Eager to learn more, she dialed the police station, intending to question the dispatcher. Such conversations were against department policy, of course, but she figured it was worth a try and she figured she was in luck when Bobbi Kirwan answered. Lucy was well acquainted with Dot, the matriarch of the Kirwan clan who worked at the IGA, and her numerous offspring who all seemed to work in either the police or fire department. The new chief, in fact, was Dot’s oldest.

“Hi, Bobbi. How’s the new baby?” asked Lucy, referring to Bobbi’s nephew, Benjamin.

“Oh, Lucy, he’s sooo cute,” enthused Bobbi. “He’s started to smile and he’s got the whole family wrapped around his little finger. I mean, Mom and Aunt Janine were actually fighting yesterday over who was going to change Ben’s poopy diaper!”

“He’s lucky to have such a great family,” said Lucy, remembering lonely days as a young mother newly arrived in Tinker’s Cove when she didn’t quite know what to do with cranky baby Toby. She would have loved to have a few relatives squabbling over diaper-changing privileges.

“Yeah, but now the pressure’s on the rest of us. Mom wants to know when Jeff and I are going to get serious, as she puts it, and she keeps telling Mandy that it’s risky to wait too long before starting a family.”

“But you and Jeff aren’t even married,” said Lucy.

“At this point I don’t think Mom cares. She just wants grandbabies. The more the merrier.”

“So I guess little Ben is a troublemaker.”

“You can say that again,” laughed Bobbi. “Talking about troublemakers, I’m pretty sure you didn’t call just to chat about babies.”

“You found me out,” said Lucy. “Actually, I was going over the log and I noticed lots of calls about that homeless guy, the one who was found dead in the harbor, and I wondered if you took any of them.”

“Yeah. A lot of people called.”

“Did any of them have any contact with him? Did he threaten anyone or anything like that?”

“Not that I heard,” said Bobbi. “He just kind of hung around. One lady found him rooting in her garbage, another got scared when she noticed him lurking in the woods when she was hanging up her laundry. Stuff like that.”

“And what happened when the officers responded?”

“As far as I know he was always gone by the time they got there. Nobody got a chance to question him.”

“It seems like he was always on the move, probably trying to avoid getting arrested.”

“It’s too bad, because maybe we could have helped him. At least he would have had a bed for a night or two and some decent meals.”

“It almost seems like he didn’t want anybody to know who he was,” said Lucy.