Keegan slowed his pace and cursed his luck. Another few minutes sipping coffee with the widow and the lieutenant would have driven off and left him alone. But there was no turning back now, no ducking into the bushes. Keegan braced himself and kept walking. It was what an innocent man would do, wasn’t it? Keep walking and wait to be noticed? Or maybe an innocent man would call out the lieutenant’s name. Keegan wasn’t sure. He focused on keeping his gait casual, unconcerned.

The lieutenant pulled the car’s door open. He took off his hat and was about to duck inside when he straightened up. He’d spotted Keegan. He grinned and pressed the hat back on his head. He leaned down into the car to get whatever it was he’d been carrying.

Keegan gave him an awkward wave, a stiff smile. He kept his pace steady, measuring every stride. This was the way an innocent man walked.

Moore pushed the sedan’s door shut and came around to the back. He leaned against the trunk, arms folded, holding a bottle by the neck in one fist, waiting for Keegan to come up the road. Another surprise visitor bearing libations, Keegan thought. Yet worlds had been born and ended in the hours since Eve had climbed this hill with her embezzled Bordeaux.

“I wondered where you’d got to,” Moore called down to him. “Your car’s in the carport, and the dog’s in the house. I knew you couldn’t have gone far.”

“I was down offering condolences,” Keegan said, a convenient truth. “Just being a good neighbor.”

Moore smiled slyly and shook his head, arms still crossed. “You know that girl’s young enough to be your daughter,” he said.

“Yeah,” Keegan said, “I’ve done the math. But I was talking about the widow, so you can wipe that asinine grin off your face.”

The lieutenant uncrossed his arms and held out his big, dry hand, so Keegan shook it.

“Hell,” the lieutenant said. “A girl like that? I wouldn’t blame a man for being a good neighbor.”

Keegan wasn’t in any mood for the lieutenant’s brand of manly banter. He folded his arms. “What brings you to my doorstep?” he said.

Moore held out the bottle, and Keegan took it from him. “Payment, as promised, for your assistance,” he said. “It’s not top shelf, but it’s ninety-proof.”

Keegan turned it to look at the label. Old Fitzgerald. It must have been riding in Moore’s car a few hours; it felt bathwater-warm. “Bourbon,” Keegan said. “How like a gentleman.”

Moore nodded in the direction of the cottage. “Let’s go on in and crack her open.”

“You’re not on duty?”

The lieutenant tugged back the sleeve of his jacket and showed Keegan a gold wristwatch. It looked expensive. “Off the clock, and driving my own wheels,” Moore said. “I can do whatever the hell I want.”

There was no avoiding it.