“One was a pit viper that got loose in its owner’s garage. Unfortunately, it killed the guy’s dog before we managed to capture it. You know, Tori, it’s kind of rude not to tell me your last name. You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Do I?”

“You do.”

Her blue eyes held mine a moment, drifted away around the room, then came back to me. “It’s Dillon.”

“Tori Dillon?”

“Don’t wear it out.”

I heard a door open down the hall, fast footsteps, and then a second woman stood in the threshold between the living room and the kitchen.

She was wearing a terrycloth robe bearing the insignia of a fancy Portland hotel and a purple towel wrapped around her wet hair. She had the same height, build, and general coloring as Tori, but she lacked the freckles, and her nose was distinctively pink. She wore a copper ring in one roseate nostril.

“So you’re the famous Mike Bowditch. In our fucking house. What are the odds?”

She, too, spoke as slowly as an auctioneer.

“I’m hardly famous.”

“We’ve seen you on the news,” said Tori, cracking her can of Twisted Tea. “Tiffany saw your picture and thought you were hot. Didn’t you, Tiff?”

Tori and Tiffany?

Tiff Dillon reached for the unopened can of booze. “You’re older-looking in person, though.”

“Sorry to disappoint. You two are twins, I’m guessing.”

“Gee, what gave us away?” said Tiff. Her rabbit nose twitched when she smiled.

“Mike here is a warden investigator,” said Tori. “That’s like a detective, right? Only your cases involve dead moose?”

“And occasionally a dead hunter.”

“Ain’t you funny,” said Tiff in a faux Maine accent. Her eyelashes and eyebrows, not yet made up, were rusty red. “He’s a smaht one, ain’t he, sistah?”

“He thinks he is.”

From the back of the house came a crashing sound.

Then: “Shit! Ouch! Damn!”

Half a minute later, Arlo Burch blundered into the room, dressed in nothing but a towel and cupping one elbow in the palm of his opposite hand.

“I hit my funny bone!” he said, shaking his arm. “Don’t you hate that? The tingling.”

He was a tall man, slim, but well-muscled. His skin was tanned from a tanning bed, and one arm was inked from shoulder to wrist in a sleeve of well-drawn tattoos. (More snakes, intertwined.) He hadn’t shaved for several days, and his stubble beard was darker than his curls. His eyes were extraordinarily large, friendly, and empty of intelligence.

“When Tori said we had a warden visitor, I expected it was my man, Rivard.”

“This is Mike Bowditch,” said Tiff.

“Nice to meet you.” He advanced on me with a warm smile and an outstretched hand, calloused from a weight bench. “Welcome to my abode. Have a seat.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Did the girls offer you a beverage?”