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“Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea?” Belatedly, she remembered her manners.
    â€œNo thanks. I have to get back to Philadelphia.”
    From Carrie’s expression, he might have been returning to Mars.
    He shook her hand. “You’ve been very helpful.” As he started out the door, he turned. “No one else came into the kitchen while you were there?”
    â€œNo, sir. Except Miss Judith—to tell me to go home. Before
I’d half finished the cleanup too. And the next day she came here to pay me my money. The full amount, although I told her it wasn’t right.”
    He thanked Carrie again and left her as he had found her, standing in the doorway, two children clinging to her. Confound it, where was the child’s mother? It wasn’t right shoving all that responsibility on a teenager. She should be at her studies. Or with friends—having a good time. Absorbed in his anger, he almost forgot where he was going. Then he saw the lighted sign. SEACREST INN. It had grown dark while he was talking to Carrie. And colder. A sea breeze in November was no joke. Pulling his coat more closely about him, he headed for the glowing sign.

CHAPTER 8
    T he bar wasn’t crowded. But there were more people than Fenimore would have expected on an off-season evening. The decor was “fake seacoast.” Garish reproductions of sailing ships alternated with fishnets and lobster pots along the walls. A large ship’s wheel hung behind the bar. Anchors decorated every available surface—napkins, glasses, ashtrays, and coasters. Fenimore supposed that the captain’s cap that the bartender wore at such a rakish angle had once been white. He ordered Scotch.
    At the other end of the bar a small group of locals were discussing something in subdued tones. Fenimore could barely hear them, but every now and then a voice would rise and he caught the name “Pancoast.” He knew the family had founded the village of Seacrest before the American Revolution. There was a Pancoast Street and a Pancoast Library. Any happening in the Pancoast family—birth, wedding, death—would be of major interest to the inhabitants of the village. If the
group at the end of the bar had access to the same grapevine as Carrie—there could be no doubt about what topic they were discussing.
    Gradually Fenimore began to grow warmer. He shed his coat, folded it, and placed it on the barstool next to him.
    â€œRemember old Caleb Pancoast?” A voice rumbled down the bar. “There was a seaman for you.” The voice went on to relate a sea story of which Fenimore caught only snatches.
    â€œEighty-mile-an-hour winds …”
    â€œTorn sail …”
    â€œBusted rudder …”
    Now and then the men would send wary glances down the bar and lower their voices. A stranger in a small town was always suspect.
    Fenimore kept his eyes focused on himself in the mirror behind the bar (something he rarely did; he did not consider his face one of his fine points). He ordered another Scotch. When the bartender set it down, Fenimore asked, “Do the Pancoasts ever come in here?”
    The bartender pushed back his cap and grinned. “Sure, Doc. Miss Judith and Miss Emily come waltzing in here every afternoon for a snort.”
    Fenimore wasn’t surprised that the man knew he was a doctor. Just another example of the village grapevine at work. He laughed. “I meant the younger generation.”
    â€œOnly Tom. He’s a booze hound.”
    Fenimore didn’t contradict him.
    â€œBut then, you can hardly blame him—with that wife of his. Doesn’t make a move without reading her horoscope first. Uses
a cell phone to check in with her astrologer twenty-four hours a day. Spends as much money on fortune-tellers as most women spend on hairdressers.” He took a swipe at the bar with his cloth. “A real nut. If she were mine, I’d drink too. As a matter of