Elijah. It might appeal to him, since it was both humorous and gory, but also featured young people finding their true calling through helping others).
“Moses,” boomed Mr. Filmore, from the other end of the pool.
Molly had been heading back toward the kitchen, but now she paused. Mr. Filmore rarely spoke, perhaps because it was easier to allow his gossipy wife to do all the talking for him. So when he did open his mouth to say anything, it was usually worth listening to.
“I beg your pardon?” Molly said.
“Moses.” Mr. Filmore brought his frozen drink to his lips—Molly couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, but it had a festive umbrella and also a slice of lime clinging to the side, so possibly a margarita. “They oughta call the baby Moses, on account of him being found on the water.”
“Oh, Mel.” Mrs. Filmore playfully splashed a spray of pool water at him. “Didn’t you hear? He was found on a toilet, not on the water.”
“Don’t toilets have water in ’em? Oughta call ’im Moses. Better’n Baby Boy Sacks. Sacks ain’t even a proper name.”
Mrs. Filmore shook her head, clearly disgusted by her husband’s joke. But as Molly made her way back into the kitchen, where Joanne was busily assembling canapés, she wondered if Mr. Filmore’s joke didn’t have a ring of truth to it. Except, of course, the baby was a girl, not a boy.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here.” Joanne was an elfin woman in a hot-pink beach cover-up and matching leggings who had spent enough time tanning in the sun to make her age indeterminable. She could be anywhere from forty to seventy, though her cigarette-roughened voice and leathery-looking chest suggested the latter. “Did you get them?”
“I did.” Molly swung her grocery tote onto the counter where Joanne had already laid out several trays of tantalizing-looking cheeses and crudité. “But do you even need them? Surely what you have there is enough.”
Joanne snorted. “Are you kidding me? When that group that was on the sunset sail comes in from being out on the water, they’re going to be famished. Not to mention the Walters family. They went out on a deep-sea fishing charter.”
Molly drew one of the cucumbers she’d bought for Mrs. Larson from the tote. “But they all have dinner reservations. I know—I helped some of them make them last night.”
“Of course, but we don’t want to send them to dinner hangry. I like to keep them well-fed and happy so they’ll behave themselves when they go out into town. That way I won’t get any complaints from my fellow business owners that I haven’t been taking care of my guests.”
“That makes sense.” Molly had been at the Lazy Parrot—whose owners were far from lazy—long enough to know how to pitch in when needed. She threw on an apron over her work clothes and began peeling one of the cucumbers—on which dabs of homemade fish dip would later be spread—as Joanne opened the oven to check on a tray of goat cheese tarts. “So I guess you’ve probably heard what happened at the library today.”
Molly didn’t really want to talk about it, but then again, she was dying to talk about it—especially with someone who might understand how disturbed the incident had left her. If she’d been back in Denver, she’d have processed the incident over drinks with her colleagues at her old job. They’d have gone to the Cruise Room in LoDo and gotten nicely toasted.
But she wasn’t in Denver anymore.
And though both Henry and Phyllis Robinette (bless her!) had asked if she was all right, and invited her to go to Uva, the nearby wine bar they often frequented after work, Molly had said no, not only because she had to get back to the inn to help the Larsons, but also because she had a walk-through in the morning at the new library with both the architect and the donor who was making the new library possible, Mrs. Dorothy Tifton herself (as well as her miniature poodle, Daisy, who followed her owner everywhere). Molly wanted a drink, but she also wanted to stay in and prepare herself for this important meeting.
As if she’d known what Molly was thinking, Joanne whipped around, pulled a bottle of red from the wine fridge, and expertly cracked it open.
“Poor dear,” she said, pouring two generous glasses before sliding one toward Molly. “I completely forgot. What a terrible thing. Here, drink up. Was he really found in a trash bag?”
Molly accepted the