Detective Davenport is sitting at a corner table in Harbor Roasters when I walk in on Friday afternoon, and she doesn’t look surprised to see me.
“Miss Daly. Sit down.”
She’s drinking black coffee — no sugar, no cream, the kind of coffee that’s more medicine than beverage. Her notebook is open on the table, filled with her precise, angular handwriting. She’s wearing the same navy blazer she wore the first day, and her dark hair is pulled back in the same no-nonsense ponytail, and she has the same sharp, assessing eyes that make me feel like I’m being read by someone who’s better at it than I am.
“I was going to call you,” she says. “You saved me a trip.”
“You were going to come to the B&B?”
“I was going to come to the B&B.” She closes her notebook. “I have information. And I need information. I’m told you’ve been conducting your own investigation, Miss Daly.”
“I’ve been asking questions.”
“You’ve been doing considerably more than asking questions. You’ve been to the library, the Crab Pot, and the gallery. You’ve been meeting with Marina Delacroix, Hank Purcell, and Lily Bancroft. You’ve also asked about Eugene Marsh.”
“You’ve been watching me.”
“I’ve been doing my job.” No apology. No softening. Just facts. “I’m a detective. I investigate. When a civilian starts conducting her own parallel investigation, I pay attention.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“Not yet.” The faintest trace of something that might be a smile. “But I need you to understand something, Miss Daly. This is a murder investigation. The person who killed Victor Crane is still at large. If you stumble onto something you shouldn’t, I can’t protect you.”
“I’m not asking for protection. I’m asking for the truth.”
Davenport studies me for a long moment. Then she opens her notebook to a specific page and slides it across the table.
“Read that.”
The page contains a single entry, dated yesterday:
Food samples: walnut detected in the bitten biscuit and in submitted floor fragments. The other sampled biscuits were negative. Differences in appearance warrant comparison of the retained pieces. The results do not identify a source tree, supplier, processing appliance, or date of preparation.
One biscuit. Not the whole batch.
“The samples support an introduced item rather than general contamination of your baking,” Davenport says. “They don’t tell us who introduced it. Your floor samples have handling limitations; the food collected at the scene matters more.”
“Dale Musgrove brought a bag of black walnuts to the B&B on Thursday afternoon.”
Davenport’s expression doesn’t change, but something in her eyes sharpens.
“Before that,” I say, “you wrote differences in appearance. Can you show me?”
Davenport considers me, then takes a photograph from the folder beside her chair. She keeps it on her side of the table. The tray fills most of the image. I recognize the blue border on the plate, the little chip Agnes turns toward the wall.
Three biscuits are narrow fingers. One is partly eaten, wider at the remaining end. Along its top, two rows of small holes survive.
My stomach drops.
“That one isn’t from my batch.”
“Explain.”
“I pricked mine with a skewer. One line. That looks like fork marks, two passes. And I cut mine narrower.”
“Could it be a broken piece making the shape look different?”
“The shape, perhaps. The holes, no.” I hold my hands under the table to stop myself reaching for the picture. “I need to see the original photograph properly. But I didn’t use a fork.”
She writes my words down, then puts the photograph away.
“Could someone have added walnut to one after baking?”
“I can’t tell you what someone could do. I’m telling you that biscuit wasn’t marked by me.”
There is a pause. It is the first time I have offered Davenport something she cannot get by asking who owns a key.
She asks me to describe the entire batch, the cutter, the skewer, the cooling rack, and whether I had any older shortbread in storage. I answer each question. There was no older batch of mine. Agnes tasted a broken end while the rest cooled.
“The two rows are familiar,” I say. “An old recipe photograph at the library. Agnes’s mother used a fork twice. Half the town might do it.”
“That is useful. Please don’t announce which details we’re comparing.”
“You think someone brought a different biscuit.”
“It’s something we can test.”
At Daly Bread, I could look into a display case and know which tray a trainee had cut. I had forgotten that knowing a small thing exactly was worth anything beside Marina’s wall of documents.
Now the knowledge frightens me. Someone made food for a particular person. Carried it into our house. Put it where my work belonged.
Davenport turns to a clean page. “Now tell me about Mr. Musgrove’s visit.”
I describe the frozen walnuts Dale brought, his familiarity with the kitchen, and the spare keys. Davenport asks which details I actually observed and which I learned from someone else.
I tell her about the land deed. George and Dale, buying Thomas Marsh’s land one week after his disappearance. The shell company. The profit.
I ask whether Harding collected George’s letter on Tuesday. She confirms that it is secured and being assessed with the other records.
I tell her about Hank. The party. The confrontation. George’s punch. Thomas falling. Dale saying, We have to move him. We have to move him now. Hank’s nearly thirty years of silence.
I tell her about Marina. Thomas Marsh’s daughter. Five years of investigation. Her mother’s statement, the letters, the research.
I tell her Lily’s account differs from Marina’s about Victor’s medication. I describe the red pouch I saw at breakfast. She writes down the description and asks me not to question either woman on her behalf.
I tell her about the kitchen door at 8:55 PM. The unexplained presence in the B&B while Agnes was in her sitting room and Dale was supposedly at home.
Davenport listens to all of it. She doesn’t interrupt. Her notebook stays shut. Every now and then she asks me to repeat an exact phrase, the way someone does when precision matters more than reassurance.
When I finish, she’s quiet for a long time. The coffee shop hums around us — the hiss of the espresso machine, the murmur of conversation, the clink of ceramic cups. Dina is making a lavender latte for a tourist. The afternoon light through the window is warm and golden.
“Miss Daly,” Davenport says finally. “I can confirm one detail because you heard the door, and I need to compare your account with the records. Keep this between us while we verify it.”
“Okay.”
“Victor Crane’s phone records came back yesterday. He made a call at 8:52 PM on Thursday night — three minutes before you heard the kitchen door open. The call lasted eleven seconds. It was to a number not in his contacts.”
She turns her notebook to another page. A phone number, written in her angular hand.
“We traced it. The number belongs to Dale Musgrove.”
The coffee shop tilts slightly. I grip the edge of the table.
“Victor called Dale at 8:52 PM. The call lasted eleven seconds — long enough to say one or two sentences. Not long enough for a conversation.” Davenport closes the notebook. “Three minutes later, you heard the kitchen door.”
“Victor called Dale to the conservatory.”
“That’s one interpretation.”
“It could mean Victor knew Dale was nearby. Or wanted to know where he was. But why call him at that hour?”
“Or Dale was already in the house and Victor was confirming his location. Or the call was unrelated. Eleven seconds is not a lot of information, Miss Daly.”
“But combined with everything else—”
“Combined with everything else, it’s significant. I agree.” Davenport stands. She picks up her coffee, drains the last of it, and sets the cup down with a precise, deliberate motion. “I’m going to talk to Mr. Musgrove. Officially. On the record.”
“Today?”
“The formal interview is being arranged through his attorney. Meanwhile, we’re checking his account and preserving records. I won’t give you operational details, Miss Daly.”
“Harbor Days is tomorrow. The whole town will be on the boardwalk. Dale will be there — he’s organizing the fishing tournament for the Rotary Club.”
“Then let the festival be a festival. Don’t confront him. Don’t tell him what you know. If he contacts you about the investigation, tell me.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
She nods and leaves. The door closes behind her. I sit at the corner table with my empty latte cup and Davenport’s empty coffee cup and the knowledge that at 8:52 PM on Thursday night, Victor Crane called Dale Musgrove’s phone and left an eleven-second question hanging in the air. Three minutes later, I heard a door. I still don’t know who opened it.
Tomorrow is Harbor Days. The festival. The pie contest. The fishing tournament. The whole town on the boardwalk, eating chowder and buying art and pretending that everything is fine.