He reached for the dish in her left hand. “Let me take this one.”

“No thank you. I’ve got them.”

Mr. Martin rushed around the end of the counter. “Mrs. Plummer, forgive me. My people working in back were supposed to tell me when you got here.”

“It’s quite all right. They were busy.” She took a breath and gave a shaky smile. “As ordered, a pecan pie and a peach cobbler.”

She handed them to Mr. Martin in turn. He set the baked goods side by side on the counter and whisked off the muslin towels with the flourish of a magician over a top hat. “Ah, they look scrumptious. Beautiful, too. My wife, God rest her soul, always got the crust too brown.”

Laurel looked pleased but self-conscious over the compliment. “I hope your customers approve.”

“I’ve got two gents here now who turned down dessert, but I’ll bet they’ll reconsider.” He winked at her. “Gentlemen, Mrs. Plummer has started baking for me, and her pies are out of this world. The cobbler is still warm. Can I tempt you? I’ll add a scoop of ice cream on the house.”

“You’ve sold me,” Chester Landry said. He had pushed away from the table and was standing with his napkin in his hand. “Mrs. Plummer, Chester Landry.” He touched his chest and gave her a nod.

“How do you do.”

“Actually, I regretted that my dinner partner—oh, forgive me. This is Mr. Thatcher Hutton.”

The introduction required her to acknowledge him again, something she had avoided doing since her stunned reaction to another unexpected meeting with him. Having recovered, she now said coolly, “Mr. Hutton.”

“Mrs. Plummer.”

Landry said, “As I was saying, to my disappointment, Mr. Hutton had declined dessert, so I felt compelled to do likewise. Thank you for coming to my rescue.”

“I hope you enjoy the cobbler.”

Landry pulled an empty chair from beneath the table. “Would you care to join us?”

“No.” Then, as though realizing how curtly she’d answered, she added, “I can’t. I have other deliveries to make.”

She turned back to Mr. Martin and spoke to him in an undertone. Thatcher didn’t catch her words, but Martin said, “Of course, of course,” and bustled back around the counter to the cash register.

Laurel meticulously folded the dish towels and tucked them beneath her arm. When Mr. Martin returned to her, she extended her hand, and he counted out bills into her palm. She slipped the money into a pocket of her skirt. “Do you want to place an order for Thursday, Mr. Martin?”

“Can you do another apple? And people are still raving about the lemon meringue.”

“I could make another lemon, of course. Although…” She dragged out the word, capturing the café owner’s attention. “I also do a chocolate meringue.”

“One apple, one lemon, one chocolate.”

She reached across the counter to shake his hand. “Thank you. I’ll see you before closing on Thursday.”

She turned and gave Chester Landry a nod, which looked token to Thatcher. He outdistanced her to the swinging door and pulled it open for her. “I’ll walk you out.”

“No thank you. I’m in a hurry.”

He suspected her of fibbing about having more deliveries to make, but there was no way to gracefully call her on it.

“Then good night, Mrs. Plummer.”

“Good night.”

He watched her wend her way through the kitchen, where two women were washing dishes, and a man was chopping up raw chickens. After Laurel disappeared through the rear exit, Thatcher let the door swing shut. Mr. Martin was behind the counter spooning Landry’s cobbler into a bowl.

Landry himself had remained standing, his hand on the back of his chair, smarmy smile in place. Thatcher walked over and resumed his seat.

As Landry sat down, he said, “I was wrong.”

“About what?” Thatcher sipped his cold coffee.

“One sometimes can guess what’s going through your mind.” He cocked an eyebrow in a one-man-to-another leer.

Thatcher gave him a long, unwavering stare from which most men would back down. Landry’s grin only widened enough to reveal his gold tooth.

Thatcher badly wanted to knock it out.

Instead he called over to Mr. Martin, “I’ll have a slice of the pecan pie, please. No ice cream.”

His attempt to deflect Landry’s interest only seemed to amuse the man more. But the salesman didn’t pursue the subject of Laurel Plummer. Instead he asked Thatcher about his horse training technique.

Each bite of the rich pie melted in Thatcher’s mouth.

* * *

As they left the café, Thatcher declined the ride back to the boardinghouse. “I need to stretch my legs. I’m going to walk back.” Giving Landry no opportunity to quibble, he stuck out his right hand. “Thanks for dinner.”

Chester Landry shook hands. “Don’t get used to it. Next time it’s Dutch treat.”

Thatcher, planning for there never to be a next time, smiled as expected, then turned and headed down the street in the opposite direction from which he intended to go.

He waited until Landry’s car was out of sight, then doubled back. He looked in Hancock’s storefront window. The advertisement was still there.

He continued on, following the directions Bernie Croft had given him that first day.

Along the way, he kept to the shadows. Five minutes later, the picturesque facade of the Driscolls’ house came into view. Lights were on in some of the downstairs rooms, including the parlor with the bay window, the doctor’s office.

Aware of Miss Eleanor Wise’s seemingly uninterrupted vigilance, Thatcher didn’t go any farther, but took cover behind the catty-corner neighbor’s detached shed. He slid down the exterior wall of it, worked his butt around until he’d created a depression for it in the ground, and settled in to wait.

What he was anticipating, he couldn’t say. The sudden reappearance of Mrs. Driscoll? A surefire giveaway of the doctor’s guilt?

He was irrationally annoyed with Bill Amos for lending credibility to his notions about the physician. If the sheriff had instead laughed himself silly over them, Thatcher wouldn’t be sitting here in the dark, swatting at mosquitoes, accomplishing nothing.

Time passed. He whiled most of it away thinking about Laurel Plummer. She’d charmed Mr. Martin into increasing his order, and had seemed damned pleased with herself for having done so. Her features hadn’t looked as strained as they had the other times Thatcher had seen her. The smile she’d given the café owner looked genuine.