I clambered to my feet, my brain still stuck firmly in awkward mode. “No, I’m fine, thanks. I just… had an odd encounter and I needed to sit for a little. Sorry about using your rock.”
The woman peered at me, her short salt-and-pepper hair framing a square face that topped a body trending to, but not quite achieving, plumpness. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”
“Minnie Hamilton. I’m the assistant librarian here in Chilson. That’s where most people have seen me. Or on the bookmobile. I drive that two or three days a week.”
She was shaking her head, then switched to nodding sharply. “Three Seasons. You’re Kristen Jurek’s friend, aren’t you?” She grinned wide, exposing teeth with wide gaps. “You look like you could use something to drink. Come on up to the house.”
Ten minutes later, we were sitting in white wicker chairs, the kind that lived on almost every front porch in Chilson, only we were sitting on a back porch of the home’s second story with an amazing view of Janay Lake, the channel, and beyond.
“That’s a great view of Lake Michigan,” I said, taking in the watery vista.
“Only from the second floor, though,” Abby said, “because of all the trees. That’s why my great-grandfather designed the house backward, or so the family story goes.”
My hostess was Abby Sterly, who was the head honcho loan officer at the bank where Kristen had applied for the money to fund her restaurant’s renovations. Abby had given me the nickel tour of the rambling cottage she’d inherited. “No one else wanted to take care of the old place,” she told me, “let alone pay the taxes. But it would have broken my heart to have the property go out of the family, so I found a way to make it work.”
She’d made it happen thirty years ago by building the duplex where Carissa Radle had lived. “Those rents have paid the property taxes nicely, but now I’m thinking about selling it. Don’t suppose you would be interested, would you?” She eyed me over her glass of soda. “No, never mind answering. I can tell already what you’d say.”
I laughed. “I’m not a property-owning kind of person. My houseboat is about all I can deal with right now.”
She made a “hmm” sort of noise and I suspected my name was being entered into a mental list titled “Contact at a Later Date.”
“Besides,” I said, “the guy who lives there gave me the creeps.”
“Rob Pew?” Abby blotted her glass on a coaster. “He’s not a bad guy.”
My mother had taught me, if I couldn’t say anything nice, not to say it at all. And maybe someday her lessons would sink in. “He scared the snot out of me,” I said honestly.
Abby half smiled. “He works the night shift at Northern Fabrications. He hates being woken up before his alarm goes off. I’m surprised he even answered the door.”
So there it was: a simple explanation for the extreme surliness of a large man named Rob. Not justification, of course, because there was none for rudeness, but a little explanation could go a long way.
“What did you want from Rob, anyway?” Abby asked.
She’d been so nice to me that I almost told her the whole truth and the entire truth right then and there, but something in her sharp gaze stopped me. There was no reason for her to know about Cade, and you never knew who might say what to whom and then the whole town would know that the famous artist guy had been tossed into the slammer—however briefly—for murder. And they’d also know that the bookmobile librarian was trying to help him clear his name, and that was a complication I could do without. Certainly the library could do without it. So I sort of made something up.
“Carissa Radle and I came from the same town,” I said. “It’s just a little weird, if you know what I mean.”
“You grew up in Dearborn, too?” Abby toasted me. “Dearborn High or Edsel Ford?”
“Dearborn High.”
“Hail, fellow graduate well met!” She held her hand high and leaned forward so we could slap palms. “Was Mrs. Koch still teaching Latin when you were there? I loved that woman. Did you know she spoke five languages?”
“She’d retired by the time I got there,” I said.
“Too bad. And how about the Beefeater?” She switched easily from education to food. “My grandparents took us there every Sunday after church. Short dresses and tights and those shiny black shoes with the strap across the instep that was always either too tight or too loose.” She laughed, but it ended fast. “So long ago.”
“Lives on in your memories, though,” I said.
Her face brightened a little. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Then she sighed. “Just like Carissa will for her parents.”
After a pause, I said, “Kristen said she would have liked to hire Carissa, but she needed people with experience.”
“Makes sense, but I’m sure Carissa would have learned fast.” Abby put her feet up on a low table. “From what I heard, she was already getting a return clientele at Talcott. Still…” She stopped talking to kick off her sandals.
When she didn’t start up again, I asked, “What’s that?”
“Well, it’s just a little odd. When Carissa was moving in, I stopped by the duplex to see if she needed anything. We got to talking, so I helped her unpack a few boxes. In one of them was a framed diploma from Wayne State University, and textbooks with all sorts of medical titles. So… it’s a little odd.” She shrugged. “But then lots of people can’t find jobs in their fields these days, so I didn’t ask about it.”
“What degree was the diploma for?”
But she shook her head. “I didn’t get that close a look at it.”
After a pause, I asked, “What was Carissa like? Her personality, I mean.”
Abby pointed to Janay Lake. “Like that. All shiny and sparkly. She was one of those happy people, the kind that make you smile when they walk into a room. I can’t think of anyone who didn’t like her.”
“Even her neighbor, Rob?”
She smiled. “Even Rob. He’s been all broken up since she died. Not that there was anything going between them. He and his girlfriend have been dating forever. Carissa was like a little sister to Rob.”
Enough like siblings that murderous anger could have been spurred up during a spat of teasing? I gave the idea some thought, then gave it a pass. If the killer had been so obvious as to be the next-door neighbor, the police would already have latched onto him.
“Did you know Carissa very well?” I asked.
There was a moment of quiet. “I’d like to say yes,” she said, “but since I got the news, I’ve realized that I hardly knew her.” Abby watched the lake far below us. “I didn’t know her hopes and dreams and I didn’t know what she lay awake at night worrying about. I didn’t even know why she moved up here.”
Her sadness tugged at me, but I knew what she meant. There were people who let us into their lives, and people who didn’t.
“I worry about losing my eyesight,” I offered.
Abby pulled in a shaky breath and smiled. “I worry about knee replacement surgery.”
“I moved up here because this is my favorite place in the whole world, even in March.”
She lifted her glass to me. “Here’s to Chilson.”
“To Chilson.” We tinked glasses. My hand, I was happy to notice, didn’t shake at all.
• • •
After riding back to the marina, switching my bike for my car, and taking a short drive, I walked through the main entrance of Crown Yachts and into a cavernous showroom featuring extremely large, very shiny, and amazingly expensive boats. A chair at the desk near the front of the room was occupied by a twentysomething guy whose attention was completely focused on his smartphone.
At my question, he made an over-there gesture with his head. “Hugo? I think he’s in his office.”
The guy’s thumbs were moving rapidly, but from this angle I couldn’t tell if he was texting or playing Angry Birds. “Should you call ahead, let him know I’m coming?”