“If we buy something that big every trip we take,” Aunt Frances said, “we’re going to need a bigger house.”

I looked at the two of them. Otto, tall and elegant in a Paul Newman sort of way, and my aunt, sharp angled and elegant in a Katharine Hepburn sort of way. If there was anything that fit nicely, it was those two. Well, other than Rafe and me. I smiled at my beloved, but he was too busy following up on my aunt’s comment to notice.

“Every trip?” he asked. “The last few months you hit every town in the northern lower and in the Upper Peninsula. What’s next?”

The two elder statespeople in the group grinned and bumped knuckles. “We’ve become infected,” Otto said.

I sat up straight, wide-eyed. “Are you okay? What’s the matter? Have you been to a doctor?”

“We’ve been bitten,” my aunt calmly said, “with the traveling bug.”

“How does—” I stopped short. Tried to look like a doctor conferring a second opinion. “Most reports indicate that’s a horrible thing to get out of your system. And if both of you are coming down with it?” I tsked and shook my head.

Rafe nodded. “From what I hear, there’s no real cure. The best you can do is learn to live with it.”

“And that’s what we intend to do.” Otto started listing all the places in downstate Michigan they wanted to visit, then launched out into the rest of the Great Lakes states.

Aunt Frances leaned across the table and beckoned me forward. “He’ll go on like that for hours, if we let him, which gives me time to ask about your latest bookmobile escapade.”

Though I’d texted her the bare details, I hadn’t taken the time to talk to her in person. “Sorry,” I said. “I should have stopped by earlier.”

She waved away my apology. “What I want to know is whether or not the rumor is true. Was Brown Bernier murdered?”

I suddenly realized Aunt Frances and Brown were about the same age. Though she hadn’t grown up in Chilson, she’d spent more than forty years in this town after marrying Everett Pixley, my uncle by marriage who’d passed away so long ago. She and Rafe were my go-to people for town history, and here the opportunity was, presenting itself in front of my silly nose.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” I waited for her to absorb the sad news, then asked, “Did you know him?”

“Not directly. His wife worked in the college admissions office for a few years, so what I mostly know is through Lindy. I only met him face-to-face a couple of times.”

“What were your impressions?”