Murder and Salutations by Elizabeth Bright

that’s way too much trouble.”
    “ For you or for me?” I asked. “Because if you’re worried about my time, I’d like nothing better than to help you make something special. After all, that’s why I opened the shop.”
    She looked at me with uncertainty. “Really? You’d really help me make my own card?”
    “ Absolutely,” I said as I joined her and held out my hand. “By the way, I’m Jennifer.”
    “ I’m Krystal,” she said.
    “ It’s nice to meet you, Krystal. Now, exactly what kind of card are you looking for?”
    “ I’d like a get-well card for my mom. She’s in the hospital.”
    “ Okay,” I said as I led her to our supplies. “First off, what’s your mother’s favorite color?”
    “ She’s a nut for anything blue,” the girl admitted.
    I led her to the card stock and fancy papers we carried. “Pick out a shade you think she’d like.”
    She did as I asked, opting for a midnight blue. I grabbed a sheet of lighter blue, and a few other sheets, too. “We’ll use these as complementary colors. Now what’s her favorite thing in the world?”
    Krystal didn’t even have to think about it. “She loves her flower garden passionately.”
    “ Perfect,” I said, and led her to the selection of pressed, dried flowers we had. “Would you like to choose some, or should I?”
    “ I like these,” she said as she selected a small, flat bouquet of blue flowers. I took them from her, grabbed a sheet of rub-on letters and a few scraps of paper, and led her to our worktable by the window.
    “ Let’s see, I know I’ve got just the right punch here somewhere.” I searched through the box of large paper punches, and found the one I wanted. I punched out a vase shape from the dark blue paper, then laid Krystal’s flowers on a sheet of the lighter blue stock. “Just put the vase over the stems and see what you think.”
    She did as I asked, then said, “It’s beautiful.”
    “ And easy, too,” I said. “We have sheets of scripted sentiments made up if you’d like to just say ‘Get Well,’ but if you’d like to personalize your card more, you can use these letters. You just rub the letter you want onto the paper with this burnisher and you’re all set.”
    She took the stylus from me and said, “It’s just a chunk of wood.”
    “ Actually, it’s a carefully sculpted piece of hard maple with a polyurethane finish, but you can call it a chunk if you want to.”
    She studied the layout of her card, then asked, “Should I glue all this down before I do the lettering?”
    “ The best way to approach it is to figure out where you want everything to go first, then letter on the flat paper before you start assembling your card.”
    She rubbed a message to her mother on the paper, then I helped her arrange the vase and flowers with doubled-sided tape. Then we matted three different pieces of paper together, one just a little bigger than the next, to form a perfect border. After that, we attached the front to another piece of folded card stock and we were finished.
    “ Now pick out an envelope, and we’re set.”
    She chose a blue one—surprise, surprise—and I rang up her purchase. Krystal looked puzzled when she saw the amount. “Is there something wrong?” I asked.
    “ You charged me the same as one of your regular cards,” she said. “It should be more.”
    “ I’d say you could leave me a tip, but as the store owner I’d just have to turn it down. Krystal, why on earth should I charge you more for something I had fun helping with?”
    “ I don’t know,” she said. “It just doesn’t seem right.”
    “ If you’d like, I could always overcharge you next time you come in,” I said with a smile.
    “ No thanks, that’s all right, but I’ll be back. That was fun.”
    “ I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” After she was gone, I started to clean up our mess, then I remembered that I needed to make a card for Addie Mason at Heaven Scent. I’d liked the way Krystal’s