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for her job amusing, inexplicable and mildly exhausting.
    She kicked the door shut and came to a halt, her arms wrapped around a paper sack that bore the log f the Dunsley Market, and fixed him with an accusing glare.
    “I just came from the market. Everyone’s saying that Irene Stenson is back in town and that she’s staying right here at the lodge and that the two of you found Pamela Webb’s body last night.”
    Luke leaned on the desk. “The way gossip moves through this town probably ought to be a classified military secret.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” Maxine put the sack down on the table she had selected for the morning coffee and doughnut service. “I work here at the lodge, for heaven’s sake. I should have been the first to know. Instead I had to hear the news from Edith Harper. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me?”
    “Irene Stenson phoned in the reservation yesterday morning while you were out running some errands. Checked in late yesterday afternoon after you’d gone home for the day. We didn’t find the body until a quarter to eleven last night. What with one thing and another, there hasn’t been time to bring you up to speed. Sorry about that.”
    Maxine whistled softly and slung her coat over one of the antlers of the coatrack.
    “The whole town is talking. I doubt if there’s been this much excitement since the day Irene left all those years ago.” She frowned in genuine concern. “How is she, by the way? Finding Pamela like that must have been

    dreadful. They were best friends for a summer back in high school, you know.”
    “Just one summer?”
    “Pamela was usually only here during the summers. The rest of the time she was away at some fancy boarding school or skiing in the Alps or something. She and Irene made an odd match, to tell you the truth. They couldn’t have been more different.”
    “Maybe that was the appeal.”
    Maxine pursed her lips, considering the possibility, then shrugged. “Could be.
    Pamela was the classi ild child. She was into drugs and boys, and her daddy the senator gave her everything she wanted. She always had the newest, trendiest clothes, a flashy sports car the day she turned sixteen, you name it.”
    “What about Irene Stenson?”
    “Just the opposite, like I said. The quiet, studious type. Spent most of her free time in the library. Always had her nose buried in a book. Always polite to adults. Never got into trouble. Never had a date.”
    “What did her parents do?”
    “Her mother, Elizabeth, painted, although I don’t think she ever made any money off her art. Her father, Hugh Stenson, was the chief of police here in Dunsley.”
    “A job that probably didn’t provide for unlimited teenage wardrobes, new cars and ski trips.”
    “You got that right.” Maxine scowled at the empty platter on the coffee service table.
    “You didn’t pu ut any doughnuts for the guests.”
    “I threw the last batch away yesterday It was either that or weld them together to make a new ancho or the boat. Besides, there’s only one guest at the moment, and something tells me she isn’t going to get excited about doughnuts, at least not the kind the Dunsley Market sells.”
    “It’s the principle of the thing. Luckily I picked up a fresh package this morning.”
    Maxine took a box out of the paper sack, ripped it open and began arranging doughnuts on a plastic tray. “It looks inviting to have a few pastries and some freshly brewed coffee available in the mornings. All of the better-class hotels and inns do it.”
    “I like to think that the Sunrise on the Lake Lodge is in a class by itself,” Luke said.
    “Tell me the rest of the Stenson story.”
    “Well, as I was saying, for whatever reason, the summer Pamela Webb turned sixteen, she decided to make Irene her best friend.” Maxine tipped her head slightly to the side, looking thoughtful. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Pamela liked the contrast she and Irene made. She probably