And then I remember.The man who found me in the mud.I strain my neck to see him, eager to reconnect. “Hi, Finn.”
“Of course, Caren. Hi,” he says, his gaze lingering on my face. “How are you?”
“Better than when you last saw me, that’s for sure,” I say, my voice unnaturally bright. Can he see I’ve been crying? Self-consciousness burns through me. I turn away and look at Yumi. “Finn’s the one who found me on Sunday morning.” I look back at him. “You live in the neighborhood? At Paula’s?”
“Yes. I rent her basement apartment. I work nearby, at Little Falls Library.” Finn places the tote on the table and takes a seat in the wicker chair opposite me. “Hoping to get my master’s in library science.” He pulls out a package wrapped in tinfoil from the bag. “This is from Paula. Lemon blueberry pound cake. She made me promise to tell you it’s gluten free and dairy free.”
“My favorite! Lemon blueberry,” Yumi says, brightening. “Have some iced tea. You look hot.”
“It is hot out there. It feels like it’s ninety already. But it’s cooler up here. It’s like you’re in the trees.”
“Thank you. I designed it like that,” Yumi says, pride evident in her voice. “I planted that birch ten years ago, and that serviceberry right after the divorce. I wanted that tree house vibe. And now I spend most of my days out here.”
“Spying on the neighbors?” Finn asks.
Yumi laughs as she peels back the foil covering the pound cake. “I’m not going to lie. People do some pretty funny things when they think no one is looking. I’m not naming names, but a certain middle-aged man likes to pee in the azaleas when he comes home drunk on the weekends.”
“No! Who?” I ask.
“Can’t tell,” Yumi says. “And there’s a certain older woman on Earlston who smokes like a chimney. Like actual old-school chain-smoker. She hides the ciggies in a flowerpot.”
Yumi turns her iced-tea spoon upside down and, using it as a knife, cuts a few slices off the loaf. “Might be a little messy, but who cares, right? Paula’s so sweet.”
“She is a character,” Finn says. “She roped me into playing mah-jongg yesterday.”
“Oh? Who was there?” Yumi asks, suddenly animated. “I used to go to those games, but now I just play online. It’s not the same. You’d get so much neighborhood gossip in person at mah-jongg.”
“So you don’t miss the people, just the gossip?” I tease.
“Of course,” Yumi says without missing a beat. “Why do you think I took over moderating the neighborhood Facebook group? I hate being left out.”
“Well, I was at a table with Paula and Kenya Williams,” Finn says. “And an older woman named Bonnie.”
“I know Bonnie,” Yumi says with a laugh. “You know Bonnie,” Yumi says to me with authority. “She lives a few houses down. She’s the one you hear at five o’clock every day calling for her cat.”
“I know exactly who you mean,” I say. The sounds of a high-pitched voice callinghere Taki, Takiare as regular as church bells in Eastbrook.
“And actually there was some gossip last night.” Finn pauses dramatically, something unreadable in his expression. “About you.”
“Moi?” Yumi wiggles a little in her seat. “Do tell. I love a little tea with my tea.”
“Well, it was really about that girl who was murdered last year, the nanny.”
Something flickers across Yumi’s face but is gone so quickly I can’t be sure what I saw. “What about her?”
“Bonnie claimed that you said the nanny was seeing someone.” Finn’s voice is steady, neutral. “Actually, the word she used was ‘affair.’”
Yumi snorts, but there’s tension in the sound. “Bonnie’s a trip. I remember that exact conversation, and I’m quite sure I never said anything about affairs.” Her tone seems a little huffy to me. “I think while she was here, a couple of kids cut through the hedge on their way to the pool, and I mentioned—in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have even said anything—that I’d seen adults use the same shortcut to visit the house.”
“To the basement entrance, or the front?” Finn asks, his casual tone belied by the intensity in his eyes.
“Does it matter?” Yumi asks, an edge to her voice.
“Yeah, it does matter. It matters a lot.” His words are sharp, out of place among the pleasant scene of cake and tea. Then, more softly, he adds, “I’m sorry, I just need to know if that person was there to see Autumn.”
“Autumn?” I ask. “Did you know her?”
Finn blushes beneath his beard, then drops his head into his hands. Yumi and I exchange a look, and I imagine she is thinking what I am. This isn’t curiosity; this seems personal. When he looks up, his expression is raw with misery. “Okay, all joking aside. I did know her. Autumn was a really close friend of mine. In fact, she moved into this neighborhood and took that nanny job because I told her about it.”