Salvaged to Death by Vanessa Gray Bartal Page B

He tossed a glance toward Sadie and Hal. Sadie was pleased to see that he didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked a little desperate. The evil part of her hoped Vaslilssa loaded up on all the garlic, horseradish, and limburger cheese the Bateman Cheese House had to offer.
    “I don’t get why he’s still with her,” Hal said. 
    “I think he stays with her out of habit. Once Luke gets settled in a pattern, it takes something cataclysmic to jolt him out of it.”
    “Maybe we should hit him over the head a few times and see if it works as a reset button. Do you know how many sausages she ate this morning? I don’t because my abacus doesn’t go that high. What does he see in her? Okay, she’s gorgeous and a whiz at quantum physics, but…wait I forgot the question. Maybe I should tell him I want her. He would probably give her to me.”
    “Do you want her?” Sadie asked. Maybe Hal had a secret crush on Vaslilssa, one he hid well so Luke wouldn’t know.
    “Who wouldn’t?” Hal said. His tone was evasive, and she began to worry that he did have a secret crush on Luke’s girlfriend. That would be awkward. They were about to enter the town’s only market. She put her hand on his arm and drew him to a halt.
    “Hal, you don’t actually have a thing for Vaslilssa, do you?”
    “Oh, honey, I couldn’t afford the food bill,” Hal said. He slung an arm around Sadie’s shoulders and they entered the store together.

Chapter 8
     
     
    As they had in Atwood, the occupants of the store came to a standstill and stared at Sadie and Hal in silence.
    “Can they smell Atwood on us or is this a customary greeting in Virginia?” Hal whispered.
    Finally a cashier spoke. “Y’all reporters?”
    Sadie opened her mouth to answer and closed it again. If she had her way, she would pretend to be a reporter and use it as an opening to question everyone. She had handed the reins to Hal, however. Even though she hadn’t intended him to take point for the entire case, Luke’s goading had worked to make her prove that she could give up control once in a while. She trusted Hal. Mostly.
    “No, I’m the one who discovered the dead body,” he said.
    There was another silence as people began creeping closer to hear his story. They looked more like employees than customers. As far as Sadie could tell, they were the only non-workers in the store.
    “What’d it look like?” the cashier asked.
    “Are you familiar with the lard rendering process?” Hal asked.
    She wrinkled her nose. “No.”
    “It’s best you remain that way,” Hal said.
    “How’d you find it?” The man who asked the question wore a blood-soaked smock. Either he was a butcher, or he was a killer looking for trade secrets. Sadie hoped for the former.
    “I was doing some investigative work in the area when I stumbled across it. I followed my nose. It was like the world’s worst Fruit Loops commercial,” Hal said.
    “What kind of investigative work?” the cashier asked.
    “I can’t say—professional ethics—let’s just say it was big, bigger than any case I’ve worked before. And now I have a murder to solve.” Hal was being uncharacteristically brash. Sadie wondered what his angle was before she remembered that she had told him the people here respected authority. Obviously he was setting himself up as the world’s greatest detective, and it was working. The group gathered tighter as if one of them might reach out and touch the hem of his coat soon.
    “But they say Tom did it. I heard they arrested him,” the butcher said.
    “Do you think he did it?” Hal asked. His head tipped to the side, expressing his earnest curiosity. The butcher puffed importantly and cast his eyes heavenward as he thought.
    “Well, Tom’s got a mighty temper, and he’s the head of our local law. It’s possible he might have killed before. Lots of people have come up missing and everybody knows they was probably murdered.” “Everybody” came out sounding like