“He doesn’t seem like the type, but”—Sandy twisted the hem of her apron between her fingers—“we’ve just wondered,because Pete says he saw Scott arrive back at Chapters some time before he said he did.”
I sat up, swinging the rockers of my chair so far forward that I had to slam my heels against the floor to stop their movement. “You did?”
“Yeah.” Pete scratched at the side of his nose; his gaze focused on the string of cobalt-blue glass balls caught up in a fisherman’s net that hung on the opposite wall. “I heard him tell the police he had just arrived back at the carriage house right before he discovered Lincoln Delamont’s body. But I saw him messing around the side of the carriage house at least ten minutes before that.”
“Near the old garden bin?” I asked, recalling Alicia’s mention of the trench coat and hat found stuffed in it.
“Looked like it. I couldn’t really see what he was doing, ’cause those hollies blocked the view, but I did see him walk back there and then heard something like a door opening. Might’ve been the lid to that storage box, I guess.”
I sank back against the back of the rocker. “But he was on the property at least a little while before he claimed he was?”
“Yep. And then there’s the stuff we heard him saying once.” Pete turned to look at his wife. “You remember that conversation, don’t you, Sandy?”
“Like it was yesterday,” she replied. “Although I guess it was a year or so ago now.” She met my inquisitive gaze with a little lift of her chin. “We weren’t eavesdropping or anything. It’s just that Scott has been a regular customer at the Dolphin when he’s in town. While we don’t claim him as a friend, we have chatted a few times when he was getting breakfast or lunch.”
“What did he say that makes you think he might have had some hand in Lincoln Delamont’s death?”
“It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it. He mentioned Delamont, you see, and not in flattering terms.” Sandy released her grip on her apron and smoothed the wrinkled fabric over her knees.
“Really ticked off, is what she means,” Pete said. “Lots of anger in his tone.”
“Because Lincoln swindled his dad?”
Pete gave me the side-eye. “That was it. How did you know?”
“He mentioned something about it to me. Just briefly,” I said, considering my next words. “Did he say anything threatening?”
“Not really. That Delamont fellow had simply stopped by to pick up a sandwich he’d ordered over the phone, so he wasn’t in the Dolphin long. But Kepler spied him at the register and asked who he was. I guess he maybe had an inkling of what the guy looked like, or something. When Sandy told him it was a visitor who was a bookdealer, Kepler lost his temper just like that.” Pete snapped his fingers.
Sandy nodded. “It was like night and day. I was chatting with Mr. Kepler and thought he was very pleasant; then as soon as I saidbookdealer, he sat up and slammed his fist onto the table.” She fanned her face with one hand. “Scared me to death.”
“I poked my head out of the kitchen after I heard the bang and noticed Kepler’s face. He looked so enraged, I headed over to his booth.” Pete gave his wife a little smile. “Had to protect my girl, you know.”
Sandy waved this comment off. “Oh, I knew I wasn’t in any real danger. Mr. Kepler calmed down quickly, but not before he said a few things about Lincoln Delamont being a swindler and crook.”
Pete leaned forward, clasping his hands together on his knees. “Yeah, but that initial anger was pretty dramatic. We’ve wondered, ever since the other night, if maybe Kepler had it in for Delamont, and used the confusion of the party to kill him.”
“Which makes us worry a bit about him staying at Chapters with you and Alicia and poor Mrs. Delamont and her daughter still there,” Sandy said.
“Oh, I don’t know. I can’t picture Scott Kepler as a killer.” I fiddled with a loose piece of wicker poking out of the arm of the rocker.Even though he admitted he laid some of the blame for his father’s death at Lincoln’s door …I shook my head to clear this thought. While it was true that Scott had a motive, so did others. Perhaps even Pete Nelson.
“Did you know him, then? Lincoln Delamont, I mean,” I asked, fixing Pete with an intense stare. “Had you encountered him in Beaufort before?”
“A few times. He visited several times over the past few years, and had a few meals at the Dolphin before. Not always alone,” Sandy added, with a swift glance at Pete.
“With a woman. Well, different women, actually,” Pete said.
“Anyone you recognized?” I asked, thinking of Julie.
“No, they weren’t locals,” Pete said, speaking so rapidly that I wondered if he was telling the truth. “Or if they were, they weren’t ones who often frequented our café.”
Sandy shifted her feet. She looked so uncomfortable, I decided not to press her about whether they’d ever seen Julie lunching with Lincoln at the Dancing Dolphin. “Never his wife and daughter, though?”
Pete wrinkled his nose and sniffed, as if the thought of Lincoln’s behavior disgusted him. “Nope.”
“We didn’t even know he was married, much less had a child, until the other night,” Sandy said. “He was either alone or with some woman or another. Ones we didn’t know,” she added, a little too quickly.
“A real ladies’ man.” Pete’s expression darkened to a glower.
