I took a deep breath. “Someone deliberately gathered those four couples—the Caswells, the Bennetts, the Walkers, and the Smiths—in our restaurant on the night of the murder.” I explained about the gift certificate each of the couples had received.
“It seems to me, someone is trying to steal from you,” Binder said when I finished.
“No, the certificates were all paid for. Someone charged them to a credit card. The only thing added was the expiration date.”
Binder fiddled with his laptop. “Let’s see. The Caswells are retirees from Maryland. They’ve been here for two years, live in that active adult community. The Bennetts have had a house on Eastclaw Point for thirty years, but last winter and spring they renovated it and moved up here from Connecticut full-time this summer. The Walkers have been in town forever. He owns the art supplies store on Main Street. She works at the Cranberry Convalescent Home. Finally,” he continued, “we have the Smiths. They’re from Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York. Bought the Fogged Inn last November. Started running it as a bed-and-breakfast over Memorial Day this year.” He looked up from the laptop. “You’ve apparently been out questioning people. Did you learn anything more than we did?”
I thought over my visits with each of the couples. “No,” I admitted. “I get it. No obvious connection. And since we don’t know who the dead guy is, there’s no obvious connection to him, either. But it’s it a little hard to believe that the unusual things that happened that night are completely unrelated. A group was gathered in our restaurant. An accident trapped them there. A stranger who came into the restaurant was murdered. That can’t be a coincidence.” The driver of the car in the accident that night has disappeared, I added in my head, because Jamie had sworn me to secrecy.
“It can be,” Binder said, “and it probably is. One thing you learn early in law enforcement is that coincidence is alive and well and far more common than people think.” He paused. “By the way, we took down the crime scene tape this afternoon and gave Gus the go-ahead to use the walk-in. He was cleaning it with bleach before the officers left the restaurant.”
“Thank you for clearing that up quickly.” Much more quickly than when there’d been a murder on Morrow Island last spring and he’d shut down the Snowden Family Clambake, already teetering on the brink of financial ruin, for days and days.
He shrugged. “The walk-in has told us everything it has to tell.” He glanced at his laptop screen, as if anxious to get back to it. “I’ll send someone over to pick the gift certificates up, along with the credit card information. We can get to the bottom of what happened more quickly than you can.”
I explained that the gift certificates were missing and I thought they might have been stolen.
Binder looked amused. “You think someone came into your apartment, in the middle of the night, while you were there and took the gift certificates, and only the gift certificates?”
It sounded ridiculous when I heard someone else say it. I felt my face redden. “Yes.”
“Can I assume Mr. Durand was asleep in your apartment as well when you allege this happened?”
Okay, now it truly did sound crazy. “Yes.”
Binder took pity on me. “Relax, Julia. You probably mislaid them. Did the victim pay with a gift certificate?”
The exact thing Jamie had asked me. “Er, no.”
“Then it probably doesn’t matter. Give me what information you have on the credit card and don’t worry about it.”
“I e-mailed it to Officer Dawes.”
“Then you’ve done all you can. I’ll be sure to catch up with him. Our best strategy for figuring out who killed our victim is to figure out who he is and why someone would want to murder him. I’ll follow up on everything you’ve given me, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention, but you have to let me do things in my own time, in my sequence. Okay?”
When I didn’t immediately agree, he continued. “Julia, I’m not fooling around. Do I need to remind you that the perpetrator of this murder has not been identified or captured, and this person may have been inside the building where you live and work? This isn’t a joke.”
Binder and I had had our differences in the past, but he’d never warned me off like this. His words shook me. And I didn’t want to tell him about the continuous sense of unease I had in my own home, because that would only make it worse.
“And be sure to lock your doors,” he added.
“I hear you.” I gave him the envelope, flyer, and card I’d collected from the Bennetts. He took them solemnly and walked me to the door.
*
As I walked out of the town building, my cell phone rang. Mom.
“Hullo, Julia. I’m calling to invite you and Chris to dinner tonight. Fee and Vee will be here.” My mother lowered her voice, even though she was probably alone in her kitchen. “The poor dears are upset by what happened to that man who was supposed to stay at their inn. You know, that man who was killed—”
“In my home,” I finished. “Believe me, I get it.”