Official Town Business (Fox & Oakby Murder Mysteries Book I)

Grass and Pantry

Imogen agreed to join Mrs. Harris for lunch. Normally, Imogen would politely refuse such offer from the woman, not that Imogen had been invited often. Mrs. Harris was constantly on some complicated diets, and her choices of places to eat terrified Imogen. Mrs. Harris was also just a tad too nosey. But today Mrs. Harris was dying to share information, and not fish for one - while Imogen was inclined to listen.

"She was driving that preposterous white car of hers!" Mrs. Harris started her report as soon as the entrance door of the Mayor House closed behind them. "Who'd heard of a snow white car? Did you know she had everything either in white or black? Except that appalling red lipstick she wore. I told my sister many times, 'Not with this skin tone, she shouldn't!" It made her look so sickly!"

Mrs. Harris unlocked her car, and Imogen climbed in.

"And I'm sure the Town Hall will hear no end of it! How the road was unsafe, and how the fence of the Mallow Farm had broken down... But she drove like a maniac!" Mrs. Harris continued, showing not much more moderation in her own driving. Imogen sank her nails into the door handle. "Have I told you she once almost ran me over?" Mrs. Harris scoffed. "On the Daisy Lane, I was coming out of the book shop, the one that belongs to poor Mrs. Sanders. And she just jumped from around the corner! In a residential area!"

Mrs. Harris floored her accelerator, and Imogen thought that perhaps whatever knowledge Mrs. Harris had was not worth losing one's life over.

"There will be no peace now!" Mrs. Harris mournfully shook her head, and Imogen suppressed a squeaky plea to the woman to keep her eyes on the road. "With her husband being this big businessman; all that money; and her father-in-law with all his ancestors, and the family crest, and owing half the town..." The woman sighed. "If only it could somehow be proven that it was her fault, and not the road!"

They finally arrived at a café, and Imogen threw a sad look at the picture of a moronically smiling carrot hugging a beetroot on the window. Bunny food again, Imogen thought in dread - and she was right.

"Welcome to Raw Energy Café!" A person of indistinguishable gender and age - and clearly, unaware of the existence of combs or razors - greeted them, and they were seated.

Imogen looked into the menu on the wall - decorated with a drawing of a smirking broccoli - and wistfully thought of the wonderfully aromatic box a delivery boy had carried by her when she was picking up her coat to go out of the office. It said Willy's Fish & Chips on it, and Imogen could bet its contents were now in the Mayor's stomach, making him very content and warm. Imogen doubted 'a kale salad with pine nuts and raspberry vinegar (no oil)' was going to have the same effect on her.

"I just can imagine how relieved the pupils will be." Mrs. Harris took a sip of her carrot juice. "She treated them most poorly! And her colleagues as well! She thought she was invincible, hiding behind her husband and his family. Missed classes, and almost every Friday, mind you! Trips to some beaches in the middle of a term, and then she'd come back, tanned, and with new diamond earrings! Much good they will do now." 

Imogen cringed from the venom in the woman's voice. Imogen liked gossip - she knew that much about herself - and that's why she always tried to stay away from situations, which would give her a chance to tell or listen to any. She had initiated this 'dirty laundry washing' session herself, but she wasn't enjoying it a bit. There was just too much malice in Mrs. Harris' words for Imogen to ignore.

"I agree with you she had been unfair to her students sometimes... but no one deserves such death. Or any death for that matter." 

Imogen gave Mrs. Harris a firm stare, and the woman pressed her head into her shoulders. Ordering, Imogen had poked into the menu randomly, and was now waiting for her 'carrot patties with soy sour cream.' Mrs. Harris sat in silence, pouting.