“I don’t have time really.  I just wanted to return the folder.”

“Oh, nonsense.  A quick coffee and a muffin.”  Wilson took the folder from Lin and turned for the kitchen.  “Did your cousin enjoy seeing the family trees?”

“She did.”  Lin followed the man into the kitchen where he poured her a steaming cup and indicated the sugar bowl and creamer.  “We’d like to find out more about our ancestors.  Viv would like to meet you someday.”

“That would be very nice.”  Wilson set a blueberry muffin on a white plate and placed it in front of Lin.  He turned the bacon over on the griddle and poured an egg mixture into the pan set on the stove burner.

“Do you always make a big breakfast?”  She bit into the muffin packed with huge berries.  Lin wondered if Wilson had noticed that the interior drawing of Viv’s house was missing from the folder.

Wilson used a fork to swirl the eggs in the pan.  “It is the most important meal of the day, you know.”

Lin decided to ask the man some questions.  “Did you know the man who was killed down at the docks?  Greg Hammond?”  Since Greg’s name was written on the paper Lin removed from Wilson’s kitchen table, she wondered how he would reply.

Wilson eyed Lin as he stirred the egg mixture.  “I was familiar with him.  I don’t believe we’d ever spoken though.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Someone wanted him dead.”  Wilson scooped the eggs onto two plates.  He placed one in front of Lin who was about to protest, but the man said, “You need your strength.  You have a demanding job.”

Lin couldn’t resist the smell so she picked up the fork and dug into the eggs, hoping Wilson hadn’t poisoned them.  “Did you know anything about Hammond?  Why would someone want him dead?”

Wilson used tongs to remove the bacon onto a plate.  His jaw set and he paused with the tongs suspended in the air.  “Hammond was an unscrupulous man.  He played a dangerous game.”

A shiver ran down Lin’s back.  “What sort of game?”  She laid the fork across the top of her plate.

“A game he had no business sticking his nose into.”  Wilson returned to his task.

Lin’s eyes were wide.  “What sort of game,” she asked again, her voice soft.

Wilson seemed to shake himself.  “I am engaging in something I find distasteful.  Gossip.  I really didn’t know the man at all.”

Lin thought that Wilson seemed to know something about Greg Hammond.  “You were on the docks the morning Hammond was killed?  With Libby Hartnett?”

Wilson slowly raised his eyes and gave Lin a piercing look.  “Mrs. Hartnett and I were visiting someone on the docks that morning, yes.  Were you there as well?”

“No.”  Lin shook her head.  “I just heard some people talking about who may have heard something that day.”  Her heart was pounding.  She stood up from her seat next to the counter.  “Did you hear anything when you were near Hammond’s boat?”

Wilson’s eyes were like pools of black ice.  “Only the sound of the cool breeze rustling past.”

Lin’s heart thumped.  “I’d better get to work.”  She sidled around the historian and made her way to the front door.  “Thank you for the breakfast.”

***

Still unsettled by her interaction with Anton Wilson, Lin pulled up to the home of her first client and saw a large white truck at the curb.  Driving around to park in front of it, she saw “Hammond Landscaping and Design Services” written in black letters on the side of the vehicle.  Wondering why someone from the landscaping company was at the house, Lin and her dog got out and walked past the truck.  Scuba equipment lay tossed in the back bed.

At the rear of the home’s expansive property, Lin saw Bill, the manager she’d met at Hammond’s company who said he hoped to buy Greg’s business.  He was standing next to the owner of the house.  The two were going over some blueprints that Lin assumed must be plans for the back garden.

Carrying her gardening tool bag, Lin approached and called out a greeting.

Bill recognized her.  “Oh, hi.”

The owner said a quick hello to Lin and then excused himself to go into the house.

“You’re doing some work here?”  A shiver of unease slid over Lin’s skin when she saw creepy Leonard holding a notebook and a heavy measuring tape emerge from behind some tall ornamental grasses growing along a section of the lawn.  He leered at Lin and gave her a crooked grin, before moving away to the other side of the property.

“We’re putting in stonework here for a patio.”  Bill moved his arm in the air to indicate the shape.  “A fire pit will be there and a pool and hot tub are going in on that side.  We’ll be doing the stone pathways and area around the water features.”  The man held out the paper with the design so Lin could look it over.  He pointed.  “There will be decorative lighting in these areas to enhance the evening experience.”

“It’s beautiful.”  Lin tilted her head to the side.  “How are things going?  Have you completed the purchase of the business?”

“Nearly.  It’s been pretty straightforward.  I’m going ahead and lining up projects now.”  Bill rolled up the design sketches.  “You’ve been hired to take care of the gardens here?”

Lin nodded.  “I bought a small gardening business before I came back to the island.  It must be expensive to buy Hammond’s company, what with all that heavy equipment and the inventory.”

Bill chuckled.  “I’d say so.  I’ve been saving for a long time to have my own business.  With Greg’s business up for sale, I decided to make a bid for his company instead of starting my own.  Everything’s in place, so it makes the whole thing easier.”

Lin sighed.  “Did you know Greg well?  Did he have enemies?”

Bill’s eyebrows went up.  “Not to my knowledge.”

“I just wonder what happened.”  Lin gave a shrug.  “You worked closely with him.  Did he seem worried about anything?  Distracted by something?  Did he have financial problems?”

“We were just two guys working together.  He didn’t confide in me.  He seemed his normal self.”  Bill packed the plans away in his briefcase.  “Why so much interest?”

“It’s sad, that’s all.  He was a fairly young guy.  Cut down in his prime.”  Lin made eye contact with Bill and he shifted his gaze away.  She said, “You never know what can happen, I guess.”

“Guess not.”  Bill picked up his briefcase.

“Do you scuba dive?”

The man gave her a strange look.  “What?  Why?”

“I saw some equipment in the back of your truck.  Did you dive with Greg?  I heard he liked to dive, that he liked to treasure hunt.”

Bill’s face hardened.  “Where’d you hear that?”

“Just from people talking.”

“We went diving a few times.  Greg enjoyed it.  He went a lot.  I didn’t know Greg to hunt for treasure, though.”  Bill scoffed.  “Someone you’ve been talking to believes in silly stories.”  He looked across the yard.  “Leonard.  You about finished?”

Leonard nodded and headed toward Bill.

Nicky gave a low whine.  When Lin turned her head in Leonard’s direction, a wave of chilled air hit her in the face and she saw the ghost standing expressionless at the corner of the patio.  Lin had to stifle a yip of surprise and she quickly shifted her eyes away from the spirit.

“I better get to work,” Lin said.  “Nice to see you.”  She moved to the gardens closest to the house and started to weed and deadhead the flowers.  Without looking up, she could feel Leonard’s foul gaze on her back as the two men left the property and headed off to the front of the house to their truck.

After thirty minutes of weeding, Lin stood and stretched her back muscles.  A whoosh of cold hit her like the blast of frigid air when a walk-in freezer opens.  She slowly turned around to see the eighteenth-century ghost standing about forty feet away from her.

Lin rubbed her hands on her shorts. “You should show up when it’s ninety degrees outside and I’m dying from the heat.”  She bit her lower lip worried that using the word “dying” might offend the ghost, but he stood stoically staring at her just as he always did.  “The cold breeze I get from you would be great on those hot days.”