Eva and Forrest, the fortysomething mountain bikers, were planning to ride the Little Traverse Wheelway between Charlevoix and Petoskey. Liz and Morris, once the kitchen was cleaned up, were headed east, over to Lake Huron, to explore the beaches near Alpena. Victoria and Welles, the couple in their sixties, had announced their intention to tour the Music House Museum, just north of Traverse City.
Aunt Frances, who hadn’t eaten much but had spent most of the meal looking out the windows to the screened porch and beyond to the trees of the backyard, blinked at the mention of the Music House. “If you’re going there,” she said, “you should stop at Guntzviller’s.”
“What’s Guntzviller’s?” Victoria asked.
I grinned. I’d stopped there once and had been entranced by the blend of retail, taxidermy, and museum featuring wildlife and Native American artifacts. “Don’t be scared by the howling,” I said, then wouldn’t say any more.
Welles, the retired dentist, who with his fit frame and white blond hair, didn’t look nearly old enough to be retired, glanced at my aunt. “What are your plans for the day, Frances?”
She started at the question. “Me? I’m afraid I have chores to do.”
“How annoying,” Eva said, grimacing. “I hope they’re outside ones, at least.”
Aunt Frances smiled, but it didn’t last long. “I’d best get going.” She rose, but when she started stacking her dishes, Liz put out a hand to stop her. “Forrest and I will take care of this. It’s our day, right?”
Typically, everyone cleared their own place, but this time my aunt simply nodded at the violation of her own rules. The seven of us sat and listened to her footsteps cross the living room, climb the stairs, and enter her room. When there was a light thud, indicating that her bedroom door had shut, the six boarders all turned to face me.
“What’s wrong with your aunt?” Victoria demanded.
I blinked. “Umm . . .”
“We’re getting concerned,” Morris said. I’d almost grown accustomed to hearing a well-known voice at my aunt’s dining table, but there were times when I had to force myself to stop looking around for the radio.
“Um . . .” I said again, not sure where this was going.
“The scrapbook,” Welles said.
And then everything became as clear as the summer day outside.
The first year my aunt took in boarders, she’d purchased a scrapbook and invited everyone to fill it up. It was the perfect activity for a rainy day, and past guests had created pages of drawings, notes, postcards, ticket stubs, restaurant napkins, and cardboard coasters. Most of the pages had handwritten comments about the fun times, the weather, the lakes, the food, even the late-night card games and board games that often took place on the screened porch.
There were also, I remembered, many entries about my aunt. My aunt, who, in previous boardinghouse summers, was a participant in the games. Who, in the past, had often sat on the front porch swing with a guest or two. Who, for as many summers as I could remember, spent many an evening crouched in front of the living room’s fieldstone fireplace, convincing her boarders that s’mores were best with a mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
“She’s not the same as in the scrapbooks,” Eva said.
I shook my head, not so much disagreeing as not wanting to talk about this.
“In the books,” Forrest persisted, a frown of concern on his face, “she was more active. Participating with guest activities almost every day.”
“But she’s not doing that,” Liz said. “Not this year. So we’re wondering . . .” She bit her lower lip.
“We hope she’s not ill,” Welles said, sighing, and I had the sudden and frightening thought that, as a dentist, he must have seen dozens or hundreds of patients who’d been seriously sick. Was it possible that Welles had detected something about my aunt’s health that I didn’t know? Had she been diagnosed with something so life threatening that she didn’t want to share it with anyone?
My throat constricted so tight that I had to cough it loose. And, in doing so, I rattled my brain enough that some thoughts fell out.
“If she was sick,” I said, “she would have told me.” She also would have made me promise not to tell my parents, which included her brother, until she was good and ready. “We made a pact about that very thing when I moved to Chilson.”
This was true. It had started as kind of a joke. Aunt Frances had been reading a novel about a man diagnosed with a fast-moving internal cancer, but he hadn’t told anyone, even his wife, until the day he collapsed while walking up their basement stairs, carrying a wooden stool he’d just finished mending. He’d died two days later, and the bulk of the novel was about the wife trying to forgive him.
My aunt had looked at me over the top of the book and said, “I promise I’ll tell you if you promise you’ll tell me.”
“Deal,” I’d said, and we’d bumped knuckles to seal the pact.
It had been a lighthearted moment, but since then, we’d both made references to the promise. It was reassuring, in a way I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about much, so I usually didn’t.
Now I looked at the concerned faces. My heartstrings were well and truly tugged. These folks cared about my aunt. They wanted to know that she was all right, and they certainly looked ready to step in and roll up their sleeves if she needed any help.
But I knew what my aunt needed, and there wasn’t any help they could provide.
* * *
Instead of taking a direct walk back to the marina, where I was going to meet Ash in a couple of hours, I wandered through downtown. It was still early; the only places open were Cookie Tom’s and restaurants that served breakfast. This meant the sidewalks were empty enough of tourists that I could walk without paying too much attention to where I was going.
So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that, when I was staring up at the few clouds in the sky, wondering if the wind was going to stay low or if it was going to whip up into something that would put a damper on the afternoon’s activities, I didn’t hear Denise Slade calling until she planted herself smack in front of me.
“If you paid more attention to where you’re going,” she said, “you might get a lot further in life.”
“And where would I want to go?” I asked cheerfully. “I’m pretty happy right here.” I flung out my arms, narrowly missing a light pole.
Denise rolled her eyes. “It was a metaphor.”
I wasn’t sure it had been, but whatever. I’d learned not to take Denise’s comments personally; she was caustic by nature, and there was no reason to think she treated me any differently from anyone else. Denise, if she’d been face-to-face with Bill Gates, would demand to know why Microsoft products locked up so often. If the most famous author in the world moved to Chilson and wanted to volunteer with the Friends, Denise would have asked for qualifications. If the most—
Something jogged in my head and I mentally snapped my fingers.
“Say, Denise. I could do with a favor.”
She sniffed. “Maybe. Maybe not. What is it?”
Of all the Friends of the Library presidents in all the world, Denise had to be president of Chilson’s. “Do you keep track of who volunteers in the book-sale room?”
Denise tossed her hair. “Of course I do. What kind of operation do you think I run?”
With great restraint, I didn’t say what I really thought. “Could you please e-mail me a list of everyone who was working that week the books were thrown off the shelves?”
Denise’s eyes came together into narrow slits. “You can’t think that one of my volunteers did that. That’s just stupid.”
“I don’t think anything of the sort. But I would like to talk to each of them, ask if they noticed anything different.”
“Hmph. It’s about time you did something about that.” Denise gave me a quick look up and down. “It’s because you’re getting a new library director, I bet. You’re afraid the new guy is going to fire you for letting a murder and two break-ins happen on your watch.”