Thread and Buried by Janet Bolin Page A

farm stand.”
    “My nice red truck or your boring car?” Haylee teased.
    “My car doesn’t call attention to us like your red truck does—your truck with its sissy automatic transmission.”
    “You could teach me to drive a stick shift, but then you’d have nothing to act superior about.”
    “Ha. We need to save my
boring
five-speed for times when we don’t want people recognizing us, like when we have to snoop around after dark.”
    “We’d never do that,” she said.
    I laughed. “I’ll walk the dogs and then meet you at your truck in a half hour.”
    What was the point of fencing in my backyard if the poor dogs couldn’t run around freely in it? After a short outing with all four animals in the part of my yard we were allowed to use, I let Sally help me round up the kittens, then took the dogs for a brisk jaunt to the beach and back.
    Hoping I wouldn’t return to shredded furniture, I shut the animals into my great room, and then Haylee and I set off in her cherry red pickup truck. She turned to me. “Have you talked to Tom Umshaw since Neil’s death?”
    “No. I should offer my condolences.”
    “I need to do that also, and I could use some fresh fish for supper. Mind if we head for the wharf, first?”
    “We should,” I agreed.
    She drove out of Threadville and west on Shore Road. “Do you know anything about Neil’s family and his other friends besides Tom?”
    “Vicki said that his only family was his mother, in Florida. And he must have other friends besides Tom. But I think he usually started his working day around two in the morning, which would have kept him from many evening activities, like hanging around with the regulars at The Ironmonger.”
    Haylee turned her pickup right on a road leading down a hill to the Elderberry Bay Lodge, the marina, and the wharf. “During sewing classes,” she told me, “Tom said that he heads out very early some mornings to get to the really good fishing spots. He was glad that our courses were held in the daytime. He said that even during the winter, he started yawning by seven. So he wouldn’t hang out with the Ironmonger crowd, either. No wonder he and Neil were friends. Our lunchtime would just about be . . . have been . . . their suppertime.”
    Neil had seemed like an outgoing, contented, and generous man, but I hadn’t known him well. He’d lived in the apartment above La Bakery, and I’d never seen anyone else around who might have shared that apartment with him. I felt sorry for his mother. And for Tom and for Neil’s other friends, too, who would be grieving over his loss. Life was too short, especially for Neil.
    To our left, the Elderberry Bay Lodge, resplendent in fresh white paint, nestled among trees above lawns sloping down to the beach. The bright blue sky reflected on water lapping at the sand. A couple of motorboats were tied up at a spanking new dock, while canoes, kayaks, and paddle boats were on the sand above the waterline.
    Haylee turned right again, onto Beach Row. We passed a marina that was colorful with flags flying from yachts.
    Beyond the marina, Haylee could have continued along Beach Row, which would have taken us back home. Instead, she parked in the lot that served the marina, the public boat launch, and the wharf.
    Tom’s shop was the largest on the wharf, and the closest to Beach Row. It was built of weathered wood with a rustic sign over the door,
Tom’s Fish Shack
, and a hole or two gnawed through the wood near the pavement.
    Head down, Tom came out of his shop and headed for a pickup truck with a windowed cap over the bed.
    Jumping out of Haylee’s truck, I called to him.
    His eyes were red-rimmed, his face puffy. With obvious effort, he turned the corners of his mouth up in a smile that didn’t match his sad eyes.
    Haylee clambered out of her truck, too.
    Awkwardly, we asked if we were too late to buy fish.
    “Of course not. Come on in.” He turned around, led us to the building, and rammed the