Murder in the Aisle Read online

  “Thanks,” I said. “That solves a mystery.”

  “I say,” Jim said in a much more businesslike tone. “I’ve made a start on the list of chapters for the book. Bit of a surprise how much I want to pack in there.”

  “Well done!” I enthused. “As long as you don’t drone on in awful detail, you can certainly cover plenty of topics.”

  “And if I do drone on too long, you’ll give me what-for?”

  “Absolutely, Uncle Jim. Can’t bore the readers.”

  Somewhere in the background a kettle started to whistle. “Better go and turn that off,” he said. “Don’t want to disturb Zinnia. Goodnight Merry.” He hung up, leaving me thinking that Zinnia Drizzle was a pretty silly name, too.

  So… was I going to put my brain through more hard slog in Chernobyl or was I going to watch some telly, read a book, or play on Facebook?

  My initial plans for evenings at the Burkeville – perched on a tall bar stool and hoping to attract available and interested men – hadn’t become reality yet, but somehow I’d found two without trying. Both Paul and John were undoubtedly attractive. Paul had said he ‘wasn’t suitable husband material right now’, and he still might be gay despite his protestations. John definitely wasn’t suitable husband material and he still might be an assassin, but a girl can’t complain too much after a drought like I’ve had recently.

  And who said I wanted anything permanent? I’d had a husband for years and he’d been nothing but a waste of space.

  Good start, Merry. You’ve still got it, babe.

  Chapter 11 – Crafting at Horse Heaven

  You know how things feed into your subconscious while you sleep? By the time I woke up to sunshine and the sound of loudly-swooshing waves on the beach, it was obvious what my next step should be. I’d check out the crafting conference, even though I wasn’t a crafter and hadn’t been invited. If you have a business card and are prepared to look interested it’s amazing what people will tell you.

  I stretched and yawned – careful not to kick the teddies off the bed. The spaniels would never have been allowed to take such liberties with Graham, but they probably weigh twice as much as the perky little Bichons.

  Graham wouldn’t be caught dead sharing his bed anyway – except with Susan Hammond. Come to think of it I hadn’t seen her around for a while.

  Note to self; ask Graham about Susan.

  Itsy and Fluffy scooted off the bed the moment they detected signs of life from me so I guess they thought there might be some more of last night’s uber-delicious food on offer. They hurtled down the hallway, skidded into the kitchen, and stood there trembling and panting as I staggered along behind them, still rubbing my eyes and dragging my fingers through my long hair.

  “You did a good job of licking each other’s faces clean last evening, didn’t you?” I said, peering at them in the bright light coming in past the sweet peas and new hollyhock spires. “But I don’t want food all over you again.” I bent and lifted their bowls into the sink to rinse them clean.

  “Goodness, teddies, you got every scrap.” They’d been polished to a perfect shine in the search for any last smear of Beefsteak and Barley or Spring Lamb and Rice. I gave the bowls a shake to get the water off and set them down on the counter. Itsy wriggled and snuffled and bumped against my legs. Fluffy sat, sending me a long-suffering sigh and a withering stare.

  “You might look like a pair,” I mumbled as I tried to pull the slippery foil packet open with wet fingers, “But I’m beginning to see you as two individuals now.” The packet gave way with a sudden rip. No doubt a delicious aroma issued forth because the two little dogs began dancing on their hind legs. I spooned some Chunky Chicken and Vegetables into each bowl (whines of anticipation), added some kibble to each (moans of despair), and set them on the floor. Bits of kibble got flicked sideways in the search for the good stuff. I couldn’t help but grin as I made tea for myself while they were occupied.

  So. The crafting conference – if that’s what it really was.

  Jim Drizzle had said it was at Betty McGyver’s place. A quick search took me to Old Bay Road – a rural location which looked horsey from the aerial view. Well, it had an oval training track and what might be a big barn, anyway. There was certainly plenty of room to park multiple vehicles. I’d had no reason to drive in that direction for years.

  The teddies rattled out through their door and I went to have a shower once I’d finished my tea. I was soon suitably dressed in my best jeans, navy jacket and white shirt, hair up in a passable twist, with black ankle boots in case the conference venue was muddy. I slotted a slice of bread into the toaster and found the butter and marmalade. I even spotted a couple of very early strawberries when I wandered out into the sun with my plate.

  Old Bay Road looked to be no more than a few minutes past the village so the teddies could stay home. After all, Isobel hadn’t always taken them out with her – they’d been running free here on the day she died. That was enough to send a shiver down my spine as I swiped some more red lippy on, using the little old mirror fixed to the wall beside the fridge to check my reflection. I nearly ran off the edge of my bottom lip with that shiver.

  I locked the house up and beeped the Ford Focus to unlock it, then had to convince Itsy and Fluffy they weren’t getting a ride to anywhere

  Huffs of disbelief. Four black eyes trying to peel the paint off the car.

  Teddies, you almost have me wrapped around your little paws, but not quite.

  “I won’t be long,” I assured them through the cracked-open window. I’m sure they appreciated the information.

  It took almost no time to get to the venue once I was through the village. I swooped up a couple of very green hills, dived down the valleys that followed, and then had to stop to give way to someone on a one-way timber planked bridge. The view sideways showed me a sparkling slice of Drizzle Bay with Brett Royal’s whale-watching boat plowing out on its morning tour. I rattled on over the bridge and soon turned in through white gateposts beside a sign saying ‘Horse Heaven’.

  Anything less like a conference I’d never seen. Two caravans, a couple of camper vans, one olive green bus with curtains, a horse cantering along beside the fence as I crawled up the graveled driveway, and ten or a dozen women doing tai-chi in the sun.

  They turned briefly in the car’s direction and then ignored me. Either my arrival had speeded up the end of the class or they were almost finished, because within sixty seconds they broke ranks and all but one of them ambled into the building I’d assumed from the aerial shot was a barn. It definitely looked like a barn now I was at ground level. The air smelled of straw and dung and… bacon!

  The woman who’d walked toward me stopped. Older than me, with curly grey hair and fawn cargo pants covered in spots and splatters of dried-on white goo. She reached out a hand to shake, and her blue eyes assessed me keenly. “I’m Betty. And you are?”

  “Merry Summerfield.” I already had my business card out of my pocket for her.

  She gave it a very quick appraisal. “Editing? We’re into handcrafts, not mind-work.”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t come to join in, exactly. But I was talking to Jim Drizzle yesterday…”

  Good – a definite flicker of interest.

  “And he told me you were doing this, and I wondered if you’d allow me to write it up for a tourism blog I sometimes contribute to.”

  That wasn’t entirely dishonest. Or entirely honest, either. During my worst days with Duncan Skene I’d tried writing travel pieces to distract myself. I’d had several published, but more as a ‘guest without payment’ than as any sort of expert. If Betty insisted, I could scroll through to items on my phone about a wine tasting trip to Marlborough and a beach ramble that included the amazing huge round Moeraki boulders on the coast of the South Island – each with a tiny photo of me as author. However, it seemed she was prepared to take me at my word. “Come and have breakfast,” she said, beckoning me into the barn.
r />   That bacon did smell amazing so I decided not to admit to my slice of toast and marmalade until I saw what else was on offer.

  By an open window on the far side of the barn I spotted the familiar lanky figure of Alex flipping thick slices of bacon and toasting whole-wheat buns on a big stainless steel barbecue. He caught sight of me and I opened my mouth to greet him but he gave one sharp shake of his head. Okay then… doesn’t know me. Or not in front of the craft ladies, anyway. And, I guess, definitely not in front of his mother.

  I turned away from him and gazed around the rest of the barn. Trestle tables formed a rough horseshoe and each was topped with arty items. There were a dozen or so chairs around one and I assumed they got dragged from table to table depending on what was happening. Right now breakfast was happening.

  “Best breakfast I ever saw at a conference,” I said to Betty, inhaling the heavenly smell of freshly cooked bacon. Whoever had cut it up was very generous.

  She smiled, showing a glint of gold in one tooth. “Don’t call it that,” she said. “We’re not a conference. We’re barely a seminar. We’re kind of a pow-wow.”

  “A power-wow,” I said, unable to resist the play on words. “A group of strong women sharing ideas and skills.”

  “Exactly,” she agreed, handing me a plate with a bacon-filled bun. And I do mean filled. Maybe I should have turned it down when she first offered. But… let’s call it brunch instead of breakfast.

  She grabbed her own plate and ushered me to the table. There was an enormous teapot, a liter of milk, and a pottery bowl of sugar making their way down the center. I poured myself a cup as things reached me.

  Betty clinked her teaspoon on the side of an empty mug and its chime quietened everyone down. “Listen up, people, this is Merry. She’s aiming to get us some free publicity.”

  There was some surprised murmuring, most obviously from a woman with a sing-song Welsh accent who asked, “Why would you do that?”

  Betty put her bun down on her plate. “Phyllis-Elizabeth! Merry’s come to us through Lord Drizzle, and they’re both keen to see local projects do well. If we could get an extra influx of customers to the handcrafts stall on Saturday morning I’m sure we’d all be very pleased.” She looked back to me. “She writes poetry,” she muttered.

  “Phyllis-Elizabeth Robertson,” the woman said, holding out a hand to shake as though she was famous. “I also knit bathmats. Chunky pure cotton – very absorbent.”

  I nodded, thinking to myself you could buy a normal toweling one for less than ten bucks on special. How many did she sell after all those hours of knit one, purl one?

  “What about that murder?” the goth-looking girl at the end of the table suddenly exclaimed. “It won’t do the place much good.”

  A babble of speculation followed, including comments from Phyllis-Elizabeth about being careful to lock vehicles at night.

  I wondered whether I should tell them about finding the body. Noooo… better not. “Where are you having the stall?” I asked Betty, hoping to get the conversation back on track. I took another bite of the truly amazing bacon. Sweet and succulent, and caramelized along the barbecued edges. Maybe it had been cured with Manuka honey?

  “Opposite the church where the murder was. Outside the café. Iona’s willing for us to use two of her tables if we add a couple more. Quid pro quo. We’ll be attracting customers for her, providing we don’t get in her way.”

  I made a show of tapping out a few notes on my phone and then looked around the table. “So what do the rest of you do?”

  Barely stopping for breath, Betty dived in again. “I crochet. Infinity scarves, baby booties, anything that takes my fancy, and all with hand-spun wool from the farm. And I decoupage boxes and trays. We had my workshop yesterday, which is why we’re all covered in glue.” She glanced down at her spotty trousers and I grinned back at her.

  “Button art,” the large woman next to her said. “Wall hangings, necklaces, other jewelry. I’m Jessie.”

  Now I looked at her more closely I saw she wore colorful earrings which were indeed made from stacks of threaded buttons. “Very creative,” I said, pointing at her ear with the hand not clutching my bun.

  “Clothes-peg zombies,” goth-girl said. “Walking Dead kind of characters.”

  “Thoroughly spooky,” Phyllis-Elizabeth said with a shiver.

  “Meant to be,” goth-girl insisted. The silver ring through her black-glossed lip twinkled in a shaft of morning sunlight. I presumed teenagers would go for her ghoulish ornaments, but I wasn’t so sure I would. “And I tie-dye T-shirts,” she added. “I’m Zee.”

  “Patchwork,” an older woman with hennaed hair said. “Quilts and waistcoats mostly.” At least that sounded fairly normal.

  “I paint stones,” the next woman murmured.

  “Beautiful flowers and fruits for paperweights and garden ornaments,” Betty explained. “And she sometimes makes name-markers for rows of seeds. You hide your light under a bushel, Rachel.”

  Rachel gave half a shrug and half a smile.

  The next woman was Alex’s mum. “Handmade soap,” she announced. Her hair was longer and much wilder than in her website photo, but her eyebrows were unmistakable.

  “I’d like to buy some of that,” I said, hoping I could get her talking, and still wondering why Isobel had been interested in her.

  “Good for your skin. All natural ingredients.” She turned her back and reached for the milk, dismissing me with her abruptness.

  I transferred my gaze along the table to the next person. I say ‘person’ rather cautiously. His or her hair was cut soldier-short, there was no make-up in evidence, and the androgynous jeans and loose camouflage-patterned T-shirt gave no further clues. The person said in an unhelpful husky voice, “I’m a beachcomber. I take what nature gives me and turn it into art.”

  I nodded, wondering what the ‘art’ was.

  “Nic is our star,” Betty said.

  Unhelpful name, too!

  “Winston at the gallery has some of Nic’s pieces on display. Well worth a look,” Betty added.

  “Wonderful.” I hoped I looked impressed. “Winston’s no fool.”

  “Charges like a wounded buffalo,” Alex’s mum muttered, flicking a glance up over the rim of her cup.

  “Are you saying my stuff’s not worth decent money?” the Nic person demanded.

  “Ladies!” Betty exclaimed. So that solved Nic’s sex, although possibly not her proclivities. (But who am I to judge? I chose Duncan Skene, and he chose everyone else.)

  “Everything finds its own level,” Betty continued. “And I really think your soap could sell for more, Elsa, but we’ll be covering that in our marketing segment.” She turned to me. “No point charging too little for something so beautifully made.” She took a bite of her bacon-filled bun. “He was a lovely pig, our Harold,” she added.

  I felt a bit faint at that. Could you eat something you knew the name of? I found I could after another tentative bite. Yes, Harold was delicious. “I daresay he had a happy life here,” I suggested.

  “All the windfall apples from the orchard,” Betty said. “And Bob Peyton’s pears when they dropped over the fence.” She waved a hand toward the open doors of the barn. “Anyone who lives here gets everything good we can give them.”

  Okay then. Best I could hope for, really.

  “Anything from leather,” the next woman said when I looked enquiringly at her. “Plaited or knotted or sewn. I’m not fussy.”

  “More patchwork.” That was the dark-haired girl beside her. “Mine’s all smaller things – bags and cushion covers and so on. With lots of lace and ruffles.”

  I nodded, watching out of the corner of my eye as Alex shut down the barbecue. Then I turned to Betty again. “I’m wondering how much use my publicity can be when your stall is only a couple of days off. What else have you got planned?”

  The tubby button art lady giggled. “We’ll be trotting around the streets taping notices onto f
ences and lamp-posts early on Saturday morning.”

  “Because,” Betty said, possibly turning pink, “we haven’t applied for a sidewalk permit to hold the sale.”

  “It’d eat up all our profits,” the red-haired patchworker said. “We’re reckoning no-one in authority will be able to get there to close us down by the time we’ve already done it and gone away.”

  I joined in the general laughter. They were probably right. Certainly WPC Moody and PC Henderson and their mates would have bigger fish to fry. Maybe some minor district official would send a letter meant as a slap on the wrist but that would be about it.

  “Anything I can get published could only tell people what a worthwhile event the stall was, but I could mention the interesting collective you have going here. How often do you get together?”

  “First time,” Betty said. “This is a try-out.”

  “But you’ll be doing more?”

  “Yes. You bet. Of course,” they chorused.

  “Maybe not all of us every time,” Betty conceded. “But we thought one more weekender, closer to Christmas, and with a few extra people. Iris Cho paints beautiful cards and Emily Payne makes exquisite tree decorations, for instance.” She looked across at Alex’s mum. “There’s no reason why you couldn’t tie your soaps up with pretty loops of ribbon, Elsa, and promote them as tree ornaments. Or your lovely stones, Rachel.”

  She returned her attention to me. “And if this Saturday goes well, we’ll pass out invitations to the next. No need for a sidewalk permit for that because we’ll hold it here.”

  “Can I take some photos?” I asked.

  “We’re not exactly looking our best,” the quiet stone-painter objected.

  “Speak for yourself,” skinny Nic sniped. I couldn’t see she’d made the least bit of effort with her appearance, but that was her business.

  “Maybe not us,” Betty said, pouring some quick oil on the swirling waters. “We’re all in casual gear and prepared to get messy. But how about what we make?” She rose and collected up items from the other tables. Yes, she was artistic for sure because in no time she’d created a pretty grouping out of nothing much. I took a few shots with my phone.