What was going on today? He laughed, loudly, placing his folded hands on the table. “She didn’t tell me anything, Kim. I talked to her last night. And Gaston is dating Audrey.”

Cocking her head, she looked at him like he was pathetic. “Oh, Ben.”

This was going to be a short lunch. Flagging the waitress down, he ordered drinks and food together with encouragement to hurry because he had a meeting in thirty minutes. The waitress winked at him. Within minutes, she’d brought them a Heinz Ketchup bottle, a Diet Coke for Ben, and a sweet iced tea for Kim as well as a soup spoon and some crackers.

He crushed the cracker pack in advance of the soup. “Kim, what was so was urgent?” To his delight, the waitress plunked the onion soup down in front of him.

“Well.” She leaned in. “In preparation for Miss Hixson’s visit, I was looking through some old files on Peter Beaumont’s disappearance.”

“She thinks we’re hillbillies, by the way.” Ben opened the crackers and then dumped them in the soup. He tasted it. As expected, it was tepid. “She kept talking about my one deputy. We’ll be made fools in the pages of the Washington Post again; I just know it.”

She rested her hand on his. He stared down at it before sliding it away. “Do you remember Paul Oglethorpe?”

“The old guy? The one who covered the town council meetings?”

She tugged at her black twinset, arranging herself. “The one. Back in 1974, he was the main news reporter. One of the notes he left in Peter Beaumont’s file was for your father.”

“Really?”

She reached in her pocket, pulled out a weathered piece of paper, and slid it across the table. It was the kind of paper that came from a tablet they issued to kids at school, now turned a caramel color from age. Written in pencil was: Tell Ben Archer to look into the other case. Connected.

“It was in the Peter Beaumont file. On top.” She tapped the table with a perfectly manicured fingernail. “No one had been in that file since the 1970s.”

“Thank you,” said Ben, sliding the paper across the table. “I’ll check my father’s files again.”

“So.” Kim leaned in, whispering. “Since you’re alone this week, you could take me to dinner to thank me. Maybe the fireworks tomorrow?”

“I’m on duty tomorrow.” It wasn’t a lie. He and Doyle would be working the Fourth of July parade on Main Street.

“Well,” she said. “I didn’t tell Michelle Hixson about the lead, you know… out of loyalty to you.”

“Kim—”