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mind.”
    The bell on Jo’s door jingled as more customers arrived. Ina Mae wandered off toward the knitting section as someone asked Jo for a particular fabric paint. Then another woman wanted help tracking down all the materials Jo had used to make “that lovely autumn wreath you have hanging on the door. I just have to see if I can duplicate it.” That pleased Jo, but she realized she’d better call Carrie fast and hope she could get down in a hurry. She still felt befuddled, trying to cope with the fact that instead of morguelike, her business was lively and bustling. But why should that be?
    Little by little, she began to understand. With every purchase of paint, or dried flowers, or picture frames, came variations of the same questions: How terrible was it finding that poor man? Was there an awful lot of blood? What actually happened?
    Jo fielded the curiosity as best she could while ringing up the sales, but one eager face was quickly replaced by another. Then they came in twos and threes, all waiting wide-eyed for the answers that she didn’t particularly want to give, that she hemmed and hawed over to find the vaguest response, while it sank in that the big draw today was not Jo’s lovely craft items, but Jo’s horrifying yet—to the customers, at least—exciting story.
    Carrie showed up soon, and Jo saw her encountering the same problem. How did he look? What did the police say? Carrie seemed to be handling it better than Jo, but Jo could see it begin to wear on her as well. The upside was they were doing terrific sales. The downside was wondering how quickly these customers would fade away once their morbid curiosity was satisfied.
    Ina Mae was the only one, Jo noticed, who didn’t probe for information. She even pulled a customer off when Jo was being particularly hard-pressed.
    “Deirdre Patterson,” Ina Mae exclaimed at one point, “let this poor woman do her work! She’s had enough talking about this unfortunate business.”
    Deirdre Patterson was obviously not one of Ina Mae’s power walkers. A forty something woman who looked dressed for lunch with the girls in a green silk pant suit complete with pearls and pumps, she bristled at Ina Mae’s words, protesting, “I was only trying to offer my sympathy for a very unfortunate occurrence. Many people find it helps, you know, to talk about stressful things. Don’t you find it so?” she turned to Jo, beaming an encouraging smile.
    Jo was rescued from having to answer by Ina Mae, who simply but firmly changed the subject. “Carrie thinks this blue tweed wool will work for the sweater I want to make for my ten-year-old grandson. What do you think, Jo?”
    Jo, who knew little about yarns, picked up the skein and held it out speculatively, turning it about with several studied “hmms.”
    “Well, I’ll just be on my way,” Deirdre said, and grabbed her package. As she left, Ina Mae leaned closer to Jo. “Deirdre’s married to our state senator, Alden Patterson. She quit working when she married him, but she could probably use a few more things in her life to keep herself occupied. Things besides other people’s business.”
    Jo checked the sign-up sheet Deirdre had just returned to her. “I see she signed up for our wreath-making workshop, so I guess that’s a start.”
    “Did she? Well, I never figured her for a craft person, but sometimes people surprise you. I’m coming to that one too, along with one or two of my friends. Looking forward to it.”
    Jo smiled at this no-nonsense woman. Until now, Jo had been wondering how many registrants would actually show up. Now she pictured Ina Mae personally rounding them all up and hustling them into the shop like a mother hen with her chicks. What did Jo ever do to deserve someone like her? More important, how could she keep her around?
     
    Traffic slowed down around lunchtime, and after Jo finished ringing up a sale for a man whose wife sent him to pick up refills for her glue gun, she called