Just past the bridge, the SS Osikayas loomed over the river, white and green, its yellow smokestack jutting cheerfully into the sky. At the end of the dock, Union Pier, where I’d listened to the Mamma Jammers with Sinclair, was already closed for the season.

I turned into East Pemkowet and idled along Main Street with its boutiques and bistros and art galleries, with the crumbling, ivy-choked Tudor of Boo Radley’s house smack-dab in the middle. I thought about the rumors of Clancy Brannigan lurking inside, scuttling along the breezeway in the dark of night to retrieve the groceries delivered to his shuttered gazebo, and wondered how or why anyone would live that way. Supposedly, he’d once led a normal life as some kind of famous inventor or engineer, but no one had actually seen him for decades.

To be fair, it probably wasn’t easy being the sole living descendant of the town’s infamous lumber baron and axe murderer. At least he didn’t have to worry about his heritage causing a breach in the Inviolate Wall, just the urban legend about Talman “Tall Man” Brannigan’s ghost roaming the dunes.

Contemplating axe murderers made me realize I hadn’t eaten all day and was ravenous—hey, the stomach has its own logic, which will not be denied—so I drove over to the Tastee Treat and got a cheeseburger and a chocolate milk shake to go, because if ever there was a day that cried out for the solace of fast food, it was this one.

I took my guilty spoils to the beach, which was another off-season luxury since there was no longer a charge for admission, and ate sitting perched on the hood of my car, gazing at Lake Michigan. Although it was sunny and seventy-five degrees and still felt like summer, everything looked different. There were only scattered handfuls of sunbathers and kids frolicking in the water, and more people strolling the shore, quite a few of them walking dogs, which is what locals do when the tourists go home. Which, incidentally, is illegal, but the police department doesn’t bother to enforce it unless someone complains.

There was one young couple with a little dog messing around at the water’s edge. It was one of those energetic, bouncy little dogs, a fox terrier or a Jack Russell, dashing back and forth before the breaking waves and barking like mad while his owners played in the shallows, the guy chasing the girl and catching her around the waist, threatening to dunk her while she shrieked with laughter.

I watched their antics while I finished my milk shake, slurping up the dregs. I tossed my trash in a nearby garbage can, got in my car, and drove back to my apartment.