"What did you say your name is?" asked Amanda.

"Sabrina. Sabrina Spencer."

"Like the mystery writer."

"That's me."

"Huh. Heard of you but haven't read any of your books. So let me guess. You're writing about it?"

"I'm not going to be in any book," said Bill.

"No." Sabrina replied. "It's all a little convoluted. Your great-grandfather and Del's great-grandfather were friends. They also committed a crime together. My grandfather killed Del's grandfather over that same crime. Now my sister is dead and a man in Nebraska is dead because of it. We're trying to stop anyone else from dying. If you can just answer a few questions, we'll be on our way and, hopefully, you won't have to deal with any of this ever again."

She had them. I think the pressure of family secrets, and now dead people, finally got to them. Bill looked at Amanda. She gave a nod.

"What do you need to know?" he asked.

"What do you know about everything that went on with Mikey?"

They looked at each other again, this time with a puzzled look.

"Who's Mikey?"

It was our turn to look at each other. Did we have the right person?

"Your great-grandfather."

"His name was Preston. Preston Flynn."

I must have looked confused, so Bill cleared it up.

"I suppose it's possible that he went by a different name when he was young. He robbed a museum in New York and skipped town."

"Same person. He was known as Mikey back then."

"And you're looking for the paintings he stole."

"Uh, no. Why, do you have them?"

I could tell by his face that he did.

"You've got to understand," explained Bill. "These fucking paintings have been the bane of our existence. Did you know that this was his house? I'm like the fourth generation to live here. He put those paintings in the basement and told my grandfather not to breathe a word about them. He, in turn, told my father, who told me. I'm sick of it."

"Why didn't you just turn them in?" asked Sabrina.

"Because we were told that there was a lot of danger associated with them and that we'd be better off keeping our mouths shut. And now you show up looking for them."

"We're not," I repeated. "There were eleven paintings stolen, but only ten reported missing. We were looking for the eleventh, which we've already found."

"Frankly," added Sabrina, "if you turned those over to the authorities—and you could make up some story about finding them in your basement—you'd be heroes. Those paintings aren't dangerous at this point. The one we have is."

"Then what are you here for?"

"We need information about Mikey. He was involved—in some way, anyway—in a crime before that one. The eleventh painting that I mentioned was the one they were robbing the museum to get. That painting holds a clue to the earlier crime. But we're missing something and we're hoping that any information you can give us about Mikey will give us the missing clue."