“Wonderful,” Fee confirmed.
While Page was at the table, the conversation stayed light, but throughout the meal I felt the weight of words unsaid, emotions unexpressed. As soon as Page was excused to do her homework, the subject of the stranger and his murder came up.
“It’s so upsetting,” Fee said, rubbing her fingers bent by arthritis. “The state police have been back again. That Lieutenant Binder was around, without his handsome sergeant.” The sisters shared a crush on Flynn. “He kept asking about the stranger. The man we think was called Justin.”
“Or Jason,” Vee put in.
“Or Jackson.” Fee crinkled her napkin impatiently. “Why can’t we remember? But then, we barely spoke to him. Lieutenant Binder clearly thinks we’re ninnies. He kept asking, ‘When the man made the reservation, where did he say he was calling from?’ ‘When he arrived, where did he say he’d come from?’”
“What the lieutenant doesn’t understand,” Vee said, “is that innkeepers take their cues from the guest. If he wants to talk, so be it. But if he’s getting away to have time alone, we’re not going to force ourselves on him.”
“Speaking of innkeeping, do either of you know the Smiths who bought the Fogged Inn last year?” I asked.
“Goodness, yes,” Fee answered. She paused as though trying to figure out how to put the next part delicately.
“Out with it,” my mother said. “We’re among friends.”
“We’ve heard nothing but complaints about the place. When they first opened, I tried to be neighborly. If we were booked up, I’d refer guests over there. I figured I would help them get on their feet. But they found one reason or another to reject every single person I sent them. No children. Indeed,” Fee said.
“When you’ve been in the business long enough, you learn that guests are self-selecting. The parents who choose a B&B for their family know their kids can live without in-room televisions or a pool. We’ve never had a problem with young people,” Vee added.
“Have you met the new owners?” I asked.
“The Smiths? Just at the post office,” Vee said. “I said hello. She didn’t seem to know who I was.”
That was an enormous breach of protocol. Savvy inn owners would have introduced themselves at all the other B&Bs in town before opening. The hospitality industry lived and died by referrals. Not only did innkeepers refer guests to other inns when they were full, they were also sometimes tasked with finding rooms in multiple B&Bs for big parties in town to celebrate weddings or other events.
“That place will be up for sale by a year from now, just like always,” Fee said. “Mark my words.”
“Do you know the Caswells, Caroline and Henry?” I asked.
Mom, Livvie, and Vee all looked blank, but Fee wrinkled her brow. “The tennis players? I see them quite often when I walk MacCavendish.” MacCavendish, called Mackie, was the latest in the sisters’ long line of Scottish terriers. Their last one had passed away peacefully of old age just before the hectic summer season began. Vee had held the line over the summer, but in the fall Fee prevailed, and Mackie, a five-year-old rescue, had joined their family. For all the warmth and hospitality Fee exuded with her B&B guests, she was really most at home with her dogs.
“So you know the Caswells?” I persisted.
“No. Just to say hello.” Fee paused. “They’re quite new, I think.”
The Caswells needed an additional two decades in the harbor not to be considered “new.”
“Yet there is something so familiar about her face,” Fee said. “Every time I run into her, I’m sure we’ve met before. Where are they from?”
“Maryland.”
Fee shook her head. “Then that’s not it.”
The conversation drifted on to other things. The sisters excused themselves and Mom, Livvie, and I gathered in the kitchen to clean up.
*
“Did you know Jamie took a double shift on Thanksgiving because he had no place to go?” Out of old habit, we’d formed an assembly line—Livvie washing, Mom drying, and me putting away the clean dishes. Every time we did it, I missed my dad, who should have been there, joking and laughing as he cleared the table and put away the leftovers. Without us ever discussing it, I had added his duties to my own, but the hole remained in our family.
“Jamie knows he’s welcome here,” Mom said. “Or he should.”