Oh, come on! Manfred thought. He got out his wallet and pulled out the receipt from Moo and Oink. “I don’t usually keep receipts,” he said, “but I haven’t cleaned out my wallet lately.”

Freemont leaned over to take the receipt from Manfred, and the detectives gave it a very serious look. They wouldn’t be able to get past the time and date stamp. Sterling sighed.

Freemont said, “So you contend that you were at Vespers for your . . .” He looked down at a paper. “Client weekend, the same weekend your friend from this tiny, tiny town is there, completely by coincidence. Also by coincidence, the people you both meet happen to die.”

It did sound fishy, put that way.

“He doesn’t contend that, he states it,” Ms. Powell said calmly. “Because that is exactly what happened. He never met the couple who died so tragically. His acquaintance, Olivia Charity, never met Rachel Goldthorpe, at least not to my client’s knowledge. This is all nothing more than coincidence, the kind the world is always throwing at us. Mr. Bernardo has never seen Mrs. Goldthorpe’s allegedly missing jewelry. You can hardly charge my client with her death when you don’t know what killed her. So that’s the end of this conversation.” Ms. Powell got smoothly to her feet. Following her lead, so did Manfred. “This was a long way for my client to drive to answer a few questions he’s answered before.” Nobly, she did not mention her own inconvenience, because she would get paid for it. “I trust you won’t demand his presence again.”

“Only if the tox screen shows something,” Freemont said, suddenly sounding bored. He stood, too, towering over them. “And you ought to know, that little shit Lewis Goldthorpe plans on dragging your client through as much mud as he can.”

Ms. Powell and Manfred left the Bonnet Park police/fire station within an hour of entering it. Manfred realized he was now much poorer, but since he was walking out a free man, the price was fair. Ms. Powell was silent until they reached her car. Then she said, “I think we should bring action against Lewis Goldthorpe.”

“Won’t that just draw more attention to a bad situation?”

“Depends on what he accuses you of. If he tells the world you’re a thief, you may be sorry you didn’t get a preemptive strike in.”

“It would be best for me if this just went away. Any more time in the news, and my reputation’s going to be terrible, anyway. If there’s any big exposé on me because of this publicity, I’m not going to come out looking good. And frankly, I’m as nice a guy as they come in the psychic business.”

“Interesting way to put it.” The lawyer looked at him.

He shrugged. “But so true.”

“Why do you think Lewis Goldthorpe is gunning for you?”