The Caswells lived just up the peninsula in Baywater, a “Community for Active Adults over Fifty-Five.” On a previous visit to the restaurant, Caroline had told me they both had connections to Maine going back to their childhoods, but like so many Maine retirees, they’d gone elsewhere to make their money. They had been early and loyal supporters of Gus’s Too, coming in at least once a week, the closest thing to regulars at our fledgling operation.
I had led them through the archway into the dining room. “Table or booth?” I asked, gesturing around the empty space. They selected a booth in one of the far corners.
The word that came to mind whenever I saw the Caswells was “pixieish.” They were both small and lean with white hair and twinkling eyes—his blue, hers brown. Caroline even wore her hair in a pixie cut.
“How is it out?” I asked. “Tough traveling?”
“The fog!” Caroline had answered as they took their seats. “You could barely see five feet in front of the car.”
“And the ice. Terrible,” Henry affirmed. “But it’s Maine, right?”
“We’re just glad you could make it.”
“We wouldn’t have missed it,” Henry said.
“We spent the holiday at our eldest daughter’s house in Massachusetts. All three of our girls and their families were there. We are so lucky.” Caroline had said it like she truly felt it. “But there’s not a thing to eat in our house.”
“Plus, we had the gift certificate that had to be used by today,” Henry added.
I had handed them their menu books with the paper inserts that Chris and I changed daily.
“Oh, pea soup,” Caroline said when she looked at her menu. “How appropriate. For the fog.”
“We couldn’t resist. It’s hearty—full of pea flavor and ham. I tasted it this afternoon.”
“Your beau is a great cook,” Henry said.
I took their wine order. Merlot for him, chardonnay for her. I’d been selling the gift certificates only since the week before we’d opened, and none of them had an expiration date. But who was I to contradict a good customer, particularly one who had just driven in terrible weather? I’d kept mum on the whole gift-certificate-deadline topic.
*
I just finished telling this part of the story to Gus and Chris when a thunk and a bump echoed from inside the walk-in, and we all turned our heads to stare. “Now you know why I don’t allow strangers in my restaurant,” Gus said.
It was true. Against all laws—of the United States, capitalism, and common sense—you didn’t get food at Gus’s unless he knew you or you arrived with someone he did know. When I first moved back to Busman’s Harbor, I’d viewed Gus’s rule as a characteristic, if extreme, example of the native Mainers’ feelings about people From Away. But during the high season last summer, with day-trippers clogging the streets, I’d come to treasure the refuge of Gus’s, where not only did everybody know your name, everybody knew everybody’s name.
Chris and I had ignored Gus’s policy. If you wandered into our restaurant for dinner, you got served. And though I knew Gus hadn’t created his rule to prevent strangers from dying in his refrigerator, I was having a bit of a rethink about our position vis-à-vis the whole strangers thing when Dr. Simpson walked back into the room, trailed by Jamie and Howland.
*
“You call the state police. I’ll call the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Augusta,” Dr. Simpson said to the officers. It sounded like she was repeating instructions to a reluctant student.
“But you said you don’t know how he died,” Howland protested.
“Exactly,” Dr. Simpson confirmed. “I don’t know how he died. I’m a part-time ME. I can sign off on unattended deaths with obvious causes, and accidents. But you’ve got a guy who looks like he’s in his middle forties, who’s not where he’s supposed to be, with no obvious cause of death. I need an autopsy and tox screens, and until we know what’s going on here, you need to treat this like a crime scene.”
“Can we at least roll him over and see if he’s got a wallet or a phone in his back pocket?” Howland asked.
Simpson shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“Wait a minute. How long am I going to be closed?” Gus demanded.
“As long as it takes.” Jamie’s mouth was a grim line. He’d had, if anything, less sleep than I had, and he appeared to be fraying a bit around the edges.
There was a banging on the restaurant door. I scooted to answer it.
“Hello, darlin’.” It was my brother-in-law’s father, Bard Ramsey, and three of his lobstermen cronies. The local lobstermen gathered at Gus’s most days for breakfast, especially now that winter was closing in and most of them had their boats out of the water. “What’s goin’ on?”
Bard looked pointedly at Jamie and Howland’s cruiser parked on the street and Dr. Simpson’s navy blue compact SUV next to it.
“Gus is closed,” I explained, reluctant to say more.
“No, he isn’t. Everyone knows Gus only closes for February when he and Mrs. Gus go to visit their kids out west.” Bard craned his thick neck, attempting to look down the stairs into the restaurant. “Something happened to Gus?”