Well-Offed in Vermont: A Pret’ Near Perfect Mystery by Amy Patricia Meade

Author:Amy Patricia Meade
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cozy, mystery, novel, fiction, Vermont
Publisher: Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.
Published: 2011-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter

10

Stella and Nick left the Windsor Bar and Grill and drove the two blocks to the Perkins Family Store. Once inside, they realized that Perkins was not so much a convenience store as a purveyor of products guaranteed to satisfy every facet of Vermont country living. Shelves lined with patterned contact paper that would have seemed at home in Hank Reid’s kitchen cabinets offered customers the usual suspects: breads, cereals, snacks, and an eclectic mix of canned and packaged foods. However, tucked alongside the pantry staples were such oddities as hand-carved turkey calls, bright orange rain ponchos, squirrel-proof bird feeders, home-baked organic dog treats, and souvenir bottles of maple syrup.

Lining the wall behind the cash register were the age-restricted items: rolls of lottery tickets, stacks of cigarette cartons, and boxes of ammo to fit nearly every caliber hunting rifle known to man. And, for those who would rather try their hand at catching (and then releasing) the local supply of brown, rainbow, brook, and lake trout—in addition to the typical eggs, milk, soda, and beer—glass refrigerator cases held plastic containers of nightcrawlers and other live bait. Alongside the cases, a display of nymphs, emergers, and buggers appealed to anglers.

Indeed, even the front porch of the store presented consumers with buying opportunities. Having been transformed into a seasonal outdoor supply section, the rickety floorboards were stocked with flower bulbs, rakes, locally grown pots of chrysanthemums, and bags of autumn fertilizer.

But possibly the most unique facets of the store were a back room filled to the rafters with the finest wines and spirits (including a few bottles of twenty-five-year-old Macallan Scotch priced at ninety dollars each) and a delicatessen counter whose blackboard listed the Hunter’s Special of the Day as roasted turkey breast, arugula, and smoked mozzarella on rosemary and sun-dried tomato foccacia.

Doubtful that such a recipe would ever grace the pages of Field & Stream magazine, Stella could only assume that the Hunter’s Special had been designed to please the thrill-seeking cliff-dwellers and suburbanites who arrived each autumn in their shiny Land Rovers with the latest L. L. Bean hunting gear.

As she and Nick perused the aisles for their bed, Stella found herself grinning at the idea of camo-clad grown men sitting cross-legged on red-and-white-checked blankets, sipping chardonnay, and nibbling, pinkies suspended in midair, on panini. When she imagined those same well-heeled Orvis-shopping sportsmen being forced to spend the night in Ray Johnson’s hunting camp, she nearly laughed out loud.

Laughed out loud, that is, until she literally came face to face— or, more accurately, mouth to forehead—with a hobbitlike woman somewhere in her sixties. Standing just under five feet tall, she wore a pair of ill-fitting corduroy pants and a nubby, multicolored Fair Isle sweater that only served to accentuate her saggy bosom. Her straight, slightly stringy, long white hair not only gave her the appearance of being quite ancient but failed to bring balance to a face permeated by an extremely large nose.

Stifling a scream, Stella reared back in surprise.

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