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years ago, but his family’s from Maryland.”
    “The state police can look into that. This was his current residence?”
    “Yes, we’ve all been living here, upstairs, to be closer to the restaurant and to save money. There’s so much going on, with the construction, and stuff getting delivered, we thought it made sense to stay here. Do you want to see his room?”
    “I’ll wait. The detectives from Northampton will have my hide if they think I tried to interfere with their investigation. I just wanted to get the rough outlines for my own sake, since this town is my responsibility. You don’t happen to know if he had any enemies, do you?”
    “No! He’s one of the sweetest men I know. Knew. He loved what he was doing, he loved working with us. He’s a really good cook, too. Oh”—Nicky’s face fell—“now we’ll need a new sous chef.” Tears loomed again. “How’m I supposed to train a new sous chef? Sam and I worked so well together . . .”
    Luckily Brian emerged from the kitchen with a tray laden with coffeepot, cups, and accessories, to divert the storm. “I’m sorry we don’t have chairs yet—they’re on order,” Brian said.
    Once they’d all awkwardly gulped down their coffee, it fell to Seth to break the impasse. “Sorry, guys, but I’ve got a job lined up in Springfield today, so I’ve got to go. Meg, do you need a ride back home?”
    Meg looked at Brian, who said, “We’ll be okay. Thanks so much for coming when Nicky needed you.”
    “I’m happy to help. Art, you’ll let us know what you find out?”
    “Don’t I always? Go on, before Detective Marcus shows up.”
    Meg turned back to Nicky. “Nicky, you can call me any time. And I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for what happened to Sam.”
    “Thanks, Meg,” Nicky said damply. “You go ahead. Brian and I will do . . . whatever needs doing.”
    Meg and Seth hurried to Seth’s car. Once on the road, neither said anything until Seth pulled into Meg’s driveway and turned off the engine. “Well,” he began.
    “Well indeed,” Meg replied. “Chalk up one more sudden death in Granford.” When Seth nodded, Meg continued, “I suppose we could hope he had a long-standing heart problem or something? An allergy to pig manure? No, that’s cruel—I shouldn’t be joking about this. After all, he’s dead. He seemed like a nice guy, what little I saw of him.”
    “I agree, and I spent more time with him than you did. Smart, funny, knew the business. I wonder how the kids will manage now? I gather it takes a team to handle a restaurant, and the three of them had things pretty well worked out between them. Hard to drop someone new in, at this late date.” “What do you think they’ll do now?”
    Seth shrugged. “I don’t know them well enough to guess. I know they’ve sunk a lot into the building, and I don’t know what they’d get back if they walked away now.”
    “I wonder,” Meg began, then stopped.
    “What?”
    “It’s just . . . Sam seemed too young and healthy to just keel over like that. Although I know it happens. Maybe he ate nothing but butter and his arteries just closed down on him. Poor Sam. What a way to go—in a pigsty.”
    “You’ve got that right. I have trouble believing this was any kind of accident. But I’ll leave the detecting to Marcus.”
    “Amen to that. And thanks for coming along, Seth. I don’t know why Nicky thought of me first.”
    “Because she knew she could count on you to help. That’s a good thing, Meg.”
    “I’ll accept that as a compliment. You must be rubbing off on me, Seth. And I’m glad Nicky and Brian have each other; they’re going to need someone to help getting through all this. It won’t be pretty.”
    Back at her house, Meg watched Seth pull away, and wandered over again to check on her goats, in their enclosure on the other side of the driveway. As usual, they trotted over to greet her. She felt guilty that she still hadn’t named them. “Hi,