Wrong Side of the Paw

Chapter 9

The next day, I pulled out my cell phone the instant I cleared the library’s front door at lunchtime. Outside the wind was up and was bringing in a scattering of low, dark clouds. My personal opinion, substantiated by absolutely nothing except wishful thinking, was that it wouldn’t rain until after I got back to the library, so I started pushing buttons.

“What?” Kristen snarled.

“It’s early to be so cranky, isn’t it?” I asked. “How could so much have gone wrong when it’s barely noon?”

“You want a list?”

No, not really. “Would a gossipy question from me irritate you or make you feel better?”

She laughed. My best friend was nothing if not mercurial. “Depends on who you’re asking the question about.”

“Dale Lacombe.”

“Hmm. Hang on.” She covered the phone—pointlessly, since I could still hear everything—and bellowed, “Misty! Harve! If we can’t get that salmon, we’re going to have to come up with something else. Start thinking.”

I winced, glad I wasn’t Misty, her head chef, or Harvey, her sous chef. Of course, I was also glad I wasn’t Kristen, either, since if a “Least Likely to Own a Restaurant” Award existed, I would win it every year. But Kristen, in spite of her regular shouting sprees, also had an incredibly loyal and dedicated staff. I was starting to suspect her staff found a bizarre enjoyment in her hissy fits.

“Okay, I’m back,” Kristen said. “What about Dale Lacombe?”

“Tell me more about him.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you mean, hmm?”

“It means methinks you’re getting involved, once again, in something you don’t need to get involved in.”

Nothing new there. “Are you going to tell me about Leese’s dad or not?”

“Of course I am. But there’s no reason I can’t give you some grief first.”

“Don’t you have a kitchen emergency?”

“Well, sure, there’s that.” She covered the phone again. “We have four hours to come up with a new special, folks! And that includes getting the ingredients.” She came back. “Time is of the essence, so I’ll have to delay my grief giving.”

“So considerate,” I murmured.

“Yes. Anyway, like I said, Dale Lacombe was a jerk. From top to bottom, inside and out, backward and forward. Everyone I knew who worked for him hated the guy within a few weeks, and the ones who stayed with him longer than six months only did because they couldn’t find another job.”

Okay, but, “How did he manage to keep his business going if it was so hard for him to keep employees?”

“Because people are stupid,” she said. Then, before I could get on her for making sweeping statements that were statistically impossible, she added, “It helped that for about ten years his son, Brad, worked for him.”

“I didn’t know that.” None of the Lacombes had mentioned it. Was that weird? Or not?

“That’s because you didn’t live here five years ago when the you-know-what hit the fan. I wasn’t on the scene, but it’s kind of like that basketball game when Wilt Chamberlain scored all those points. More people say they saw the fight than lived in Chilson.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but somehow I knew what she meant. “So Brad and his dad didn’t get along?”

“Hello? Have you been listening? Dale was a jerk. How Brad and Mia ended up so normal with Dale for a father is beyond comprehension.”

And then there was having Carmen as a mother. But even as I had the thought, I felt ashamed. I’d met her in the days following her husband’s sudden death. Forming an opinion about someone’s character based on that time frame wasn’t fair. Or . . . was it?

I considered asking Kristen that question, but before I could, she said, “Misty just shoved me a note that she has an idea for the special. Can I go now, pretty please?”

“Sure. Thanks for the info.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll send you a bill at the end of the month. See you Sunday.” And she was gone.

Still walking, I tapped a few more buttons to call Rafe. “Are you busy?”

“Me? Are you kidding? If I wanted to be busy, I would have taken a real job.”

Why the man insisted on pretending that he didn’t work himself ragged during the school year, I did not know. “Got a quick question for you. What kind of person was Dale Lacombe?”

He made a rude noise. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I never met him.”

“The man’s dead, if you’ll remember. Why are you asking about him now?”

“Do you really want that answer?”

“Probably not. Hang on.” He covered the receiver and I heard muffled instructions to his secretary about an upcoming meeting. “Okay, I’m back.”

“If you have to go, I can call later.”

“This won’t take long,” he said. “Lacombe was an incredible jerk. People are saying the big question about his murder is why it took so long for him to get killed.”

I blinked. “That seems harsh.” And somehow, listening to Rafe be so unkind made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t like him.

“Hey, you asked. And I’m just repeating what I heard.”

After we disconnected, I made a few more quick calls, asking for people’s opinions about Dale Lacombe from Denise Slade, the president of the Friends of the Library group, to Chris Ballou, manager of the marina. The response that every single one of them gave was, “He was a jerk.”

But did it follow that being a jerk was what got him killed? Was it something else entirely? Or was it a combination of the two?

“What to my wondering eyes did appear,” I heard a familiar—and amused—voice say, “but a niece about to walk past her beloved aunt without so much as a hello.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it goes,” I said, coming to an abrupt halt, because my aunt and Otto were both standing in front of me so I couldn’t move forward without either walking around or over the top of them. “Your version doesn’t scan.”

“Give me a minute and I’ll come up with something,” she said.

Otto smiled. “We’re going to get some lunch. Would you like to join us?”

“Sure,” I said. “That will give Aunt Frances time to work on her mangling of A Visit from St. Nicholas.” I made a move in the direction of the Round Table, but they didn’t move with me. “Are you going to the deli?” I asked, turning to go across the street to Shomin’s.

“Dearest niece,” my aunt said. “You do realize there are other eating options in this town?”

Of course I did. I was a regular patron of the pizza place and the Chinese-Thai takeout, but I was pretty sure that Otto wouldn’t be interested in either of those. “There’s the bar down by the water,” I said hesitantly, “but I’m not sure . . .”

“It’s obvious that your horizons need expanding,” Aunt Frances said. “Come with us.”

Suddenly I knew what she was talking about and I was very conscious of the state of my checkbook. “If you’re talking about Angelique’s, I can’t . . . I mean, I don’t—”

“My treat,” Otto said. “Besides, since you have to get back to work, you won’t be drinking any wine, and that’s the expensive part.” He grinned, and I was reminded again what a handsome man he was, if you liked the elegant Paul Newman type.

After a short walk around the corner, we entered the new restaurant that had formerly been a boutique. Since the store had sold women’s clothing and accessories way out of my price range, I’d never set foot in the place. This meant I couldn’t compare then to now, but the current decor of mismatched antique chairs, white linen tablecloths, and fabric-covered walls hung with pastel-based landscape paintings combined to create an atmosphere of understated quiet style.

The hostess seated us at a table near the front, gave us hand-lettered menus, and departed, saying our waiter would bring us water in a moment.

“Competition for Kristen?” my aunt asked, taking in the black-painted ceiling and the wooden floor.

I shook my head. “Different niche.” I knew this because Kristen had obsessed ad infinitum about the new restaurant until I’d threatened to sneak diet soda into her glass of red wine. Only then did she grudgingly admit that a frighteningly expensive restaurant in town wouldn’t change her customer base.

“It might work to her advantage,” I said. “Even if this place gets busy enough to be a destination, it’s not likely that people will eat here twice in a weekend.”

Otto, a retired accountant with an astute business sense, nodded. “Clustering makes sense, particularly for a tourist town.”

My aunt picked up her menu, gave it a short glance, then set it down again. “Before I even think about food, I need to ask if you’re okay. I know you’ll say you’re fine, but it’s been a week since you had that horrible experience of finding Dale Lacombe and I want to know if you’re having nightmares.”

I gave her a sideways grin. “I’m fine.”

Aunt Frances looked at Otto—See? I told you—then back at me. “I notice you didn’t answer the question about the nightmares.”

The chair in which I was sitting was suddenly uncomfortable. Apparently my aunt knew more about my sleeping habits than I’d realized. I shifted a little and repeated myself. “I’m fine.” Because I was sure that if I talked about the dreams that I was still having, the dreams with those staring blue eyes, the talking would fasten the images even deeper into my brain and that was the last thing I wanted. The dreams would go away. Eventually. They always did.

“Hmm.” Aunt Frances studied me. Then, just when I was afraid she was going to play the Aunt Card (Talk to me about this or I’ll call your mother), she said, “I like Leese. It’s only because of her mother that she turned out so well.”

“You knew Dale?” Of course she did. Though my aunt wasn’t in the construction business, she was a master woodworker and there was overlap between the two circles.

“To my great regret, yes.” She picked up her menu, but kept an eye on me. “You’re going to work on finding his killer, aren’t you?”

I grinned. “Might as well keep my eyes and ears open.”

“Hmmph. The problem with Dale will be narrowing down the suspects. He was a miserable excuse for a builder. He lied to clients. He used cheap materials and billed as if he’d installed high end. He was an embarrassment to the building trade,” she said, enunciating each consonant precisely. “He was a wretched employer and I’m sure he cheated on his taxes.”

Otto glanced up from his menu. “Did he kick puppies, too?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” she said feelingly. Then she sighed. “But he didn’t deserve to die like that. No one does.”

It wasn’t like my aunt to be so negative about someone. Her default tendency was to live and let live. “You sound as if you had a bad experience with him,” I said.

“He owes me thousands for a custom dining table and chairs I made for him.”

I went very still, suddenly nervous that my aunt was going to be a murder suspect.

“Oh, don’t look like that.” She smiled. “It was almost twenty years ago. If I was going to pitch him off a tall building, I would have done it then and there.”

Relief blew through me. “Not that you’re holding a grudge,” I said.

“What would make you say that?” She laughed. “Speaking of the past, there’s something we want to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” I was delighted at the use of the “we” pronoun. My aunt had been alone for so long that I hadn’t thought she would ever find a life companion. Or even look for one. “I know I’m too old, but I’m probably still short enough to be the flower girl at your wedding.”

Aunt Frances ignored my gestures of tossing rose petals from a basket. “It’s about the boardinghouse,” she said.

“More specifically,” Otto said, “it’s about the future of the boardinghouse.”

“Oh.” I clutched my menu, making its edges curl around. “It’s your decision, not mine.”

“Duh,” my aunt said. “But I still want your opinion. You have a stake in this, too.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll find somewhere else to live during the winter. I’m sure it won’t be hard to find some summer people giddy to have someone to rent their place in the off-season.” And now that I’d come up with the idea, I was pretty sure it was a solid one.

“Good to know you won’t be homeless,” Aunt Frances said, “but that’s not what I meant. What I want to know is, do you want the boardinghouse to continue?”

My throat was suddenly so tight it was hard to talk. “Please tell me you’re not asking me to run the place in the summers,” I squeaked out.

It wasn’t just the thought of arranging breakfasts and dinners for the six boarders and myself all summer long, which was bad enough. It was also the thought of continuing my aunt’s unspoken matchmaking projects. I still wasn’t sure if I approved of the endeavor, but there was no denying that my aunt’s careful perusal of applications and her subsequent selections had resulted in many permanent partnerships.

“Not what I asked,” Aunt Frances said. “No offense, but you’d be horrible at it.”

I put on a fake hurt expression. “Didn’t you always tell me I could do anything I wanted?”

“And you can. But it also makes sense to play to your strengths, which are library inclined, not boardinghouse related. Back to my question. Do you want the boardinghouse to continue after I marry Otto and move into his house?”

Though her voice was matter-of-fact, I could tell she was deeply serious. So I thought about it. I thought about the front porch swing and the fireplace. I thought about the dining room that looked over the tree-filled backyard and the bathroom with the claw-foot tub. I heard the slap of the wooden screen door and the mealtime laughter that filled the dining room.

With a blink, I came out of my memories. “Yes,” I said. “I want the boardinghouse to continue. I don’t want the tradition to end.”

“Okay, then.” Aunt Frances nodded.

And that seemed to be that.

• • •

I spent the afternoon at the reference desk. My first customer was an elderly gentleman who wanted some help researching an ancestor who may or may not have homesteaded on property in Tonedagana County. After I sent him to the county building, the next person to ask for assistance was a seven-year-old girl who wanted to know how long it would take her to become a doctor.

Her thin shoulders sagged a little when she’d learned the harsh truth, but her chin had a determined look by the time she walked away. I watched her go, patting myself on the back once again for choosing the best job in the world, when I felt a presence at my elbow.

“Minnie, do you have a minute?” the presence said.

I turned. It was Brad Lacombe. “Sure. What can I do for you?”

“Leese said you were helping her and Mom go through Dad’s papers.”

“Sort of.” Absentmindedly, I rubbed the backs of my knuckles. My skin still felt dry from shuffling all those folders. “Mostly I just happened to be there when your mom showed up with the boxes.”

He shook his head. “Yeah. I wanted to apologize for that. There’s no reason for you to get caught up in our mess.”

“I didn’t mind.” In retrospect, the entire exercise had been interesting. I’d learned a lot more than I’d ever expected to about lawsuits and court documents, plus I’d had the entertainment of listening to the bickering between Leese and her stepmother. There had been tension, certainly, but there had also been a strong current of respect and a feeling of . . . well, of family.

Brad gave a snorting laugh that was eerily reminiscent of Leese. “Either you’re nuts or you’re lying.”

I smiled. “Since I’m a horrible liar, I must be nuts.”

He instantly colored a dark red. “Oh, geez, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, laughing. “I’ve been called worse things. And besides, you might be right.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I’m an idiot. My girlfriend says if I spent half the time thinking ahead than I do apologizing for not thinking, that I’d have time to read War and Peace.”

His girlfriend sounded like a smart woman. I was about to say so, when another thought caught at me. According to Kristen, Brad had worked for his dad for years. If anyone would know about employee issues, it was him.

Then again, Kristen had mentioned a huge argument between Brad and his father. She’d said it was five years ago, but the fight could have been the result of an issue that had been festering for a long time and maybe the fight hadn’t resolved whatever the problem was and Brad was still carrying a lot of anger toward his father and maybe that anger had gotten out of hand and . . .

I looked at Brad’s open countenance. Spinning out possible scenarios was easy. Proving they had any basis in fact was something else altogether.

“What do you think happened to your dad?” I asked.

“Who killed him, you mean?” His face went tight. “Who killed him and tried to get my sister blamed for it? Who’s trying to ruin her new business?”

His sister, I noted. Not his stepsister. And he seemed as angry about the damage to Leese as about the death of his father. Though I didn’t want to cast aspersions on the dead, I’d heard enough stories about Dale to think Brad wouldn’t take offense. “I hear your dad wasn’t the easiest employer to get along with. Do you think maybe someone he’d fired could have done it?”

Surprisingly, Brad grinned. “If the cops are looking at disgruntled employees, I’m probably the best candidate. The whole town knows about that huge fight we had.”

“Even I’ve heard about it,” I said, semiapologetically, “and it happened before I moved here.”

“Sounds about right. That fight had been a long time coming. I never wanted to be in the construction business. When you’re a kid you do what your dad tells you, and the whole time I was growing up, he kept saying I was going to work for him when I got old enough. So that’s what I did.”

“You didn’t like construction?”

“It was okay,” he said, shrugging. “But it was just a job. And working with my dad sucked. Having me taking over the business was his plan, not mine. I had to quit to get him to see it.”

Light dawned. “That’s what your argument was about.”

“I’d been telling him for days that I was hooking up with some guys who were starting a craft brewery. I kept saying what a great opportunity it was, going on and on about their business plan and projected growth and how important it was to be a part of the company from the beginning.”

“He didn’t catch on,” I said.

“I should have known better.” Brad grimaced. “Dad was never the kind of guy to take a hint. He probably knew what I wanted to do, he just wanted to make me say it straight out.” He half smiled. “Eventually I did. At the top of my lungs. On a Saturday. In the summer. While we were doing an emergency repair job for the Round Table.”

I blinked. “That’s a little . . .”

“Public?” he suggested. “Yeah, that’s what Leese and Mia said. I think part of me wanted it that way, though, so I couldn’t go back.”

I’d always heard you should never burn bridges when you left a job, but for Brad it sounded as if a scorched earth policy had been a necessity. “You’re still at the same brewery?”

His face lit up. “Absolutely. There’s this new recipe I’m trying. Flavorings of maple syrup and chocolate. What could be better, right?”

It sounded horrible, but then I wasn’t a big beer drinker. But I also didn’t see how a five-year-old argument that had ended with Brad in a career he clearly loved could also have caused him to kill his father.

I smiled and wished him well with his new beer. “Were there other guys who worked for your dad that might have . . . well, you know.”

He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it, but I don’t see it. What I can see is one of the guys blowing a gasket, killing dad in the heat of anger kind of thing, but not like this. Anyway, I can’t think of anyone who would go to the trouble of implicating Leese. I mean, how many people even knew she was back in the area?”

Hundreds, actually. She’d joined the chamber of commerce and was attending Rotary meetings, not to mention that article in the newspaper.

“None of your dad’s former employees were the kind of guys to carry a grudge?” I asked.

“Hard to say for sure.” He shrugged. “I just don’t see it.”

I wished I shared his conviction, but it was my feeling that hate-filled grudges could last a long time.

“Well,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I have to get to the brewery. I just wanted to stop by and say I was sorry that my mom socked you with all that work last night.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I watched him walk out and got the feeling that both he and Mia had probably done a lot of apologizing for their parents.

• • •

Ash’s mom, Lindsey, smiled across the table at us. “It feels as if it’s been ages since I’ve seen you two. Anything new?”

We were at the Three Seasons, sitting in what had been a parlor, back when the hundred-year-old building had been a luxurious summer residence for a wealthy family. Kristen herself had advised us on what to have for dinner, which in my case was more telling than advising. As long as whatever arrived didn’t have mushrooms, I was good.

“New?” Ash repeated. “I’ve been working the night shift. Do you really want to know what kind of thing goes on at two in the morning?”

His mother was a gorgeously elegant woman who made an extremely good living as a financial consultant. I had to keep reminding myself that there was no reason to be intimidated, and mostly the reminders worked.

Lindsay tipped her head to one side, considering her son’s question. “Probably not. Unless you have some amusing anecdotes you can share.”

“Nothing funny lately,” he said, glancing at me.

Lindsey noticed the look. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on right now?” she asked. “Or shall it wait until the salad course? Because I will find out, in spite of the fact that I was out of the country researching new investments for the last week and a half.”

“Just tell her,” I suggested.

“Nah.” Ash grinned. “Make her wait. It’ll be good for her and entertaining for me.”

“You are a horrible son,” Lindsey said. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

The horrible son’s dimpled smile bore a striking resemblance to his mother’s. “Nothing. It was sheer good luck.”

She paused, considering, then nodded. “Acknowledged, but the question remains. What’s going on?”

Before Ash could continue baiting his mother, I said, “There was another murder.”

“Oh, no.” Her face fell into sad lines. “How awful. Someone from around here? A tourist?”

I looked at Ash, because I had no idea whether or not Lindsey had known Dale. Was this going to be a shock that we should prepare her for? And how does one do that anyway?

“Dale Lacombe,” Ash said.

A variety of emotions passed over Lindsey’s face. Most of them I couldn’t catch, but I was confident of two. Surprise had been the first one, and finally resignation. Somewhere in there I thought I’d pegged satisfaction, but surely I was wrong about that.

“Well.” Her expressions settled back down. “Isn’t that interesting?”

I frowned. Her voice had been curiously flat. “It is?” I asked.

She flashed a short smile. “Hal Inwood and Ash are going to run themselves ragged trying to figure this one out.”

Ash sighed. “Mom, let it go.”

I looked from mother to son and back. “Let what go?”

Our waiter approached and there was a pause as water glasses were filled and drink orders taken, which was basically us agreeing to the bottle of wine that Kristen had recommended. When he’d left, Lindsey said quietly, “Marrying that man was the dumbest thing Bev Diesso ever did. Her parents told her not to. Her grandparents told her not to. I told her not to. But she was in love”—Lindsey sighed— “and she wouldn’t listen to any of us.”

Lindsey knew Leese’s mom? One of these days I would have to stop being surprised at the interlocking relationships I kept stumbling over. “What was so bad?” I asked.

She laughed shortly. “I can tell you never met him.”

“Mom—”

Lindsey put up a hand against Ash’s mild protest. “To put it mildly, Dale was a misogynistic ass, and I was glad to offer Bev and Leese refuge when she left him. Yes, dear, I know Dale was your father’s friend but he was never mine. Never.”

It occurred to me that not only had I never met Ash’s dad, but I didn’t know anything about him. I tucked the thought away. Now wasn’t the time. “You and Leese’s mom are friends?” I asked.

“In a way,” Lindsey said. “I’m good friends with Mary, Bev’s older sister. Bev is a few years younger than us.”

Small towns. “I know Leese, but I’ve never met her mom. Did she stay in the area?”

Lindsey nodded. “She went back to school and became a registered nurse. She’s assistant director up at Lakeview Medical Care Facility.”

“Never remarried?” I asked, hopping my chair to make sure I was out of the way of a gray-haired man using a walker who was being escorted to a nearby table.

“Not for lack of trying by a certain gentleman,” Lindsey said, smiling. “Bev is a fantastic skier and goes out to Colorado regularly. Twenty years ago she met a man who proposed after she avoided a child who fell in front of her. She did this by going airborne.”

I was a skier myself, but I couldn’t imagine having either the presence of mind or the technical ability to do something like that. “Sounds like a reasonable basis for marriage.”

“Better than many.” Lindsey laughed. “Bev wasn’t interested, though, and still isn’t. But they’ve worked out a long-distance relationship that works for them.” She made a very unladylike noise. “She would have been better off if she’d had that kind of relationship with Dale Lacombe.”

The world was truly a strange place. And if Bev was happy in her post-Dale life, there was no reason for her to strike out at him decades later. Not that I’d suspected Leese’s mom of killing her ex-husband, but it was nice to keep her off my mental suspect list.

Behind us, I heard the man with the walker murmur to the hostess that he’d prefer a table closer to the window, which was where we were sitting. I hitched my chair forward another couple of inches, just to make sure I was out of the way.

“What about the current wife?” Ash asked. “Carmen.”

His mother studied him. “Am I being questioned by an officer of the law or by my son?”

“To which one would you give the most information?”

Lindsey, however, did not return the smile. She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, when I was about to break the increasing tension with a comment about the weather, she said, “My darling boy. You’re working to be a detective, a career choice I admire, but please think carefully about the questions you’ll be posing to your family and friends and the complicated situations that might result.”

She was absolutely right, and I hadn’t once thought about the awkward positions Ash might put people into. He could potentially be asking the people he knew best to betray confidences. To spill secrets. To blab.

I slid him a sideways glance and wondered at what point I’d stop telling him things. Of course, we didn’t exactly have many soul-baring conversations, which was another sign that the love I’d hoped would blossom was never going to burst into flower.

Ash nodded at his mother. “I know. Hal and I have talked about this. It’s something I’m working on.”

“Good,” Lindsey said. “Since that’s settled, I’ll tell you about Carmen.”

“And Leese and Brad and Mia?” Ash asked.

She considered the question. “The only thing I’ll share about the kids is about Brad. He had a horrible temper when he was a child and I’ll lay the blame for that at his father’s cold feet. From what I’ve heard, since he broke away from his father, he has turned into a fine young man.”

“Carmen,” Ash said.

Lindsey glanced at our new neighbor, but continued. “Not from around here,” she told us.

My chin went up the slightest bit. “Neither am I.”

“But you fit with the way things work Up North,” Lindsey said. “Carmen hasn’t stopped complaining about the way things are done around here since the day she showed up.” She shook her head. “She and Dale make an excellent pair.”

“Not much of a pair any longer,” Ash said.

“No.” His mother sighed. “I couldn’t stand the man, but I didn’t wish him dead.”

Though that seemed to be a common sentiment, he was undeniably deceased. Lindsey’s information about Bev was reassuring, but I certainly hadn’t wanted to know that Brad Lacombe’s history included a horrible temper.

And that Lindsey hadn’t wanted to say anything about Mia.

Or Leese.

At that point, Ash’s phone started buzzing frantically. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced down. “Sorry,” he said, rising, “it’s Hal. I have to take this.” Thumbing the phone’s screen, he walked out of the room and toward the front door.

I was trying to figure out why Ash’s sudden and frequent departures didn’t bother me nearly as much as the similar departures of my former doctor boyfriend had when Lindsey said, “Minnie, I need to use the restroom. Do you mind if I leave you alone for a moment?”

After shooing her off, I considered the options for the next few minutes of my life. Was there enough time to pull out the book I always carried with me? There wasn’t much point in looking at the menu, but hope did spring eternal that I might someday be able to order something different from what Kristen wanted me to eat.

“Excuse me,” said a male voice.

I jumped the slightest bit. It was the man sitting at the table behind us. I turned and smiled politely. “Hi.”

“Were you talking about the Lacombes?”

One of his eyes was looking at me, but the other was staring into a slightly different direction. The poor man probably had horrible headaches “Yes,” I said cautiously. In the years I’d lived in Chilson, I’d learned to accept the fact that personal conversations with strangers were commonplace, but I wasn’t always comfortable having them. “Do you know them?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

He smiled, and the skin over his right cheekbone drew up oddly. I was so distracted as I tried to think what could have caused the effect—Skin cancer? Plastic surgery gone awry? A bad burn? A congenital problem?—that I almost missed his next question.

“Leese has to be, what, in her mid-thirties by now?” he was asking.

“That’s right.” I wondered if I was about to be the bearer of bad tidings, and said, “Did you know that Dale Lacombe was killed just over a week ago?”

The man nodded briefly. “I hear Leese is an attorney these days.”

“That’s right. She’s specializing in elder law.”

“Interesting,” he said, but I got the feeling I hadn’t told him anything he hadn’t already known. “Well, have a good dinner.” He smiled again.

Choosing his left eye to focus upon, I smiled back. “You, too.”

As I turned around in my seat, Lindsey returned. “Is now the time we talk about Ash?” she asked, sitting.

“Sure,” I said. “Although I don’t have any problem talking about him when he’s here, either.”

She laughed. “You two make a great team. Your senses of humor are so similar it’s frightening. Are you sure you’re not my own child?”

“If I’d come out of your gene pool, I’d probably be six inches taller,” I said. “Then all my pants would be too short.”

“Who are you calling short?” Ash asked, sliding into his chair.

“No one,” Lindsey and I said together, and then laughed at the same time.

Ash shook his head in mock sorrow and murmured something about not being able to leave us two alone.

The rest of the meal passed in a similar lighthearted fashion, but underneath, I kept wondering the same thing: Exactly how uncontrollable was Brad Lacombe’s temper?