Murder at Moot Point by Marlys Millhiser

All the movement and color there? It’s a nest of puffins the gulls have been after and the parents are afraid to leave, even though all the eggs I can see have hatched.”
    Charlie obediently wedged her cup between her legs and raised the binoculars. She pretended to find the puffins and their endangered nest but managed to adjust the focus in time to catch the lesson in cormorants and their diving and fishing skills and the common murres who were supposed to look like penguins.
    â€œMy husband wanted to retire near the ocean.” Clara Peterson’s husband had died two years later and she stayed on for the last fifteen alone. “Had I known I wouldn’t have left Milwaukee and near and dear friends. But Ralph loved oceans and mountains and there’s both here in very close proximity. Still, I’ve always enjoyed birds. I’ve made a life for myself. Moving home would be so expensive by now and most everyone’s passed away.”
    â€œI heard a woman passed away in some mysterious way last night.”
    â€œA neighbor of mine.” Clara sat silent staring out the windshield but not at birds. “I still can’t believe it. One of the reasons I’m delighted my shift is sunny and I have an excuse to come up here.” She didn’t look delighted. She looked half sick.
    â€œI thought I heard someone say she was riding a bicycle at seventy-eight? In the fog? At night?” Charlie took another slug of coffee and raised the binoculars again. “Obviously I heard wrong.”
    â€œGeorgie was an amazing woman. So is Frank for that matter. That’s her husband. She scorned my driving up here, Georgie, and my using sugar in my baking. She wouldn’t let Frank eat meat or come to the senior citizen dinners at the community center. So he would walk into Chinook, mind you at his age, along the beach, and eat hot beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy and wash them down with chocolate malteds. Sometimes, when she was at a group meditation or whatever, he’d sneak over to my place for a piece of pie.”
    â€œAre you telling me that old a woman could still ride a bicycle because she didn’t eat meat or sugar and that her husband could walk clear to Chinook because of that?”
    â€œOh, no, they obviously must have extraordinary health to begin with. But she used medicinal herbs and positive thinking and made her husband do it too. They never doctored that I know of, even when the county nurse would come around and check blood pressure, cholesterol, vision, and hearing free for seniors. They even took their cat to this holistic veterinarian we have in Moot Point. Georgie said it was all a different way of living and thinking and perceiving.”
    â€œWell, the results were certainly impressive. Did she often ride her bike at night?”
    The bird lady stared owllike through the magnification of thick trifocals. “That is odd, isn’t it? I don’t remember that it even had a light on it. But then I’ve thought recently she’s been getting a little strange. Old people often do, you know.”
    Charlie could see suspicion forming in three different sizes behind the trifocals so she changed the subject. “That artist, Michael, who has so many paintings at the Scandia down in the village, has he done any of the rookeries or the birds, do you know?”
    Clara’s dawning suspicion switched to disapproval in a blink and a distinct straightening of the spine. “I wouldn’t know. His ‘art’ is far too expensive for me to bother with. He’s up at the lighthouse right now. You can ask him.” The lighthouse, she explained, her manner less friendly, was manned by the National Guard and visitors were rarely allowed inside. But the view was stunning .
    Charlie thanked her and headed for the wooden stairs, knowing she should be heading for the Hide-a-bye instead. Stunning views, she’d found, often meant