Assault with a Deadly Lie: A Nick Hoffman Novel of Suspense

Chapter 11

82 11 Sunday morning, we had breakfast at our favorite place, Sophie’s Lakeside Café, another easy walk from the condo. The bacon was crisp, the omelets were runny the way we liked them, the coffee strong and continuous. I loved everything about this neighborhood hangout: the nautical wallpaper border; the lighthouse prints and vintage photos of the harbor; the nets, wheels, and wooden anchors hanging on the walls; the captain’s hat the elderly cashier wore at a comic angle; the paper table mats crammed with tiny local ads. The waitresses were cheerful and chatty; but then so were all the regulars who talked about boats and barns and cottages and grandchildren, and repeated old jokes to an appreciative audience. We were newcomers, of course, and regulars smiled at us genially enough, but the waitresses knew our names, commented on whether we were early or late compared to our usual arrival time, and made us feel at home. I don’t think my Belgian-born parents would have understood the charm of Sophie’s. My mother and father didn’t like servers to converse with them about anything but food, and the loose command of grammar you heard there would have appalled my proper mother and father: “them” instead of “those,” “come” instead of “came.” For me, it was all part of the atmosphere and blessedly far away from the pretentiousness of academia. And in a world of hyper-standardization, this café reminded me of an independent bookstore, relaxed, quirky, an outpost of individuality. When we got home and were idly wondering what we’d do that day, my phone rang, and I panicked when I saw the caller ID: Binnie. I shouted into the phone, “Something happened to Marco!” “No, no, he’s fine,” Binnie assured me, but her voice was wavering. 83 “Then what?” I put her on speaker phone and set the phone on the counter as if to maintain a safer distance from the bad news, whatever it was. “Marco didn’t want to play with any of the dog toys I had, so since I had your key for emergencies, I went over to your house to bring back some of his, because puppies deserve the best, right? And, well, I think there was some kind of burglary there—” Stefan and I both stared at the iPhone as if it were radioactive. “There was a broken laptop on the floor in the foyer, and I was sure neither one of you would have left a mess like that, so I called the police right away. I told them I was a neighbor with your key and you were out of town, and they’re sending someone over to investigate.” “We’ll leave as soon as we can.” “Good! They want to talk to me, of course, but they need to talk to you, too. So it’s good that you’re coming home as soon as you can . . .” Binnie sounded really rattled by her discovery; she wasn’t one to mindlessly repeat things you said. I asked her how long ago she’d called the police. “Five minutes,” she said. “Not more. Or much more.” Stefan said, “Binnie, are you all right?” “Oh,yes,thanks.Thanks!Iwasstartled,butIdidn’tlookaround,Ijust got the hell out of there. When I was back in my own house, I felt safe.” Lucky woman, I thought. “Safer,” she added tentatively. “And Marco was adorable—he could tell I was upset and he was very cuddly. Anyway, I’m going to wait outside for the police car now.” We thanked her, and I found myself apologizing for some reason, as if whatever happened had been my fault. “Oh, go on with you,” she said, affecting an Irish brogue. I think she was trying to make me at least smile. I was beyond that. The air conditioning was turned up high, but I was sweating anyway as we packed quickly, checking and re-checking to make sure we weren’t leaving anything behind, and that there was nothing in the fridge that would spoil while we were gone for however long it turned out to be. We didn’t speak. As we got ourselves ready to leave, we might have been two spies methodically preparing for a dangerous mission. 84 Closing and locking the door of our condo, it hit me that someone could burglarize this place, too. But...