Something must have shown on her face, though, because Patty’s lips curved up. “All right, sugar. Not much to tell there, either. Nice kid. Left to go to school in Boston but came home as often as he could during it. Moved here a few years back.”

“Dating anyone?” Izzy said, playing dumb.

Patty slid her a look. “What do you think?”

“Ellen?” Izzy asked.

“Dramatic, those two.” Patty waggled her brows, and something sparked in Izzy’s gut. “Like wet cats when they fought. But then the next minute, they’d be canoodling in the diner’s storage room.”

“Word on the street is that the reporter got coffee with Ellen, though.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“So one of those fights caught for good?”

Patty popped a hip. “Now that you mention it, those did die off a while ago.”

Perhaps around the summer when Ellen said Sammy had started getting distant.

Izzy hummed low in her throat.

“Did you know Peter while he was here?” Izzy changed the subject. There was a lot to think about with Sammy Bowdoin and Ellen Baxter, and she didn’t quite know where to dive in.

“That artsy guy who stayed with Lacey?” Patty tilted her head. “Seemed fine. Didn’t make waves.”

“Was he . . . ‘getting coffee’ with anyone on the island?”

Patty laughed. “Think a couple gals were nosing around, but got the impression they were barking up the wrong tree, get my drift?”

Izzy nodded. “Were you here when the Bells still came in the summers?”

Once again, Patty remained unruffled by the non sequitur. “Course, sugar. The Bells were lovely. Bit strange. But lovely.”

Izzy thought about the way Lacey had tensed when talking about Charles. Thought about the conversation Ellen had overheard between Jimmy Roarke and Cash Bishop. “Were they?”

“You want to know if either of them was ‘getting coffee’ with anyone on the island?” Patty made the question seem ridiculous, but Izzy nodded anyway. There were threads she was collecting, and sometimes her own brain didn’t even realize why until it all came together. Something about the Bells was niggling at her, though. She’d learned a long time ago not to fight it.

Abandoning any pretense that she was playing darts, Patty turned to Izzy fully. “Bix liked to flirt, maybe. But nothing serious.”

“With anyone in particular?” Izzy pressed.

Patty tipped her chin back, her gaze going distant. When her eyes returned to Izzy, she shrugged. “Earl, Jimmy, those guys.”

“Bishop and Roarke,” Izzy clarified.

Patty actually wagged her finger in Izzy’s face. “Don’t go making that anything salacious. Charles worshipped the ground she walked on.”

“What did he think of the attention she got from Earl and his friends?”

Patty just shook her head. “He adored her.”

“That’s not answering the question.”