He nodded gloomily.

“Maybe you should have stuck to poodles,” I said.

“Poodles?”

“The Prancing Poodle Kennels,” I said. “I gather you’re not breeding poodles anymore?”

“No money in poodles either.”

“So when was the last time you saw Jasper Walker?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why?”

“I’m still trying to find him. Have you seen him within the last few days?”

“No,” he said. “Not for months. I didn’t even know he was back in town. Last I heard, he’d gotten fired from his job at the college and gone up to D.C. to look for work.”

“Have you seen anyone over there lately?”

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect to. Old Mr. Bass is in the nursing home, you know. Place has been empty for years.”

I nodded. Apparently Jasper—or whoever had left the beer cans and pizza box—had been coming and going unseen. But maybe I should keep that to myself for now.

“Thanks a lot,” I said, handing him the towel. “And if you see anything of Jasper or Karen, could you give me a call?”

I wrote my cell phone number on a sheet torn from my notebook and handed it to him.

“Okay,” he said. “But I don’t expect I’ll see anything. It’s—hey! Get away from there!”

I turned to see Timmy crawling through the barnyard fence. I gave chase, and managed to catch up with him before he reached the barn.

“Want see horsie,” Timmy complained as I picked him up.

“There aren’t any horsies there,” I said. “Just birdies. Sorry,” I added to Hamilton, who had only just caught up with us, and was seriously out of breath. “You turn your back on him for a second and he’s gone.”

“I understand,” he said.

“Want see birdies,” Timmy said.

Hamilton looked uneasy. He kept glancing at the barn and then back at Timmy.

“Look, I know he’d like to see the birds, but the last time a kid got in there he opened all the cages. Took us hours to catch the damned birds again.”

“I understand,” I said. “I doubt if Timmy’s old enough to open cages, but it’s time I got him home anyway. Thanks a lot.”

Hamilton stood in the barnyard watching as I carried Timmy back to the car, wrestled him into clean clothes, strapped him into the car seat, and drove off.

“Is he hiding something, do you think?” I asked Timmy. “Or is he just not a sociable kind of guy?”

“Doggie,” Timmy said.

Was that an incisive insult to Aubrey? No, Timmy had spotted Scout lying in the middle of the driveway to Hiram Bass’s house. He lifted his head when he saw us, and his tail thumped a couple of times, and then, when we drove by, he put it back on his paws again.

“If you’re still here when I come back, I’ll call the animal shelter,” I said as I watched the dog in my rearview mirror.

Back at home, I managed to get in a quick shower while Timmy took the shoelaces out of several pairs of Michael’s shoes. I was down in the laundry room, putting our potentially poison-ivy contaminated clothes into the washer while Timmy ran around wearing nothing but a diaper, with a torn pillowcase over his head, pretending to be a ghost, when my cell phone rang. It was Michael.