Free Days of Wine and Roquefort (Cheese Shop Mystery) by Avery Aames Page A

something? Had the attack come as a surprise? Her clothes hadn’t been torn. I hadn’t noticed scratches on her face. Had she known her killer? If only she had written a message, something like
Hellman was here.
    If wishes were horses . . .
    I heard a swoosh behind me, then a huge clatter. I swung around, my pulse pounding and relaxed instantly. Rags, the sneaky devil, had followed me in. His vigorous tail had caught the cord of the sander and pulled the thing to the ground. Dust rose up as Rags disentangled himself and bolted toward me, eyes blazing with fear. He sprang into my arms. I scruffed his ears and said, “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s leave this horrible place.”
    Before exiting, I tried to commit everything I saw to memory. Perhaps the fresh memory would trigger a past one.
    Over the course of the next half hour, I fed Rags, took a shower, donned the most colorful clothes in my wardrobe for an emotional boost, and downed a single cup of coffee. I couldn’t eat. The image of Noelle lying dead curdled my stomach.
    When I arrived at The Cheese Shop, I had a craving to do something normal or at least semi-normal or I wouldn’t function. In
Culture Magazine
,
a publication dedicated to all things cheese, I had read about a way to infuse humor into a cheese shop. I would insert flags with eclectic sayings on them into wedges of cheese in the display case—sayings like
Don’t be blue; eat blue.
Or
This is the cheese you’d ditch your boyfriend for.
    Grabbing toothpicks, construction paper, and scissors, I set to work.
    An hour later, Rebecca entered, her face pinched with concern.
    “I heard what happened,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you call me?”
    “I didn’t want to stir the gossip mill.”
    “Then you shouldn’t have stayed the night at Lavender and Lace.” She planted her hands on her narrow hips. “At two A.M. , Lois was online chatting up everyone. She’s such a gossip. So, who do you think killed Noelle?”
    I held up my hands. “No. I don’t want to speculate.” Though, of course, I was rehashing the event in my head.
    “If you don’t, who will?”
    “Chief Urso is on top of this. Let’s you and I keep our noses out of it.”
    “But—”
    “No.” I pointed to the Chiriboga Blue, a German cheese made in the French Roquefort tradition, and the Bayley Hazen Blue, which was Jasper Hill’s delectable flagship cheese, crumblier than most blues but developed to hold up under challenging retail conditions. “Set those two at the front of the display case so everyone can read the sayings on the flags.”
    Rebecca scanned the tags I had inserted and sniggered. “These are cute. Can I write a few?”
    “Sure.”
    “By the way, I heard that Noelle said something to you before she died.”
    “Who told you—” I peeked into the wine annex. Had Matthew participated in the social networking hullabaloo? Only he, Urso, and I knew what Noelle had said—and possibly the deputies. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Keeping those words secret might have been important to the investigation. “Go to work,” I ordered.
    Rebecca saluted while mumbling, “Spoilsport,” under her breath. Real adult.
    By ten A.M. , customers were laughing and calling to friends on the street to come inside and read the cheese tags. Laughter was the best medicine, my grandfather often reminded me, and hearing my customers’ chuckles helped keep the bad memories from the night before at bay. Laughter also increased sales. By eleven A.M. , Fromagerie Bessette had sold out of all blue cheese.
    At noon, Matthew sidled up to me. “Hungry? Want to grab some lunch?”
    “A quick bite in the office,” I said. “I don’t want to leave Rebecca out here alone. We are busy-busy with Thanksgiving Day gift baskets and weekend parties.”
    “Where are Bozz and Tyanne?”
    I explained. Bozz, a part-timer, had called to cancel his work shift. He was a first-year college student and was bogged down with midterms. Our other