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Then I reached into my purse to pull out my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe, as I called the small but fat binder that held my epic to-do list. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Sam, the cook, sliding a glass of water next to me.
    “I’m just visiting Caerphilly,” the PI said.
    I glanced up. He was looking at me.
    “We seem to be very popular these days,” I said. “Hope you enjoy your stay.”
    I went back to my notebook. I had crossed off a few items and added one more when I heard the PI’s voice again.
    “So is there anyone in town who doesn’t know who I am?” he asked.
    I glanced up again. He had turned around sideways, the better to talk to me. Or maybe the better to study my fellow townspeople. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that everyone else in the diner was ostentatiously not looking our way. I pondered several possible answers and decided on the truth.
    “You mean, is there anyone who doesn’t know you’re the private investigator hired by the Evil Lender?”
    His face fell a little, but he nodded.
    “Nobody really bought the story that you were a freelance reporter,” I said. “We’ve seen quite a few of those over the last year, and we all know the kind of questions they ask, and yours just didn’t ring true.”
    “So everybody had me pegged from day one?”
    I shrugged.
    “I don’t expect the younger tots at the Wee Kinder Day Care have figured it out yet,” I said. He winced slightly. “And there’s an old guy over at the Caerphilly Nursing Home who’s convinced that you’re an advance scout for Ulysses S. Grant’s army. But for the most part, yeah, everyone knows who you are and why you’re here.”
    He nodded again and picked up his empty coffee cup. After a rueful glance inside, he put it down again, and reached for his water glass. It was nearly empty, too, but he finished off the last half inch of water and began crunching some ice cubes.
    “Here,” I said, shoving my water over to him. “I haven’t touched this yet.”
    “Thanks,” he said. “A pity it’s bad business to say ‘I told you so’ to a client. Because I did warn them. Small town like this, situation like this, and someone nobody’s ever seen before shows up and hangs around asking peculiar questions…”
    He shrugged and sipped his new water.
    “You’re good,” I said. “The whole rueful, self-deprecating manner. Bet most of the time it works pretty well.”
    He started to laugh and snorted out a bit of the water.
    “Sorry.” He was patting his shirtfront and the counter dry with his napkin. He looked up and grinned at me. “Yeah, normally it does.”
    Nondescript looking but definitely charming. I was almost tempted to suggest that a PI who was the right age to be a student at Caerphilly College might have had a better chance of slipping under our radar.
    Almost tempted.
    “And you’re right,” he was saying. “The Evil Lender, as everyone around here likes to call my client, hired me to find out how Mr. Throckmorton is getting his supplies. At first they just thought he stocked up for a siege before they took possession of the building, but every week that’s getting harder to buy. They’re wondering what’s going on.”
    “A lot of people are wondering the same thing,” I said. Which wasn’t a lie. A lot of people were wondering, just not a lot of people in town.
    Except, of course, for the Pruitts, who had brought the Evil Lender down on us in the first place.
    “I really thought my cover was pretty good,” he said. “I mean, why wouldn’t people want to talk to a freelance writer trying to do a sympathetic story on the Siege of Caerphilly?”
    “Last I heard, they were talking to you,” I said. “They just weren’t telling you what you obviously want to know. Because if anyone’s sneaking supplies into the courthouse basement, they’re not going to admit it. And if they know that someone’s doing it and how, they’re not going to rat their neighbors out.