Cade painted gorgeous, lifelike paintings of lake scenes, cozy cottages, and sunsets. Many critics dismissed his art as mediocre works that pandered to the lowest common taste, but Cade just smiled and deposited the checks.
Lina tipped her head at an empty spot on the wall. “Someone bought it yesterday. But there’s this cool new weaving piece from a new artist I bet you’ll like.” She hopped off her stool and led me into a side room. I admired the weaving’s complicated mix of textures and colors, and since no one else was in the building, I asked oh-so-casually, “Do you happen to know Nate Vannett? I hear he works next door.”
“Um, sure.”
I turned and focused on Lina’s face. Yep. She was blushing. “Hmm,” I said, mock-frowning. “Do I detect a romance? Please say yes.”
Lina’s blush went deeper. “He’s a friend of my brother’s. I’ve known him forever, but haven’t seen him much since my brother moved downstate. Then this spring he leased that place next door and . . .” She gave a goofy smile.
My return smile was also on the silly side, since my relationship with Rafe had taken a similar trajectory. “What’s he like?” I asked. “Tall, dark, and handsome?”
She laughed. “More like shortish, blondish, and cute in a baby face kind of way. But he’s . . . he’s wonderful. He actually listens to me. I mean, really listens. To me! Can you believe it?”
I could, since I knew Lina was smart and funny, but I also knew what she meant. To have a friend who valued you inside and out was a wonderful thing. I made appreciative noises, then, since being belatedly clever was better than not being clever at all, I said, “I hear the Vannetts have a huge Fourth of July party every year. Were you there?”
“It was awesome,” she said, nodding. “Their family place is like a ten-minute walk away from the waterfront, so it’s really convenient.”
“I hear Barry and his wife were hosting this year. Bet they were busy all the time.”
“Oh, you know them?” Lina asked, frowning a bit. “You’re friends?”
“Not exactly,” I said, in complete truth.
“Good. I mean, Barry is Nate’s cousin, but Barry is kind of a jerk. Technically, he and his wife were hosting, but she was doing all the work. Half the time no one knew where Barry was.”
“Even during the fireworks?”
She rolled her eyes. “Especially then. That’s the big Vannett family moment. Everybody’s supposed to be down next to the dock, because right before the fireworks, there’s a family reading of the Declaration of Independence. Everybody gets a section, but this year no one could find Barry to start it off. He showed up later, with this lame excuse that he had to do a beer run.”
“But there was plenty of beer?”
“Well, he came back with some, but why would he need to buy more when there was a whole other cooler full?”
Lina went on to list reasons for Barry to be gone for an hour, reasons that ranged from a hatred of the writings of Thomas Jefferson to an affair. But never once did she mention the possibility of murder.
Thinking hard about fireworks and motives, I left the gallery and headed home. When I turned onto the Main Street sidewalk, I suddenly remembered why I’d avoided that street half an hour earlier. Even at eight o’clock at night, it was still wall-to-wall people, with vehicles jammed tight from intersection to intersection.
I eyed the mess, then shrugged and plunged in. Two steps later, something banged into the back of my legs. “Oomph!”
“Honey,” said a man to a toddler, “watch where you’re walking, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy,” the kid said, eyes still looking everywhere but at the ground right ahead.
“Sorry,” the guy apologized. “She’s just excited about being here.”
“No problem,” I said, because he was being nice and the kid was cute. But I edged over toward the curb, where the pedestrian traffic was lighter. I didn’t need to see the retail shops, the restaurants, or the fudge stores; all I wanted was to get back to the houseboat, take my cat on the deck, think about what I’d just learned, and when I’d figured everything out, I’d walk over to the house and talk to—
And then I was on one foot, teetering and off balance.
And then there was nothing to keep me from falling toward the street, toward the moving traffic, falling, falling, falling . . .
Chapter 6
Iwas falling directly into moving traffic. My arms flailed wildly and my feet had no idea what they should be doing. I hit the asphalt hard, and through nothing but sheer instinct I started rolling sideways, rolling away from the tires that were so very close to me.
My ears, which hadn’t heard anything for quite a while, suddenly started working again, hearing all sorts of things. Brakes shrieking, people yelling, a child screaming. I rolled to a stop and lay there for a moment, face up, looking at the sky. Still cloudy.
Footsteps ran to my side. “Are you all right?” a woman asked.
A car door slammed. “She fell right in front of me,” a male voice said, his tone tight and high. “There was nothing I could do.”
In seconds, I was looking up at a circle of strangers. “I’m fine,” I said, because I was pretty sure I was, but my voice came out quiet and no one heard me.
“Minnie! Look at me!”
I looked around and finally focused on a familiar face. “Hey, Pam. What’s up?”
“Not you, apparently.” Pam Fazio elbowed her way to my side. “Let’s give her some room, folks, okay?” Pam, owner of Older Than Dirt, the antique/gift store where Kate was spending a third of her working hours, kneeled by my side. “I’m sure someone has already called nine-one-one. Do you need an ambulance?”
I sat up, brushed myself off, and with Pam’s help, got to my feet. Everything seemed to be in working order, except my shirt had a new hole in the shoulder. I pulled out my phone and called dispatch, telling them to cancel everything, that it was just an accident. All was well.
The car’s driver hovered until I swore on an imaginary stack of Bibles that I wouldn’t sue him for almost running me over, and he eventually left.
“What was that all about?” Pam asked, brushing a bit of dirt off my back. “You just being your normal awkward and bumbling self?”
“I guess so.”
“Maybe it’s time to start paying more attention to what you’re doing?”
“Start a habit like that now, at my age?”
Pam shook her head, which made her short dark hair shake, too. “Well, since I have two decades on you and don’t have the habit, I suppose I shouldn’t ask it of you.”
I smiled. “Good to know you’re aware of the hypocrisy.”
“But honestly, Minnie, what happened?”
By now we were back on the sidewalk, and the vehicular and pedestrian traffic had cleared as much as it was going to until late August. I nodded at the congestion. “I’m not sure. Maybe someone accidentally pushed me?” I shook my head, trying to loosen the memory, but it didn’t come free. “But mostly likely, I just fell. I was trying to get around a woman pushing a stroller and I just . . . tripped.”
Pam picked a piece of leaf out of my hair, told me to take care of myself, and headed back into her store.
Slowly, I walked back to the marina, feeling the bumps and scrapes that were going to make me horribly stiff in the morning, wondering about what had just happened. Had I really felt someone shove me into the road? Yes, I was pretty sure of it. But had it been accidental or intentional?
There was no way for me to know, so I decided not to think about it too much. By far the likeliest scenario was an accident. But just in case it wasn’t and just in case someone knew I was helping the police with the murder investigation and wanted me out of the way, I decided to double down my efforts to find Rex Stuhler’s killer.