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killer.”
    “I get it. Don’t keep saying it. It freaks me out.”
    Chris’s features relaxed. “Okay.”
    “What were you going to do with your day off?” I asked. “Originally.”
    “Get some work done on my house. Then Sam’s tonight for the game.” As soon as his summer tenants had moved out of the cabin he’d bought from his parents, Chris had torn the second-floor walls back to the studs. It was a long, slow process building it up again. He paid for the upgrades, including the heating system, electricity, and plumbing, as he made money. The work all had to be done by the spring so he could rent out the cabin for the summer.
    The “Sam” he’d referred to was Sam Rockmaker, bartender and part owner of Crowley’s. Chris played poker with a group of guys at Sam’s house every Tuesday.
    “Do you want me to stay? Are you nervous about being here?” Chris asked.
    “No. You go. I’m fine. The cops have been all over the building. This is probably the safest place in the harbor.”
    Chris stood and bent over to give me a fast smooch. Then he was out the door and I was alone in the empty restaurant.
    * * *
    I went upstairs to my apartment. Le Roi was at the top of the stairs, vocalizing in my direction, upset at the day’s intrusions on his rigorous routine of napping, eating, and napping again. Even though he’d been an outdoor cat on predator-free, car-free Morrow Island, he’d taken to the life of an indoor town cat like a champ. We’d both felt instantly at home in the apartment over Gus’s restaurant.
    The place was a big studio, tucked under the eaves of the old warehouse that Gus’s restaurant had once been. There was a high central ceiling and four dormered nooks, one on each side of the building. The one facing south contained my bed, still in the unmade state it had been in when first I, and then Chris, answered Gus’s summons this morning. The east-facing nook contained the bathroom, the north-facing one the kitchen. The fourth was part of the main living space and held a giant, multipaned window facing west that framed a view of the back harbor. Outside, the boats belonging to the hardiest, most dedicated lobstermen were still in the water, but all the other slips were empty.
    Now that feeling of home had gone, replaced by a creeping unease that tensed the back of my neck and pinched my shoulders. What if, as Chris had suggested, the stranger or his killer had hidden in my apartment while our guests dined and Chris and I worked downstairs? Had the murderer or victim sat on my couch, touched my stuff?
    And then there’d been the cops this morning. They had searched the place too. I’d given them permission to do so when I signed the release. I shivered as I gazed at the rumpled bed. At least nothing embarrassing had been left out. But I wondered, had they been in my bathroom? Had they opened my drawers? They must have.
    I went into the kitchen nook, preparing to clean out the refrigerator for Gus as I’d promised. The warehouse attic had been converted to living space during World War II. Gus and his family had moved out in the late 1950s, and nothing had been done to it since. The appliances were tiny and ancient. The freezer was a small metal box inside the refrigerator. If left unattended too long, it had to be defrosted with the hammer and chisel Gus kept in a toolbox behind the lunch counter in the restaurant.
    As I’d remembered, there wasn’t much in the old refrigerator. Chris and I had spent most of the previous weekend at my mom’s, enjoying Thanksgiving with my family and our guests. Even without the holiday, it was hard to get motivated to buy food and cook with a restaurant right downstairs. I threw out some expired cartons of yogurt, the remains of a sub, and a few wilted stalks of celery. When I was done, I took the plastic bag out of the kitchen barrel, planning to take the garbage to the Dumpster behind the restaurant.
    Gus didn’t need to reopen right away for