Free Read Between the Tines by Susan Sleeman Page B

if it was a really good day, she would break less than two of them.
    I tossed my notepad into the truck, climbed in and set off for The Bakery. I could easily have walked the distance as I lived close by and could stand to stretch muscles that were tight from loading the trailer, but I didn't like to leave my truck at the shop overnight.
    At The Bakery, I pushed open the glass door sporting a days worth of fingerprints and scanned the room. Lisa already sat at a table for two snugged against the far wall. I strode across the room passing vinyl stools fixed in front of a long counter that ran the length of the space. Owner Donna Davis, wearing a white apron over a faded pink nylon uniform, waved to me as she chatted with customers.
    A few years back, Donna had taken the original restaurant that hadn't been updated in decades and remodeled it into a fifties diner. She installed authentic looking reproductions from the time and the staff dressed in fifties style. I felt like I'd stepped onto the set of Grease every time I came in the door.
    "You don't look so good," I said to Lisa and plopped onto a soft padded chair next to her.
    "Hah! Neither do you." I hated to admit it, but I'm sure her words rang true.
    I was tired of seeing my friends with red-rimmed eyes and haunted looks. First, Daisy then Karen, and Hazel—though for a different reason—and even Verna had a morbid cast to her face.
    "Ladies," Donna said. "You two look like you could use a good hot meal." She turned to Lisa. "Heard you've been with Karen all day. How's she doing?"
    "Like you might think. In shock. One moment in denial, the next despair." Lisa sounded as if she was recalling her past loss instead of Karen's recent one.
    "And you, Paige." Donna pivoted to face me. "Finding another body like that. You've got to be freaked out."
    Hello, it was Daisy who found Gary . Why did everyone insist I found the body? "Daisy's the one who had to see him up close."
    "You didn't? But everyone's talking about how you saw him." Donna's tone held all the interest of a motorist passing an accident.
    I felt like she was training a microscope on me and so were the other diners in the place who were straining to here our conversation. "Look, Donna, can we change the subject?"
    Her face flooded with hurt. "Sure. Sure. Why don't I take your order? What looks good to you?"
    "Honestly," I said, feeling bad for just being mean to her. "I need a minute." A minute to get over your bringing up the body.
    She pulled out her order pad. "I'll just get your drinks, then. What'll you have?"
    Lisa and I placed our orders, and after jotting them down, Donna tipped her head at the grill. "I'll be right over there. Holler when you're ready."
    Lisa scooted closer and lowered her voice. "Was this how it was when you found Bud? Everyone wanting to know the details like that?"
    "Yeah, but worse. Because I did find him and each time they asked if I saw his head lying on my shovel, the sight of it came back. This time I'm a bit detached."
    "Like I was when I discovered you and Bud. Funny how no one really asked me about that."
    "You were lucky." I didn't want to remember the day I'd stabbed my shovel into a mound of mulch on my construction site and found Bud. Lisa arrived moments later. Now a month later, even when people around me weren't talking about it, the ugly picture popped into my head at the worst times.
    Lisa shifted on her seat. "After hearing Donna, I can see why you're so insistent on finding the killer. If people kept coming up to me, asking for details, I'd want to investigate things just to end it and shut them up."
    "Maybe that's part of it, but, honestly, I don't think so. With Bud, I had to clear my name. But with Gary , it's an almost overwhelming desire to help Karen that's making me to do it."
    "So what did Adam say when you told him?"
    "I didn't."
    Her eyes flew open. "You didn't—"
    "Wait, before you go crazy, I had my reasons." I explained Adam's forbidding me to help