“I’m going in to see the chief myself,” Randall said, and we fell into step together. “So who’s your intended victim, and when do you need an alibi?”

“Mrs. Dahlgren, and I don’t know yet.”

He winced.

“Okay, so I guess you already heard about how she needs some animals for the live Nativity.”

“I have now.”

“I’m sorry.” He pulled out a small notebook—his equivalent of my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe—and frowned at it, as if the missed signal was the notebook’s fault instead of user error. “I was supposed to tell you about the animals, and I was going to just as soon as—”

“Life happens.” I stopped about ten feet from the entrance. “You want to make it up to me? Answer me something.”

“Sure thing.”

“What’s Duane Shiffley’s story?”

Randall stiffened, then closed his eyes and shook his head.

“What’s he done now?” he asked.

“You tell me.”

“Nothing, lately,” Randall said. “That I know of. Apart from appropriating a few ducks from Quincy’s flock and selling them, but you already knew that. He seemed to think Quincy owed him something for pitching in to help at the farm. We straightened him out on that score, and he’s paying Quincy back.”

“You were awfully quick to suspect him when I called to ask who might have sold Rob a duck,” I said.

“Was I?”

I just waited.

“Black sheep,” he said finally. “Every family has a few. Duane had a drug problem. Did some prison time, and some time in a residential treatment facility. He’s clean now. Far as I know. If you know different, tell me, so we can deal with it.”

“He’s been seen lurking around Trinity,” I said.

“He works for Shiffley Construction,” Randall said. “Hard for someone with his record to get hired anywhere else. He was one of the workmen who got the place ready for the choir concert.”

“I figured,” I said. “Couple of people thought he was behaving a little furtively.”

“If these were people who know about his problems—”

“Not all of them,” I said. “Because one of them would be me, and I didn’t know. I didn’t even know his name at the time.”

“Yeah,” Randall said. “Duane’s other problem—well, one of his minor problems—has always been that he looks guilty, even when he’s behaving himself. I’ll look into it.”

“Does he go to twelve-step meetings?” I asked.

“All the time,” Randall said. “It was a condition of his parole and still is a condition of his employment.”

“That could partly explain it,” I said. “Trinity hosts a lot of them.”

“Yes.” Randall sounded angry all of a sudden. “So if you’re suggesting maybe Duane wandered out of a twelve-step meeting, ran into Mr. Vess and killed him—”