shook her head. “No, I’ve been acting like a big baby and you’ve been so nice about it. The store looks great, by the way. Your aunt would be proud, I’m sure. You’ve added your own touches, but retained the flavor and spirit everyone always remembers about Gates. When I think I’m living in the boondocks, I just walk past your windows and realize there is indeed taste and culture here in Tyler.” She hesitated a moment, something uncharacteristic of Judson Ingalls’s youngest grandchild. “Ellie Gates was quite a character. She’s still missed around here.”
“She is,” Nora agreed simply.
“Well, I should be off.” Liza rose with a sudden burst of energy. “I guess I’ll go through with this big fancy wedding. If nothing else, Tyler could use a good party right now.”
Now Liza Baron was sounding like herself. Nora swept to her feet. “You’re probably right about that. I suppose you haven’t heard anything more from the police?”
Liza shook her head. “Not a word.”
Without saying so outright, they both knew they were talking about what Nora had begun to refer to as the Body at the Lake. The Tyler Citizen reported every new and not-so-new development in the case, but the rumors were far more speculative. Given her ownership of Tyler’s only department store, her membership on the town council and her circumspect nature, Nora was privy to considerable amounts of local gossip, which she never repeated. Certainly anyone could have been buried at the long-abandoned lodge. Someone from out of town or out of state could have driven up, plucked a body out of the trunk, dug a hole and dropped it in. But townspeople’s imaginations were fired by the idea that the body was that of Tyler’s most famous—actually, it’s only—missing person, Margaret Alyssa Lindstrom Ingalls. People said Liza was a lot like her flamboyant grandmother. Bad enough, Nora thought, that Liza had to cope with having a dead body dug up in her yard. Worse that it could be that of her long-lost grandmother.
“I’ll continue to hope for the best,” Nora said diplomatically.
Liza’s smile this time was feeble. “Thank you.”
But before she left, she spun around one more time, serape flying. “Oh, I almost forgot. Cliff specifically wanted me to ask if you were coming to the wedding. You are, aren’t you?”
“Well, yes, I’d love to, but I’ve never even met Cliff—”
“Oh, he’s seen you around town and admires your devotion to Tyler and…how did he put it? Your balance, I think he said. He says if he has to endure a huge wedding, he should at least have a few people around who won’t make him feel uncomfortable.” Liza’s eyes misted, her expression softening. She looked like a woman in love. “God knows he’s trying. He’s still uneasy around people—I guess you could call this wedding a trial by fire. Not only will half of Tyler be there, but there’s a chance his family’ll come, too.”
“I didn’t realize he had any family.”
“A mother and a brother.” Liza bit the corner of her mouth, suddenly unsure of herself. “They’re from Providence.”
“Providence, Rhode Island?” Nora asked, her knees weakening.
“Umm. Real East Coast mucky-mucks.”
Byron Sanders, the one man who’d penetrated Nora’s defenses, had been from Providence, Rhode Island. But that had to be a coincidence. That wretched cad couldn’t have anything to do with a man like Cliff Forrester.
“Are they coming?” Nora asked.
Liza cleared her throat hesitantly. “Haven’t heard. From what I gather, our wedding’s pretty quick for a Forrester, so who knows?”
“Cliff must be anxious—”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. He hasn’t had much to do with his family since he moved out here. Nothing at all, in fact. He takes all the blame, but I don’t think that’s fair. He didn’t tell them where he was for a couple of years, but when he did finally let them know, he told them to leave him alone. But they could have bulldozed their way back into his life if they’d really wanted to.” She grinned. “Just like I did.”
“But Cliff did invite them?”
“Well, not exactly.”
Nora didn’t need a sledgehammer to get the point. “You mean you did? Without his knowledge?”
“Yep.”
Now that, Nora thought, could get interesting.
“I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes,” Liza added.
With a polite, dismissive comment, Nora promised Liza that she and her staff would steer people in the right direction when they came to Gates hunting for an appropriate wedding gift. Liza looked so relieved and happy when she left that Nora felt much better. Why on earth was she worrying about Byron Sanders, just because he and Cliff Forrester were from the same state? Rhode Island wasn’t that small. No, that weasel was just a black, secret chapter in her life.
She tucked the bridal register under her arm to return to Claudia Mickelson. She did love a wedding—as long as it wasn’t her own.
“I DON’T KNOW how Liza Baron can even think about getting married with this body business unresolved.”
Inger Hansen’s starchy words stopped Nora in her tracks. It was two days after Liza had sat in her office grumbling about feudalistic rituals while thumbing through a Waterford crystal catalog. As was her custom on Thursdays, when she gave piano lessons, Nora was moving toward Gates Department Store’s rear exit shortly before five. She usually didn’t leave until six.
Inger, the most imperious member of the Tyler Quilting Circle, went on indignantly, “That could be her grandmother they found out there.”
Martha Bauer held up two different shades of off-white thread. It was just a show; she’d been buying the same shade for thirty years. “Well, I do wish they’d tell us something soon,” she said with a sigh. “Don’t you think they’ve had that body up at the county long enough to know something?”
“I understand that the body’s a skeleton already,” Rose Atkins, one of the sweetest and most eccentric elderly women in Tyler, said. “Identification must be a difficult process under such circumstances. And it would be terrible if they made a mistake, don’t you think? I’d prefer them to take their time and get it right.”
Nora agreed, and found herself edging toward the fabric department’s counter. Stella, the fabric clerk and a woman known for her sewing expertise, was occupied sorting a new shipment of buttons. Nora didn’t blame her for not rushing to the quilting ladies’ assistance; they knew their way around the department and would likely chatter on until the store’s closing at six.
Inger Hansen sniffed. “In my opinion, the police are dragging their heels. No one wants to confront the real possibility that it’s Margaret Ingalls they found out at the lake.”
“Now, Inger,” Rose said patiently, “we don’t know for sure it’s Margaret. The body hasn’t even been identified yet as male or
