“Hi, Bobbi. How’s the new baby?” asked Lucy, referring to Bobbi’s nephew, Benjamin.
“Oh, Lucy, he’s sooo cute,” enthused Bobbi. “He’s started to smile and he’s got the whole family wrapped around his little finger. I mean, Mom and Aunt Janine were actually fighting yesterday over who was going to change Ben’s poopy diaper!”
“He’s lucky to have such a great family,” said Lucy, remembering lonely days as a young mother newly arrived in Tinker’s Cove when she didn’t quite know what to do with cranky baby Toby. She would have loved to have a few relatives squabbling over diaper-changing privileges.
“Yeah, but now the pressure’s on the rest of us. Mom wants to know when Jeff and I are going to get serious, as she puts it, and she keeps telling Mandy that it’s risky to wait too long before starting a family.”
“But you and Jeff aren’t even married,” said Lucy.
“At this point I don’t think Mom cares. She just wants grandbabies. The more the merrier.”
“So I guess little Ben is a troublemaker.”
“You can say that again,” laughed Bobbi. “Talking about troublemakers, I’m pretty sure you didn’t call just to chat about babies.”
“You found me out,” said Lucy. “Actually, I was going over the log and I noticed lots of calls about that homeless guy, the one who was found dead in the harbor, and I wondered if you took any of them.”
“Yeah. A lot of people called.”
“Did any of them have any contact with him? Did he threaten anyone or anything like that?”
“Not that I heard,” said Bobbi. “He just kind of hung around. One lady found him rooting in her garbage, another got scared when she noticed him lurking in the woods when she was hanging up her laundry. Stuff like that.”
“And what happened when the officers responded?”
“As far as I know he was always gone by the time they got there. Nobody got a chance to question him.”
“It seems like he was always on the move, probably trying to avoid getting arrested.”
“It’s too bad, because maybe we could have helped him. At least he would have had a bed for a night or two and some decent meals.”
“It almost seems like he didn’t want anybody to know who he was,” said Lucy.
“Well, he succeeded,” said Bobbi. “I’ve got to go, I’ve got calls coming in.”
“Thanks for your help,” said Lucy, aware that she was just being polite. Bobbi hadn’t really helped at all.
After she finished entering the police log in the computer Lucy edited some copy for Ted, then took another look at her story about the homeless man. She added the little information she’d gleaned from the police log and closed the file, uncomfortably aware that while she had plenty of what, when, and where she had no who, and more importantly, no why. Glancing over the printout of the log one more time, she stuffed it in her purse and got to her feet. “I’ll be back in an hour or so,” she told Phyllis. “I want to do a little investigating, see if anybody talked to that homeless guy. If Ted gets nervous about the copyediting tell him I can stay late.”
Phyllis’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you crazy? I’ll tell him you had a family emergency.”
“That’s true enough,” said Lucy, with a wry chuckle. “My family is in a constant state of emergency.”
Leaving the office, Lucy walked down Main Street to the IGA and cut through the parking lot to Parallel Street. There she decided a big old white Colonial with a gambrel roof had the best view of the Dumpster and knocked on the kitchen door. A plump woman with frizzy gray hair answered.
“Whatever it is, I don’t want any,” she said, before Lucy could introduce herself, “and I’m a lifelong Baptist and I’m not interested in becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.”
“I’m not selling anything,” laughed Lucy, “and I’m certainly not a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m Lucy Stone from the Pennysaver and I just wanted to ask you about the vagrant you reported to the police.”
The woman’s face softened. “Come on in,” she said, opening the screen door. “I’ve been washing windows and I’m due for a break. Would you like some iced tea?”
“That would be great,” said Lucy, taking a seat at the faux wood kitchen table. The wall behind the table was covered with framed studio photos of children and grandchildren, and the refrigerator displayed snapshots and samples of childish art work. “I thought I knew everybody in town but…”