After some chitchat, I said, “I hear a young woman was murdered here about a week ago. I don’t need to be worried, do I?”

“Not unless you plan to join that cult of wackos up on the hill,” Jacob said.

The server rolled her eyes. “It’s a commune.”

“Same difference.”

“There’s a commune around here?” I asked.

“Cult.”

“Commune,” the server insisted.

I pushed my mug toward her for a refill. “Let me rephrase. There are people engaged in a group living arrangement that doesn’t conform to social norms?”

The server—Lorraine by her name tag—laughed. “That’s a good way of putting it. They aren’t brainwashed cultists waiting for the aliens to come and take them away. Just nice young girls with a different way of living.”

Jacob snorted. “Nice young girls living with one old guy doing who-knows-what.”

“Oh, we know what they’re doing,” Bill said with a snicker.

“So what is that, if not a cult?” Jacob said.

“Heaven,” Bill replied.

Laughter from the few patrons listening in.

“Was the girl who was killed last week from there?”

“Yeah,” Jacob said. “And she seemed like such a nice kid.”

Lorraine glowered. “She was a nice kid. They all are. It’s not Charles Manson up there. Just kids experimenting with a different way of life. I did some of that at their age.”

“I heard there were two other girls killed last fall,” I said. “Were they part of the, uh, group?”

“Ginny and Brandi?” Bill shook his head. “Those girls were into a whole other kind of trouble.”

“Ginny and Brandi were lost souls,” Lorraine said. “Those girls up at Alastair’s place are lost, too, but they’re getting back on track.”