She was frowned in thought, not noticing that the sky had deepened into a purplish-salmon color throwing the single tree in the back yard into dark relief. Mel was startled by the sudden rattling of the back door. She fumbled with her camera as it nearly fell from her fingers. The air was calm so something on the other side of the door must be jerking on the knob. Then the door burst open and it slammed into the house as if a great pressure had made it explode outward.
“Oops.”
Mel forced her jaw to unclench. “Oops? All you can say is oops? You scared me half to death.”
Stuart lounged in the doorway looking boyish and unrepentant. “Well, what do you want me to say?”
“Hm, somewhere along the lines of begging me for forgiveness.”
“Tough luck, Mel. I don’t do any begging.”
She shook her head as she got up from the chair. “Oh, so you’re one of those macho guys.”
“You don’t like macho guys? I can do sensitive if you like.”
“I’d hate to see what you come up with.”
“What do you mean? You think I can’t act? At least I thought about majoring in drama when I was in college.”
“Thought, being the operative word.” She made to go inside, but Stuart was still blocking the doorway. He was looking down at her, his dark eyes behind his glasses inscrutable. “So do I have to answer a riddle to pass?”
“No riddle.” He stepped aside so that his back was to one side of the door. “Although next time, you might not be so lucky.”
“I’m so scared,” she said blandly. Mel stepped into the doorway but made no move to pass the threshold. She was perhaps a foot away from the reporter. Her fingers involuntarily tightened around her camera. “So did you get to talk to the owners?”
“One of them. Jed Townsend. Apparently this house was built here because there are so many cat-spirits.”
“Hm, that is interesting.” She was hardly listening because she had just noticed an odd fact. She was at eye level to his mouth.
“Did you get a chance to get all the shots that you wanted?”
“I got some. I might take some more later.”
They moved at the same time, and the strange tense air about them broke as they stepped into a room at the back of the house that contained a dining table, a set of chairs, and a ticking grandfather clock with a glass front. Stuart jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and gave the photographer a slanting, sideways look. “I’m starving. I hope there’s a good diner or restaurant on Main Street.”
“I think we have plenty of time to sample all the places,” she replied, peering into the face of the grandfather clock before looking at him. The numbers on the face of the clock were inlaid with an oddly familiar gray material.
“You want to visit all the restaurants today?”
“Hah. I mean for the rest of the week.”
They headed toward the front of the house.
“I’ll wait while you put your camera back,” said Stuart.
“Actually, I was planning on taking it with me. Just in case something catches my fancy.”
A dark figure stood by the staircase, one hand on the banister. It was the man she had met outside, Mel realized. Laurent. His eyes were on her and his mouth was curved upward in an odd little smile. His gaze then moved to settle on her companion. Only the faint flickering of the eyelids betrayed the fact that the black-clothed man was assessing the other more casually dressed one. His smile widened a fraction.
“Well, I see I’ll have to change tonight’s plans.” It wasn’t clear whether he was speaking to Mel, Stuart, the both of them, or just himself. But after those words, he turned to climb the stairs.
When Mel and Stuart finally closed the front door behind them, she said, “That was rather enigmatic.”
Stuart grunted. “I thought the signals were rather clear.”
“What do you mean?”
They got in the car and he started the engine. He seemed more focused on the road than on the conversation. “Some guys like to get people interested in them by acting all mysterious. He had the advantage of being dressed like a beatnik too.”
Mel stifled a sudden chuckle. “Maybe you’re right. I saw him walking outside of the bed and breakfast earlier. He said he was a painter.”
“Real painters have the confidence for not acting pretentious and secretive,” said Stuart, mouth curving. “And I would think that they needn’t be dressed in mourning clothes. I bet in reality he’s just a cube worker.”
“Cube worker?” Mel imagined the painter stuck in a cubicle, scowling. “It could be, although he said rather emphatically that he wasn’t on vacation when I asked.”
“That’s interesting. I wouldn’t put too much stock into him though. It’s usually the ordinary seeming people who have the most secrets to hide.”
“I think you’ve watched too many murder mysteries.”
“Maybe. But I really didn’t like it when that guy smiled at me.”
Mel turned to look at him. Stuart wasn’t smiling. Instead, he was frowning as if someone had told him he was going to get chopped liver for dinner. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Gut feeling. I just didn’t like it.”
The car turned on Main Street. At the corner was a small restaurant with a glassed front and a neon sign shouting “The Corner Diner.” Mel suggested they try the place and Stuart maneuvered the car to an empty parking space on the side of the street. The sky had bruised into a dark purplish-blue, the perfect time for dinner, but there were few people on the street.
The door to the small diner clanged as they entered. Inside, the lights were a warm yellow glow. Tables were surrounded by long red vinyl seats and arranged into booths to grant the diners a semblance of privacy. A waitress, an older woman with frizzy hair tied at a knot at the nape of her neck and clad in a white dress uniform and apron approached them and waved toward the booths.
“Two? This way.”
When Mel and Stuart were seated with the menus, the waitress whipped out a pad of paper and pencil from a pocket in her apron.
“I’m Angela, so if there’s anything you need, just give me a holler. So you folks new to the area?”
“We’re just visiting,” replied Stuart.
“On vacation, hm?”
Still looking at the menu, Mel said, “Not exactly.”
“I see,” said the waitress, not really seeing at all. “So are you ready to order?”
When the waitress left, taking the menus and their orders with her, Mel put her elbows on the table and leaned toward Stuart and said in a mock whisper, “You know what I think?”
The glare from the overhead light obscured his expression. “What?”
“This town is a cliché.” Mel sat back.
“I admit, it doesn’t seem that different from other towns, or at least nothing has been that surprising. Except maybe the bed and breakfast.”
“Even that wasn’t too surprising, despite the bad taste in paint color.” She made a brief face thinking back to the pink house. “Well there’s tomorrow.”
“Do you have any definite plans?”
“I take pictures. I have no plans.” She linked her fingers together as if bored. “If something strikes me as interesting on the other hand…”
“Gotcha. You go where your muse goes.”
“Muses are for writers,” she grinned. “Short attention span is more to my liking.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I was thinking of contacting some people—mostly the organizers for the festival—for some interviews. Maybe get some history of the place.”
“I’ll take a walk around town then and maybe take a few shots of the festival preparations. The map of Gavot—I saw some places on it that I might go check out.”
Their conversation broke when Angela came back with trays of dinner. When she left, there was a moment of eating in silence before Stuart picked up where they left off.
“The beads,” he began, “we should look into that some time.”
Mel chewed, thoughtful, and swallowed before saying, “Yes. Any ideas on where to start?”
“I’m not sure what Mad Dog did when he passed through here. Or who he met. Where he stayed. I could start asking people if they met him. In this kind of place, especially, he would be hard to miss.”
“Hm.” Mel absently studied Stuart’s fingers which were wrapped around a fork. “I’ve been wondering what those beads were made of.”
“I’m not well versed on rocks.”
“A jeweler might know. Or a geologist.”
“I doubt there’s anyone of either of those professions wandering about these parts.”
“I’ve also been thinking about the bed and breakfast.”
Stuart grinned. “You can’t let that go, can you? You’re going to call city hall to bulldoze the pink monstrosity?”
“Stuart! Pay attention.”
“I’m always at attention.”
“You sound like a guard dog. Or a randy schoolboy.”
“You think so?”
“Humph. Anyway, remember the dining room?”
“Yeah. What about it? I recall you were taking an inordinate amount of interest with that grandfather clock.”
“I have a hunch about it. When we get back, I’ll show you.”
