“There you are,” Aunt Frances said. “Your cat has been worried sick about you.”
Eddie was, at that particular moment, stretched out long on my aunt’s legs, which were up on the couch and covered with a new fleece blanket that I suspected she’d purchased because she thought Eddie would like it.
My furry friend, who didn’t look worried about anything, picked his chin a quarter of an inch off the blanket and looked in my general direction. “Mrr,” he said, and let his chin drop back down.
“He had a hard day on the bookmobile.” I leaned over the couch and patted his head. “All that sleeping tires him out something fierce.” I glanced at what Aunt Frances was reading. “Is that one of the scrapbooks?”
She nodded. “An early one.”
On a rainy afternoon the first year my aunt had opened the boardinghouse, she’d unearthed a blank scrapbook in the attic, brought it downstairs, plopped it in front of two bored boarders, and challenged them to fill it up before the end of the summer.
They’d taken up the gauntlet with zest and from thence forth, every inclement boardinghouse day had become a group scrapbook activity day. Pages were crowded with handwritten notes, stick-figure sketches, beautifully drawn sketches, and maps to favorite places. Taped and glued in were cardboard coasters and napkins, ticket stubs, newspaper articles, pressed flowers, photos, and even small plastic baggies holding grains of sand from favorite beaches.
Since then, there had been a boardinghouse scrapbook for every summer—and for eventful summers, sometimes more than one.
I sat on the other couch. “Do I detect a wistful expression?”
My aunt smiled and turned a page. “It’s that time of year. The guests have been gone long enough for me to recover physically, but not long enough that I’ve learned how to do without them.”
“Physically?” I frowned. “I didn’t know you needed a recovery time.”
Aunt Frances laughed. “Dear niece. You do realize that I’m almost thirty years older than you are. Cooking and cleaning for six other people would take a lot out of anyone, let alone someone in my age bracket.”
“Hire someone to help,” I said.
She looked up. “As I recall, you suggested that last summer. And I still feel the same way as I did then, that any outside help would change the atmosphere, make it impersonal.”
“But—”
She shook her head. “If it means we have to end the boardinghouse, then so be it. I am not going to budge on this one.”
There was a short silence. “You shouldn’t have to work so hard,” I said softly.
“Don’t you see?” she asked, just as softly. “I like to. I enjoy this and I always have. At least until now.”
“Until Otto.”
“Yes.” She shut the scrapbook. “But Otto and I would never have met if it hadn’t been for the boardinghouse. And what about all the other couples who have met here? It would be a shame . . .”
Sighing, she leaned over and tossed the scrapbook to the coffee table, slightly dislodging Eddie in the process. Though he gave a mild murmur of protest, he didn’t do anything dramatic, like relocate.
“Distract me,” she said. “I need to think about something else.”
I put my feet up on the table. “Leese stopped by the bookmobile today. We got talking about her and her half siblings.”
“Brad and Mia.” Aunt Frances nodded. “In spite of their parents, they’ve grown into fine young adults. Who would have guessed?”
“Yeah, about that.” I slid down into a comfortable slouch and tried not to be jealous that Eddie preferred my aunt’s lap to mine. “Leese was telling us about a car accident from a long time ago. Leese was about thirteen, and Dale was driving. They crossed the centerline and hit a small convertible head-on.”
Aunt Frances gave Eddie a long pet. “I remember. A lot of people turned against Dale after that. He tried to blame his children’s argument for the accident.” She snorted. “He should have pulled off the road, not tried to discipline them at fifty miles an hour.”
“Leese says the accident was the last time she and her half siblings had a real argument.”
“At least something good came out of it,” Aunt Frances muttered. “The man driving the other car certainly suffered enough.”
Eddie’s head bounced up. “Mrr!” he said.
I patted my fuzzy pal, a little puzzled at her turn of phrase. “I suppose death is the worst kind of suffering.”
“What?” Aunt Frances frowned at me. “He didn’t die. Who told you that? He was hurt very badly, though. And didn’t deal with it well, from what people said.”
“Mrr.”
My aunt looked at Eddie. “What did I do this time?”
“Mrr!”
“You breathed?” I suggested.
“Ah. That’s it.”
Eddie jumped to the back of the couch and glared at Aunt Frances. “Mrr!” He turned and gave me a hostile look. “Mrr!” Then he jumped to the floor and thumped his way up the wooden stairs.
Aunt Frances and I looked at each other.
“So,” she said. “What are you up to tonight?”
I laughed, then remembered what was on the agenda for the evening.
And sighed.
• • •
After giving Eddie—who had crawled into the back of my closet and made a nest of my summer flip-flops—an air kiss, I hurried down the stairs and out the front door. Aunt Frances and Otto were already on their way out for dinner with friends, and if I didn’t hurry, I was going to be late to meet Ash.
Late would be bad, but even worse was I still didn’t have the right words to start the conversation we needed to have. I’d stopped by the Three Seasons the night before to talk to Kristen about it and she’d rolled her eyes at my attempts. “It’s not a speech,” she’d said disgustedly. “You can’t rehearse this kind of thing. Just open your mouth and start talking.”
“If I do that,” I said, “I’ll start talking about something that’s easier to talk about. Say, the best way to achieve peace in the Middle East.”
“Don’t be stupid. All you have to do is focus.”
In spite of the dire danger of receiving another eye roll, I asked, “Should I ease into it or do I start right in?”
“Focus,” she’d repeated, and now that I was on my way to meet Ash, I was doing my best to keep her advice foremost in my mind.
The only problem was, my brain was filled with things to think about. There was Leese’s dad, her brother and sister, her stepmom, and Leese’s business. There was my new boss, the outrageously expensive software program she wanted to purchase, and Mitchell’s refusal to enter the library until she was gone. There was the question of what Eddie might be doing to my flip-flops, my aunt’s upcoming marriage, and the possible dissolution of the boardinghouse.
And there was the big question of who killed Dale Lacombe? Did I need to consider Carmen as a suspect, or would Ash and Detective Inwood be taking care of that possibility? Plus, there was the guy from the car accident, if I believed that an accident-based grievance could explode into murder decades later. And what about Rob Driskell? And Daphne Raab? And the Boggses?
When I showed up at the location where I’d arranged to meet Ash, I climbed a few concrete steps, opened the door, and for the second time that day my ears were assaulted. This time, however, instead of construction noises, it was the thunderous crash of falling bowling pins that made the tiny bones in my ears work overtime.
Chilson’s bowling alley had a grand total of eight lanes, but the amount of activity going on inside made it feel like sixty. Everywhere, people were milling about, talking and shouting and laughing. It was a gregarious scene of constant movement and Ash spotted me before I saw him.
He detached himself from a group of what I belatedly realized were fellow deputies—they looked much different out of uniform—and came over. “Just started to wonder where you were.” Ash gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, you’re cold. You’re not sick, are you?”