I was exhausted by her relentless cheerfulness, and relieved when she bought two ricotta-stuffed pastries, while Isadore chose a gooey éclair. I boxed them up.
“One day when I was out there,” Helen said, lingering while Isadore waited at the door, tapping her patent leather shoe on the step, ”. . . at the castle, you know, there were two strange men, but I didn’t see Melvyn. I wondered and wondered about those men, you know, and I heard rumors they had been in town that day, but I never saw them again.” Her dark eyes were bright with curiosity, the perfect image of a nosy Nelly.
“When was that?” I asked.
“Oh, Lord, let me see; when was that?” She looked up in the air and cocked her head. “Was that before the fire in the woods behind the church, or after? After, probably. No, before.” She paused and frowned down at her sandals. “No, it had to be after the fire. I remember now! A week or so after. So that would have been, let me see . . . last October? Almost a year ago.” She nodded sharply, triumph on her round, cheerful face. “Late October of last year.”
I was exhausted with her thought process, and Isadore was clearly ready to go out of her mind, but I wasn’t done yet. “What did the men look like?”
“Well, now, they weren’t very friendly. They had on suits, black suits, and they had a black car.”
“Old? Young? White? Black? Tall? Short?”
She shrugged. “I don’t remember, dear.”
“I have to go to work, Helen. I’m late! Mr. Grover won’t have a clue how to open.”
“Hey,” I said to her, “your employer came out to the castle yesterday, Miss Openshaw. Simon Grover was with the volunteer fire department, giving support to the police.”
Isadore didn’t answer, but Helen’s eyes widened. “Oh, my, yes! I heard about the corpse in the woods near you. Was it Melvyn’s body?”
Taken aback, I said, “Uh, no, Melvyn’s body was never missing.”
Isadore was practically dancing in place. “It’s ten-o-seven, Helen! I’m late. I thought you needed money at the bank, and then had to get to choir practice?”
Why didn’t she just head on to the bank and let Helen follow? Maybe it was like women in a bar who needed to go to the washroom; they traveled in duos. Or . . . maybe Isadore didn’t want me talking to Helen alone?
“Oh, heavens, yes! Well, I’m glad the body wasn’t your uncle’s, dear.” With that, both women left the store, and Isadore took her friend’s arm as they marched off down Abenaki.
I pondered that weird conversation as I packaged up my cooled muffins. Was it my imagination, or did Isadore get even more agitated when the two men at my uncle’s place came up in conversation? I was now certain she knew something, but concerning what? My uncle’s death? Both she and Gogi had questioned how it happened, but would Isadore have even talked to me about it if I hadn’t caught her examining the scene?
The bakeshop got busy, and more than two hours dragged by, with me having to figure out what every item was priced at, and where a fresh supply of bags was, and how to construct the bakery boxes. When Binny slogged into the shop at almost one, I was tired, grumpy, and puzzled.
She held up her hand, as she came from the back room tying a fresh white apron on. “I know, I know; I was gone longer than I expected. Sorry. Hope you weren’t swamped.”
Mollified, I replied, “Well, it was longer than I expected. But I sure met a lot of locals! If you need help, I’d be happy to fill in for you sometime. I was going to offer rental money for the use of your ovens, but maybe you’d consider a trade of services, your ovens for my time?” It had just come to me that moment, and since my mouth often moves as quickly as my mind—or even quicker—I made the offer as I thought of it. It would save me money I could use toward the castle refurbish.
“That would be good.”
She looked tired and bewildered, and I wondered what that was all about. Maybe she had a boyfriend she wasn’t talking about, and she had met him but they had had a fight. That was a whole lot of “ifs,” though. Dinah Hooper walked in the door at that moment, and Binny watched her.
I hung about for a few minutes, and we chitchatted, but neither woman said much of interest. Dinah was talking about her decision to open a floral and décor shop, while Binny was feverishly dashing around, clanging pans together, as customers came in to the store. I couldn’t spend too long, not if I wanted to do everything that I needed to do, so I left.
I was mystified.
Something had upset Binny. Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything she could share with me. I went and had a bite to eat at the Vale Variety. My sometimes working/sometimes not cell phone kicked in with a text message, telling me that Shilo and McGill had had lunch with his mom, and were now on their way out of town to the castle. Lunch with his mom? Wow, talk about speed dating. In all the years I had known Shilo, she had never latched onto a guy so thoroughly. And McGill seemed to return her interest in spades.