“Can’t say I have,” said Lucy, spotting an opportunity. “Listen, you can watch TV at my house if you do me one itsy bitty little favor.”

“Oh, no. I can’t. The new chief wouldn’t like it.”

“How do you know he won’t like it? I haven’t even told you what it is.”

“C’mon, Lucy. If the chief won’t mind why don’t you ask him, hunh?”

“Because you’re right, he’ll probably mind. But I really want to know if the medical examiner has got a cause of death on that guy they pulled out of the harbor this morning.”

Barney gave his jowls a thoughtful scratch. “It just happens I know somebody who works over there. Luke Martin, remember him? Good little shortstop, maybe a year or two younger than Eddie and Toby.”

“He’s working in the ME’s office?”

“Yeah, flunked out of pre-med.” Barney was already dialing the phone and, after a brief discussion of the Red Sox prospects for the Series, learned that preliminary toxicology tests had revealed a blood alcohol level of 0.19.

“So he was drunk?” asked Lucy.

“Drunk as a skunk,” said Barney.

“Thanks. I owe you big time,” said Lucy, blowing him a kiss and dashing for the door. She was already writing the story in her head as she hurried along the sidewalk to the Pennysaver office, but soon realized that apart from the when and where she didn’t have the least idea as to the who, why, and even the what. The tests seemed to indicate death by misadventure due to drunkenness but Lucy had her doubts. There’d been no sign of booze at the homeless man’s camp, in fact, he was extraordinarily neat and tidy for a drunken bum.

Chapter 13

When Lucy got back from the press conference, Ted had left the office and Phyllis was stuffing subscription renewal notices into envelopes.

“How was the press conference?” she asked.

“About usual. Not very informative.”

Phyllis went on folding and filling the envelopes; she could do it in her sleep. “Have they got much of a case against Fred?”

“Not unless they’ve got more evidence than they gave at the conference,” said Lucy, looking at her with interest. “Why’d you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied with a shrug. “It doesn’t make sense to me. If your wife works for the town and has friends in the police department you’d have to be crazy to kill her, and I don’t think Fred is crazy. He’s very shrewd. And self-interested. He doesn’t do anything unless it benefits him.”

“How come you know so much about him?”

“Last year I collected donations for the Eastern Star’s benefit auction.”

“Did he donate something?”