Don't Die Under the Apple Tree by Amy Patricia Meade Page B

scaffold to meet Nelson for their thirty-minute lunch break.
    Kilbride watched her in confusion. “Hmph. That’s not the reaction I expected. Not the reaction I expected from that one at all.”

Chapter Nine
    While her sister shuttled back and forth across the narrow boards of scaffolding that lined Pushey Shipyard’s Pier Number One, a few blocks away Katherine Brigid Doyle Williams pushed her son’s baby carriage down the uneven cement sidewalk that led to Simonetti’s Butcher Shop.
    Wearing a robin’s-egg blue dress that played perfectly against her blue eyes and fair complexion, Katie wondered whether or not her plan would succeed. Would she enter the butcher shop to find a flock of women speaking, in hushed voices, about the “accident”? (Accidents. That’s what people tended to call murders or suicides while in polite company, wasn’t it?) Would they allow her to listen in on their conversation? Or would they snub her as an outsider?
    And what if there was no talk going on? What if the locals chose to treat Finch’s death with quiet respect? What would she say or do to start conversation? And moreover, what should she say or do in order to move that conversation toward the subject of Finch?
    As Katie neared the shop she felt her heart begin to race. Although pleasant and cheerful, she had never been particularly outgoing. Growing up, Rosie typically spoke on behalf of her younger sister, informing their mother that Katie wanted lemonade instead of milk, or complaining to Katie’s first-grade teacher about the boy who constantly pulled her sister’s hair.
    Then, after Rosie, came Jimmy. Tall, strong, and blue-eyed, but with the thick dark hair of the black Irish, James Dermot Williams was the life of every party. Always quick with a joke or a humorous anecdote, he could charm even the most difficult individuals and had a way of putting those around him at ease. All Katie needed to do was prompt Jimmy, and doors, as well as mouths, opened.
    As Katie tilted the carriage up and back in order to scale the store’s front step, she whispered a small prayer to her late husband. “Jimmy, if you’re watching, I could really use your gift of gab right now.”
    Just then, a woman emerged from the butcher shop. She was in her late forties to early fifties and—from the small felt hat with veil that rested atop her perfectly coiffed dark blond hair to the low-heeled leather pumps that covered her stocking feet—dressed from head to toe in black. Dabbing at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, she hurriedly pushed past Katie, jostling Charlie’s carriage in the process.
    The bump sent the carriage rolling backward, off the step, awakening the sleeping child inside and prompting him to cry.
    â€œSorry,” the woman in black said absently before taking off down the street.
    â€œWell ... I ... umm ... that’s okay,” a flustered Katie stammered.
    An olive-skinned man in a white butcher’s coat appeared in the doorway. “I’m sorry, miss,” he apologized with a faint trace of an Italian accent.
    â€œOh, that’s all right, it’s not your fault.” She tipped the carriage up and back in another attempt to scale the step.
    â€œStill, I am very sorry.” He held the door open to allow her admittance. “She should not have done that. But Mrs. Finch, she’s been through a terrible shock.”
    â€œMrs. Finch?” Such was Katie’s astonishment, that she let the carriage drop again, causing Charlie to cry louder. “The ... . the one in the paper?”
    â€œSì. Let me ’elp.” He reached down and lifted the front of the carriage through the open doorway.
    Katie lifted up the handle end of the carriage and followed him inside. Although Simonetti’s shop occupied two storefronts, the L-shaped counters (one refrigerated, the other lined with scales and chopping blocks) and