If I was going to stay for a while, I needed supplies: food, toiletries, cleaning products. McGill had assured me I could go to Rochester, about thirty-five or forty miles away, but there is nothing that gains you friends in a small town like spending your money there. That was true in Italy, France, Germany, and the good old US of A. I needed to scope out the town and learn a little about it, if I was going to figure out how best to sell Wynter Castle.
I dawdled around town for a while, but the residents seemed to shy away from me. Oh, they watched me all right. I felt the blaze of scores of steady gazes as I sauntered by. I ambled past the one antique store that appeared to still be open for business, Crazy Lady Antiques and Collectibles, but the sign noted it had limited hours, on Friday and Saturday only. There was apparently a tiny Autumn Vale Public Library, accessed by a ramp and a side door off one of the alleys, but the hours were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, noon to five. Autumn Vale Community Bank was an interesting little building, dark-red, shiny brick, situated right on a corner and with a curved face and doors set into the curved corner, but I didn’t feel like going in to the bank just yet.
The “all you’ll find at Wynter Castle is death” comment made to me by Binny the Baker echoed in my brain. Did she honestly think my uncle had killed her father? But you know, a woman who loved teapots that much couldn’t be all bad. I stopped in front of her shop, noting the customers coming out with paper bags full of the most incredible-smelling focaccia. I was hungry! Okay, so I would buy bread and try to make a fresh start with Binny. If her dad was missing and presumed dead, I felt for her. It was hard losing a parent at any age and in any way.
I entered, and waited my turn. Every woman in there was watching me, as long as they thought I wasn’t looking at them. Gossip, McGill said, about old Mel Wynter’s niece’s arrival, had gotten around. That’s what had brought him out to the castle; someone saw me talking to Virgil Grace and called Binny Turner, found out who I was, and then called the realtor.
I turned and looked around the shop, noting that opposite the shelves of teapots was a wall of photos. There was one of Binny and an older man, both dressed in camouflage, and holding guns. There was another of the same old man and a blonde, middle-aged woman, again, both in camo and both holding guns. Sheesh . . . was Autumn Vale the kind of place where everyone hunted? I’m no hunter, except for great bargains on shoes, but I was going to stay out of the whole judging-someone-based-on-their-pastimes thing. That had been one of my mother’s failings. Instead, I sidled up to the glass case and said, “Everything looks wonderful!”
Binny served every single person in the bakery, then turned and looked at me. “Can I help you? Again?”
She hadn’t helped me the first time, but I was not going to point that out to her. “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot, Ms. Turner,” I said in a conciliatory tone. “I’m Merry Wynter, Melvyn Wynter’s niece. I was sorry to hear that your father is missing. I know how hard it is to be in that kind of pain.”
She froze, and glared at a spot above my head, but didn’t answer. The bell above the door tinkled, a sign that someone else was entering. Not the time to pursue this. “Uh, well, I’d like a half dozen of the panini, a few ciabatta, and one of those marvelous focaccia, please,” I said.
The baker silently put the food in a couple of paper bags, took the money, gave change, then turned to the other customer, an older woman who stood looking over the items in the glass case. There were biscotti and pfeffernüsse on the top shelf, and an assortment of sweets, buns, and breads on the others, all exotic and beautiful.
“Binny, I know we’ve had this argument before,” the customer said, looking at the glass case and sighing, deeply. “But I simply don’t understand why you won’t make muffins and cookies. This is Autumn Vale, not New York City, you know.”
“Mrs. Grace, how are the folks around here ever going to refine their palate if I let them buy muffins and cookies instead of croissants and biscotti?” the baker said, wiping her hands on a wet cloth. “I didn’t study under Alfred Bannerman just to come home and make cookies, like some small-town housewife. I’m not forcing anyone to come in here, you know.”
I smiled, appreciating her tough-mindedness. She was prickly, but at least she knew what she wanted to do.
The woman sighed again and closed her eyes, briefly. “Binny, dear, I’m grateful for all you’ve done for Golden Acres—the day-old bread, all the freebies—but my oldsters want muffins. The other day I asked Doc English if he wanted focaccia, and he said he ought to wash my mouth out with soap.”
I snorted in surprised laughter, and the woman glanced back at me with a smile, but continued talking to Binny Turner.
“I want them to eat well. I’ve tried sourcing muffins and cookies out of town, but all I get are stale, cardboard imitations, and they won’t eat them. I want good, nutritious, fresh, homey food that eighty-and ninety-year-olds will enjoy, and I would like to buy local, if I can.”
The baker’s face was stony, and she replied, politely enough, but with finality, “I don’t have time or resources enough to do everything, Mrs. G.”
“I appreciate that, Binny. I’ll take a half dozen of the cannoli.”
While they finished their transaction, I examined the rows of teapots—I loved one cheeky teapot shaped like a roly-poly baker—then followed the woman out. “Excuse me,” I said. “I couldn’t help but overhear you in there.”
The woman turned to me with a frank expression of interest. “You’re Melvyn’s niece, aren’t you? The one who inherited the castle.”
“I am.”
“My son told me about you.”
“Your son?”
“Virgil Grace, the sheriff. I’m Gogi Grace.”
I shook her outthrust hand. “Of course! I had a feeling I recognized your last name. Well, anyway, I wanted to say, if you have a kitchen at the old folks’ home, muffins ought to be super easy to make. They’re so simple even I can’t foul them up. It’s pretty much the only pastry I can make—well, that and cookies—but with older folks, try something standard, like banana-bran, or apple spice.”
Mrs. Grace raised her perfectly trimmed eyebrows. “Do I look like I cook?”
I looked her over, biting my lip, from the silver-tipped mane of perfectly coiffed curls to the toes of her bone-colored Ferragamo pumps. “No, you look like you just walked out of Saks.”
“So do you,” the woman said, eyeing me up and down. “We have a cook, but she’s got all she can handle with three squares a day.”
“Oh.”
“You’re not at all what I expected,” Mrs. Grace said, pointing to my top. “Anna Scholz, am I right? Fall 2013 show?” she asked, about the print tunic I wore.
My eyebrows rose. She was dead-on. I had changed into the Scholz print tunic and DKNY jeans for the trip back into town. My generous wages with Leatrice had allowed me to purchase designer clothes, discounted appropriately, of course. I am what Shilo calls “plush-size,” but plus-size does not mean unfashionable anymore. “Good eye. Do I pass muster? Despite what Sheriff Grace probably said?” Yes, I was fishing for information, and maybe a compliment.
“How do you know what he said? Besides, he only noticed . . . ah . . . one aspect of your figure,” the woman said, with a wicked twinkle in her brilliant blue eyes. “My son is a man.”
“I noticed.”
“Anyway, you were talking about muffins. I don’t cook and my hired cook doesn’t have time; can you make me some to try? Say . . . two dozen?”
“Two . . . what?” A few morning walkers, two women and three kids, bustled past, their beady eyes staring us down until they parted like a wave around us. One woman even looked back. I wondered what the conversation would be at the local watering hole. Did Autumn Vale even have a local watering hole? I shifted my gaze back to Mrs. Gogi Grace, who waited, a polite smile on her carefully made-up face. “So let me get this straight; you want me to make two dozen muffins for your seniors.”