Locals still got a warmer welcome, though. Muriel beamed when she saw me walk in.
“Hi, Meg!” she called as she stepped out from behind the counter. “You all by yourself?”
“Michael’s taking the munchkins on a hay ride,” I said. “I was craving some of your chili.”
“Great!” she exclaimed. “You want a booth or a seat at the counter?”
I had actually planned to do carryout, since I’d assumed that Muriel’s would be packed, as it usually was during the noon hour. But there was a line of three vacant stools near the far end of the counter, and the last two booths were empty.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. And then I spotted the problem: the man sitting on the last stool, surrounded by a buffer zone of empty seats. He was middle-aged, balding, and utterly nondescript. Not someone who would normally draw a second glance. Except right now—
I lowered my voice. “Is that the private investigator the Evil Lender sent in?”
“My new regular,” Muriel said, also in an undertone. “You’d think after two weeks he’d have figured out that no one in this town is going to tell him the first thing about Mr. Throckmorton.” She glowered at the PI’s back. Just then he turned around, holding his coffee cup up with the look, half hopeful, half apologetic, of someone seeking a refill. Normally Muriel would have refilled a customer’s cup before he even noticed it was getting low. Her scowl didn’t change.
“Likes to linger over his dessert,” she grumbled. “You think people would understand if I started charging for refills? Just for the time being, till he gets the message that he’s not welcome?”
“You think he hasn’t already gotten the message from those empty seats?” I asked. “And he’s on an expense account—he doesn’t care if his employer has to pay for his refills.”
“Hmph. Chili and fries for you, then?” I nodded. Muriel sauntered over to the window and called my order back to Sam in the kitchen. Then she picked up the coffeepot and sashayed to the far end of the counter, where Seth Early, the farmer who lived across the road from Michael and me, was finishing off a burger and reading a copy of The Banner Sheep Magazine.
As she refilled his cup, I overheard her ask Seth about Lad, his border collie. Everyone in town knew that was good for half an hour. Clearly anyone who wanted a refill in a hurry was out of luck.
I strolled over to the counter and took the middle one of the three empty seats. The PI looked up and nodded at me. I nodded back. 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…”