“No problem,” Binder responded. “We’ll catch him later.”
I considered putting them off. Chris being there had been such a comfort at the earlier part of the interview. Plus, I valued his help in recalling what had happened. It was important to get it right, and I didn’t completely trust myself on the details. I wondered if this reinforcement of my memory was exactly what Binder wanted to avoid, and if interviewing me separately was a strategy rather than a happenstance.
But a man was dead, and the person who’d killed him, quite possibly in the restaurant while Chris and I slept above, was still on the loose. I wanted that person caught as soon as possible. I agreed to the interview in the interest of keeping things moving.
I opened the back door, and Flynn and Binder passed through it. I offered them coffee and realized I hadn’t eaten all day. I stared at the walk-in with the yellow crime scene tape across it, and then remembered Gus’s pie. Binder accepted the offer of a slice. Flynn, of the toned body and slim waist, declined.
We settled into a booth and, though Flynn opened his notebook, we took time to chat. I’d been involved in three of their cases before this one. The first time had been the previous spring when the best man at a wedding was murdered on Morrow Island. The other two had been during the clambake season.
My relationship with Binder had its ups and downs. Sometimes he seemed to value my contributions, even seeking me out to get a local take on things. Other times he went all “official business” and shut me out. Despite these bumps, I liked him and thought he was a good cop.
I thought Flynn was a good cop too, but his attitude toward me ran the gamut from annoyance to open hostility. He didn’t want me involved in his cases. If he’d ever verbalized this directly, instead of giving me stony glances and sniping, I would have pointed out that I’d been instrumental in solving all three of them. He would have said, no doubt, that the police could have arrived there on their own. And who knows? Maybe they would have—just not as quickly.
I asked Binder about his wife and young boys. He reported all was well. They’d spent Thanksgiving with his in-laws in Eastport and he hadn’t been called out once. He was the kind of man whose face glowed when he talked about his family. The pride he took in his work, which was considerable, would never come close to the pride he showed for his wife and sons.
Flynn was his usual reticent self. In answer to my very direct questions, and prodded by his boss, he admitted he was still dating Genevieve Pelletier, a renowned chef from Portland whom he’d met on a previous case. His ears glowed bright red and he didn’t look at me as he spoke. His tone certainly didn’t invite follow-up questions.
“Young Flynn here is trying for a transfer to Portland,” Binder said. “I need to take advantage of his skills while I still have him.”
“Probably won’t come through,” Flynn grumbled.
“And you, Julia,” Binder said, “you’ve stayed in Busman’s Harbor for the off-season and gone into the restaurant business.”
“It was Gus’s idea. He thought it was important for the community to have a gathering place in the evenings over the winter. Chris and I agreed to take it on.”
Binder nodded, though he couldn’t quite suppress a frown. He had his doubts about Chris. He’d once arrested him, and though Chris hadn’t committed that crime, Binder’s suspicions lingered. Not entirely without reason. I, too, had taken time to trust Chris, whose disappearances on his sailboat over the summer had nearly derailed us. But his pirate days were in the past.
Flynn picked up his pen and cleared his throat loudly, signaling his impatience with the coffee klatch. Jerry Binder was the more polished of the two, but I didn’t doubt that I was to some degree being “handled” with this trading of personal disclosures. The kinder, gentler version of good cop, bad cop.
“So let’s get back to it,” Binder said. “You told us earlier the victim arrived around seven thirty.”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
Flynn consulted his notes from the morning. “He sat at the bar here. You gave him a Wild Turkey. Then what?”
“Two more couples arrived for dinner. In quick succession. We got quite busy.”
“The Smiths and the Walkers,” Flynn read back. “Who came in first?”
“The Walkers.” Almost as soon as I’d poured the stranger’s drink, the street door had opened and Barry and Fran Walker clomped down the stairs into the restaurant. Fran, as always, carried an enormous pocketbook. It had made her look as if she were moving in instead of simply coming for dinner. She was bent over, partially weighed down by carrying it. Barry fussed behind her.
“Hurry up, Fran. We’re late for our reservation.”