Population: 4,200.
Unsolved Murders: One.

Raemarie Ashby has run The Crumb Bakery on the corner of Maple and Second since her mother retired — the one with the blue awning and the perpetually fogged window in winter. She grew up in Emerald Hollow and she has never left, which is not the same thing as never wanting to. She knows this town the way you only know a place when you have watched it from the same corner for your entire life — its rhythms, its silences, the particular way people behave when they think nobody is paying attention.

She is not a detective. She has never claimed to be. She makes very good pie and she pays attention, and those two things have a way of intersecting in ways that people find either reassuring or inconvenient, depending on which side of the counter they’re on.

She notices things. She always has. It is not always a comfortable quality to have.

Lainey is the oldest of the three Ashby sisters and the reason The Crumb’s baked goods are as good as they are. She learned to bake the way all three of them learned most things — watching their mother work, in the kitchen of the same bakery they now run together. She is quieter than Raemarie, more careful, and significantly less likely to insert herself into situations that don’t concern her, which she will tell you herself, usually while handing you something warm from the oven.

She notices things too. She just chooses more carefully when to say so.

Madison is the youngest of the three Ashby sisters and the first person most people meet when they walk into The Crumb, which is either very good for business or a liability depending on the day. She is charming, quick, and entirely unbothered by what anyone thinks of her, which in a town like Emerald Hollow is either a gift or a provocation. She will take the credit for things Lainey baked and Raemarie organized, and she will do it with such warmth that you won’t mind until later.

She is not as oblivious as she sometimes appears. She just finds it useful to let people think so.

Grant Dunmore grew up in Emerald Hollow, went to the academy, and came back to a town where everyone already knew him, which is both an asset and a complication in his line of work. He has been a detective long enough to be good at it and young enough to still find certain things surprising, which is the right combination. He has a face that is very difficult to lie to. He is methodical, fair, and has spent approximately two decades being exasperated by Raemarie Ashby, which he will not admit has made him sharper.

He will tell Raemarie to stay where she is. She will tell him she will. This is how it always starts.