If I recalled correctly, Ian and his wife, whose name I wasn’t sure I’d ever learned, grew all of Kristen’s leafy and root vegetables. I’d never known I liked parsnips until Kristen had basically force-fed me some she’d roasted with her magical mix of herbs and spices. It was possible that someday I’d learn to cook them myself, but at this point I didn’t see any reason to learn since I had Kristen to do it for me.

I tapped my phone to send her a text, then stopped. There was no reason to involve her in this. I moused my computer screen to life and launched a browser. Thirty seconds later I had the phone number for Breece Farms and was dialing.

“Breece Farms,” a male voice said. “This is Ian.”

“Hi, Ian,” I said breezily. “This is Minnie Hamilton. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m a friend of Kristen Jurek’s. Well, Gronkowski, technically.”

“Sure. You’re the librarian, right? With the bookmobile. And the cat.”

The fact that he put the librarian part first and the cat part last gave me a small warm fuzzy. But only a little one, because a truly good person would have been fine to have her cat be more famous than she was.

“That’s right,” I said. “I was contacting you because now that she’s back in Chilson, I’m thinking about throwing her a party.”

“Now?” he asked, surprised. “I thought she was due any day.”

Great thinking, Minnie. “No,” I said, “the party would be after. The timing didn’t work out to have one before. I’m just trying to get an idea of how many people will want to come.”

It sounded stupid, but Ian didn’t hesitate. “Count us in. It was Kristen’s orders that made the difference to our farm. She’s great.”

I beamed at the compliment for my friend. “She is, isn’t she? Okay, I’ll put you two down, and if this party actually happens, you and your wife will for sure get invitations.”

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

It was a natural end to the conversation, so I jumped in fast with a new topic. “I assume you heard about Pug Mattock; he was killed about a week ago, out at his place on Trout Lake.”

Ian didn’t say anything for a moment, then, slowly: “Yeah. I heard someone was killed out there. Horrible thing. Do they know who did it?”

“Not that I’ve heard. Did you know Pug?”

“Me? Why would I know him? He was a snowbird, wasn’t he?” There was a beat of silence. “I mean, that’s what the obituary said, right?”

It had been, but Ian hadn’t answered the question. “So you didn’t know him?” I pressed.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”