Donna is talking on the phone when I walk into the office of Branca Property Sales and Management. She gives me a welcoming wave and gestures to the waiting area. I sit down near a sunny window and as she continues her conversation, I flip through a book of properties listed for rent. I can’t find any listing for Brodie’s Watch, but there are other enticing options, from shingled beachside cottages to in-town apartments to a stately mansion on Elm Street that comes at an equally stately price. As I flip through pages of beautifully photographed homes, I think about the view from my bedroom in Brodie’s Watch and my morning walk along the cliff with its perfume of roses. How many homes in this book came with their own private beach?

“Hello, Ava. How are you settling in at the house?”

I look up at Donna, who’s finally finished her phone call. “I have, um, a few little problems I need to talk to you about.”

“Oh dear. What problems?”

“Well to begin with, mice.”

    “Ah.” She sighs. “Yes, it’s an issue with some of our older houses around here. Since you have a cat, I don’t recommend putting out poison, but I can supply you with some mousetraps.”

“I don’t think a few mousetraps are going to take care of the problem. It sounds like there’s an army of them living in the walls.”

“I can ask Ned and Billy—they’re the carpenters—to close up any obvious entry points so more mice can’t get in. But it is an old house, and up here, most of us just learn to live with them.”

I hold up the book of rental properties. “So even if I moved to a different place, I’d run into the same problem?”

“Right now there isn’t anything available for rent in the area. It’s the height of summer and everything’s booked, except for maybe a week here and a week there. And you wanted a longer term rental, right?”

“Yes, through October. To give me time to finish the book.”

She shakes her head. “I’m afraid you won’t find anything that can match the views and privacy of Brodie’s Watch. The only reason your rent’s so reasonable is because the house is under renovation.”

“That’s my second question. About the renovation.”

“Yes?”

“You said the carpenters would only be working on weekdays.”

“That’s right.”

“This morning, when I was out on the cliff path, I thought I saw someone up on the widow’s walk.”

“On a Sunday? But they don’t have a key to the house. How did they get in?”

“I left the front door unlocked when I went out for my walk.”

“Was it Billy or Ned? Ned’s in his late fifties. Billy’s just twenty-something.”

“I didn’t actually speak to anyone. When I got back, no one was in the house.” I pause. “I suppose it could have been just a trick of the light. Maybe I didn’t see anyone after all.”

For a moment she’s silent, and I wonder what’s going through her head. My tenant is a loon? She manages a smile. “I’ll give Ned a call and remind him not to disturb you on weekends. Or you can tell him yourself when you see him. They should both be up at your house tomorrow morning. Now, about the mouse problem, I can bring you some traps tomorrow, if you’d like.”

    “No, I’ll pick some up right now. Where do they sell them in town?”

“Sullivan’s Hardware is right down the street. Turn left and you can’t miss it.”

I’m almost at the door when I suddenly remember one more thing I need to ask. I turn back. “Charlotte left a cookbook in the house. I’ll be happy to send it to her if you let me know where she wants it mailed.”

“A cookbook?” Donna shrugs. “Maybe she didn’t want it anymore.”

“It was a gift from her grandmother and it has Charlotte’s handwritten notes all over it. I’m sure she does want it back.”

Donna’s attention is already shifting away from me and back to her desk. “I’ll shoot her an email and let her know.”

* * *

—

The sunshine has brought out all the tourists and as I walk down Elm Street, I dodge baby strollers and give a wide berth to children clutching drippy ice cream cones. As Donna said, it really is the height of summer and everywhere in town, cash registers are merrily ringing, restaurants are crowded, and scores of unlucky lobsters are meeting their steamy fates. I continue past the Tucker Cove Historical Society, past half a dozen shops all selling the same T-shirts and saltwater taffy, and finally spot the sign for Sullivan’s Hardware.

When I step inside, a bell tinkles on the door and the sound brings back a memory from my childhood, when my grandfather would bring me and my older sister, Lucy, into a hardware store just like this one. I pause and inhale the familiar scents of dust and freshly sawn wood and remember how Grandpa would lovingly peruse the hammers and screws, hoses and washers. A place where men of his generation knew their purpose and happily embraced it.

    I don’t see anyone, but I can hear two men somewhere at the rear of the store discussing the merits of brass versus stainless steel faucets.

I head down an aisle, searching for mousetraps but find only gardening implements. Trowels and spades, gloves and shovels. I turn down the next aisle, which is stocked with nails and screws and spools of wire chain in every possible link size. Everything you need to build a torture chamber. I’m about to start down a third aisle when a head suddenly pops up from behind a pegboard of screwdrivers. The man’s white hair stands up like dandelion fluff and he peers at me through drooping spectacles.

“Help you find something, miss?”

“Yes. Mousetraps.”

“Got yourself a little rodent problem, eh?” He chuckles as he rounds the end of the aisle and approaches me. Although he’s wearing work boots and a tool belt, he looks far too old to still be swinging a hammer. “I keep the mousetraps down this way, with the kitchen utensils.”

Mousetraps as kitchen utensils. Not an appetizing thought. I follow him to a back corner of the store, where I see an array of spatulas and cheap aluminum pots and pans, all of them covered with dust. He snatches up a package and hands it to me. In dismay, I eye the spring-loaded Victor snap traps, six to a packet. The same brand of traps my grandparents would set out in their New Hampshire farmhouse.

“Do you have something a little more, uh, humane?” I ask.

“Humane?”

“Traps that don’t kill them. Like a Havahart?”

“And what do you plan to do with ’em after you catch ’em?”

“Let them go. Outside somewhere.”

    “They’ll just come right back in again. Unless you’re planning on taking ’em for a long drive.” He gives a loud guffaw at the idea.

I look at the snap traps. “These just seem so cruel.”

“Dab on a little peanut butter. They sniff it, step on the spring, and whap!” He grins when I jump at the sound. “They won’t feel a thing, I promise ya.”

“I really don’t think I want to—”

“Got an expert here in the store who can reassure you.” He yells across the store: “Hey, Doc! Come tell this young lady she’s got nothin’ to be squeamish about!”

I hear approaching footsteps and turn to see a man around my age. He’s wearing blue jeans and a plaid shirt, and with his clean-cut good looks, he might have just stepped off the pages of an L.L.Bean catalogue. I almost expect to see a golden retriever trotting at his heels. He’s carrying a brass faucet set, the apparent winner of the stainless steel-or-brass debate I’d overheard earlier.

“How can I help, Emmett?” he says.

“Tell this nice lady here that the mice won’t suffer.”

“What mice?”

“The mice in my house,” I explain. “I came in to buy traps, but these…” I look down at the package of snap traps and shudder.

“I keep tellin’ her they’ll do the trick, but she thinks they’re cruel,” says Emmett.

“Ah. Well.” Mr. L.L.Bean gives an unhelpful shrug. “No killing device is going to be one hundred percent humane, but those old Victor traps have the advantage of being almost instantaneous. The bar snaps the backbone, which severs the spinal cord. That means no pain signals can be transmitted, minimizing the animal’s suffering. And there are studies that show—”

“Excuse me, but why are you an expert on this?”

He gives a sheepish smile. I notice his eyes are a striking blue and he has enviably long lashes. “It’s basic anatomy. If signals can’t travel up the spinal cord to the brain, the animal won’t feel a thing.”

    “Dr. Ben should know,” says Emmett. “He’s our town doctor.”

“Actually, it’s Dr. Gordon. Everyone just calls me Dr. Ben.” He shifts the brass bathroom fixture under his left arm and reaches out to shake my hand. “And you are?”

“Ava.”

“Ava with the mouse problem,” he says, and we both laugh.

“If you don’t want to use mousetraps,” says Emmett, “maybe you just oughta get a cat.”

“I have a cat.”

“And he hasn’t taken care of the problem?”

“We just moved into the house yesterday. He’s already caught three mice, but I don’t think even he can take care of the whole problem.” I look at the mousetraps and sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to get these. They’re probably more humane than getting eaten by my cat.”

“I’ll throw in an extra pack of ’em, how ’bout it? On the house,” says Emmett. He heads up front to the cash register, where he rings up my purchase. “Good luck, young lady,” he says, handing me a plastic bag with my traps. “Just be careful when you set ’em, ’cause it ain’t much fun having ’em snap down on your fingers.”

“Use peanut butter,” says Dr. Gordon.

“Yes, I just heard that advice. It’s next on my shopping list. I guess this is just part of renting an old house.”

“Which house would that be?” Emmett asks.