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.