“Now move, both of you,” Freddy said. “Inside the barn.”

We marched inside, holding our hands up. Rob and the woman turned in surprise when we entered. The poodles stopped dancing and raced over to lick our faces—well, my face and the other prisoner’s. They didn’t seem all that keen on licking Freddy’s face. From the portable CD player in the corner, Bruce Springsteen sang on unheeded.

In one corner of the barn, I saw a giant bird cage, about six feet square and eight feet tall, with several dozen brightly colored canaries and cockatiels roosting in it. Or trying to roost—about half the birds had their heads under their wings while the rest were fluffing their feathers and looking around rather irritably, as if loud rock and roll wasn’t their idea of a bedtime serenade. And one wall of the barn was lined to a height of six feet with rough shelves containing several dozen smaller cages, with or without brightly colored birds in them.

“Over there,” Freddy said, pointing with his gun to where Rob and the woman were standing.

“Freddy, what are you doing?” the woman asked.

“My business,” Freddy said.

“You’re doing it in my barn,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Freddy said. “But why’d you have to come back so early? You usually stay up in Maine till Labor Day. Everything would have been straightened out by Labor Day. Will you shut that damned thing off?”

Evidently Freddy wasn’t a fan of the Boss. The CD had segued from “Dancing in the Dark” to “My Hometown.” The woman—whom I deduced must be Aubrey Hamilton—walked over and cut the power.

“Great,” Freddy said. “Now put the dogs in one of the stalls. I don’t want them drooling all over me.”

“Poodles don’t drool,” Aubrey said. But she opened the door of one of the stalls and called to the poodles, who obediently followed.

“Him, too,” Freddy added, gesturing at Spike, who was fixing him with a stern look and growling slightly.

“What’s going on?” Rob asked, as he dragged Spike into the stall with the poodles.

“Shut up,” Freddy said. He tossed a roll of duct tape at Aubrey. “Here, take this and tape their hands together.”

“Freddy!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe you’re doing this!”

“Start with him,” Freddy said, pointing to the fake bird-watcher.

“This isn’t helping your case,” the man began.

“Shut up,” Freddy said, waving the gun a little wildly. “That means all of you.”

Aubrey sighed, but she didn’t try to talk him out of tying us up, which probably said a lot about Freddy’s character. That, and the fact that even though he let her use a utility knife to cut the duct tape, she made no attempt to escape—she just obediently taped the fake bird-watcher’s wrists together, then mine, and finally Rob’s. Freddy then ordered her to secure us to the vertical posts that supported the hay loft—perhaps he’d caught me measuring the distance between us. And when she’d trussed the three of us up to Freddy’s satisfaction, he secured her to a fourth post. Took him long enough, since he was still holding the gun in his right hand and had to do all the taping with his left.