“Are you asking if I plan on reopening this investigation?”

“Yes.”

Now it was my turn to lie. “I haven’t decided.”

She removed one of her mittens to nibble on a hangnail. She worked on the skin tag in silence for the better part of a minute. But she only succeeded in drawing blood.

“What I said about Arlo before,” she said, pulling her mitten on, “about him coming forward with a made-up story in order to collect a reward? You get that I was joking, right? My dad always says, ‘Arlo Burch is as sharp as a marble.’ But he wouldn’t have lied to the investigators about what he saw.”

“What if someone prodded him?”

“Like I said, Tori and Tiff didn’t live here then.”

I hadn’t mentioned the Dillons.

One of the crows started cawing at us, and the others joined in. Crows, in my experience, are as easily annoyed as they are annoying.

“How does you dad get along with the Dillons?” I asked.

“Fine,” she said in a flat tone. “He plays cards with them.”

Someone—was it Rivard?—had mentioned that Vic Bazinet had a gambling addiction.

“What about you?”

“You heard Tina’s lies about me. If you think I enjoy having that family as neighbors, you’ve missed the point I’ve tried to get across. Those people are scary as fuck.”

“I’ve met scarier.”

“If you’re not frightened of the Dillons, you’re a fool.”

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Felice? About what’s going on up here?”

It took me a moment to realize she was staring down the road at her father’s house, its windows glowing warmly in the deepening cold. She was thinking about her children inside.

“I wouldn’t be helping my family if I snitched on my neighbors, would I?

“That’s pretty close to a tacit admission that the Dillons are running a criminal enterprise.”

“I didn’t say that. But even if I did, what does it have to do with Professor Chamberlain?” Her body grew rigid and her voice became louder. “Why are you even asking these questions? You didn’t need to come up here today. It’s so … senseless.”

“I’m asking questions because it’s my job.”

“I don’t understand why you’re still here. If I were you, I’d leave and never look back.”

“If you hate it so much, why do you stay?”

“I can’t abandon my dad. I can’t leave him alone with them.” She jammed her fists into the pockets of her parka. “What business is it of yours, anyway?”

“None.”

“If you don’t think I spend every waking hour trying to figure a way out of this trap.”

“What do you mean ‘trap’?”