“Don’t even think about it. You’ve had a tough day, I know.”
Kendra led us into a spacious great room dominated by a fireplace, which contained a roaring fire. There was plenty of seating, so everyone found a spot and rooted in their knitting bags, while I sat outside the circle and focused on my salad. Kendra took a seat in a comfy-looking chair by the fireplace and removed a portion of a delicate, white shawl from her canvas bag. She had curly brown hair she wore pulled back in a low ponytail and had a magnificent smile that crinkled upward to her rosy cheeks and chocolate brown eyes. She and Livvie had been close friends at Busman’s Harbor High School, but each had gone her own way—Livvie to marriage and pregnancy, though not, as she would cheerfully tell you, in that order; Kendra to university and then a PhD in marine biology. Along the way, she’d acquired a husband and two kids, and now she’d returned to work at the oceanography lab on Westclaw Point, site of some of the best jobs in town. She crossed one long, lean leg over another and began to knit. She’d been back in town only for a year, yet she appeared perfectly at ease in her surroundings and with these women. I envied her easy integration into Busman’s Harbor, which seemed in particular contrast to my own.
I finished my salad, took the bowl to the kitchen, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher. In the beautiful room, I looked at the childish drawings on the bulletin board and marveled that friendly, calm Kendra seemed to have it all—job, family, happy home.
When I got back to the great room, all eyes were on me.
“Spill,” Livvie commanded. “What happened at Gus’s this morning?”
Traitor. What happened to “It’s not always about you, Julia”?
I gave them the shorthand version, the one that had to be all over town already. A stranger—no, I didn’t recognize him or know his name—had died in Gus’s walk-in. The ME had questions about the death, so the state police were in town investigating.
“You mean he was murdered,” someone clarified.
“Maybe. Probably. The police are waiting for lab tests.”
“So this murderer was in the restaurant last night, after everyone left?” Kendra asked, her pretty brow wrinkled.
I didn’t answer. I truly didn’t know, but I was sure everyone took my silence as a yes. I decided to turn the tables and start asking questions of my own before the evening turned into an interrogation.
“Do any of you know the Bennetts, Phil and Deborah? They live on Eastclaw Point,” I asked.
“Sure,” Kendra answered. “Were they in the restaurant last night?”
“Yes.” I didn’t see any harm in answering.
A few people nodded. Marley Bletcher, former middle-school class clown and one of the few other singles in the group, pulled back the skin on her face that same way I’d done when talking to Chris, imitating Deborah’s plastic surgery. “She comes into Hannaford’s all the time.” Marley was a checkout clerk at our local chain supermarket.
“Their home was on the Garden Club’s house tour last summer,” someone added. “It’s amazing. Gorgeous. Huge. She’s a decorator.”
“And what about him?” I asked.
“Retired,” Kendra answered. “I think he was something in Big Pharma.”
“He’s a big farmah?” Marley asked. “Because he doesn’t seem like a farmah to me.”
“He was an executive with a large pharmaceutical company,” Kendra corrected gently.
“When did they start staying in town year-round?” I asked.
“This is their first winter,” Kendra answered. “They have two boys, mid-thirties, a little older than us.” She looked at me. “They’re close to Chris’s age. Maybe he knows them?”
Summer kids? I doubted it. I shook my head.
“Anyway,” Kendra continued, “he’s retired and they’re here full-time. They completely did over that house. Still, it’s an isolated place to live in the winter. All the neighbors are gone for miles out to the point.”
“What about Henry and Caroline Caswell?” I asked. “Anyone know them?”
“The tennis players? They’re vicious for old people. They absolutely crushed me and my husband,” Kendra answered.
I could see Henry and Caroline as good tennis players. Although the pixieish Caswells were both petite, they looked like they were in great shape. “Do you know where they’re from, or anything about them?”
“Nope. He was a medical doctor, but other than that, nothing,” Marley said.
Really? Henry was a doctor? That surprised me. While it was true some retirees shed their former identities like a lobster sheds its shell, it was rare when a doctor didn’t work his preretirement profession into the conversation somehow.
“Do you know what kind of doctor?” I asked.