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Park, named for Harrison Sterling, a mayor of St. Germaine, who in the early ‘60’s, ramrodded zoning ordinances down the city council’s gullet, resulting in the preservation of the downtown area in an era when most small towns were tearing down old buildings and putting up architectural monstrosities. Now, of course, Harrison Sterling was a hero. As the statue said, “A man of vision.”
    Since The Slab Café was in my path, and I had little else to do, I stopped in to see if Pete was busy. He wasn’t. The lunch crowd had abated, and the lone stragglers sitting at the tables didn’t look as though they’d be ordering anything else.
    “ Need some lunch?” asked Pete as I came in, the bell on the door jangling behind me.
    “ Nope. I had an ostentatious lunch with Meg over at the Ginger Cat. I just came in to borrow your boat.”
    Pete frowned. “You come in here telling me you just had lunch at my competition’s place and now you want to borrow my boat? You’ve got some nerve.”
    “ If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t pay for it,” I offered. “The new waitress is a little ditsy.”
    “ Well, that’s okay then,” said Pete. “As long as I’m not the only one comping your meals.”
    “ I may have to go back and pay,” I admitted. “Meg might shame me into it.”
    “ Yeah, yeah, whatever,” said Pete, already losing interest in riling some guilt out of me. The Ginger Cat wasn’t a threat to the Slab Café, and Pete had good reason for wanting them to stay in business. Pete Moss was, as they say in investment circles, a generator of multiple cash streams. Over the past twenty years, he’d been buying the old buildings on the square, renovating them and renting them out to the merchants of St. Germaine. This strategy was starting to pay off in a big way. The Ginger Cat was in one of Pete’s buildings.
    “ Which boat do you want?”
    “ How many do you have?” I asked.
    “ Three,” said Pete. “No. Four.”
    “ Four?”
    “ I’ve got the sailboat over at Emerald Isle. I’ve got that bass boat. The cabin cruiser—it’s in the shop—and the rowboat.”
    “ I need the rowboat.”
    “ It’s tied up on the lake. Been there since Easter.”
    “ Down at the dock?” I asked. Our little mountain lake was just outside town and surrounded on three sides by the Mountainview Cemetery. The remaining adjacent property had belonged to Malcolm Walker and was now in the possession of his ex-wife, Rhiza. Malcolm was doing prison time and wouldn’t be seeing this or any lake for quite a few years to come. The Mountainview Cemetery didn’t offer an access road to the shore, but anyone could park up on the hill overlooking the lake and walk down. A small dock, set on piers, jutted about eight feet into the water. There were “No Swimming” signs every fifty feet or so, but every once in a while a couple of kids would sneak down there to cool off. And cool off they did. The water came right off the mountains and was usually about sixty-eight degrees or so.
    “ Yep,” said Pete. “It’s tied up at the dock. That is, unless someone’s stolen it.”
    “ I kind of doubt that,” I said. “Where would they go? The lake only covers a couple of acres. And anyway, I’m a detective. If it’s stolen, I’ll find it.”
    “ I was just kidding. It’s not stolen,” said Pete. “I was there yesterday. I took Molly out for a nice boat ride just about dusk.”
    “ Molly Frazier? Kenny’s sister?”
    “ The very same.”
    “ Are you two an item? You working on wife number four?”
    “ Well, you never know,” said Pete, thoughtfully. “Love seems to be in the air.”
    “ Speaking of love in the air, have you talked to Noylene lately?”
    “ Actually, I have,” said Pete. “She’s doing a brisk business at the salon, but she’s going to close on Mondays and Tuesdays. She says that ever since she opened Noylene’s Beautifery, she doesn’t meet as many people as she used to when she was