He sat in a booth, watched through the steamy window as a pickup truck pulled in across two spots. A skinny man wearing a camo baseball cap jumped out of the cab, the truck still running, and strode into the shop. “Mornin’, Cody,” said the woman behind the counter as she got him a coffee and an apple turnover without asking him what he wanted. Harry kept his eye on the truck, spilling exhaust, and had a brief urge to race out of the shop with his coffee, steal the truck, and just start driving north, see how far he could get.

But he didn’t move. The man returned with his breakfast to his truck. Harry kept sipping at his coffee. He ate the blueberry donut, remembering, as he ate it, that it had been his father’s favorite. His thoughts shifted again to Alice, and Grace’s conviction that she had something to do with the murder. What if Grace was right, and he’d slept with his father’s murderer? His stomach flipped. He told himself to breathe, and thought of Occam’s razor, something he’d learned about in a probability course in college: The simplest solution to a problem is most likely the correct one.

What was the simplest solution?

Probably that his father had been an adulterer who liked to seduce younger women. He’d seduced a married woman and been killed by a jealous husband. Grace was just another girlfriend who had nothing to do with his father’s death. Alice was a betrayed wife who was right now trying to grapple with everything that was happening. And she was desperate for attention and affection. Wasn’t this the most logical solution? And if that was the case, then Harry had some responsibility because of what his father had left behind. His hand went instinctively to his pocket, looking for his phone, just to check if Grace or Alice had sent him a text, but he’d left it in the bedroom.

He left the shop with his coffee. The sun was higher in the sky, and there were a few cars along Route 1A now. He decided to walk back home; later he would get in touch with Grace again, make sure she told the police what she knew. He walked along the sandy edge of the road. There was a breeze from the east, and the air held the smell of the ocean. As he approached Kennewick Village he was about to veer off toward York Street and back to Grey Lady, but decided at the last moment to walk past the house where Grace was living. It was too early to visit, but maybe if he just walked by . . .