“Not really. I know she comes up here to buy her Addies—not from us, from our neighbor, Felice. I bet that isn’t in your file. That the poor little rich girl is an addict.”

Addies was slang for the drug Adderall, prescribed to people, often young, with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is bought illegally and abused by adults wishing to sharpen their mental focus or seeking instant stimulation. People were known to crush the pills and snort them like cocaine.

“She inherited all that professor’s money, you know,” said Tiff. “Is that in your report?”

“The Warden Service concluded that Chamberlain’s death was an accident,” I said. “Do you have reason to say it wasn’t?”

Tori, who struck me as the quicker of the two, sensed the trap. “My sister’s not saying the dyke killed him. Bibi Chamberlain is just a rich bitch who likes kiddy coke and thinks her shit doesn’t smell.”

I was perspiring pretty furiously under my bulletproof vest. I was the only one in this hothouse fully dressed.

“I want to talk about the professor’s PFD.” I pretended to look at my notebook as if refreshing my memory. “My Mustang MIT happens to be red, but Professor Chamberlain’s was camouflage. The pattern is called Mossy Oak Shadow Grass Blades. This is where I have another problem, Arlo. If he was dressed in camouflage, as he was when we recovered his body, and his life vest was also camo-patterned, how could you have seen or not seen it from a distance of three hundred yards?”

“Don’t answer that question,” said Tori with the abruptness of a defense lawyer at a deposition. “He’s trying to trick you into incriminating yourself.”

“Don’t trust him,” echoed Tiff.

“Why not?” asked Burch.

“Because I know all about him,” said Tori through her teeth. “Arlo, honey, this guy is as bad as they come.”

I’d been called worse. But never by someone I’d just met.

23

My ambush is fucked from the start. Maybe my boots squeak, inching along the spike. Maybe a handful of snow dislodges itself from my person.

Whatever the giveaway is, Jewett jerks his head up.

By then, I’m dropping fast. I am 100 percent committed. But the split-second warning is time enough for Jewett to spring forward. Instead of my coming down on top of him, it’s more like I come down behind him.

The one thing that saves me is that, lunging, he loses his footing. He lands on his kneecaps with his left arm outstretched to arrest the fall. The shotgun swings up under his right armpit on its bouncy bungee sling.