Wisconsin Wedding (Welcome To Tyler, No. 3) Read Online Free

and a womanknown for her sewing expertise, was occupied sorting a new shipment of buttons. Nora didn’t blame her for not rushing to the quilting ladies’ assistance; they knew their way around the department and would likely chatter on until the store’s closing at six.
    Inger Hansen sniffed. “In my opinion, the police are dragging their heels. No one wants to confront the real possibility that it’s Margaret Ingalls they found out at the lake.”
    “Now, Inger,” Rose said patiently, “we don’t know for sure it’s Margaret. The body hasn’t even been identified yet as male or female.”
    “Oh, it’s Margaret all right.”
    Martha Bauer discarded the wrong shade of off-white thread. “And what if it is?” She looked uncomfortable and a little pale. “That could mean…”
    Inger jumped right in. “It could mean Margaret Ingalls was murdered.”
    “My heavens,” Martha breathed.
    “I never did think she ran away,” Inger added, although in all the years Nora had known her she’d never given such an indication. “It just wasn’t like Margaret to slip out of town in the cloak of darkness.”
    Rose Atkins inhaled, clearly upset by such talk, and moved to the counter with a small, rolled piece of purple calico she’d found on the bargain table. “Why, Nora, I didn’t see you. How are you?”
    “Just fine, Mrs. Atkins. Here, let me take that for you.”
    Off to their left, Martha Bauer and Inger Hansen continued their discussion of the Body at the Lake. “Now, you can think me catty,” Inger said, “but I, for one, have always wondered what Judson Ingalls knew about his wife’s disappearance. I’m not accusing him of anything untoward, of course, but I do think—and have thought for fortyyears—that it’s strange he’s hardly lifted a finger to find her in all this time. He could certainly afford to hire a dozen private detectives, but he hasn’t.”
    “Oh, stop.” Martha snatched up a spool of plain white all-cotton thread in addition to her off-white. “Margaret left him a note saying she was leaving him. Why should he have put himself and Alyssa through the added turmoil of looking for a wife who’d made it plain she wanted nothing more to do with him? No, I think he did the right thing in putting the matter behind him and carrying on with his life. What else could he have done? And in my opinion, that’s not Margaret they found out at the lake.”
    Inger tucked a big bag of cotton batting under one arm. “Of course, I don’t like to gossip, but whoever it was, I can’t see Liza Baron and that recluse getting married with this dark cloud hanging over their heads. You’d think they’d wait.”
    “Oh, Inger,” Martha said, laughing all of a sudden. “Honestly. Why should Liza put her life on hold? Now, would you look at this lovely gabardine?” Deftly she changed the subject.
    Nora took two dollars from Rose Atkins for her fabric scrap. As had been the custom at Gates since it opened its doors seventy years ago, Nora tucked the receipt and Rose’s money into a glass-and-brass tube, which she then tucked into a chute to be pneumatically sucked up to the third floor office. There the head clerk would log the sale and send back the receipt and any change. None of the salesclerks handled any cash, checks or credit cards. The system was remarkablely fast and efficient, contributing an old-fashioned charm to the store that its customers seemed to relish.
    “Everybody’s gone to computers these days,” Rose commented. “It’s such a relief to come in here and nothave anything beep at me. Have you seen those light wands that read price stickers?” She shuddered; the world had changed a lot in Rose Atkins’s long life. “You’ve no plans to switch to something like that, have you?”
    “None at all.”
    That much Nora could say with certainty. In her opinion, computers didn’t go with Gates’s original wood-and-glass display cases, its Tiffany ceilings, its sweeping