“Then why don’t you ever take anything I say seriously? You always do exactly what you want to do, without thinking about how it might affect someone else. About how someone else might worry about you. About how someone else might have a legitimate idea sometime.”

“But I—”

“You get involved in one of these missions of yours to help someone, or to solve some crime, and there’s no stopping you. Sometimes I love you for it, Maggie. But I need you to make time in your life for me, too. I don’t want to spend my life waiting around for you to have an extra minute for me, when no one else needs you.”

He got out of the car, closed the door carefully, and went up the stairs into Six Gables, leaving Maggie alone in the front seat of Aunt Nettie’s car.

Chapter 35

The American Base-Ball Players in England—Match Between The Red Stockings and The Athletics, Prince’s Ground, Brompton.Wood engraving (black and white) full-pageillustration from Harper’s Weekly, September 12, 1874. View of field from behind catcher, where bats have been flung. “Boston” is clearly visible on the shirts of both the player at bat and one player waiting his turn. The Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first all-professional baseball club in 1869. In 1871 a pro club was organized in Boston. It hired away half the players from Cincinnati and called itself the Boston Red Stockings. That club eventually became the Boston Braves. Today’s Boston Red Sox was established in 1901. Early baseball prints are rare. 10.5 x 15.5 inches. $250.

This was not the way Maggie had intended the weekend to go.

She wanted to follow Will into the B&B and explain. He didn’t get it. This was something that had to be done, and no one else was doing it.

Damn. It wasn’t as though no one else could do it. She wasn’t that egotistical. But no one else was. And there was a chance. Maybe a small chance. But still a chance, that she could help figure out who’d killed one, or two, or maybe even three people.

She refused to throw that chance away. Not even for Will.

She stalked over to her own van. After all, the hurricane wasn’t here yet. She wouldn’t be in any danger. She was only going to talk to a couple of high school kids. And she’d be back in, what? Thirty minutes. Forty-five minutes, tops.

She’d spend the rest of the weekend with Will.

If he couldn’t cope with that, then no wonder he didn’t want to be a father. He’d never be able to share her attention with a child. It was a good thing she’d found that out now.

She was pulling into the pizza parlor before she’d finished talking to herself. Only a few cars were there. Most people in Winslow were spending their afternoons at home, not ordering pizza.

A tall man came out of the restaurant carrying three pizza boxes, put them in the back seat of his car, and drove off.

Except for those who planned to nosh on pizza while waiting out the storm.

Almost two o’clock. Bob Silva hadn’t called. That should mean Sean and Josh were coming. Good for Bob; he must have been convincing. She’d been afraid the boys’ parents wouldn’t want them to come.

A man and a woman were standing at the restaurant counter, waiting for orders. Only one table was filled: a mother and pre-teen daughter starting on a veggie pizza. The girl was carefully picking the mushrooms and onions off her piece. The mom watched her for a minute, and then took the discarded vegetables and put them on her own slice. Neither of them spoke.

Would she be that way with her daughter? Had those two argued? Or were they so comfortable with each other they didn’t need to speak? Were they waiting for someone to join them? That large pizza looked like a lot for only two of them.

The restaurant door behind her opened.

“Are you Dr. Summer?” The young men who came in were both taller than Maggie; the taller of the two had an acne problem he’d tried unsuccessfully to cover with medication. The other had a tattoo of an anchor on his forearm. “The college lady?”

“I am. You’re Sean and Josh?”

They nodded. Josh was the taller one.

“What would you like on your pizza?”

They agreed on an extra-large pepperoni, meatball, and sausage pizza and large Cokes. And a large bag of barbecue-flavored Cape Cod potato chips to hold them until the pizza was ready. Maggie ordered two bags of the chips. She’d take one bag back as a peace offering for Will. For privacy, they sat at a table as far from either the cook or the mother and daughter as possible.

“Thanks for coming,” said Maggie. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. We were vegging out at Sean’s place anyway, since they canceled school this afternoon,” said Josh. “Free pizza’s good.”

Maggie smiled. Whatever worked. Pizza seemed appropriate under all circumstances in Winslow. “Mr. Silva told me you were friends of his son, Tony.”

The boys looked at each other. Sean shrugged.

“I’m not going to tell Mr. Silva anything you tell me. And if I tell anyone what we talk about, I won’t say who it was told me. Okay with you guys?”

Sean nodded. “It’s just that, Tony was okay and all. And we were on the same team, sure. But we weren’t exactly the closest.”

“Got it,” said Maggie. “Did Tony have any close friends?”

Sean looked at Josh and shrugged. Josh shook his head. “Not really. He wasn’t exactly the most with-it kid around.”

His dad had played baseball, and said Tony was getting better. “Could he play baseball?”

“He stunk,” said Josh bluntly. “Mr. Costa, the coach? He didn’t put him in too often. Tony struck out, and he couldn’t run fast. Part of it was, he had asthma, and he had to stop to use his inhaler. You can’t play baseball when you have to stop to breathe.”

“He was supposed to play left field. But most of the time he couldn’t catch fly balls, and when he did, he dropped them,” added Sean.

“His dad was always at the practices, yelling at him to try harder, and telling Coach to put him in, to give him another chance. But Tony was a disaster.”

Their pizza arrived and the boys lost no time digging in.

“He played baseball because his dad wanted him to?”

“For sure. He hated it. Some of the guys made fun of him for even trying.”

“Who wouldn’t hate being the reason we’d lose games?” added Josh, wiping tomato sauce off his chin. “He was an embarrassment.”

“What about the drugs? If you guys wanted to get drugs, where would you go?”

The boys looked at each other.

“I’m not asking if you use, or if any of your friends do. But in most schools, or towns, there’s a place or a person where you can go. I’m from Jersey; I don’t know Winslow. Where would someone go in this town? If a person were interested.”

Sean glanced around, as though someone else were listening. “You said no one would know what we said, right?”

“Right. I’m telling you straight. Did you know Dan Jeffrey?”

“Sure. Friend of Coach Costa. Helped with team equipment last year.”

“I heard he got killed a week ago,” said Josh.

“He did,” said Maggie. “Tony’s dad said Dan Jeffrey was the one who gave Tony the pills that killed him.”

Sean looked sideways at Josh. “Tony’s dad got that wrong. I never heard of anyone getting anything from Mr. Jeffrey. He was just a nice guy who liked baseball. He used to give us tips, sort of like a second coach. He helped me with my fast ball. He wouldn’t have done anything to hurt Tony.”

Josh shook his head. “Mr. Jeffrey used to talk to Tony about his asthma. Once I heard him tell Tony’s dad not to go so hard on him; to let Tony drop off the team and do something he was better at. Mr. Silva got real mad. He told Mr. Jeffrey to mind his own business.”

Sean said quietly. “It wasn’t Mr. Jeffrey who had pills.”

Josh elbowed Sean.

Neither of them said anything more. They both focused on their pizza. They didn’t look at Maggie or each other. No one said anything for several long minutes.