“That’s weird. Because a neighbor of Pug’s could have sworn he saw you at Pug’s house right before . . . before he died.”

There was another short silence. “I don’t like what you’re implying.” Ian’s voice went tense. “Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong. I didn’t know Pug, I was never at his place, and if someone said they saw my truck out there that Saturday, they’re lying.”

After he said a terse good-bye, I lowered my phone. I intentionally hadn’t said the type of vehicle John Pinnock had seen, and I certainly hadn’t said what day of the week, because Pinnock hadn’t said.

“The whole thing was odd,” I said out loud, and I said the same thing later that night to Eddie. The two of us were cuddled up together on the couch, and we were about to start watching the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, something I’d been planning for this particular night for weeks. Since Eddie was on my legs and I couldn’t possibly move, Rafe was in the kitchen, making popcorn on the cooktop using the whirling popper my aunt and Otto had given us for Christmas. The popping noise was already going and I hoped he remembered to use the garlic-flavored popcorn salt.

“Mrr,” Eddie murmured. His whole body was burrowed into the blanket I’d tossed over my legs, and the only visible part of him was two-thirds of his tail, which was twitching back and forth in an uneven rhythm.

“Marching to the beat of your own drummer, are you?” I patted his tail, trying to make it go still, but he pulled it out of my grasp and sent it twitching again. Cats. “Anyway,” I said, “the more I think about it, the more I’m sure it had to be Ian out at Pug’s house that day. The odds are super against it being anyone else. There just aren’t enough people up here.”

Eddie’s purrs stopped, then started again.

“But what was he doing at Pug’s cottage?” I asked. “If he’d stopped by to talk to Pug about taking a share of the Breece Farm CSA, why wouldn’t he just say so?” The Breeces’ community-supported agriculture program had been one of the first in the area. People bought full shares or partial shares of a summer’s worth of vegetables, paid ahead, and got boxes of produce for weeks. Rafe and I were even considering it. To do someday.

Eddie rolled over, squashing my kneecap painfully. Oh so slowly, I eased my leg out from under him to avoid a future need for surgery.