But he was already wheeling away, so I trailed after him around the corner, down a hall, and into a small conference space that bore a strong resemblance to the interview room in the sheriff’s office.

I looked around. “Is it okay that we’re here?”

Max snorted. “What are they going to do, kick me out? Sit, sit, sit. I have something to tell you.”

“Okay, but first I need to tell you something.” I folded my hands on the table and started talking to them, because I didn’t want to watch Max’s face. “Your friends, your former coworkers, Fred Hallenius and David Olivarez? I talked to my deputy friend at the sheriff’s office, and he talked to the medical examiner. There was no evidence of anything but death from natural causes. None at all.”

“Yep.”

Wait, what? That was not the reaction I’d expected. I looked up to see Max nodding. “But . . . before . . .”

“Ah.” He waved his knobby hands. “I was having a bad day. It happens when you get this old. David and Fred, you know how old they were? In their eighties, for crying out loud, or almost. Of course they died of natural causes. Who would bother killing someone who’s about to die anyway?”

I winced. “Max, that’s a little . . .”

He reached across the table to pat my hands. “Inappropriate jokes are one of the privileges of old age, Minnie my sweet.”

“Old age?” I eyed him. “So you’re telling me you haven’t made inappropriate jokes your entire life?”

He grinned. “How, exactly, are you going to prove me wrong? And that’s another privilege of old age: There’s no one around to mess up my stories.”

It was something I’d never thought about. I pictured Rafe, Ash, and myself at the Round Table, decades hence, gray-haired and creaky, the two of them arguing about whose turn it was to buy the beer, and all three of us bickering about whose turn it was to pick up the check.

The image made me smile. I was still smiling when I got back to the houseboat, but that stopped as soon as I walked in the door.

“Eddie! What have you done?”

My cat was nowhere to be seen. He had, however, managed to scatter my entire pile of take-out menus all over the floor, and to shred at least one of them to small scraps.

I put my coat away and muttered as I cleaned up his mess. “Okay, I guess it’s clear what you’ve done, but the big question is why did you do it in the first place?”

Though I heard a distant “Mrr,” there was no sign of Eddie prancing out to greet me. He knew he was in trouble.