By noon, the main street was thronged with adults and children. Some were out simply for something to do, to enjoy the fall air, to randomly run into friends and neighbors. And there were others engaged in doing what the town’s boosters hoped they would be: they were shopping.

Featherstone’s Men’s Wear and the ladies’ fashion shop, Yolanda’s, had wheeled out racks of clothing. Mostly discounted stuff, outfits they hadn’t been able to unload all year that were no longer in vogue, but a deal was a deal. Same with Smitty’s Shoes, which was trying to unload sandals with winter only a couple of months away. The Different Drummer Bookstore had two tables stacked with remaindered editions. Len’s Bakery wasn’t offering anything different from what they usually had indoors behind glass, but having muffins and scones and cupcakes and cookies out on the sidewalk proved to be a brilliant marketing strategy.

At the Lucknow Diner, it was business as usual. But the lack of a table out front had done nothing to hurt their business. The place was packed, even busier than on a usual weekday morning. Inside, Jenny and her staff were run off their feet, showing people to booths, taking orders, wiping down tables the moment customers left so they could quickly seat people waiting in line, refilling mugs of their famous coffee. In the kitchen, the two cooks were furiously cracking eggs, frying bacon, and flipping pancakes.

Harry had been working the street since just after ten. Not only did he feel a need to be seen, he was making himself available to anyone who knew something that would be helpful to his investigation but had been keeping it to themselves. The odds were long, but you never knew.

As he passed the diner, he glanced at the bench out front where he would, most mornings, find Gavin. Today the space was occupied by two kids around seven years old who’d had their faces painted. Cheeks turned green, noses red, oversized black eyebrows. They were each working on a stick of cotton candy. Gavin had either surrendered his spot, Harry figured, or wanted to avoid the downtown altogether on a busy morning like this.

He went into the diner, bought a to-go coffee in a paper cup, and resumed strolling the main street, nodding and smiling as people said hello.

Harry had no interest in shopping, even with Christmas looming on the horizon. Well, hardly looming. It was more than two months away. He didn’t usually start thinking about what to get Janice until around the twentieth of December. But just the same, he checked out what everyone was offering, paid his respects to the various merchants.

There was a small crowd in front of that new store.