Free Mallets Aforethought by Sarah Graves

think . . .”
    He was shaking his head. “No. Absolutely not. Everything can go on just as it has been, and in fact it should. Because look,” he added as my face must have shown the doubt I was feeling, “George didn’t do it,” he said earnestly. “You know it, I know it, and pretty soon the police are going to know it, too. That they’ve made a mistake.”
    His shoulders straightened. “Tonight of course Ellie’s upset and she needs us here, for support. But starting tomorrow, we all have to hold our heads up, and show by our behavior that we know how this is going to come out for George. That he’s innocent, and that’s all there is to that.”
    I have to admit his ringing endorsement went a long way toward making me feel better. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. Okay, you give me the list and I’ll see what I can do about it.”
    “Great. Maybe George will even be back in time to bash that washstand apart,” he finished encouragingly, and went on into the parlor while I stood thinking about what he had said.
    That George was innocent, and the cops would realize it. Of course, about the former part of the statement I was sure. I just wished I had as much confidence as Will did in the latter part.
    Distantly I heard Will gently persuading Ellie into conversation, which I thought was probably a good thing. He had located Clarissa Arnold somehow, too. Now he was easing this waiting time for Ellie until Clarissa called back.
    Alone in the kitchen, I looked around. The woodstove burned steadily with a sound like tinfoil being crumpled. On the freshly waxed floor lay not a speck of ash or other mess. The fixtures gleamed, the windows glittered behind crisp lace-trimmed gingham tiebacks, and the appliances, counters, and cooking surfaces were so clean that Victor could have done surgery on them.
    All George’s work. Ellie said the only thing she wanted him cleaning was his plate but lately he hadn’t been letting her lift a finger. Between that and his own jobs, dawn to midnight in his effort to earn enough to take care of the baby, I didn’t see how he’d have had the time to do any bad deeds.
    So why wouldn’t he clear himself by revealing where he had been when Hector Gosling was murdered? As I joined the others waiting in the parlor for Clarissa Arnold’s promised call, I had an unhappy suspicion that I already knew.
     
     
    “Once upon a time,” Ellie said slowly, in the age-old way that people have always begun telling stories: to quiet children, or to entertain the company.
    Or to pass a terrible time. The lamps were dimmed in the small, low-ceilinged room with its worn Oriental rugs, polished brass andirons, and drawn curtains. Ellie sat in the big old overstuffed armchair with her feet on a hassock; someone—Will Bonnet, I supposed—had draped a shawl over her shoulders.
    “Once upon a time, Harlequin House belonged to my great-uncle, Chester Harlequin, who after Benedict Arnold was probably the most disgraced man ever to live in Maine.”
    Her voice was weary. The telephone sat on a table by her chair. I willed it to ring.
    It didn’t. “In those days, Eastport was smugglers’ heaven,” she continued. “Whiskey or the ingredients to make it came over the border so fast, people joked they should call the St. John River the Mash-issippi. For sour mash,” she explained with a wan smile.
    Wade sat beside me on the loveseat before the fireplace. The room was warm but I shivered even with the fire blazing. Wade put his arm around me and I leaned gratefully against him.
    “All the little coves and inlets around Passamaquoddy Bay, hundreds of islands, there’s lots of places to hide things,” Will Bonnet said. Ellie smiled wearily, letting him take this part.
    “George and I used to explore ’em when we were kids, in his little boat. We’d pretend we were smugglers and Hopley Yeaton’s men were chasing us in their cutters. When,” he added, “George wasn’t busy getting my tail out of