He knew me even better than I thought. I took a deep breath. “I talked to Binder and Flynn again.”
Chris was quiet for a moment. “How’d that go?”
“Okay, I guess. I wish you’d been there to check my memory.”
“I’m sure it went fine. You remember what you remember. Binder and Flynn are experienced cops. They know how to filter what you say.” I’d never heard Chris be so generous toward the state police. But then again, this time he was a witness, not a suspect. “I’m sure they’ll interview me again too,” he added.
I hadn’t decided whether I was going to tell Chris what Jamie had told me about the missing driver. I’d promised I wouldn’t. Jamie had named Chris specifically, thereby removing the “couple loophole”—the exemption that allowed you to pass a secret along to your significant other, unless the secret-teller included him or her by name as a person not to be told. I was lucky that Jamie occasionally dropped the cop persona and remembered our friendship. So instead of telling what I knew, I asked Chris a question. “What happened when you went out to look at the wreck?”
Last night, there had been some muttering after Jamie announced to our guests that they were stuck, but most of it had been good-natured. This was Maine, after all. These things happened. Everyone had ordered coffee or tea, and everyone except Deborah Bennett had eaten or shared one of our two desserts. My talented sister, Livvie, made all the sweets for Gus’s Too. That night they were brownie sundaes with vanilla ice cream or Indian pudding. Out of deference to Gus and Mrs. Gus, we never served pie.
After the couples finished dessert and coffee, and time dragged on, they slowly made their way into the bar.
“My goodness, the stuffed chicken breast was terrific,” Caroline had said as she walked past me, pixie eyes twinkling. “The lemon tarragon sauce elevates it to a whole other level.”
I’d caught Chris’s eye across the room and given him the thumbs-up. He grinned back, proud of himself, flashing a warm smile that enhanced the dimple at the center of his chin. My heart melted.
At first, when they had moved to the bar, the guests kept to their formation, sitting as far from one another as possible, which wasn’t very far in the tiny space. Then slowly, they started to loosen up, coalescing around that favorite topic of both Mainers and retirees, the weather.
“Did you have trouble getting over here?” Henry Caswell asked Barry Walker. Henry was by far the friendliest man in the group, and it hadn’t surprised me that he’d initiated the first bit of cross-group communication.
“None at all,” Barry responded gruffly, as if Henry questioning his ability to navigate in bad weather was tantamount to questioning his manhood. I thought the conversation might die there, but then Barry expanded his answer. “If you think this is bad, you shoulda been here for the great ice storm in ’98. Half the state had no power. We lost ours for ten days.”
That had brought on a general rush of stories that might have been titled “Winter Storms I Have Known,” with each of them trying to outdo the other.
Throughout this, the stranger at the bar had ignored the speakers seated at the little cafe tables behind him, occasionally glancing up at the game that played silently on the television. The weather discussion raged on, fueled by the after-dinner drinks I poured. Chris finished in the kitchen and came out to help me and mingle with the crowd.
Not long after, the stranger had gotten up and shrugged into his black parka. He paid his bill, nodded to Chris and me, and trundled out the door. Or so I’d thought at the time.
Then Barry Walker had stood and stretched. “This is ridiculous,” he harrumphed. “How long does it take to clear an accident in this town? I’m going out to see what’s going on.”
Phil Bennett jumped up. “I’ll go with you.”
I’d looked at overweight, shambling Barry and stick-up-his-rear-end Phil. Even indoors, Phil Bennett’s long, skinny arms and legs seemed barely able to balance his rotund belly, like his center of gravity was off. They were the last two people I wanted slipping and sliding their way down the harbor hill. I looked at Chris, and he gave a slight nod.
“Hold up,” he’d called. “I’m coming.”
When the three of them went out the kitchen door, the cold air that swept into the bar seemed to dampen any hopeful spark of conversation. Caroline Caswell, normally so bubbly, had studied her manicure, while Deborah Bennett went off to the ladies’ room. When she came back, she took her seat without acknowledging the others.
With all that had happened since, I wanted to know, without exactly coming out and asking, if Chris had seen any indication at the accident scene that one of the drivers was missing.