His touch gave me the courage to say what I was thinking, crazy as it was. “I know it’s nuts, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Think how little sleep we got the night before last. And yesterday was a stressful day. We were exhausted.” I warmed to my argument. “You were out late at Sam’s. Everyone who’s been in the restaurant knows about the cigar box. I keep it behind the bar and I’m always putting money in it, taking change out. Last night, I left the cigar box out on the desk in the apartment instead of putting it under the bed like I usually do.”
Chris took his hand back and rubbed his dimpled chin. “Anyone who’s ever come to the restaurant might know about the cigar box, but only twelve people knew the gift certificates were in it. One of them is dead. One’s a cop. One is you. One is me. That leaves the four couples who were guests that night. Do you really think one of those people broke in here and stole them?”
“I’m almost sure of it.”
“I’m putting a lock at the bottom of the apartment stairs tomorrow.”
I took that as a statement of support. “Thank you. For the lock and for believing in me. Please, let’s not tell Gus. It will only upset him and raise the issue of the unlocked kitchen door again. Let’s be supercareful about locking it going forward, so we can be absolutely sure.”
Chris didn’t fight me, or repeat that he was sure he’d locked the door last night. What Jamie had implied was true. It had been late and Chris had more than likely had a few beers at the poker game. Had he fumbled the latch, thinking it had caught when it hadn’t? I wasn’t going to raise the possibility. I had Chris’s support. We were on the same team. That was all I needed.
“If you get it, why doesn’t Lieutenant Binder get it?” I asked.
“Get what?”
“All of it,” I said. “Someone gathered these particular couples at the restaurant. And whoever it was is now covering up by stealing the evidence. Whoever it was wanted those four couples, plus someone else, to be there. One gift certificate was never redeemed.”
Chris knit his brow. “The cops have bigger problems to deal with. They don’t know who this dead guy is. They have the missing driver from the accident at Main and Main. If I were them, I’d be trying to figure out the murder victim’s identity as the path to figuring out who’d want to kill him. You would too.”
“You know about the missing driver?” A weight lifted off my shoulders. Jamie had asked me not to tell Chris, and I hadn’t.
“Julia, everyone in town knows.”
I should have figured. At least I was out from under my promise to Jamie.
Chapter 15
The next morning I was awakened by the reassuring sounds of clunking and banging and the smell of bacon frying coming from downstairs. It was wonderful to wake up to a relatively normal day. Of course that also meant Gus’s Too would be open for dinner.
Chris rolled out of bed not long after me and was immediately on the phone with a supplier. In the background as I dressed, I heard him dickering about the price of scallops. They were in season—draggers were out along the Maine coast—but most of the catch would go to fish markets and restaurants throughout the northeast. It would be challenging to fill our relatively tiny order at a reasonable cost. Gratefully, I left him to it and headed down to Gus’s.
Gus was busy, but in a normal Thursday sort of way, not like it had been the morning before. With the crime scene tape gone, the gawking opportunity was over. Gus worked like a demon behind the counter filling orders. I wandered back and poured myself a cup of coffee.
Across the dining room I saw a familiar hand in the air waving me over. “Yoo-hoo,” Fee Snugg called. I took my coffee and sat down in the sisters’ booth. Vee’s plate was piled with Gus’s scrumptious blueberry pancakes, while Vee attacked two eggs over easy with a piece of toast. It was wonderful to see these two women, who worked so hard giving breakfast to tourists all summer, enjoying themselves at Gus’s.
“I’m glad I caught you,” Fee said. “After we talked last night, I couldn’t stop thinking about where I’ve seen that Caroline Caswell before. It drove me crazy. And then it came to me. At the yacht club.”
“The Caswells are members of the yacht club?”
“No. Or I don’t know,” Fee clarified. “I’m not talking about now. She’s in one of those old photos of the yacht club dances that line the hallway. I’d recognize her anywhere.” She hesitated. “Is it helpful I’ve remembered?”
“It could be.” If Caroline wasn’t really a newcomer to Busman’s Harbor, perhaps she had connections in town I didn’t know about. “Thanks. I’ll go over after breakfast and check it out.”
Gus appeared at the edge of the booth to take my order.
“Was the kitchen door locked when you came in this morning?” I asked.
“Ayuh. Thanky. Whaddya want for breakfast?”
“Oatmeal, maple syrup, raisins. Thanks.”
“Comin’ up.”
After we finished breakfast, I went back to my apartment. Chris completed a call with another supplier while Le Roi sat on the coffee table, regarding him with suspicion. Le Roi’s attitude was that he was the apartment’s original tenant. Chris was an interloper.