Because I did not want to face Lila’s inquisition about the day with Amy, I went into Dan Wilder’s Coffee and Pastry Shop when I returned to Pine Hill from my meeting with Carter. I sat at my table and had coffee and crumb cake and talked to Dan about the dying of the village.

“The way it’s going, I’ll be forced to close down myself,” Dan confided. “Move down toward Kingston, and, tell you the truth, Bobo, I don’t want to do it. I like it here. I like the way it feels when I walk outside.”

“I thought your business was good,” I said.

He rolled his massive shoulders in a shrug. “So-so. Good in the winter, in the ski season, not good in the summer. So it’s so-so. I’ve got a few roadside stores and one or two resorts that take regular orders and I do a catering now and then, but that’s about it. Not many people walk in anymore. It’s like Sammy and Lila. I mean, God knows, they don’t know a hell of a lot about running a resort, but even if they did, where are the customers coming from? That airhead broad and the stockbroker who show up once a month to play hide-and-screw?”

“You know about them?” I asked.

Dan laughed softly. “The only people who don’t know about them is his wife and her husband—unless they’re getting together in the city when the two of them are up here. But what do I care? They know I know and every time they leave they go with a special order—two dozen brownies for her and a pound cake for him. I think it’s a hell of a good way to keep their spouses dangling. Stuff their mouths with sweets from Dan Wilder and they can’t ask questions.” He laughed again, then said, “By the way, Lila told me you had a good service for that old man.”

“That’s nice of her,” I said. “I’m glad it’s over.”

He rubbed his hands down the front of his apron, smoothing it. “So, what else have you been doing?”

I told him about the trip to Margaretville and shopping for antiques in the old Galli-Curci Theater, explaining that a friend was refurbishing a home in Shandaken.

“Yeah, I like to go up there myself. Browse around,” he said. “I don’t ever buy much, but it’s a good way to spend time. Just looking, you know. I always feel a little like an archaeologist. One of these days, I’m sure I’ll open up an old trunk and find a pile of bones in it.”

I do not know why I asked the question, but I did: “I saw a print from an artist that I’m told lives near Woodstock—Jean Archer. Have you ever heard of her?”