"Well, here goes. It started the Saturday before Father's Day, when Sherry Hawkinfield came into the weaving studio. Forest was minding the store while Chrys did a few errands. He used to show his mountain paintings there all sizes. The tourists bought the small ones, but Sherry wanted a large one as a Father's Day gift and tried to haggle over the price. Imagine! It was only $300. Forest told her the painting would be worth $3,000 in a big-city gallery, and if she wanted something cheap, she should go to Lumpton's Department Store. He was never very tactful."
"I can see that," Qwilleran said.
"So, anyway, she wrote a check for $300 and asked him to deliver the painting the next day as a surprise for her father. She wanted it exactly at one o'clock . . . Would you like coffee sub with your burger, Mr. . . ."
"Qwilleran. No, thanks. I'll skip the beverage today."
"Well, he drove to Tiptop on Sunday, and Sherry told him where to hang the painting in the hallway. Just as he was pounding the nail in the wall, the Old Buzzard rushed inthat's what Forest called him. The Old Buzzard rushed in from somewhere and said to his daughter, 'By God! What's that damned rabble-rouser doing in my house? Get him out of here!' She didn't say anything, but Forest said, I'm delivering a painting of a mountain, sir, so you'll know what mountains used to look like before you started mutilating them, sir!' And the man said, 'Get out of my house and take that piece of junk with you, or I'll have you arrested for trespassing and littering!' And he grabbed a stick out of the umbrella stand and was threatening him. Forest won't stand for abuse, verbal or otherwise, so he said, 'Go ahead! Hit me, sir, and I'll have the publisher of the Gazette charged with assault and battery!' The Old Buzzard was getting as red as a beet, and Sherry told Forest he'd better leave."
"He left the painting there, I gather."
Amy nodded. "She'd paid for it, you know. Anyway, he stomped out of the house and drove back to the cove, madder than I've ever seen him."
"What time was that?"
"About one-thirty, I think. At three o'clock the police came, and Forest was charged with murder! We couldn't understand it! We didn't know what it was all about! We were all so confused. And thenwhen Sherry told such horrible lies at the trialit was like a nightmare! . . . Excuse me."
Two tourists had walked into the restaurant, and Amy went behind the counter, greeting them with her usual smile, her eyes glistening unnaturally. There was a happy squawk from Ashley.
"Goo goo goo," she said. "His name is Ashley," she told the customers. "He's two months, one week, and six days."
Qwilleran smoothed his sensitive moustache. He thought, If Amy's story is true, and if Forest didn't kill J.J., who did? And why is Sherry Hawkinfield protecting the murderer?
CHAPTER 11
As Qwilleran was leaving Amy's Lunch Bucket she said meekly, "If you want real coffee, you can get it at the bakery up the hill."
"Thanks, Amy. You're a real friend," he said.
"Have you ever seen the waterfall? It's very exciting. The trail starts behind the bakery."
"Are there poison snakes back there?"
"Of course not! There are no poison snakes in the Potatoes, Mr. . . ."
"Qwilleran."
He ambled up the gradual incline on the wooden sidewalk until he scented a yeasty aroma and came upon an isolated building with the remains of a steeple. The weaving studio occupied an abandoned schoolhouse; the bakery occupied an abandoned church. Hanging alongside the door was a barnwood sign shaped like a plump loaf of bread, but he read the lettering twice before he could believe what he saw: THE HALF-BAKED BAKERY. A screened door flapped loosely as he entered.
"Why the screened door?" he asked by way of introduction. "I thought you didn't have flying insects in the Potatoes."
"It's the damned health code," said a man in crumpled whites with a baker's hat sagging over one ear like a deflated balloon. "They make us wear these stupid hats, too."
The same uniform was worn by a woman taking a tray of crusty Italian bread from an oven. Like all the equipmentgrinders, mixers, dough tables, scales and whatnotthe oven looked secondhand if not actually antique. At the front of the shop were four wooden student chairs with writing arms, as well as a coffeemaker with instructions: "Help Yourself . . . Pay at Counter . . . Cream in Fridge." Separating the bakery from the snack area was a scarred glass case displaying cookies, muffins, Danish pastries, and pecan rolls, although very little of each. What elevated this humble establishment to the sublime was the heady fragrance of baking bread.
Qwilleran helped himself to coffee and bought an apple Danish from the baker. "If you don't mind my saying so," he said as he pulled out his bill clip, "you picked a helluva name for your bakery."
"Tell you why we did it," the man said. "Everybody told us we were half-baked to open a whole-grain bakery in Potato Cove, but we're doing all right. Overhead's low, and we wholesale to a food market and a couple of restaurants in the valley, so we have a little cash flow we can count on."
"Do you supply the golf club?" Qwilleran asked slyly.
"Hell no! But you see that tray of bread? It's going to an Italian restaurant. They pick it up every day at four o'clock." He looked at Qwilleran's moustache. "Are you the fella that bought Vance's big candlestick?"
"Yes, I'm the proud possessor of fifty pounds of iron." Qwilleran looked around the shop. The unifying note in the bakery was paint; everything paintable had been painted orchid: walls, ceiling, shelving, tables, student chairs, even the floorboards. "Unusual paint job you have here," was Qwilleran's comment.
"Thrift, man! Thrift! Lumpton Hardware advertised a sale of paint, and all those fakes had was pink and blue. It was my wife's idea to mix 'em."
Qwilleran carried his purchase to an orchid student chair and bit into a six-inch square of puffy, chewy pastry heaped with large apple slices in thick and spicy juices. It was still warm.
"I'm forced to tell you," he said, "that this is absolutely the best Danish I've ever eaten in half a century of pastry connoisseurship."
The baker turned to the woman. "Hear that, sugar? Take a bow." To Qwilleran he said, "My wife does the gooey stuff. Wait till you taste the sticky buns! Everything we use is whole grain and fresh. Apples come from Tater orchardsno sprays, no chemicals. We stone-grind our flour right from the wheat berries. Bread's kneaded and shaped by hand. Crackers are rolled the same way."
"That's my job," said his wife. "I like handling dough."
"Bread untouched by human hands may be cheaper, but nobody says it's as good," the baker said. "You're new around here."
"I'm here for the summer. My name's Jim Qwilleran. What's your name?"
"Yates. Yates Penney. That's my wife, Kate. How do you like the Potatoes, Mr. . . . ?"
"Qwilleran. I'm not sure I like what's happening to Big Potato."
"You said it! The inside of Big Potato looks like a mangy cat, and the outside looks like a war zone. City people come up here because they like country living, and then they drag the city along with 'em. The Taters have the right idea; they build themselves a rustic shack and let everything grow wild, the way Nature intended. We're from Akron, but we know how to fit in. Right, sugar?"
Qwilleran said, "What is this waterfall I've heard about?"
"You mean Purgatory?"
"Is that what it's called? I'd like to see it."
The baker turned to his wife. "He wants to go to Purgatory." They communicated silently for a few moments until she nodded, and then he explained, "We don't encourage sightseers because they throw beer cans and food wrappers in the falls, but you don't look like the average tourist."
"I take that as a compliment. Is the trail well-marked? I'd like a quiet, leisurely walk without getting lost."