Inside, the boathouse smelled of wet wood with an undercurrent of rotting fish. The thump of our fenders as Tim flipped them over the side of the boat, the slap of water against the interior walls . . . noises fell in a way that made me uneasy. The place was too empty, too quiet. Quickly, I disembarked.

“Thank God you’re here, I was worried you wouldn’t make it. Philip Norton,” the man said as he tied up our vessel, yanking the lines tight with ease. “I’m the one who called.”

“You’re the caretaker?” I asked.

“Caretaker, cook, housekeeping staff. I do it all.”

“I’m Investigator Tim Wellington,” Tim said, his eyes lingering on Norton’s face. “And this is Senior Investigator Shana Merchant.”

Even with his hood up, I could see Norton’s bald head and neck blended seamlessly. I suspected that underneath the poncho his body was similarly bare and square. Eyebrows and lashes so blond they were almost white disappeared against his skin. His cheeks were pudgy and his eyes too small, like raisins in an underbaked bun, but the effect was endearing. “No remote,” Norton explained as he hit a button on the wall to close the boathouse door. Then he grimaced in my direction and said, “Please excuse the smell.”

I came across men like this sometimes, older guys who couldn’t fathom how a woman could be a cop, or that I’d come to this work willingly and was better at it than most. I got the sense it was my femaleness that brought the color to Norton’s cheeks, but it could just as easily have been my scar. “Mink trouble,” the man said apologetically, and it took me a second to catch up. He meant the smell, but when I heard mink trouble all I could think of was a rich lady’s fur coat, a stain the cleaners couldn’t get out.

“Ah,” Tim said. “Those buggers can make a real mess. As long as they’re leaving their leftovers down here and staying clear of the house, though.”

“Isn’t that the truth. We had a trapper up here yesterday, just in case.”

Tim said, “A trapper, huh?”

A stranger on the island. So that’s what Norton was holding back when Tim asked him about intruders on the phone.

“Local guy I found in town. Shifty fella, I didn’t like him,” Norton said. “He disturbed the nests—the ones made by the geese. Nothing in ’em now, of course, but the birds’ll be back in spring and they like the sunny side of the island. He should have known that.”

“How long was he out here?” Tim asked.

“Oh, hours. Morning to midafternoon.”

“Did he have any luck? I’m surprised the flooding didn’t chase the mink out of here.”

“Maybe it did,” replied Norton. “He looked and looked, but he couldn’t find them.”

“Mr. Norton,” I said, getting antsy. “What can you tell us about last night?”

From the corner of my eye I saw Tim flinch. We were still trying to get a read on each other’s methods. I had a feeling he’d prefer to ease into it, keep the small talk going, knowing a relaxed witness is likely to let something slip. But a man was missing, and there was a crime scene inside that might be getting more contaminated by the second. The trapper would stay on my radar, but we needed to move on, and questioning Norton right there on the dock was about simple math. Up in that house there were seven other people, all of whom would need to be interviewed. I saw my chance to get a head start, and I took it.