When I left Pill Hill, I had been so cocky about having figured out the mystery of Eben Chamberlain’s death. Even if I couldn’t be sure of the motive, I was confident I knew who had done it. I even had an idea how Tori and Tiff were tangled up in the conspiracy.

But it was the crucial thing I had missed—the true identities of the Dillons—that was going to get me killed.

I roll onto my back and my head knocks the gas can. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that Tina hears.

“Don’t make us stop the car, Mike!”

I remain quiet. I know that Tanner won’t be stopping the Suburban until they’re well clear of the cops.

As if she’s reading my mind, Tina tunes the radio to the police band.

A dispatcher says: “419 Augusta. Last words came in broken.”

Call numbers beginning with four are state troopers.

This one responds: “419 Augusta. There’s a van in the field, but everyone who was here has cleared out. Tire prints and snowmobile tracks all over the area. I don’t want to disturb them. I’m going to try to get my spotlight on the van from here.”

The radio snapped silent.

“Why’d you turn it off?”

“I don’t want him hearing that,” Tina says, between hacks. “I don’t want him knowing what’s happening.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Just drive, Tanner.”

“It’s not like he can do anything, Tina.”

“I don’t want him getting his hopes up.”

38

Darkness had come to Pill Hill, but despite the hour, I wasn’t ready to leave. I pulled a U-turn in what had been Jamal Marquess’s dooryard and drove clockwise around the loop.

Light peered from Felice’s front windows. A silvery thread of smoke swirled from the chimney pipe. Her father still hadn’t returned home.

The next householder had crowded their small lot with inflatables. A waving Santa Claus, ten feet tall. A giant snow globe that contained a nuclear family of geographically confused penguins. I continued on, past glowing reindeer on rooftops, one lonely crêche. The grotesque figurines and Technicolor lights gave the neighborhood all the class of a carnival row.

Despite her fondness for Sugar Plum Fairies, Lynda Lynch had forgone all decoration.

As I idled past, I saw a curtain part and a wrinkled face peek out of the frosted window. My fleeting impression, before the drapes closed, was of pale hair and skin like an apple dried in the sun.

Maybe this was the real Grambo, the woman who had hidden in another room while her friend pretended to be Tina Dillon’s grandmother.

As I continued around the circle, more blinds parted and curtains opened. Maybe they were all on the phone with each other, passing word along. The warden was finally leaving.