Dear readers, tonight we reprint a newspaper article, where a local reporter had interviewed the protagonist. The subject of the article is here to talk about working at a cheese festival in a small Vermont town, desperately trying to avoid talking about the dead body that appeared.

Reading The Room: An Afternoon With Laura Evans

The General Store’s new café manager arrived in Silver Springs earlier this month. Then a festival started with a body in the stables. The Maplewood Memo sat down with the woman who found the body, helped catch the killer, and somewhere in between started to feel like she belonged.

By Sharon Winters, Editor • Photography by Tash Sinclair • Weekend Edition

***

Laura Evans doesn’t so much enter a room as read it.

Watch her for five minutes at the General Store café’s counter and you’ll see it: the glance at the couple by the window before she refills their water. The glance toward the kitchen before the chef has had a chance to ring the bell. The quiet redirection of a young parent toward the safer of two booths.

She does it without fuss. Easy to miss, if you’re not paying attention.

I’d intended to do this interview at the Memo’s office. Evans suggested the café instead. “It’s where I’m most at home,” she said. “And I’ll be less nervous if I can make the coffee.”

Fair enough, I suppose.

Let’s Start With The Obvious. You’re Not From Here.

No. Boston, originally. I moved here… goodness, it’s only been a month or so, hasn’t it? (A laugh.)

Long enough that people expect me to know my way around. Short enough that I still blank sometimes when customers ask what aisle the granola is in. So… somewhere in between.

You Were A Restaurant Manager.

Yes, for fifteen years at a place called Hargroves. It was… a business that teaches you everything, and then keeps teaching you, whether you want it to or not. (A small smile.)

I’m grateful for every bit of it. I’m also grateful to be working in an environment that offers… more grace..

And Your Grandmother Suggested Vermont.

Silvia. My grandmother, yes. She used to bring my brothers and me here during the summers when I was young: we’d drive up from Boston together, and she knew everyone. I thought I was just visiting a pretty town. Looking back now… maybe she was planting something. She’d pretend otherwise, obviously.

When things fell apart at Hargroves, she suggested a move to Silver Springs.

She’d picked the apartment, she’d described Evelyn’s cats in enough detail I recognized them before I met them, and she’d mentioned the café in a way that just seemed so inviting.

I don’t think I stood a chance.

Let’s Talk About The Trouble At The Festival.

I’d rather not, if that’s alright. Someone… lost their life. That’s the part I keep coming back to. Detective Sergeant Ramirez is the right person for the rest of that conversation, not me.

Fair. Then Tell Me What The Festival Days Were Like, Not The Investigation.

Busy. That’s the honest answer. I’d been at the store for a matter of weeks. When things got complicated, the routine didn’t stop. People still needed lunch. The espresso machine still needed descaling.

I think that’s what I remember most. Everyone just… kept showing up.

Detective Sergeant Ramirez kept things professional. Jasmine made sure nobody forgot to eat. And Evelyn… kept asking the right questions, in the right order, until I could think straight again.

Continue reading “Laura Evans (of Murder At The Summer Cheese Festival, by Jodie Morgan)” →