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- Mary Ellen Hughes
License to Dill Page 3
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Chatter and bustle resumed, but Piper stood silently by. What had turned the mood of the day so downward for Gerald Standley? Who was this Italian man Conti, and how did Standley, a dill farmer who never traveled farther than Manhattan for the annual Christmas pageant at Radio City Music Hall, happen to know him?
She shook her head. Too many questions to ponder as her newly purchased milk grew warm and her shop awaited opening. She predicted that an answer or three or four would be offered during the day as word of the morning’s excitement spread its usual small-town way through Cloverdale. As she headed back to her car she knew the only remaining question was how long it would take.
3
It took, by Piper’s watch, exactly one hour and thirteen minutes for the first person to pop into Piper’s Picklings with “news” of the incident at the soccer field. That person happened to be Emma Leahy, a generally no-nonsense woman in her sixties who’d heard about it from her next-door neighbor. That neighbor’s teenage son had apparently been on the scene. As she listened to Emma’s version, Piper began to have serious doubts about the teenager’s ability to process information. Either that, or there was a future ahead of him in fiction writing.
“The minute the Italian team arrived, the coaches started shouting at each other,” Emma claimed. “One of the Italians actually swung at our men, and it would have turned into a terrible brawl except that Jared and his friends stepped in.”
Ah! Jared wrote himself in as hero and graciously included his friends.
“There’s a tiny bit of exaggeration there, Mrs. Leahy,” Piper said and shared her own, eyewitness version. Emma Leahy seemed disappointed with the less dramatic account but took it with good grace. She ended up purchasing a set of decorative glass canning jars for her Christmas jellies and went on her way.
The next “newsperson” to stop in was Erin Healy, one of Amy’s good friends. “Did you hear what happened at the high school?” Erin asked, looking distressed, but in her own quiet way, with her already-large brown eyes opened wide. Before Piper could answer, Erin shared an account that was nearly as off-kilter as Mrs. Leahy’s, minus action from teenage heroes.
“One of the Italian coaches turned up his nose at our facilities and immediately called the tournament off. Mr. Standley was so upset he started having chest pains, and they had to carry him into the school and call an ambulance. The whole thing’s turned into a terrible mess!”
“Last I saw of Mr. Standley,” Piper said, “he was walking away from the Italian team’s bus under his own power. A little upset, but as far as I could tell, in good health. I’m pretty sure the tournament is still on.”
“Oh, I’m so glad! But what was Mr. Standley upset about?”
“I don’t know. There was nothing obvious, like insults traded or anything like that.”
“Well, then that’s very odd.” She gave Piper an impish smile. “Another mystery?”
“If it is,” Piper said, shaking her head, “I expect it will be solved very soon. Once, that is, all the misinformation gets cleared up.” Piper reached for a jar on the counter behind her. “Will you be seeing Ben today? He asked if I had any plum sauce, and I set this aside for him.”
“I was going to stop by his office, so I’ll be glad to drop that off.” Erin’s cheeks turned a becoming pink. “Ben’s been experimenting with Chinese cooking. I think he wants to make mu shu pork for us using the sauce.”
“Sounds good.” Piper had watched Ben’s near obsession with Amy gradually fade as Erin quietly made clear her own interest in him. It helped that Amy was obviously head over heels for Nate and he for her. Piper herself didn’t quite understand the attraction of Ben, who, she felt, took himself and his auxiliary police volunteerism far too seriously. But if Erin thought he was wonderful, that was all that mattered.
In the next few hours, visitors continued to pop in to Piper’s Picklings and offer increasingly dramatic versions of the happenings at the school, and Piper had no doubt hers wasn’t their only stop. She offered occasional corrections to lessen the spread of wild rumors but had yet to hear a reason for Gerald Standley’s odd reaction. Then, around midafternoon, as Piper tidied up a shelf, humming along with a lively Gilbert and Sullivan tune coming from her radio, Gil Williams, proprietor of the new-and-used bookstore next door, stopped in.
“I’ve been invited to a dinner tonight,” he said. “A last-minute fill-in to even up the table, no doubt, and am in need of a hostess gift. Can you suggest something tasty from your stock?”
Piper smiled at the thought of this genial, sixty-something neighbor being a last-minute fill-in. With his voracious reading habits, Gil Williams was such a font of interesting tales, all related with such wit, that she was sure he must be the most sought-after dinner guest in town.
“Any idea of what they might be serving?”
“None whatsoever. The tastes of these particular friends are quite eclectic.”
“Hmm. Then maybe something your hosts can enjoy later on would be best.” Piper pulled out a jar from the jellies and jams section. “What do you think of a raspberry jam with mint and lavender? Amy and I cooked this up about a month ago. Besides raspberries, it has Granny Smith apples, fresh lavender blossoms, and a touch of lemon juice.”
“I think it sounds like I should take two—one for my hosts and another for myself.”
Piper grinned and took down a second jar. As she bagged them, Gil said, “I presume you’ve been getting the same flood of comments on this morning’s incident at the school that I have?”
Piper sighed. “Absolutely. And I’ve had to set plenty of informants straight since I happened to be on the scene myself.”
“Well then! Perhaps you can confirm or deny that the meeting of the two teams came to blows?”
“Denied.” Piper related what she had observed, that Gerald Standley appeared to recognize one of the Italians, possibly the team manager, and had called out his name in shock and with definite distaste. “The Italian,” she said, “seemed unsurprised to see Mr. Standley. In fact, he looked amused when Standley stomped away.”
“Hmm. You said Gerald called out the man’s name. What was it?”
Piper thought for a moment. “Conti.” When Gil nodded, she asked, “Why? Do you know him?”
“I think so. It was many years ago, at least thirty, but I think he must be the same man. Gerald Standley hasn’t had problems with very many people.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so. He’s been wonderful to deal with as my dill supplier, and I’ve heard others say only good things about him. So who is this Italian?”
Gil sank onto a tall stool Piper kept handy for customers. He adjusted the brown, elbow-patched cardigan that often served as his work uniform and said, “Raffaele Conti was an exchange student here in Cloverdale back when he and Gerald were both in high school.”
“Oh,” Piper said, mulling over what that might mean.
“I remember,” Gil said, “because, for one thing, it was quite unusual to have an exchange student in our small town. But Conti himself caused his own stir during the year he was here.”
“Who was his host family?”
“The Andersons. They’ve since moved to California where their daughter now lives. She was away in college at the time, and I suspect Tom and Joy were feeling a bit of empty nest syndrome. They probably thought having a teenager in the house again would help fill the void, but I don’t think they were prepared for what they got.”
“Sounds intriguing,” Piper said. “What exactly did they get?”
“Well, as I said, it was many years ago and the details have faded. But despite coming across as a rather charming fellow, Raffaele tended to generate plenty of negative feelings. I do remember the boy was quite good at soccer and was initially welcomed onto the school team. But he managed to alienate his teammates fairly quickly.”
“In what way?”
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“The trouble apparently came from his expecting star treatment, along with being a bit of what they called a ‘ball hog.’ Maybe a lot of one. His teammates—and Gerald Standley was one—didn’t consider themselves slouches in the game and I’m sure weren’t enamored of being treated as simply backup support to this newcomer.”
“Didn’t their coach put a stop to it?”
Gil ran fingers through his thinning white hair, returning it to its usual semiwild look. “He should have, definitely. But Conti was scoring a lot of goals, from what I understand, and the team was winning more often. That can be more important to some men than preserving team morale.”
“That was a long time ago,” Piper said. “Would Gerald Standley hold a grudge over something like that for thirty years?”
Gil Williams shrugged. “There likely was more to the story. I’ve told you what I picked up from various townspeople, but I wasn’t exactly a confidant of the teenage set.”
He stood up and tucked his bagged purchase under his arm. “Well, let’s hope Gerald and Raffaele can put aside any lingering differences for the next few days.”
Piper nodded agreement, but as Gil left her shop, the memory of Gerald Standley’s anger-filled face stirred significant doubts. But, she mused, pushing those disturbing thoughts away, the tournament was only for a weekend. The teams would play, the town would have its excitement, and all would be back to normal soon.
An image of Scott’s face then popped into her head, and she remembered how thoughtfully he had mulled over her pronouncement of their changed relationship. It gave her an uneasy feeling. Piper’s own, painstakingly created normal had already been disturbed by her former fiancé’s unexpected arrival in Cloverdale, which brought back her concerns about Conti.
Raffaele Conti and Scott had both stirred things up in Cloverdale, rather like a gust of wind blowing through an open window. Papers fly about when that happens, and they can’t always be put back in order. Piper pondered that for several moments, but decided all she could control was her own actions. And hope for the best from those around her.
4
Friday night, Will picked up Piper shortly after she’d closed up shop to head over to the first soccer match. If Will had suggested the idea a few days ago, Piper might have declined, soccer never having been high on her list of entertainments. But with all the drama buzzing around the teams’ first encounter, she was not about to miss seeing how it would play out—on the sidelines as much as on the field. As they rode to the school stadium, she shared the background information she’d learned from Gil Williams about Gerald Standley and Raffaele Conti.
“So they’re rivals from way back,” Will said.
“Well, they were on the same team but maybe rivals for the top spot. Though I don’t see Mr. Standley as someone craving the spotlight, do you? They definitely didn’t get along, for whatever reason, and the bad blood between them was enough to linger all these years.”
Will pulled into the stadium parking lot, and Piper caught sight of a familiar mane of red hair. Amy was heading for the gate on the arm of her musician boyfriend, Nate. Piper pointed them out, and Will tapped a friendly toot on his horn.
The couple looked back and waved, Amy calling, “A bunch of us are sitting together. Come join us.”
“We’ll be right there,” Piper answered. She reached back into Will’s green van for the tote she’d packed full of snack food, and Will grabbed the cushions he’d brought along to soften the steel bleacher seats. They then worked their way through the gathering crowd to catch up with their friends.
Erin and Ben were already seated and had saved, along with Ben’s sister, Megan, a generous space around them. Megan, Erin, and Amy had been friends since kindergarten and still managed to do most things together. Amy and Nate settled next to Megan, and waved Piper and Will to the seats directly in front.
Piper had at first felt very much the older adult with the trio, having, at twenty-nine, at least eight years on them as well as being one of Amy’s part-time employers. That had rapidly changed, especially when they’d worked together as a team during the recent difficulties heaped on Nate. Now she simply enjoyed being with them all—even Ben, in whom she could see signs of softening from his by-the-book ways, probably due to Erin’s growing influence.
The crowd was rapidly filling up the medium-size stadium, the match having drawn interest far beyond Cloverdale’s boundaries. Will alerted Piper when he spotted Aunt Judy and Uncle Frank arriving, and she called and pointed to two seats she’d saved in front of her using her bag and Will’s cushions. The two worked their way over and gratefully settled in, replacing Will’s and Piper’s items with their own versions of the same.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Aunt Judy said, rearranging her multiple bags and jackets. “I heard that a television crew from Albany is here to cover the game for tonight’s news.”
“Darn. We should have come in costumes,” Megan said from behind Piper. “We would have gotten some major screen time when the camera panned the crowd.”
“What kind of costumes?” Erin asked.
“Tigers, of course. For the Cloverdale Tigers.”
“But our team isn’t all from Cloverdale,” Amy pointed out.
“But the game is here in Cloverdale, isn’t it?” Megan argued, never one to relinquish a point easily. That was one of the few things she had in common with her older brother, though Piper had often seen her roll her eyes and toss her long blond hair impatiently at some of his more didactic statements.
“Do you have a tiger costume?” Will asked with a grin.
“No, but if I’d thought of it early enough I could have come up with one.”
“Costume wearing is not advisable for outdoor, nighttime events,” Ben put in, using his auxiliary officer voice, which Piper knew grated on Megan’s nerves. “They can all too often—”
“Sandwiches, anyone?” Aunt Judy called out, effectively ending Ben’s lecture in the making as several voices responded at once, accepting or declining.
More food was pulled out of various totes and shared around, and Piper’s spears of dill pickles were quickly snapped up. Piper was so busy distributing, eating, and talking that she didn’t notice the teams had arrived until the crowd around her reacted. She looked up to see the Cloverdale All-Stars team trotting out onto the field in their orange and black uniforms. The crowd cheered loudly, and Piper heard voices around her call, “Oh, there’s Dan!” or “Go, Billy!” along with many other players’ names. When the Italian team—Bianconeri—trotted out in their black-and-white uniforms they were greeted by equally enthusiastic applause.
The two teams lined up to face the crowd, and a master of ceremonies—Cloverdale’s mayor, Tom Whitaker—gave a brief speech about what an honor it was for the town to host the event, welcomed the Bianconeri team, then introduced the coaches. Coach Vince Berner of the Cloverdale team waved to much applause. When Gerald Standley was introduced as assistant coach, he was greeted enthusiastically as well, though he barely acknowledged it with a modest wave before stepping back.
When the Italian coach was introduced, he took the microphone to say a few words in heavily accented but lively English about how happy he and his players were to be there. Piper glanced around for Raffaele Conti, who she’d since learned was the team manager, and finally spotted him at the sidelines. He was speaking into a microphone held by a reporter whom Piper recognized from WABY as they both faced a camera. As she watched that scene, she was distracted by a commotion to her right.
“Excuse me. Pardon me. Oops, sorry about that.” Scott was inching his way along the row of spectators in front of her.
“Any room to squeeze in here?” he asked cheerily, coming to a stop beside Aunt Judy.
“Oh, of course!” Aunt Judy began gathering up jackets and sliding closer to Uncle Frank, causing Uncle Frank to move closer to the people next to h
im, who grudgingly gave up a little room.
“What’s he doing here?” Will whispered to Piper, who could only offer an innocent shrug.
“Hi, there!” Scott said, turning around, the backpack hanging from one shoulder causing the man next to him to duck as it swung toward his head. “Whoops! Excuse me,” Scott said and slid the pack safely down. “I had a hard time finding you all. Good thing you wore that bright red sweater,” he said to Piper. “I always liked that color on you.”
“We’re glad you made it, Scott,” Aunt Judy said. “You’ll get to know our town a little better, since just about everyone’s here. We’re all excited about this tournament.”
“Down in front!” a deep voice called from several rows back as the game was apparently getting started. Scott waved good-naturedly and sat down, repositioning his backpack and digging into it as he did.
“I picked up a few things on my way over,” he said over his shoulder and pulled out a plastic container. “Sushi roll, anyone?” He opened the container and held it up invitingly, saying to Piper, “The ones in the middle are spicy tuna. You still like them, right?”
“I’ll have some,” Megan said. Scott stretched it her way as she reached over Piper’s shoulder.
“You like sushi?” Will asked Piper.
Megan picked out a single roll, then offered the container to Erin and Ben, who both shook their heads. Amy and Nate each took one before Megan handed the plastic box to Piper, who looked at the tempting food, unsure what to do. She actually loved sushi and hadn’t had any for weeks. She’d never suggested to Will that they visit the one restaurant in Cloverdale that offered it, knowing his taste in food was fairly cautious—he’d only reluctantly sampled her pickled zucchini on their earliest meeting (and been pleasantly surprised). So the subject had never come up between them.