Granddad.”
“So what’s your grandmother Donna like?”
Jack shook his head. “Grans is the opposite of Sara in every way.”
“Except in her love of Wyatt men.”
“No.” Jack held up a big avocado. “Not really. Roy was her favorite. Granddad and I were a bit of a nuisance to her.”
“The baddest boys get loved,” she murmured. “Anyway, back to Alastair.”
“Again.” Jack headed toward the big glass seafood case, Kate close behind him.
“Do you think Cheryl would have been interested in Alastair?”
“Maybe. I was eleven; Stewart was a senior. We didn’t exactly share lunches. But my guess is that all females like him. He called dibs on you ten minutes after you arrived and you said yes, yes, yes.”
She ignored his statement. “You knew Cheryl. Who was her type? What fish do you want?”
“Sara likes the red snapper. Get whatever you want.”
“Right. Real men eat whatever is put in front of them.”
“Now who’s being a Mean Girl?”
“Me!”
She spoke with so much delight that Jack laughed as he waited for her to give the order to the fishmonger.
They got shrimp and scallops as well as the fish, then started going up and down the aisles. Jack vetoed whole wheat pasta, calling it “extruded tile grout.”
They were at the canned goods before he answered her question. “I don’t know what kind of man Cheryl liked. I sure as hell wanted to be whatever it was. One day I showed up wearing one of Roy’s leather motorcycle jackets and she thought it was funny.”
“You were so cute that it would have been.”
Jack groaned. “Cute. The death word for a man’s libido.” He put three cans of artichoke hearts in the cart. “If Cheryl liked Alastair Stewart, I never heard a hint of it. If I had, I definitely would have dyed my hair to look like his.”
“What about Dan Bruebaker?”
“I don’t remember him specifically. All those football guys hung out together. In their eyes, we little kids didn’t exist.”
“And when you were a senior, were you the same way?”
“Oh, yeah. My one and only year of being king of my realm.” He ignored Kate’s snort. “Have you learned anything that points to a murderer?”
“No. It’s getting worse. Suspects are piling on top of each other.” They were in the paper aisle and she was filling the bottom shelf of the cart. “Why wouldn’t her boyfriend acknowledge a hottie like Cheryl?” When Jack didn’t answer, she looked at him. “Oh. Her mother. He wouldn’t have wanted to be associated with them—might’ve affected his reputation.”
Jack nodded in agreement.
Kate paused with a big pack of paper towels in her hand. “I wonder who started the gossip? Who inflamed it? Who kept it going?”
“Yet another good question that we don’t have an answer for.” He took the towels from her, put them in the cart and started moving.
“Cheryl wanted to do better in life—but she felt she had to do it here in Lachlan. I think there was someone in this town who made her want to stay.”
“And Verna was the same way. She could have left town,” Jack said. “I mean, she had a good job in a big city but she gave it up to return to Lachlan. Why?”
Kate was putting packets of bacon in the cart and she halted. “I don’t remember hearing about her having a good job and giving it up.”