Nora jumped up on the settee, tail wagging. What would happen to her? Would they send someone up here to get her? Maybe Mrs. Dodd would be willing to take her in. The poor thing had no idea what was coming. Another master vanishing from her life.

He went over to the front screen door and looked out. The sedan idled a few seconds, as if the lieutenant hadn’t finished listening to a song on the radio, and then the engine cut. Moore opened the driver-side door and slammed it behind him. He straightened up and pressed the Panama hat onto his head. This was official business.

Nora, now at Keegan’s feet, pawed at the screen door and took up barking.

Moore closed the garden gate behind him. He wore a seersucker suit today, along with the hat—like a proper Englishman abroad, Keegan thought. His luminous white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. He was camera-ready. Perhaps the press was waiting for them downtown, a convenient photo op that didn’t require them to traipse up into the hills in scalding weather.

When Moore started up the front porch steps, Nora backed away from the screen, still barking. Now on the porch, the lieutenant looked at ease and well rested. His suit slacks had a nice crease running from his knees to the tops of his black penny loafers. “Don’t act like you’re surprised to see me,” he said. At the sound of his voice, Nora scuttled back into the kitchen.

Keegan stood a few inches behind the mesh of the screen door. “Neither surprised nor pleased,” he said.

The lieutenant doffed his Panama hat as if he expected Keegan to invite him inside. The hat left an indentation in his dense black hair above his ears. He looked down along the road he’d just driven up and fanned himself. “You’re not going to ask me in?” He turned the hat by the brim in his hands and waited for an answer.

“I don’t think I will,” Keegan said. The latch on the screen door was locked, not that it mattered. It could easily be broken—though the lieutenant was not the sort of man to do such things. He had a whole precinct of shirtsleeve thugs down at Parker Center who were happy to do the rough stuff. He could afford to keep his hands clean. “Unless,” Keegan said, “you have a warrant for my arrest.”

The lieutenant tipped his head to one side, like he was trying to see past Keegan into the cottage. He fanned himself with his hat again, but it seemed more pantomime than purposeful. He looked maddeningly relaxed and self-possessed, untroubled by the heat. “No warrant yet,” Moore admitted. “Still waiting to hear from ballistics. I was just hoping we could have a chat.”