“I’ll do that. See ya, Billy.” Eben turned and walked back into the house,

Billy returned to his customers. “Fella had an accident with a camping stove, one of those gas ones,” he said to them. He drove them out to see the old house on the point. Then, on the way back, he pulled into the Jackson house, as it had come to be known on the island.

“I think this might be on the market soon,” he said to them, “so I thought I’d give you an early look. The beauty of this place is that it’s turnkey. It’ll be for sale with all the furniture and fittings, down to the last spoon.”

He took them through every room of the place, and they were impressed. They finished in the upstairs master suite.

“What’s this going to list for?” the man asked.

“Probably three and a half million, furnished as you see it. There’s a barn and a boathouse and a dock out back, and it’s all freshly renovated.”

“Why would anybody put all this work and money into a property like this, then just walk away from it?” his wife asked.

“There was a tragedy, and they both died,” Billy said. “The police said it was a murder/suicide.”

The woman started to ask another question, but her husband raised a hand to stop her. “Don’t ask,” he said. “We don’t want to know where it happened.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said.

He pulled her aside, and they had a moment of earnest conversation. Finally, they rejoined Billy. “We’d like to make an offer,” the husband said. “Three million.”

“I don’t think that’s going to do it,” Billy said, “not with all the furniture and everything. I know the owner, and he doesn’t like to be lowballed.”

“Three and a quarter?” the man asked.

Billy pointed upward with a thumb.

“Okay?” the man asked, misinterpreting the thumb.

Billy shook his head. “More.”

“All right, three and a half, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”

“All cash, or do you need a mortgage? I can help with that.”

“All cash, a couple of weeks to close?”

Billy opened his notebook, took out an offer form and filled it in with lightning speed, then handed it to the man with a pen.

“It’s owned by a corporation?” the man asked, looking over the form.

“The owner is a very private person. He doesn’t want the transaction to make the papers, and frankly, neither do you. The summer folks here don’t want outsiders to even know about the island, and especially not who’s moving in and out.”

“That’s good for us,” the man said. He signed the offer and handed it back to Billy. “When will we know?”

“Maybe today,” Billy said.