. You should try it.”

Stan wrinkled her nose. Her dad’s family had been a fan of the traditional Irish sausage
dish, loaded with mashed potatoes, Irish beans, and thick gravy. Her mother had never
touched it with a ten-foot pole. It was one of those rare instances where she and
her mother were completely on the same page.

“Who was on? Was Brenna here?” Pasquale didn’t care about the new dish either.

“No. She was helping Stan with the party.”

Pasquale shot another sidelong glance at Stan. She seemed to want to ask a question,
then changed her mind. “Can you ask your staff if they saw him? I really need to know.”

“You can ask them. The waitresses are here already. Travis and Desiree were on the
bar. Des is in tonight. Travis is here tomorrow. Do you need an official statement?”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“I’m not. I’m just going by what you’ve told me a hundred times about your work.”

“Jake, seriously. I’m not in the mood.” Pasquale sounded tired all of a sudden.

“Me either, Jess,” he said. “Me either.”

Pasquale looked at Stan again, then back at her brother. Stan couldn’t help but feel
she was intruding.

“I can go,” she offered again.

“No. Maybe you can help, too.” Pasquale took a deep breath and dropped her voice.
“This stays between us. I need to place Hal Hoffman with someone yesterday. It shouldn’t
be that hard, considering the man’s habits. But Emmalee Hoffman wasn’t where she was
supposed to be yesterday afternoon—her kid’s parent-teacher conference—and I have
no sightings of her husband after noon. He didn’t seem to see anyone, which isn’t
like him.”

“What are you getting at, Jess?” Jake asked.

Jessie leveled him with her most piercing stare. “If Hoffman can’t be accounted for,
his wife could be in big trouble. Since she can’t be accounted for either.”