Lisa laughed. “I think so. You wanted to know if I drove past her apartment . . . right?”

“Right. Did you learn anything?”

“Only that her apartment was dark and her car was gone.”

“How about Herb’s office?”

“The lights were off, his cruiser was in the lot, and Herb’s car wasn’t there.” Lisa reached for the small bowl of pickled vegetables that was sitting on their table. “I love these pickles.”

“Me, too.”

Hannah thought about the custom that the Corner Tavern had followed since their opening day. After the busboy cleared a table and reset it for the next diners, he dished up a small bowl of pickled vegetables and put it in the center of the table. It was a fresh bowl every time and, in the beginning, the original owner’s wife, Nona’s predecessor, had pickled all the vegetables herself.

“I love this pickled cauliflower,” Lisa said, crunching down on the vegetarian treat.

“And I love these.” Hannah reached for a green string bean and bit off half. “Did you know that my great-grandmother used to call pickled vegetables digestives?”

“No. Are digestives something that helps you digest food?”

“Supposedly. Of course in the United Kingdom, they have digestive biscuits to take care of that. The first digestives were a sweet meal biscuit. They were meant to get the digestive juices flowing and make it easier for the body to process the rest of the meal.”

“Believe me, my digestive juices are flowing!” Lisa smacked her lips. “These are really good. Can I have the last piece of cauliflower?”

“Knock yourself out. I’m enjoying the green beans and the button mushrooms.”

For a few more moments the conversation consisted solely of crunching and chewing. Then Lisa looked down at the empty bowl. “Good heavens! We even ate the pickled carrots. And I don’t like the pickled carrots!”

Their waitress overheard Lisa’s comment and came over to take the empty bowl. “You two must really be hungry. I’ve been working here for over ten years and I’ve never seen an empty relish bowl. Nobody ever eats the carrots.”

“Then why are they there?” Lisa asked her.

“Search me!”

“They’re probably for color,” Hannah offered an explanation. “Without them, the bowl would consist of green, white, and tan. That’s not as eye-catching as a mixture with orange in it.”

“You’ve got a point there,” the waitress complimented Hannah. “Too bad they don’t pickle those little red cherry tomatoes. They’d be really pretty.”

Hannah thought about that for a moment. “You’re right. And I wonder if you could pickle them. I think I’ll give it a try.”

“They’d be good in salads, too,” the waitress said.

“And you could use them to decorate a bowl of coleslaw, or potato salad,” Lisa suggested.