Run: 2026-09-02-01M1GRT79VYPDWCG5M2BPDAYW1

The bell above the door jingled, and Marjorie Penn shook rain off her umbrella, breathing in cinnamon and warm sugar. "You're out of maple bars again." "I hide them from you. Well? You didn't trudge through the rain for small talk." "Everyone's talking about poor Eugene. Harold Wexler was arguing with him at the pie-judging tent, and the chief's car sat outside Harold's hardware store till midnight." "Harold doesn't own a hardware store." "His brother does. Nobody in Willow Creek lets a little thing like that slow down a good rumor." "Mm. Hand me that tray? And keep your voice down — Dottie's in the back frosting the Henderson wedding cake, and that woman hears everything twice." "Well, I heard the chief found flour footprints by the boathouse. Fancy shoes, too, they're saying. As if somebody strolled through your kitchen and straight down to the lake." "Half the town carries my flour home on their shoes. Although..." The oven timer shrieked, and a mitt closed around the tray. "Nobody who works in this kitchen owns shoes that expensive." "So it was somebody with money. Which rules out most of Willow Creek." "Or somebody who wants us thinking exactly that. Here — maple bar, on the house. Now tell me exactly what time you saw Harold."