Read Online A Wee Dose of Death by Fran Stewart - Free Book Online Page B

hold a funeral?”
    She stuck out her tongue at me, so I knew it couldn’t have been too much of a disaster.
    â€œIt’s a big commercial mixer. Made by Univex. The Tuesday morning breakfast crowd tomorrow is going to expect buckets of rolls, and they always go through dozens of loaves of freshbread. There’s no way I can handle that much volume with only one Univex.”
    â€œSo, what are you going to do?”
    â€œYou and I are driving to Kittredge. That’s the food service supply store where I get all my equipment. It’s in Burlington. Well, it’s in Winooski, but that’s next door to Burlington, just across the river.”
    â€œWhat makes you think I can take the time to go that far?”
    She looked pointedly around at the closed store. “There’s supposed to be a heavy snow moving in overnight, so we need to go now.”
    Heavy snow was great for the ski slopes, but sometimes didn’t work well for tourist towns. Thank goodness it wasn’t usually like this in October.
    â€œI called the store. The woman I spoke with said they had only one SRM20 in stock. They’ve ordered more, but with another storm in the forecast, there’s no telling when they’ll get here. That means we need to leave now. Now!”
    â€œAll right, don’t get your britches twisted.” I’d borrowed that phrase from Moira, our Southern-born police dispatcher. I thought it expressed the thought very succinctly. “You weren’t planning on driving, were you?”
    â€œOf course. We have to take my SUV.”
    â€œYou’ve been out of the hospital how long?”
    â€œSix weeks. That’s long enough. I feel great.”
    I stared at her.
    â€œOkay, okay. I feel fairly good.”
    â€œI still don’t think you should drive.”
    â€œOkay. You can drive for me.”
    She was right. I could. Karaline and I had keys to each other’s cars. And houses. “Why don’t you stay here?”
    â€œNo way.”
    I threw up my hands in exasperation. “All right, but I have to go home first. I left my purse there. Why don’t we take my car?”
    â€œYou’ve obviously never seen a Univex SRM20. We’ll take my SUV, and we’ll just barely be able to cram the box in the back. The woman told me exactly how big the box was, and I measured my car to be sure it would fit. Let’s just go.”
    â€œI want my purse. I can’t drive without my license.”
    â€œOkay. Jump in my car and we’ll swing by your place on the way out of town.”
    I neglected to remind her that my house was in one direction and the road to Burlington was in the opposite direction. Karaline was too upset for logic. “Go ahead and lock up, Gilda. We can finish the shelves tomorrow morning while it’s still slow.”
    â€œThat’s okay. I’m on a roll. I’ll keep going for a couple of hours.”
    A few more hours I’d have to pay her for. At overtime rates. Oh well, the store was thriving. I followed Karaline out of the ScotShop.
    *   *   *
    Shorty sat just inside the front door. It looked like he’d been lying on the shawl—it was kind of squashed—but I tried to keep my eyes averted. Maybe Karaline wouldn’t notice it. He wove around my ankles meowing. I pulled off my gloves and bent to stroke his silky back. Karaline walked past the two of us and looked around. “Where’s Dirk? He’s usually waiting.”
    I tried desperately not to look at the table where I’d put the shawl, but Karaline must have seen my eyes veer that way. That, and the fact that Shorty jumped back up on the table, settling onto the blue and green plaid.
    â€œYou didn’t! What did you do this time?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, what did
I
do? How about what he did?” And then I remembered that he hadn’t done anything. I’d crumpled up the shawl by mistake. Still,