The lieutenant shook the ice in his Class—the cubes were just nubs now—and took a long last sip. He set the glass down on the table. “Could be,” he said finally. “But I doubt it.”

“Why’s that?”

Moore eyed Keegan warily. It was clear he was holding back. “We’re off the record, right?”

Keegan smiled. He let his head drop back against the settee, and then lifted it again. “Give me a break,” he said, arms spread in a gesture of innocence. “I don’t even subscribe to a newspaper these days.”

Moore sat back in the armchair and plucked at the armrest covers with his long fingers, looking Keegan over. Light from the window behind him made his damp whiskey glass glow like a votive candle. “The French door,” Moore said. “The supposed point of entry. The glass was broken up near the latch.”

Keegan took a moment to let this information settle. The word supposed had put him on edge. “What about it?” he said. “What’s the problem?”

“You can’t see the latch from outside the house,” Moore said. “If I were breaking in, I would have smashed the pane down by the handles. That’s where I’d assume the lock would be.” His face was maddeningly neutral, impossible to read. His fingers moved restlessly on the chair’s arms.

“Okay,” Keegan said. “So, whoever did it cased the place first. What does that tell us?” He took the last sip of whiskey in his glass and swallowed it. It was watery. “Servants. Deliveries. Pool cleaners. Hell, they probably have a topiary gardener. I’ll bet a hundred people are in and out of that place every week.”

Moore nodded, his face still neutral. “That’s not all,” he said. “Nothing was missing. Nothing was even moved. Why did our man bother to case the place and then break in if he wasn’t planning on stealing something?”

Keegan looked at the bottle. He was tempted to pour himself a second shot—with or without ice cubes—but knew he shouldn’t. “Okay, so somebody broke in,” he said, thinking it through as he spoke. “The old guy hears the glass break and comes blustering down the stairs. He surprises the burglar and catches a slug for his troubles. Burglar hoofs it. Three-zero. End of story.”

The lieutenant’s face remained impassive. He nodded thoughtfully. The window behind him lit the fine sheen of sweat on his cheeks. His fingers went back to plucking at the chair’s armrests.

Keegan didn’t like the silence. He wanted to fill it, the way he wanted to reach out and pour himself another glass of bourbon. “It could have happened that way,” he said when he could no longer resist the urge to speak.

Moore shrugged. “Could have,” he said. He shook his head. “Didn’t, though.”

“Why not?”