“I’d take anything with more of that peach ice cream.”
“Okay if I surprise you?” She reached into a big glass jar full of brownies and put two in a paper sundae cup.
“Definitely.” I was getting used to surprises.
“So has Sheriff Crowe said anything about the investigation?” Lena dished chocolate ice cream on top of the brownies. “Do they have any suspects?”
“Not that I know of,” I said. “Although Sheriff Crowe said she couldn’t tell me even if they did.”
“That’s totally normal,” Lena said, crumbling a third brownie on top of the chocolate ice cream. I was going into sugar shock just watching the confection come to life. “I listen to a ton of true crime podcasts. Law enforcement never talks about suspects in an open investigation.”
“I heard Harold opposed the Hearthstone development,” I said. “I can’t help wondering if it has to do with that.”
“Like someone who wanted it to go forward?” Lena’s dark eyes were bright, and I knew she was as intrigued as I was.
“Maybe?”
She artfully topped Beck’s sundae with whipped cream, then added a metric ton of sprinkles. “It would bewildif someoneat Hearthstone did it, although I could definitely see that creep Victor taking extreme measures to get the deal through.”
“I heard a lot of the town wanted it though.”
Lena started assembling Malcolm’s sundae: pound cake topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream and a hefty ladle of strawberry sauce. “I wouldn’t say a lot. It was pretty split between the people who saw dollar signs from the new development and the ones who saw more traffic, higher prices, and a bunch of massive new houses blocking the view of the lake from Main Street.”
“It sounds like it could be anybody.” I heard the note of frustration in my voice and wondered why I cared so much.
I wasn’t staying in Blackwell Hollow. What did it matter?
“It’s a wide net, that’s for sure.” Lena added three cherries to the top of the sundae and set it aside, then proceeded to place two pieces of shortbread in the bottom of another sundae cup. “You could go to the town meeting.”
“What town meeting?”
“There’s a town council meeting tonight to hear comments about the development.”
“That’s not a bad idea…” It wasn’t like I’d never attended a resident meeting before.
"Everyone will be there.” Lena drizzled my sundae with caramel sauce, then topped it with fresh peaches and a sprig of sage. “Including Victor. And maybe it would help you get a feel for town sentiment, who’s pro-development and who’s opposed, that kind of thing.”
“I’m not really part of the town though.” Which didn’t mean I wasn’t tempted. I’d been puzzling over the question of how to get an introduction to Victor without setting off alarm bells ever since Rosie had mentioned his fight with Harold.
If VictorwasHarold’s killer, the last thing I needed was to alert him to the fact that I considered him a suspect, but what was suspicious about running into him at a town meeting?
“Don’t be silly!” Lena loaded the sundaes into a cardboard box and added plastic spoons and napkins. “You’re Evelyn’s niece! You inherited her house and business.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I planned to sell both.
“Besides,” she continued, “I’ll be there too.”
“You will?” Somehow it was easier to imagine going to the meeting with Lena even though we’d just met.
“Are you kidding?” She grinned. “I wouldn’t miss it. You never know what’s going to happen at these things.”
It sounded both ominous and promising. Kind of like Blackwell Hollow.
And she was right: the town meeting was the best of all places to find out who was on which side of the Hearthstone debate, andthatmight lead me to Harold Pembroke’s killer.
Not that I was looking for Harold’s killer. I was just a temporary resident, asking questions.
“I’ll give you my number,” I said. “We can meet up before.”