“Good morning!”
I looked up to find Bastien standing in front of Bramble House, hosing down the sidewalk in his jeans and boots, his V-neck T-shirt splattered with water. His brown hair was long enough to curl over his collar, and his hands were large and calloused. It was hard to imagine him with the formal, staid man I’d been waving to on the porch.
“Good morning.” He shut off the hose as I made my way toward him. I surveyed the wet sidewalk and glistening grass. “You must have the cleanest sidewalk in Blackwell Hollow.”
He laughed. “That’s just a bonus. I like to start the day outside. It’s best if I give Gabriel a little space in the morning.”
“Not a morning person huh?”
“Let’s just say ‘prickly’ would be an understatement.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “How long have you been running the inn together?”
He thought about it. “Over five years. It was a dump when we bought it.”
I turned to look at the pristine Victorian, dressed in turquoise blue and buttercup yellow. The windows were so clean they shone, the porch looked solid enough to host a block party, and there wasn’t a single area of chipped paint on the entire building.
“That’s hard to believe,” I said.
“Believe it! It was owned by a hoarder who’d gotten too old to manage the place. It drove Evelyn crazy, although she tried to help.”
“I’m not surprised.” Even though I hadn’t known Evelyn at the end of her life, I knew from the way she’d tried to stay in touch with me — and from all the people in Blackwell Hollow — that she would have stepped in to help anyone who needed it.
“How are you?” He lowered his voice, like someone might overhear even though no one was on the sidewalk but us. “I heard about Harold. That must have been pretty shocking. And on your first day too.”
“Definitely not what I expected.”
“Do they have any suspects?”
I recognized the hint of excitement in Bastien’s voice. He was an undercover gossip!
“Not that I know of,” I said. “But I wondered if it might have something to do with the Hearthstone development.”
His face lit up. “That’s what I told Gabriel!”
“What does Gabriel think?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Gabriel’s above gossip, which as you can see, is a trait I don’t share.”
I laughed.
“Don’t get me wrong, I feel badly for poor Harold and everything, but itisquite the mystery,” Bastien said.
“What was he like?” All I knew about Harold Pembroke was that he’d been on the town council. It was easy to think his murder had something to do with the Hearthstone development, but for all I knew, they weren’t his only enemy.
“Harold was… fine.”
“Fine?”
“A little slippery, like all politicians I guess, even small-town ones,” Bastien said.
“Did he have any enemies?” I asked. “Other than Hearthstone I mean.”
Thanks to Rosie, I already had Victor Ames, the community liaison Hearthstone had assigned to the Blackwell Hollow project, at the top of my list. But Harold had been on the town council, and that was a position that could generate anger from every corner.
Surprise washed over Bastien’s face. “Oh, I don’t know if Hearthstone was his enemy just because he opposed the development.”
Easy for him to say. I knew how contentious the planning process could become between residents and developers.Residents were fiercely protective of their neighborhoods, but developers?