Chapter 18

  Lucy arrived as Tyler was leaving. She bounced in like she was ready for another day of record-breaking store sales.

  “I made some posters last night about our tech rejuvenation program, and I hope you don’t mind, but I stopped at the library and hung one up. Here’s a copy. I thought I’d hang it up on the front door. Also our famous ‘Urge’ will post about it on social media. I don’t know if you heard about it yet, but Urge has her own social media presence. She posts at semi-regular intervals, recommending books, works of art, and museums that she’d like to visit. She already has set a date to visit the Robert Louis Stevenson Cottage. The day after the baking show ends. They are going to visit the museum and sell books for the morning. But aside from all that, Urge already posted about our free malware cleaning service. I’m afraid I may have jumped the gun, because I don’t know how to do it yet. Any chance you can give me a quick lesson before the store opens for the day? Once you teach me, I’ll teach everyone else."

  “Why didn’t you wait until after the baking show was completed? You guys are really busy."

  “That’s why I didn’t want to wait, because we have a lot of foot traffic and social media about both our store ‘Genre’s’ and ‘Urge to Read.' Urge has become a mascot with hundreds of followers already. I want to capitalize on that popularity and build upon it. It’s one thing to use hippie trappings to build a fan/customer base; it’s quite another to actually live up to those ideals. Recycling tech and giving it away for free, fixing customers' computers for free, no upselling.” She knitted her brows together, waiting for my reply.

  “You know last night, Bianca and I had a discussion about you. Bianca wanted to know why I, the person that is dead set against advertising, likes your ideas so much when they are clearly advanced Wall Street-level manipulation. I told her that I wasn’t against the techniques; it was the intention that mattered to me. Trying to manipulate people to buy fashion, jewelry, or really anything that the market artificially inflates the importance of. So I thought about this last night; I’m not sure you have pondered all the paths that you could walk in this life. AI is set to dominate almost every white-collar job in the country, but one job I think might be safe from AI would be advertising. Even a super intelligent machine is going to have issues figuring out human desire and how to exploit it. You have that baked into your soul. You could make a fortune moving to New York City and working in advertising; it’s something you should consider when you plan out your courses for college. I’ll go get my laptop and show you how to rid a machine of malware.”

  ***

  After showing Lucy the entire process of cleaning malware and checking for viruses, I went out to Urge. I needed to verify some information if possible. It would be great if my hacker had an affinity for paper books; they usually are easier to have open and type at the same time.

  “Hey, Pappy, how’s the head this morning?”

  He gave me a half smile. “It’s fine, Laura; I only had two beers. My taste for beer just isn’t what it used to be.”

  “While you’re here, we have to take you to the Brew House; they have thirty-plus beers on tap, and you pour them for yourself. It’s as much fun to pour as it is to drink. Do you remember selling any more computer books in the last day or so, since I was here to get the “Penetration Testing"?

  "No, sorry, I haven't, but maybe Willow or Phoebe did.”

  Urge was pretty crowded already, with the usual mix of art lovers snapping pictures of the ceiling’s paintings and readers browsing the shelves. I wormed my way to the halfway point, where Phoebe was chatting with a customer about calligraphy.

  Phoebe said to the customer, “No, I’m sorry, I sold my last used copy, but our sister store in Woodstock keeps new editions in stock, or I could take your name and let you know when we get a used copy. I could have the new book shipped to your home; it’d be there tomorrow, or we can have it shipped to Genre's, and you can pick it up here anytime after noon.” She turned to me. “Laura, that’s right, isn’t it? You get your shipments before noon?”

  “Yep, we do, so anytime after twelve, we’d have it sitting here waiting for you. Of course we’ll hold it for you too, so it’s not like you have to rush in to pick it up.”

  The customer looked unsure. “But you are going to come back in the fall to teach a full set of classes?”

  “Yep, as long as we’re still invited.”

  “Phoebe, you guys could move in tomorrow if you wanted to, as far as I’m concerned. But I know that you’ll love the foliage if you come in late September or early October; then by the time that you get home to Woodstock, your trees should be at their peak as well.”

  “I’d like to get the book delivered to her at Genre's. I’ll stop in and pick it up tomorrow.”

  Phoebe walked the woman up and introduced her to Pappy and asked him to order her a book from the Rabbit Hole. Then she came back to where we were standing.

  “I think Willow is going to have to hire more help for the Rabbit Hole,” Phoebe grinned happily. “But something else: we are going to need more used books.”

  “Not to worry, Phoebe, I’ll text Luke and ask him to bring a box from the boathouse. Honestly, I never expected to go through them so fast. Have you had anyone bringing in books to trade for credit?”

  "No, not yet. We haven’t really advertised that we buy books yet. Willow thought we should sell off the overflow stock we have first, then when Genre’s and the Rabbit Hole are cleared out, we’ll start buying. But I can see now that by then it might be too late. We are selling way more than we imagined and also making more money than we need. Willow said you had some ideas to expand on Urge but in a philanthropic direction.” She looked at me questioningly.

  “Yeah, Phoebe, I thought we could get a cheap VW microbus or a panel van if a microbus is a collector’s item. We could outfit two of them as we could afford to, and then we would give away picture books to little kids, and the second bus/van would be used for middle school and high school students; we could go around to the schools and give out banned books. That’s how I met Lucy; she came in looking for a banned book.”

  “Actually the story I heard from the horse's mouth was that Lucy came in to shoplift a book she was too embarrassed to purchase, but you caught her and made a slave of her.”

  “I knew she would have brought it back, after she had read it, no harm, no foul.”

  “I can see the picture books going well and generating plenty of goodwill with parents of young children. But I can also see you getting hauled into court for daring to give controversial books to minors.”

  “Yeah, I thought about that too, but I think that I may have the solution. I’ll have to ask Anais if it is legal or not before we try it out. I won’t have any adults on the van. We’ll use student volunteers to hand out the books. Kids must be able to lend books to other kids, right? Does it matter where the original kid got the book? I think it’s criminal to keep people away from books, but like I say, I need to check with either Anais or Eve or both. Or maybe we don’t even need to wait and get a van. I could rent banned books for ten cents a day. If they never come back, I could just replace them. We wouldn’t have any upfront costs except for the books, and there is no law that I know of that won’t let me do that. We can advertise on social media and the website, and if the kids live too far away to get to the store, we could mail them the book, and they could mail it back. No one could do anything about it until they passed a law that says anyone under eighteen needs parental permission to buy a book. The money that Urge generates that you, Pappy, and Willow don’t want for yourselves could be used to fund the whole project. Also, we should buy storage somewhere for used books, picture books, and banned books. Or I could just finish fixing up the boathouse.”

  “Well sure, that would work; we could have two storage units. Pappy would probably be able to get his friends and build something at the salvage yard. Then if you finish the boathouse, we would be able to fill up at either end-of-line. You’d also have more room for pictures and banned books.”

  “Yes, as soon as this bake-off is over, I’ll call the firemen back and have the building finished. But what I really came to ask was, did you sell any computer books in the past day or so?”

  “I didn't, but a guy did ask me about it—recent computer books. I don’t know much about him either, so I sent them to Willow.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Normal build, brown hair, white. Nice clothes.”

  "Thanks, Phoebe, you’ve been a lot of help.” I realized that I probably should have started with Willow; she is the Woodstock go-to for tech help. However, by the time that it had occurred to me, I was already waiting behind a customer who was speaking with Willow. I wouldn’t be able to wait for long; I might just have to come back. In fact, that is just what I did. I didn’t want to rush Willow’s customer, and I wanted to be in the tent for the special Boot Off segment. According to Roberta, two of the bakers would be sent home during this segment.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  ***

  I arrived at the tent in the nick of time; Roberta had just started speaking, so it’s with a heavy heart that we must say a fond farewell to two wonderful bakers. The first baker going home today is Nora Fischer. Nora’s baking specialty is pies, but unfortunately for her, we haven’t had a pie challenge yet. But be sure to get to the Essex County Fair later this summer. Where Nora is heavily favored to win the pie-baking contest for a record-breaking sixth time.”

  They had a quiche challenge just the other day; that is about as close to pie as can be, right? But it certainly is a surprise; a few people told me they expected Nora to go all the way, and here she is, the first one out.

  Roberta continued; her words were all about how much we all would miss the bakers who were departing. But she didn’t bring any emotion to her speech, making those empathetic words just sound hollow and slightly ridiculous. I’d hate to be the editor for this show. Maybe they can fix it in post. It seems to me this entire show is going to have to be redone in post.

  Roberta droned on in her monotone voice. I wonder if the very worst reality TV show was being shot on our grounds. We would become infamous for the site where ‘that TV show’ was made. “Yes, it’s very sad that the second baker going home this week is Tyler Wojcik. Tyler is a professional chef and amateur baker. His flavors were excellent, but the judges all feel that he could use a little more experience.”

  Wow, that was a shock; almost everyone had expected Tyler to go to the finale. It was too bad; he was a nice young man. I wouldn’t have minded if Lucas had been sent home. Well, it looked now like Tyler wouldn’t be getting his trip to Paris and a French patisserie school.

  “Let’s give them both a round of applause and our thanks for being here.” Two cameramen: one stood in Nora’s kitchen recording her reaction to losing, and the other camera was focused on Tyler. To their credit, they both took the boot off stoically, which to my mind was much better than breaking down on camera. I’m sure the director would have preferred a show of emotion. That might be good for ratings, but I doubt it would have been good for the contestants. Better to lose with your head held high and wish your former opponents good luck.

  There was a long and awkward silence before finally the director yelled, "Cut."

  “There will be a fifteen-minute break for contestants to change their shirts, and then we will start our next challenge immediately. DON’T BE LATE,” Roberta shouted.

  Tyler grinned at me and shrugged his shoulders; he didn’t really look heartbroken to be going home. He had seemed like a likable young man. I hope that his futures endeavors go better than this bake off has. Nora looked pretty shocked, as was I, but she just walked off the stage and up the driveway, walking quickly off the property. I wondered if all of the bakers would be reassembled for the final episode. That seems to be the standard for shows like Amazing Race, Survivor, and The Great British Bake Off. But those are the only reality shows I’ve ever watched, so I’m really not too sure what returning player etiquette is.

  I thought Tyler might willingly return; he certainly didn’t look upset about losing, but Nora had vacated the area pretty quickly, without a word to anyone. She might take some convincing to come back.

  I wondered if any of the remaining bakers would have preferred going home or if the chance of winning the one hundred grand still made them think that this was all worth it. While we waited for the bakers to come back to the stage with new clothes and pretend that hours had passed. I went over to chat with Amy. Who was sitting at the judges' table with the mayor?

  “Amy, that was a real surprise. I have been interviewing all the contestants, and I always ask who they expect to win. Nora and Tyler are the only two people who have been mentioned up till now.”

  “They both were doing extremely well until that last challenge. It was too much for each of them. Having to bake two separate recipes at the same time. Which surprised me. I would have thought that Tyler would have been used to cooking and baking multiple dishes at once; as a chef, he would have to do that almost every day. Something must have distracted him.”

  “He did ask me if Bobby was dating anyone when I interviewed him, so maybe that’s what happened.”

  “It’s a shame that Nora left when she did; the next challenge is a pie. She might have done really well with that; it wasn’t an apple pie though, so maybe she would wind up going home anyway.”

  The bakers started to trickle onto the stage and go back to their respective kitchen islands. Roberta, who had been speaking with the director, went back to the center of the stage as soon as the last baker appeared, even before Niall had made it back to his station. Roberta began describing the next challenge.

  "Bakers, your next challenge is a summer favorite of mine. We'd like you all to make two perfect Key lime pies. You have forty-five minutes, and your crusts must be homemade graham cracker, and your filling should be creamy and smooth. Your time starts now.”

  The bakers scurried into action. I love key lime pie; actually, I love just about every kind of pie, but key lime is right up there with lemon meringue, which is just slightly behind cherry pie. I would have killed Washington if he had been my kid and chopped down my cherry tree. I watched with interest as the bakers assembled their pies; I never knew that you could make a pie from scratch in such a short amount of time.

  I watched as they cracked their eggs and poured some liquids into their bowls, then whisked away for a few minutes before pouring their filling into the pie plates and popping the pies into their ovens. There was less than twenty minutes left in the challenge, and everyone had both of their pies baking.

  Roberta warned them when there were just ten minutes left and again at the five-minute-to-go mark. The tent smelled wonderful, like a tropical paradise. I’ll bet no one ever thought that before about Lake Placid.

  "Bakers, please bring both of your pies up to the judge’s table to be judged.”

  It was the usual silent, judging affair. Roberta’s face never changed; you would think she was being forced to eat raw lemons, not being fed delicious-smelling baked goods. The mayor had a big smile on his face as he ate. He might not know anything about baking, but the man knew what he liked to eat; you have to give him that much. Amy smiled and nodded at each of the bakers as they served her slices of their pies.

  I later learned that the reason they baked two pies was because the judges wanted identical-looking pies; that was fifty percent of the score. The other fifty percent was based on the flavor and texture of the pie itself.

  After the judging was completed, Roberta told the bakers that the next challenge would begin in one hour. I went right away to Grace’s station; she was the last baker I needed to interview.

  "Grace, I was hoping you could spare me twenty minutes; you are the last baker I need to interview.”

  “Laura, I was hoping for a little downtime before the next challenge, not being grilled.”

  I grinned at her. “I was hoping to do it down on the dock; it’s quiet, private, has the best view in Lake Placid, and if you get hot, you can even put your feet in the water. No grilling, I promise. It’s either now or after your next challenge. The director needs background on all of the bakers; you're the last.”

  “Fine, let's just get this over with.”

  Grace is the only baker that pushed back at all about being interviewed. I hadn’t thought of her so much as a suspect as a victim that got caught up in a bee attack. But no one had actually seen any bees. Only Grace. We walked in silence down to the dock, while I considered that.

  Once we were comfortably seated in the lawn chairs, I opened with a simple enough question.

  "Grace,dock while what do you do for a living?”

  “I write scripts for video game characters so that the characters appear real. When the player character speaks to an NPC, I’m the one who programs the NPC on what to say and do in a variety of situations. Early video games would have a standard response, and every time you spoke to the NPC, you would get the same stock reply. I use machine learning to make the characters more realistic and less mechanical.”

  “That’s great. I’ve played a lot of computer RPGs, and that has always been a major defect for computer versus tabletop, where you can do and say anything. Is your company around here? I didn’t realize we had any game developers in the area."

  “No, it’s Troy, but I work remotely. I only have to go into the office once or twice a month.”

  “That’s wonderful. How did you find the job? Did you work for another game company?”

  "No, a friend from college started it while they were still in school. He thought he’d be able to handle full-time game development while finishing his degree. He couldn't, but the money was too good to ignore, so he dropped out, and when I left school, he asked me to join. I agreed, but I didn’t want to stay in Troy, so I made a deal that I’d work remotely.” She leaned back easily in her chair. She liked talking about computers; it seems she was not as hostile as she was in the tent. But I was about to poke the bear, but I was going to try and ask obliquely if possible.

  “Did you graduate from RPI then, or did you leave early to pursue your career?”

  At first she started to answer, then her eyes narrowed, and she stared at me hard. I thought maybe she would get up and walk away. But instead she answered. “I graduated after three years; I had some college credits I earned the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. My friend offered me the job with his company the day I graduated. He offered me ten percent, and I went deeper in debt each semester, so I thought it would be prudent to take the percentage. Sometimes games sell for millions of dollars. My original plan was to go for a master's and then a doctorate, but plans change.”

  I was lucky that she replied, so I stopped pushing and tried to lull her back to a feeling of security. “When did you start baking, and who inspired you to start?”

  She seemed surprised that I didn’t continue poking at RPI but also let out a long, slow breath. “My mom taught me to bake; I think I was around eight when we first baked together. Her mother had taught her back in China when she was a little girl.”

  I want to lull her a bit more; I want her to think that RPI question was just me getting background. “So what do you think of the challenges so far?”

  “I was very disappointed in the beginning; the first couple of challenges were no challenge at all. I don’t know who made them up, but I’m glad they found someone who knows how to bake to come up with the new challenges. They are fair and tough. Yesterday when we had to do two bakes at once, that was pretty intense. I’m also really surprised that it was Taylor and Nora who were sent home.”

  That was downright chatty of her; she must be feeling more comfortable. “Had you ever met Roberta or Bobby before your interview for the show?"

  She looked right at me and said, “No, I hadn’t.”

  “What about the other bakers? Did you know any of them or meet any before moving into the inn?"

  “No, I didn’t.” But she couldn’t look at me; instead, she studied the water by the dock, as if it was very interesting. She was lying; there was no doubt in my mind.

  “What will you do with the prize money if you win?”

  “I don’t expect to win, but the money would go a long way towards clearing my student debt.”

  “Grace, your bee sting, did you go for any medical care, and how is it feeling now?”

  “It’s fine; I was more embarrassed than anything else. I acted so childishly; I’m sorry. It was completely fine by the next day.”

  Here we go; depending on how she answers this, I’ll know if she is the attempted murderer or not. “Friday night did you see any bees flying around the tent?”

  “Yes, I saw them flying around, but I didn’t think they would sting anyone.”

  “Grace, why did you attempt to murder Professor Malone?”