Antiques Roadkill by Barbara Allan Page A

store, and he vacated. Didn’t even buy anything.”
    So then he was “rough” but not actually a “customer.”
    I asked, “What do you supposed he wanted?”
    “I was curious, too,” Junior admitted, “and followed him out … pretended to sweep the front walk. The fellow got in a red convertible with Colorado license plates.”
    I frowned. “Somebody from Carson’s past.”
    “Funny thing was,” Junior continued, “the fella drove off in the opposite direction of Carson’s shop … didn’t even go the way I told him to!”
    Interesting.
    By this time I’d finished my cocktail, as well as this source of inquiry. “Junior, would you happen to know where I can find the Romeos on Saturday?”
    Junior’s bushy eyebrows climbed his forehead like a couple of ambitious caterpillars. “Let’s see … kinda hard to keep track of their schedule, some place different every damn day. They was in here, Thursday.”
    “Best guess?”
    Junior shrugged. “Check the Riverside.”
    The Romeos—Retired Old Men Eating Out—were sequestered in the back of the Riverside Restaurant, which specialized in the kind of fattening old-fashioned meals the old boys had grown up on, and which none of them should any longer be having. Lunch hour was well underway, with not an empty table to be had in the popular eatery, which was frequented by professionals and farmers alike.
    I approached the men—who were a small group today, four seated at a table for six—and asked if I could join them until something opened up; they had been served drinks, and were awaiting their Blue Plate Specials.
    Normally, this club of retired widowers does not take kindly to the inclusion of a woman. But I had a feeling that, unlike Junior, they had already heard the scuttlebutt about Carson. As I’ve said, men are just as hungry for gossip as women, though sometimes more subtle about gathering it.
    “Sure thing, Vivian,” Vern said. One of Serenity’s oldest established chiropractors, he looked like a
Misfits-era
Clark Gable, which is to say his ears stuck out, and he had painfully obvious false teeth. Vern had been forced into retirement when a stack of
National Geographic
magazines caught fire in the back room and burned his office down, and him underinsured. (I couldn’t feel sorry for him, having warned him not to be such a pack rat.)
    “Sit over here, Viv,” said Harold, a retired army captain with Bob Hope’s nose but not his sense of humor. He leaned over and pulled out an empty chair next to him. A real taskmaster, Harold had probably driven his wife to her early grave by demanding his meals on time and his socks freshly laundered and set out for him. I once had had a dalliance with the widower, but soon came to my senses. Still, Harold looked pretty darn foxy for a fellow who’d just had a colostomy.
    Randall—a former hog farmer who reminded me of a homelier Ernest Borgnine (it’s possible)—asked slyly, “And what mischief have you been up to, Vivian?”
    Before Randall sold his pig farm, you wanted to stand downwind from him, but he was safe enough now. Ofcourse, he did have glaucoma, and could only see you from straight on, and had to swing around and focus on you somewhat disconcertedly. And he had an unsettling way of smiling at you with a “what’ll she bring in at market?” way.
    “Yes,” chimed in Ivan, Serenity’s onetime mayor, a Jimmy Stewart type, only not quite as handsome (but then who ever was?). “What wickedness have you been sowing, you naughty girl?”
    Ivan’s once boisterous personality had never quite returned after his wife’s death, though he always made an effort with me; it was common knowledge his wife’d had Alzheimer’s, although for a while Ivan had enjoyed the way he could make her laugh with his same tired handful of jokes. Ivan’s health was pretty good, except for a few precancerous moles removed from his face, which he probably got from too much time on the golf course.
    I thanked the