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cannot be beat. And if you ask for it, he will top the hash with one or two perfectly poached eggs.
    “Yes, please. With one egg.”
    “Because one egg is un oeuf.” Gus repeated the oldest joke in the world.
    Sitting diagonally across from me on the long side of the counter was a man dressed differently from everyone else in the place. He had on a tweed sports coat and a tailored blue shirt, and was reading, my heart went pit-a-pat the New York Times. He was one of my people .
    Suddenly, I was homesick for Manhattan. It was all I could do to keep from hiking out to the highway and sticking out my thumb. Back to the land of fresh bagels, high salaries and, best of all, no family responsibilities.
    I stared at the backside of the man’s newspaper. It had to be yesterday’s. It would be hours before the Sunday Times made it to our end of the peninsula. But no, he was reading the wedding notices from the Times “Sunday Styles” section. My favorite part of the weekend. Where had he gotten hold of it?
    “Do you two know each other?” Gus asked.
    “Quentin here’s from New York City, too.”
    “Not everyone in New York knows everyone else,” I said more grumpily than Gus deserved. I knew he didn’t think that.
    He put my order down in front of me. I cut into the egg and watched its exquisitely cooked yolk run onto my hash. I put a fork full into my mouth and felt my mood lift.
    The man waved at me across the counter. He was pleasant looking, somewhere in his mid-forties, with dark blond hair, expensively cut. “Quentin Tupper.”
    Tupper. That explained his presence at Gus’s. Like me, he was a legacy. The Tuppers were an old Maine family with many branches. If my father had been alive, he could have given me a complete genealogy and told me whose son Quentin was. But I’d never be able to ask my dad those kinds of questions again.
    I leaned across the counter and stuck out my hand. “Julia.” I left off my last name in case he’d already heard about the murder at the Snowden Family Clambake. It was the last subject I wanted to talk about.
    Quentin asked me where I lived in the city, and I told him. As was so often the case when Manhattanites were out of town, we discovered we lived four blocks from one another and shopped at the same delis, lingered in the same coffee shops. While I sopped up the end of my egg with a piece of toast, we had a long chat about our neighborhood. I even forgot for one brief moment about the events of the previous day.
    Gus’s was all but empty by the time I finished eating. The harbor workers had places to go and it would be a couple hours before the after-church crowd arrived. Quentin Tupper finished his coffee and paid his bill. “Lovely to meet you,” he said.
    I said the same and he took off, leaving me alone at the counter with Gus.
    The only people still in the dining room were Jamie and Officer Howland. I couldn’t help myself. I approached them again. “Still waiting, huh?”
    Jamie nodded. “They called. They were too late to have breakfast with us, but they’re here now. We’re meeting them at the station house.”
    “You know it’s really important to me to be up and running again as soon as possible, right?” I tried to keep any hint of whine out of my voice, though I’m not sure I succeeded. Officer Howland gathered up his trash and stomped off toward the barrel.
    “Julia, I get it.” Jamie stood to leave. “I told you yesterday, you can’t rush this.”
    “Well, if you think I can open tomorrow, can you try to let me know in time for me to place food orders?”
    “I’ll make sure the state police are aware of your time constraints,” Jamie answered formally. Then, in a friendlier tone, he added, “Honestly, that’s the best I can do.”
    What could I say to that? I thanked him, returned to the counter, and asked Gus for my check.

Chapter 9
    Just as I was about to say good-bye to Gus, a familiar pair of legs came galumphing down the restaurant