Murder With Puffins(2)

"Bracing, isn't it?" Winnie said, throwing out his chest and taking a deep breath, which was at least one-quarter rain.

"Don't mind him, dear," Binkie whispered, noticing my reaction. "Rough weather always makes him a tittle queasy, and he likes to put a brave front on it."

"Oh, I don't mind the crossing," Winnie said. "I'm just hoping the weather doesn't spoil the bird-watching."

"Bird-watching?" Michael said. "You're going out to Monhegan in the middle of a hurricane for bird-watching?"

"Yes, aren't you?" Winnie asked.

"It's been downgraded to a tropical storm," Binkie said. "And this is the fall flyover season."

"Oh, of course," I said.

"The what?" Michael asked.

"The fall flyover season," Binkie explained. "Monhegan lies right in the path the birds take when they migrate north and south. There's a short time every spring and fall when the bird-watching reaches its peak, and birders come here from all up and down the Eastern Seaboard."

"We have a cottage on the island," Winnie said. "We've been bird-watching here for fifty-three years." He and Binkie exchanged fond smiles.

"But if you're not here for the bird-watching, why are you going out to Monhegan?" Binkie asked.

"We wanted to get away from things," Michael put in. "Get some peace and quiet."

"Some what?" Winnie shouted over a gust of wind that had evidently carried away Michael's words.

"Peace and quiet!" Michael shouted back.

"Oh."

They still looked at us with puzzled expressions. I sighed. I wasn't sure I even wanted to try explaining.

The trip had seemed so logical a few days ago. My romance with Michael had reached the point where we wanted to spend a little time alone together--okay, a lot of time--just at the point when neither of us had a place to call our own.

As a bachelor professor of theater in a college town with a chronic housing shortage, Michael had lived in relative luxury for the last several years by renting houses from faculty members on sabbatical. This year, alas, his landlords had suddenly realized they couldn't afford to spend a year in London--not with their seventh child on the way.

They'd been very nice about letting Michael sleep on their sofa until something else turned up, but it was no place for the logical conclusion to a romantic candlelight dinner. We'd already ended enough dates watching Disney videos and dodging blobs of peanut butter.

And I was temporarily homeless, as well. Subletting my cottage and ironworking studio for several months to a struggling sculptor had seemed like a good idea at the start of the summer. I'd known I would be down in my hometown of Yorktown, organizing three family weddings; and with my career as an ornamental blacksmith on hold, I could use the rent money.

But when I tried to move back in, I couldn't get rid of my tenant. He was in the middle of an important commission; he would ruin the whole piece if he had to move it; he needed just one more week to finish it. He'd been needing just one more week for the past six weeks.

So I was still staying at my parents' house. Mother and Dad weren't there, of course; they were off in Europe on an extended second honeymoon. But the house was filled with elderly relatives. They'd come for the weddings and stayed on to watch the legal circus unfold as the county built its case against the murderer whose identity I'd managed (more or less accidentally) to uncover.

That was another problem. I'd become notorious. I couldn't go anywhere in Yorktown without people coming up to congratulate me for my brilliant detective work. More than one romantic candlelight dinner with Michael had been interrupted by people who insisted on shaking my hand, having their picture taken with me, buying us drinks, treating us to dinner--it was impossible.

"Too bad we can't just run away together to a desert island," Michael said after one such interruption.

Inspiration struck.

"Actually, we can," I said. "What are you doing next weekend?"

"Running away to a desert island with you, evidently," Michael said. "Did you have a particular island in mind?"

"Monhegan!" I said.

"Never heard of it. Where is it?"

"Off the coast of Maine."

"Won't that be cold this time of year?"

"The cottage has a fireplace. And a gas heater."

"Cottage?"

"Aunt Phoebe's summer cottage. Actually, it's an old house. And hardly anyone stays on the island after August; it's too ragged." Which meant we wouldn't have half a hundred neighbors and relatives looking over our shoulders and reporting who said what to whom and how many bedrooms were occupied.

"What about Aunt Phoebe?"