It was a very good question. And I wished I had a good answer for him. Then inspiration struck. “You know Adam Deering, who was out there the day Henry Gill died? Adam thinks Cole might have helped him call 911 and he wants to thank him. But he doesn’t want to thank the wrong guy.” It was mostly a lie, but it wasn’t a lie of malice, so with any luck it wouldn’t count against me.
“Okay, sure,” Bob said. “When I get home, I’ll look it up and give you a ring.”
I thanked him and thumbed off the phone. “Progress, Eddie. We’re making definite progress.”
“Mrr.”
During the phone call, Eddie had finished his dinner, stretched, yawned, and was now sitting next to the front door, looking at the handle. “Mrr,” he said again.
“You sure you want out?” I asked. “The wind is picking up and you know you don’t like that.”
“Mrr.” He put his head half an inch from the doorframe. “Mrr.”
“You are the weirdest cat ever. Sometimes you seem more like a dog than a cat.” I opened the door. “Don’t say I never did anything for you, okay?”
“I never would.”
I jumped a little, then saw my new neighbor, Eric Apney, standing on the dock between our boats and smiling at me. My very good-looking new neighbor. “Hello,” I said. “But I was actually talking to my cat.”
“Does he talk back?” Eric asked, watching Eddie jump from one chaise to the other.
“All the time.”
Eddie looked back at us. “Mrr,” he said, and settled down on the chaise where I usually sat.
“I see what you mean,” Eric said, nodding. “Do I need his permission to ask you out?”
“He’d probably like you to.” I felt a wide smile building up inside me. “It’s not necessary, though.”
“I know we only met the once,” Eric said, “but I’m new up here, hardly know a soul, and I like your cat and your boat, so what do you think about dinner and maybe a movie?”
Though my initial impulse was to blurt out an immediate yes, I hesitated. This was not the time to say I’d just been through a breakup, but there were questions that had to be asked. “You’re not allergic to cats?”
“Not allergic to anything, as far as I know.”
“And you’re not committed to anyone?”
“Well, my mom and dad, but that’s probably not what you’re talking about.”
Friendly, liked cats, had a good relationship with his parents, and had a sense of humor. Things were looking up for Minnie in the romance department. I smiled at him. “What do you do for a living?” I asked, then laughed. “Let me rephrase that. Just tell me you’re not a doctor. I’m not sure I care what you do, as long as you’re not a doctor.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
All the fun went out of me. “You’re a doctor,” I said flatly.
“Cardiac surgeon.” He frowned. “Is that a problem?”
I sighed. Of all the professions in all the world, why had he picked that one? Even so, I was tempted. He was on vacation when he was up here. He wouldn’t be on call, couldn’t be yanked into the hospital at a moment’s notice. Why not go out for dinner? What could it hurt?
A cell phone trilled. Eric reached into his pocket. “Sorry, that’s the hospital’s ring tone. I have to take this.”
Then again, there were a lot of reasons not to go out with him.
I sent him a polite smile, waved good-bye, and, followed by Eddie, headed back inside.
• • •
A few minutes later, I was feeling trapped on my own houseboat. Eddie, apparently exhausted by his short stint in the great outdoors, had flopped himself onto the dining booth’s seat and was curled into a flattish ball.
I, however, had the itch to get outside and do something in the last couple hours of daylight. The only problem was that Eric the surgeon was still standing on the dock, talking away on his cell phone. He was staring at the lake with a serious expression, and if my experience with Tucker was worth anything, he would either be on the phone for a long time or soon be taking a quick trip downstate.
Not that there was any real reason that I couldn’t have walked out of my own boat, past him, and out into the wilds of Chilson, but I’d just created a socially awkward situation and would have liked to wait a day or two before talking to him again.
Of course, if he was still on the phone, I wouldn’t have to talk to him at all.
I pulled on a light jacket, grabbed my backpack, patted the snoring Eddie on the head, and went out the front door. Eric’s back was toward me—more serendipity!—and I escaped off the boat and down the dock without having to make eye contact.
But once I’d reached the sidewalk, I realized I had no destination in mind. The temperature had dropped and the wind had come up, so going for a walk or a bike ride wasn’t appealing. It was a school night for Aunt Frances. She was teaching a night class in wood turning right that second, and the texts I’d received from Kristen that day had been fraught with restaurant staffing woes, which meant she’d be too busy to talk. I thought about going over to bug Rafe, but I could see his house from here and I didn’t see any signs of light or life.
I could have driven over to talk to Irene and Adam, but I didn’t want to have to see the disappointment in their faces when I told them I hadn’t learned anything new.
Which led me to a conclusion I should have reached far earlier—I needed to learn something new. And suddenly I knew exactly what to do.
• • •
I knocked on the door of the large lakeside home. It looked like a front door, but on lake houses it was hard to know for sure. Because if you had a house on a lake, surely you’d make the prettiest side of the house face the water, and wouldn’t that be the front? Then again, shouldn’t the front door be the door where people first entered the house? It was a conundrum, and once again I patted myself on the back for not having the financial resources to live on a lake. Just think of all the problems I’d avoided.
The door was opened by a middle-aged woman and I mentally breathed a sigh of relief. At least I wouldn’t have to explain myself to Cole Duvall.
“Hello,” the woman said. “Can I help you?” She wasn’t tall, exactly, but appeared tall at first glance because she was solidly built from head to toe. Her brown hair was pulled back into a soft bun and her face, while not one of beauty, was full of a kindly intelligence.
“Hi,” I said. “Sorry to bother you, but are you Mrs. Duvall?” When she nodded, I introduced myself. “I was a friend of Henry Gill’s and—”
“That poor man.” Her face crumpled into sadness. “Oh, bugger. I’m going to start crying.” She pushed the door open. “Come on in and keep me from bawling my eyes out. I just go to pieces every time I think about it.”
By the time we were settled on wicker furniture in a glassed-in porch, I’d learned Mrs. Duvall’s name was Larabeth, that she was Cole’s second wife, and that he was her first husband. “I was just too busy for years working on the stores. Somehow I got to forty before I once thought about getting married. When I looked around, there was Cole,” she said, smiling.
I also learned that Cole hadn’t wanted children—“He and his first wife had a boy and a girl and he said he didn’t want to do that all over again”—and finally that Larabeth was the sole heir to the Dwyer grocery store chain.
“Really?” I almost squeaked. “I love those stores!”
And I did. Dwyer was the name of an extremely successful regional chain of specialty food stores. What made the Dwyer stores different was that each one was customized for its location, carrying not only local produce, but as many local items as possible, from wine to cheese to pasta. And though the main decor of all the stores was similar, each store had personalized wall murals that captured the local flavor. “Are you going to open one in Chilson?”
Larabeth sighed. “Don’t I wish? The town isn’t big enough to support one of our stores, not without taking too much business away from what’s already in place.”