“It’s not rock if you can’t feel the bass,” Rob complained.

“Youder,” Timmy suggested.

I ignored both of them, and they finally gave up and settled down to listen to Robert Plant’s wails at the very modest decibel level that seemed safe for a toddler’s hearing.

“So where are we going?” Rob asked.

“Back to where Jasper Walker’s been staying,” I said. “With you along to watch Timmy, I might have more chance of learning something.”

“Are you going to burgle the place?” Rob demanded. “Cool! I charge extra for aiding and abetting felonies.”

But as we made our way farther and farther away from town, I noticed that he seemed increasingly uneasy.

“Where are we going?” he finally asked, as we turned off the road and onto the dirt lane.

“Hiram Bass’s house,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that’s where Jasper Walker has been staying.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Rob was waving a toy at Timmy, but he seemed distracted, looking around as if something made him very nervous. Maybe it was the effect of being in the woods—Rob was never much for roughing it.

He seemed to perk up a bit by the time we pulled up in front of the house—possibly because it presented new, untapped opportunities for sarcasm.

“You have such classy friends,” he said, pointing to a discarded toilet that was lying near the front porch. “Unfettered by bourgeois notions of aesthetics and respectability.”

“Potty,” Timmy said, pointing.

“Timmy, you and Rob stay here in the car where it’s cool,” I said as I got out. “I’m going to see if I can get in and look around. I’m leaving the keys so you can keep the air conditioning on while you’re waiting.”

“It’s just you and me, kid,” Rob said, in a bad Bogart accent. Timmy giggled as if Rob had said something hilarious.

I strolled up onto the cluttered front porch and knocked on the door again.

“Jasper? Mr. Bass?”

No answer. Back in the car, Timmy and Rob were having a tickle fight and giggling nonstop. Apart from that, everything was quiet, except for the window-unit air conditioner at one side of the house, which was still laboring away. Probably on high speed, by the sound of it. That probably meant Jasper wasn’t planning to be away too long, didn’t it? When I went on vacation, I turned the thermostat way down. Or was Jasper feckless enough to leave the air conditioning running full blast even if he’d left town for a while? Probably. Especially if it was on his uncle’s utility bill.

I peered through both of the front windows, then began circling the house, peering into each window in turn. The other rooms—a bedroom and a small kitchen—looked much as the living room had, cluttered and rundown.

When I got to the back door, I pulled out my lock-picking kit. No sense in making Rob a witness to my attempt at breaking and entering, and if I found anything worth reporting to the police, I could always claim that I’d found it open. After all, with Timmy along yesterday, I couldn’t easily sneak around to the back of the house to test the windows and doors there. For all I knew, there could be a door open.