With a groan, the red-haired woman flicked her cigarette down into a patch of snow littered with butts. It sizzled a second, then went out.

We passed from the porch into an improvised mudroom, created by walls of quilts and blankets nailed to the ceiling to prevent drafts from creeping inside. Tina peeled up the edge of a down comforter and slipped beneath it. I heard music through the hanging bedclothes.

The air smelled resinous from fresh fir garlands draped across every table and shelf, strung up along the lintels, and sagging from the ceiling. As if that wasn’t enough balsam, a pine-scented candle flickered beside a display of miniature Santa Clauses engaged in comically offbeat activities: Santa riding a moose, Santa in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, Santa seated in an outhouse making his list that unspooled at his feet.

The music was some orchestral Christmas staple I recognized but whose name escaped me.

A muscular woman, somewhere between forty and fifty, with a torso like a keg of beer, occupied the seat of honor. Her features were surprisingly delicate in contrast to her physique. I suspected she had been pretty once. Even now her dark curls didn’t appear to have been dyed but had retained their youthful color. She was wearing a University of Maine sweatshirt promoting the 1999 national champion ice hockey team, gray sweatpants, and fleece socks that extended beyond the toes like elf slippers. She wore reading glasses and had her face in one of those oversized cell phones the size of an eBook reader. She was texting—thumbs typing with scary speed—and did not look up as I entered.

“Mrs. Lynch? I’m Mike Bowditch. I’m with the—”

“I know who you are.” She had a small, bow-shaped mouth made larger with lipstick. “My granddaughter Tori says you were asking her boyfriend about that fag Chamberlain’s death.”

“That’s right.”

“Why can’t you people let the dead rest?”

I took the question to be rhetorical and remained silent.

Lynda Lynch possessed not one freckle, nor a single strand of red hair. The odds against this olive-skinned woman being the biological grandmother of the Dillon twins, or cousin Tina, seemed astronomically high.

The recliner was a model fitted with its own cup-holder. This one held a pint glass of what looked like white wine and ice cubes. She reached for her drink without removing her gaze from the screen of her phone.

“Turn up the volume, Tina. This is the Russian dance.”

My first serious girlfriend had adored The Nutcracker and played it all the time around the holidays. She’d tried to drag me to a performance down in Portland, but at twenty-two I had been too insecure to attend a ballet.

“I don’t see why you can’t get an Alexa,” said Tina.

“And have Jeff Bezos eavesdropping on me all day long? You don’t think those tech companies are recording everyone’s conversations?”