“But why won’t he come forward and tell the police about it?” Frustration bubbled in my voice, and I struggled for answers. Before I had a chance to find any, someone tapped on our front door. Through the glass panel on the door, I could see that it was a man, and I stepped around the cleaning crew just finishing (I made a mental note of the time so we weren’t overcharged), unlocked the door, and opened it just enough to deliver my message.

“We’re reopening tomorrow. Right now-”

“I’m sorry to bother you.” The man touched a hand to the bill of his baseball cap. “My name is Len, Len Dean.”

Surprised, I opened the door a bit wider. “Len Dean the English teacher who teaches with Peter Capshaw at Wakefield?”

A smile twitched across Len’s expression. “Don’t tell me you were one of my students. I hate it when I realize the years have passed and you kids are all grown up.” He peered into my face. “Maybe you were a student of mine. You look awfully familiar.”

“That’s because I’m Annie. Annie Capshaw. Peter’s wife.” Heat raced into my cheeks. “Peter’s ex-wife,” I added as quickly as I could. “I remember chatting with you and your wife at a couple of faculty Christmas parties. And I think we chaperoned the prom together three or four years ago.”

“That’s right.” Len’s smile was genuine. “I should have recognized you; I just didn’t expect to see you here. I just wondered…” He glanced into the shop and the smile fled his face. “I just came around to see if it was really true.”

“You mean about Greg? Yes, I’m sorry. It is. You knew him?”

“Greg and I…” Len swallowed hard. “Sorry,” he said. “You know how English teachers can be. Big softies. That’s what my wife always says. She says it comes from reading all that poetry, says the humanities teachers aren’t as tough as math and science teachers. Greg was a math teacher, you know. Over at Jefferson. We never worked together, but we knew each other. You know how it is in the education community. As a matter of fact, we played cards together every Wednesday night.” Once again, Len’s gaze strayed into the store. He didn’t know exactly where the murder had happened, of course, and his gaze wandered from the front counter and down the nearest aisle. I could only imagine what he was imagining-what had happened; where; if Greg had suffered-and since I’d always liked Len and his wife, Marissa, I took pity on him and opened the door so he could step into the shop.

“It’s going to seem weird tonight,” he said, settling himself near the display of cookbooks. “We’re playing over at Guy Paloma’s place. You remember him.”

I did. I had always liked Guy and his wife. In fact, when news of Peter and my separation ran rampant through Wakefield High, Gina Paloma was one of the few faculty spouses who called me to express her concern even though I didn’t know her well.

“We talked about canceling,” Len said, pulling me away from my thoughts. “But heck, Greg loved our Wednesday night games and we figured it wouldn’t hurt for us to get together and talk. You know, sort of like a wake. Or therapy.”

I did know, and I told Len I thought it was a good idea. Right before I realized that a perfect investigating opportunity had landed on my doorstep. Literally.

“I met Greg a few times when I stopped here at the shop,” I told Len. “He seemed like a nice guy.”

“He was great.” Len wiped a hand over his eyes. “Always real positive. Always upbeat. Even when he was diagnosed with that heart problem of his. He wasn’t going to let that stop him, he said. Now that he was retired, he had too much life to live.”

“Which is why this is so horrible.” I didn’t need to point this out to Len; he already knew it. I did it anyway, as a way of easing into some serious questioning. “Do you suppose there’s anything about Greg’s life that would have… I don’t know… I mean, do you think he-”

“Had any enemies? Ones that wanted to see him dead?” Len pulled off his baseball cap and ran a hand through hair that was thinner than last time I saw him. “If you knew him at all, you knew Greg wasn’t the kind of guy who made enemies. Except in school, maybe.” He chuckled. “I imagine a math teacher makes plenty of enemies. Especially in those middle school grades. But that’s just kids being kids. You know the way they are. You remember from when you and Peter were-”

“I do.” There was that phrase again, and, rather than think about all the promise it held and all the misery it ended up causing, I thought about the students in Peter’s classes who were special cases. Some were just plain hard to teach. Others had chips on their shoulders the size of the Washington Monument, and they weren’t about to let anybody-especially a chemistry teacher-knock them off. All of them were challenging. None of them were seriously dangerous.

“This doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with school,” I said, and Len nodded in agreement. “If Greg was a card player, was he involved in any other gambling?”

“I don’t think so. Not that I know of, anyway. And our card games, they were always friendly.”

“And Greg always won?”

Len smiled. “Greg? Greg was the biggest loser to ever sit around our card table.” The smile faded, and his eyes narrowed. “Until last week, that is. Last week, Greg was the big winner. I wouldn’t even remember except that it was so unusual.”

“Did anybody take it too hard?”

His eyes snapped to mine. “You don’t think…?” Len clamped his ballcap back on his head. “You’ve been reading too many books. It’s a friendly card game. Just a friendly game, that’s all. Yeah, there was a little grouching last week. Somebody accused Greg of cheating and, being a math teacher, well, I guess he might have been doing something like counting cards. But really, Annie, I don’t think anybody took it too bad. Not bad enough to…” Again, his gaze roved the store.

I knew I had to keep him on track. “You don’t seem too upset about Greg winning last week.”

Len shrugged. “I’m not the guy who lost big,” he said, and he stepped back to the door. “I’ll bet Marissa would love to see you. We’re playing at our house next week. Stop by, why don’t you.”

I told him I’d think about it, and I would. I did. Because even as I watched the cleaning crew pack up…

Even as I said good-bye to Eve as she headed to Bellywasher’s for the dinner hour, and locked up and checked to make sure the door that led upstairs to where Monsieur used to conduct cooking classes was locked…

Even as I went into the back office to look over the lay of the land and try to figure out what, exactly, was involved in running a high-end kitchenware shop…

Even as I did all that, I thought about that Wednesday night card game.

And about how even the mildest-mannered player might make an enemy or two if his fellow gamblers thought he was cheating.

I was still thinking about all that later that evening when I parked my car in front of Guy and Gina Paloma’s house.

All right, yeah, I hadn’t been invited to stop in until the next week, but that was just a technicality. On my way up the front walk, I reminded myself what I was going to say to explain my presence before I started asking questions about that big win of Greg’s:

I just saw Len.

I just learned he was a friend of Greg’s.

I just wanted to say hello and express my condolences to the card players.

I would have done all that, too, if when the front door snapped open, I wasn’t too surprised to speak.

But then, I hadn’t expected to see Peter.