When the crime writer’s local store shuttered, he had to do something about it. His family could never have expected what happened next.
It was never my dream, or my family’s, to run a general store and sourdough pizza restaurant in Olalla, Wash. Not anywhere on the list. I’m a crime writer, after all. My books involve dead bodies and the quest for justice, like my latest By the River’s Edge. However, during the pandemic, our rural store, Al’s Market, had shuttered. Windows were broken. Septic failing. Roof leaking.
Al’s harkened back to another era. It sold cigarettes by the single, offered video rentals (our family was no. 22), and kept tabs for locals to pay once a month (or longer if they couldn’t). Mothers brought their babies to be weighed on the big scale by the meat counter. It was the first place anyone came to ask about a lost dog. Al’s had picnic tables facing the waterfront, with Mount Rainier as a focal point. You could sit there, eating fried chicken and Jojos, and enjoy the same gorgeous view as a millionaire with a waterfront house down the road.
It looked like Al’s was dead, so I guess there was a dead body…