“His pistol range, maybe. Did Bruce take you down there? He likes to show off how well he can shoot. It makes him feel better about being a failure as a man. His marksmanship is something he doesn’t need to lie about.”

“What does he lie about?”

“Bruce Jewett never went to sea ever. He was a hull technician at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. His area of expertise was marine sanitation. Boat toilets.”

Maybe he’d built the heads on the Thresher, I thought. No, he was too young for that.

“You mean he wasn’t second in command to Hyman Rickover?”

“Who’s that? Some legendary submariner?”

“Father of the nuclear navy.”

I watched Bibi watching me through narrowed eyes. I hadn’t been studied this closely since the last time I’d played poker.

“I’ve never been interested in history,” she said at last. “I mean, I get that those who forget the past are yadda, yadda, yadda. It just doesn’t seem to have anything to do with my life. How old are you anyway?”

“Thirty-one.”

“You seem older. Your affect.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Rivard had made a crack about middle age that morning. And Dani had recently ribbed me about preferring to read a book rather than play Fortnite with her. Maybe the hard life I’d lived was aging me prematurely.

The breeze came up and rustled the pine boughs. I heard a blue jay chortle in the distance. This late in December, most of his kind had left for warmer climes. Mainers didn’t realize that our local jays migrate and are replaced by jays from the north. To most modern people a bird is a bird is a bird.

Spoken like an old man, I thought.

“I want to get back to the conversation you overheard between your grandfather and Jewett,” I said. “Did it sound like there was some animosity there? Like maybe the professor had run out of patience?”

“That was my impression.”

“You don’t know how much money it was, I take it.”

“Enough that Grandfather minded. He was a generous man by nature. But he didn’t appreciate being jerked around.”

“Why didn’t you tell Lieutenant Rivard or the state police detective assigned to the case about the rift over the money Jewett owed?”

“Because it had nothing to do with Grandfather’s death!”

“That wasn’t for you to determine, Bibi.”

She hadn’t minded my using her first name before, but it seemed to get under her skin now. “I didn’t say anything about the money for the same reason I didn’t mention Grandfather and Bruce hooking up. It was no one else’s business.”

“The police might have disagreed.”

“I don’t know anything about cops, but I’m a writer, and I know a shitload about the power of narratives.”

“I’m not following you.”