He was big, the size of a lynx, with scratches across his gray face and a milky eye that may or may not have been functional. He hissed at me from the chair on which he’d been resting.

“What’s his name?”

“Nemo. Why don’t you pet him? He likes being scratched behind the ears.”

We passed again through the mudroom, but instead of stepping outside, continued along an ell that had been added after the farmhouse was built. It provided a sheltered walkway to a barn behind the main building.

“I love these old Maine farmhouses,” I said.

“Sorry, but I’m not selling.” He kept walking.

“How long have you had it?”

“A hundred-and-fifty years, if you mean how long has it been in my family. The Jewetts were the original settlers in Stratford, Turner, and Keen’s Mills. Would you like to see the family plot when you’re done grilling me? It’s over there in the trees.”

I ignored the provocation. Better to remain friendly. “You must have a nice view of the river from upstairs.”

“I’m not inviting you into my bedroom.”

He had to pause at the next door to tap a code into a keypad, and then we entered his personal shooting range, inside the barn. The floor was solid concrete with drains against floods and leaks. The lights were dim, as they often are in indoor pistol ranges, with a spotlight focused on a berm at the far side of the barn. Jewett had dumped a couple of tons of sand there to serve as a backstop to the bullets and bullet fragments.

There wasn’t a shooting stall, per se; the whole interior functioned as a firing lane. But there were three separate target retrievers mounted to the ceiling. Jewett could attach a paper target on any or all of them, push a button, and watch them be carried along on chains to the back of the room, twenty-five yards away. There was also an upright reactive target—a man-shaped sheet of upright steel—if he wanted to take out his anger on a hunk of metal. Granted it was early in our acquaintance, but it was my impression that Bruce Jewett might have a bad or two day occasionally.

This personal range couldn’t have been cheap to install. I had shot at commercial facilities that felt more makeshift. Maybe he had hocked the rest of his household possessions to pay for it.

The barn was unheated, and I could see my breath. “This is quite the setup.”

“Coming from you, Warden, that means the world to me.”

He busied himself at a locked locker. When he turned to me, he had swapped his black-framed glasses for a pair with yellow lenses. He held two sets of cupped earphones that would cushion the sounds of the gunshots. He put one around his neck and tossed the other to me.