Harvey took us to a nearby strip mall where there was a choice of eateries. We entered the nearest diner and ordered coffee. I got the largest, most potent mix I could find on the menu, then asked for an extra shot of espresso. Over the last few days what little sleep I’d had was in snatches of a couple hours here and there and I was in need of the caffeine kick-start. We sat in a booth where we could watch the entrance—old habit—but where we were out of earshot of any of the other customers. I called Bryce and told him where we were.

“So what do you think all of this means?” Harvey was referring to the identities of the men found dead in the apartment.

“The cops are looking at it as a hit gone wrong, but I don’t think that’s the case,” I said.

“Me neither,” Rink said. “I know Del Chisholm. He’s been in the PI game for years, and he’s always played things straight up. Can’t see him heading a hit team. No way.”

“There’s no denying that he went to that apartment expecting trouble,” Harvey pointed out. “All three of them were armed.”

“Two of them only had Saturday night specials.” Rink was referring to the .38 revolvers the men were packing. “Not the weapon of choice of most assassins.”

I gulped coffee. “That’s what’s troubling me the most. If you’d been hired to take out a pro shooter, you’d take something along that was sure to put him down.”

“There were three of them, don’t forget, one of ’em had an automatic. Maybe they thought they could take him out between them.” Harvey sat back and ran a hand over his bald head. He didn’t believe that any more than we did, and was only adding conjecture to the pot to get the thought processes bubbling. He took a sip of his coffee, then said, “Unless they’d no idea who they were going up against. Sorry—rephrase that—what they were going up against.”

“Stands to reason.” Habit made me glance around the diner. People had their heads down, spooning food into their mouths or reading the morning papers or texting on mobile phones. No one was looking our way. My eyes lingered for a moment on a man and woman sitting at a table near the exit door. The woman was a beauty. The man was ten or more years older than she was. Nothing unusual about that. I turned my attention back to my friends. “My guess is that there was some other reason for them being there. They had no idea who this man was or what he was up to. What does that leave?”

“They were after someone else,” Harvey offered.

“Or they went there at someone else’s bidding,” said Rink.

“How well did you know Chisholm?”