here for as long as I’ve been around. Sudsy Robertson and his wife moved here when I was a kid. I remember there being a lot of fuss about that because there were so many rumors about them.”
“Rumors? Like what?”
“Like he’d swindled his previous business partners out of thousands of dollars and used that money to buy the Bay View Hotel. Or that his very young wife, Marilyn, was actually a mobster’s girlfriend when she met Sudsy. I think I heard something once about them getting their money by winning a personal injury lawsuit. That sounds like the most reasonable scenario to me. Sudsy seems like the slip and fall and sue kind of guy.”
“Hmm, interesting. Who else is new?”
My response was delayed as our waitress arrived with the pizza on a wooden tray. My mouth watered as she set it down on the red-and-white checked tablecloth, and I folded my hands in my lap to keep from grabbing some.
“Here you go,” she said. “Can I bring you anything else? Two more beers?”
“Sure,” Leo answered. “Thanks.”
We each took an oversize slice of pizza, and I crooked an eyebrow at Leo as he sprinkled a liberal amount of the is-it-really-cheese parmesan crumbles.
“When in Manitou,” he answered, passing the jar to me. He smiled after his first bite, and I felt a sense of personal satisfaction for no reason other than I wanted this Michigan pizza to be as good as Chicago’s. Not sure why that mattered, but it’s human nature to cheer for the home team, I guess.
“Like it?” I couldn’t resist asking.
He nodded. “It’s excellent. This might even be my new favorite pizza place.”
Quite possibly an overstatement, but I appreciated his willingness to give our local joint the benefit of the doubt.
“Brenden Garcia and Xavier Price moved here about fifteen years ago,” I told Leo a few minutes later, adding to the list of newcomers. “They own the Dragonfly Inn, and my grandmother was so eager to make them feel welcome that she took them a coffee cake and a gay pride flag. They weren’t quite sure what to make of her at first, but after a couple of martinis, everyone was friends. Now they come to our house for Thanksgiving, and every year Xavier tries to tell Gigi how to make gravy.”
“That’s bold. Even I know not to mess with the cook’s gravy.” Leo smiled and took another bite.
“Exactly.” I took a bite of my own slice, silently cursing the salt-retaining green olives and wondering if anything I was telling him would be useful for his book. Probably not, but at least it was giving him some idea of the types of people who chose to live on Wenniway. I listed a handful of others. Becky and Turner Thompson, who came with their five kids. She homeschooled, while he worked as a manager at the Clairmont Hotel. Dai and Lien Nguyen, who owned a flower shop. Malik Washington, the newest head chef at the Imperial Hotel.
“And of course, Dmitri moved to the island when he was about twenty-three.”
“Twenty-three?” Leo wiped his hands on a red cloth napkin. “Where did he move from?”
“Pittsburgh. His story is kind of sad, really. He had a rough time growing up. Apparently, his mom had pretty lousy taste in boyfriends. Then she died when he was about twenty. His sister took off with her own boyfriend, and Dmitri bummed around for a couple of years, spent time living with a few relatives, but no one really wanted him. He told me he wasn’t that easy to get along with at the time, and I can understand why.”
“So, how did he end up here?”
“His aunt found an ad in a local newspaper for people to come work on the island for the summer. He figured it’d be worth the bus fare to give it a try, but one season here and he was hooked. He got a job helping maintain the gardens at the Imperial Hotel, and he did that for years.”
“What about in the winter?”
“He’s done different stuff. Tended bar. Construction. Snow removal. Working at the stables. There’s plenty to be done around here in the off-season, especially if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty or don’t mind being outside in the cold.”
Leo looked speculative for a moment. “He invited me to go fishing tomorrow morning, but I’m not sure about getting into a boat with a guy wearing a beekeeper’s hat.”
I chuckled with understanding. “Oh, he’s harmless, and not nearly as strange