“What happened?” Alan asked.
“I heard someone open the hatch, but Tucker is safe.”
“Someone?” Alan asked. “Who?”
“Maybe the person in that truck,” Ricky said. He reached out and pet Tucker, who wagged his tail. Ricky shut the hatch carefully while he watched Tucker to be sure the dog stayed put.
“No,” Alan said. “It was going full speed over the hill. You said that you heard the hatch. You would have heard the truck if it had been closer.”
“I don’t know then. I guess it wasn’t closed properly.”
“Maybe you were right before. Maybe this is a place where the dead don’t stay dead,” Alan said.
# # #
“Dad, did you ever know a Romeo Libby around here?” Ricky asked.
His dad looked the to ceiling while he rolled the name around in his mouth, saying it a few times to himself.
“Did he have a sister named Sadie?” his mother asked.
“Could be,” Ricky said. “Did she marry a Dunn?”
“Not that I know of, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find out. They all moved away a million years ago. I didn’t know any of them personally. They were before my time, but I’ve heard the names,” she said.
“I didn’t know him,” his father said. “I only ever knew one Romeo—Teague was his last name—and he never lived around here.”
“Why do you ask?” his mother asked.
“He’s the guy I met with today. He said that he lived around here a long time ago. It would have been before seventy-two, I guess. He lied about other things though. I’m trying to figure out how much of what he told me was true.”
“Talk to Debbie and Jack,” his father said. “They know everything about everything that happened here back then and they love to talk about it.”
Ricky sighed.
“What?” his mother asked.
“You know—when they get to talking, it’s impossible to get away.”
“It’s not impossible. You just have to go over there late enough that your visit has a cap on it. Call them up and go over tonight. I told Jack I would drop off his bean pot this weekend. Just say you’ll be passing by and see if you can drop it off.”
Ricky rolled his eyes.
His father pointed at him. “You want to know? They’re the ones to ask.”
# # #
Ricky looked at his phone. It was exactly eight o’clock. Debbie and Jack always went to bed at nine, even though they were both retired and didn’t have any reason to get up as early as they did. Ricky smiled when Jack opened the door. He held up the bean pot.
“Awesome, thanks. How did the beans turn out?” Jack asked. Instead of taking the pot from Ricky, he turned and swept his hand to the side, inviting Ricky in.
“Actually, I haven’t had any yet. I’ll get some tomorrow, I’m sure.”
“Brace yourself, they’re going to be a little spicier than you remember. My pot has decades of extra flavor baked in.”
“Oh yeah?”
Jack closed the door behind him. Ricky led the way towards the kitchen.
“How did your mom’s break again?”
“I don’t know. She said she came down in the morning and it had split in two. She had to toss all the beans she had soaked and Dad had to live with canned beans on Saturday. He says the canned beans made him extra gassy on Sunday, but I find that hard to believe,” Ricky said.
“Tell her I have a line on one down in Sanford. I should be able to get it next week if she can hold out that long.”
Ricky nodded.
“Have a sit,” Jack said.
“Just for a minute. I know it’s late.”
“Nonsense,” Jack said. “It’s been ages since we talked. How’s that job going?”
“Good,” Ricky said. He crossed to the far chair. Debbie and Jack always sat in the same chairs and Ricky didn’t want to displace them. “Actually, I do have something to ask you. Did you ever know a Romeo Libby? He said that he lived…”
“Of course,” Jack said. He raised his voice. “Hey, Deb? Get in here.”
He didn’t wait for her to come in before he was already spilling everything he knew. Jack and Debbie both liked to talk more than anyone else Ricky had ever met. It seemed like they were desperate to fill every moment with all the news that they had. Both of them had impeccable memories so they never ran out of information to impart.
“They weren’t part of the old Libbys who lived up in New Sharon and who migrated down to the lakes. They were an offshoot of the Libbys from down near Mechanic Falls, who came up through the Dirty Lew. They got a place over on the border with Mount Vermin. The parcel was fifty-fifty so they were paying taxes to both sides. They tried to get it re-zoned to Kingston proper so they could get the lower rate, but that line runs straight from…”
Ricky put up his hand.
“Romeo?”
“Oh, right, Romeo. He was a bit older than me and Debbie. He had a younger sister, Sadie. She was always hanging around a Dunn—not one of your Dunns, but one of those New Hampshire transplants.”
“Soucy-Dunns they call them,” Debbie said, picking up the narrative as she entered from the other room. “Lee changed his name to his mother’s maiden name when he came down from Canada because the town they moved to was very anti-Canuck. Can we still say Canuck or is that racist now?”
“Probably best to say French-Canadian,” Jack said.
Debbie nodded and then opened her mouth to continue on with what she knew about the family that Sadie Libby had married into.
Ricky raised his hand again.
“Romeo Libby? Do you guys know if he was mixed up with the Prescotts?”
“Mixed up?” Debbie asked. “No. They hated each other. In fact, it may have been their feud with the Prescotts that drove those Libbys out of Kingston.”
“What was the feud about?”
“Usually, that kind of thing comes down to someone dating the wrong person, or not dating the right person,” Jack said.
“I don’t think so,” Debbie said. “Not in
