“You mean the green tomatoes?” Olga asked.
“That was a red herring,” Bunny said. “But the disruption at the local honey stand was the clue.”
“You’re really good at this, Bunny. Maybe you should be a detective.” Emma’s compliment practically made Bunny blush.
“Oh, it’s just a matter of deduction.” Bunny tried to sound humble. She was going to add that anyone could do it if they paid attention to the details, but she was distracted by more movement in the hallway. She craned her neck to see around Jane, who was blocking her view of the hall.
“What I don’t get is how did the killer dispose of the body so easily?” Claire was trying to pass around the tray of sweet potato Danish, but everyone was claiming to be full.
“Oh, that was easy.” Bunny leaned forward as if about to reveal a big secret, and everyone else leaned in too. She lowered her voice. “You see, the killer simply went to the site beforehand and—”
Creak!
Heads jerked toward the sound in the hallway.
Jane leapt up from her chair.
“Hello? Can I help you… oh, Mr. Smith! What can I do for you?”
“Err… sorry. I… umm… Someone said there would be coffee, and I wanted a cup.” The voice came from the hallway, and Bunny tilted to the right to look around Jane so she could see who it belonged to.
“It’s in the dining room. I’ll show you.” Jane put her book on her chair and hurried into the hall.
The hall was only dimly lit by a wall sconce, but right before they turned to go to the dining room, Bunny caught a glimpse of Mr. Smith. He looked to be in his mid to late forties. He was average height, with dark hair cut short and beady dark eyes. Okay, she couldn’t actually see his eyes, but she’d bet money they were beady.
Bunny turned to the group as Mr. Smith and Jane disappeared down the hall. “Coffee? Does anyone else think that’s a little odd?”
Olga raised her mug filled with coffee. “Not me.”
“He was probably really looking for the pastries,” Sally said.
“He keeps strange hours and drinks a lot of coffee. It’s not that unusual,” Liz said.
Jane returned, and they continued to discuss the book, but Bunny was only half paying attention. Something about Mr. Smith had her concerned. If her intuition was correct—and it usually was—then Mr. Smith was up to no good. But what was he up to?
There was only one way to find out. She’d already proven that her skills of investigation were superior when it came to book detecting, and now she was going to prove they were superior in real life. Bunny was going to find out what Mr. Smith was up to, no matter what it took.
* * *
Bunny took Liz up on her offer of a ride to her car after the book club. She didn’t want to walk down the dark beach, but she also wanted to pump Liz for information about Mr. Smith.
“It’s kind of weird that there’s only one person staying at Tides, don’t you think?” Bunny asked.
“Not this time of year. Jane said hardly anyone comes because it’s too late for beachgoers and too early for leaf-peeping.” Liz chewed on her bottom lip. “I guess you could say it’s unusual to even haveoneguest since it’s off-season.”
“Huh.” Bunny added that to her list of suspicions. “Mr. Smith does seem unusual. Especially the way he was lurking in the hallway during our book discussion.”
Liz looked over at her. “Lurking? He was just looking for the coffee urn. I’d mention to him earlier that we would have coffee and snacks.”
“I think I saw him standing in the hallway for a while, and everything was set up in the dining room. You’d think he would have seen it in there.”
Liz shrugged. “He doesn’t seem to be overly observant.”
“Really? What is he like? Why is he in town?”
Liz laughed. “Is this an inquisition? He’s quiet and mostly stays in his room. Though I have seen him go out to the beach a few times. It’s still nice enough for walking.”
“Is he visiting relatives?”
