On the Wednesday evening after the funeral, Jake closed up shop and went and sat on the bench across from the Village Inn to read that day’s paper. It was something he sometimes did when the weather was decent. No one noticed an old man on a bench. But that night, he’d done it hoping to see Grace, maybe find out where she was living. Many cars drove by, plus a few pedestrians. He was about to give up when a couple came out of the Village Inn; he recognized Harry right away, and then he recognized Grace. Had she gotten a room at the Village Inn, and had Harry been in there with her? It was a definite possibility, but maybe they’d just had a drink at the bar. They turned left, up the hill, and Jake followed them at a distance, up to Barb Whitcomb’s place, where they stopped and talked some more. Jake, not willing to risk being seen, turned back.

That next afternoon Jake talked with Barb, sidling up next to her as she was coming back from the Cumberland Farms with her Megabucks ticket. He found out that she’d been advertising one of her spare rooms on the Internet, and that the girl, Grace McGowan, had come up from New York City the previous Friday. “She cries in her room, that much I can tell you. I don’t ask what’s going on because it’s none of my business.”

“You think she’s here because she knew Bill?”

“You’d know more than me,” Barb said. She told him that she was leaving the next day to visit her adult daughter, who lived on the Cape. “She’s back in rehab, telling me she’s cured, of course, and don’t I want to come down and see it for myself.”

“Maybe it will take this time.”

“That’s what she says, John. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

That night he didn’t sleep at all; he kept thinking of Grace, wondering why she was still in town, why she was clearly after Harry. He wanted to call Alice, but knew that would be a mistake. They talked frequently, but always at the store when no one else was around. She didn’t want anyone to know about their connection. He paced the condo, then at dawn he got dressed and made a new cosh using a sock and quarters from his change bowl. He showered, then dressed for the day, pushing the coin-filled sock down deep into his suit pants pocket.