Milo shifted closer. “Ricki, we’re working really hard to figure out who murdered Desi, but honestly, we’re knocking our heads against the wall. If I ask you questions you may find upsetting, can you handle them?”

“Questions about what?”

“Desi’s early days. When he was seventeen.”

“That far back?”

“Yes.”

Ricki Flatt’s eyes tangoed. “You’re talking about the Bellevue fire.”

Milo began to blink, managed, somehow, to curtail the reflex. He moved even closer to the bed. “We need to talk about the Bellevue fire, Ricki.”

“How’d you find out?”

“Doing our homework.”

“Someone’s murdered, you go into their childhood?”

“We go as far back as we need to.”

Ricki Flatt picked at the bedcovers.

Milo said, “The fire’s been on your mind. That’s what you meant by political.”

“Not really,” she said. She hugged herself. Rocked. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I’m not trying to be evasive, but I just can’t accept the fact that my brother was some sort of paid arsonist. But fifty thousand… that’s why I didn’t sleep last night. And the Bellevue house was huge and so was where Desi was… I can’t bring myself to say it. Where it happened.”

“Two huge houses,” said Milo.

“I drove by last night in a cab. To that place. Even with just the framework I could tell it was massive. I kept telling myself it meant nothing, what connection could there be?”

“Tell me what you know about the Bellevue fire, Ricki.”

“That boy—Vince. He wasn’t murdered, he burned himself up, it was basically an accident.”

“Van Burghout.”

“Van,” she said, trying on the name.

“You didn’t know him well?”

“I’m sure I saw him if he came to the house with Desi but he never registered. Desi was popular, there were always kids over. And when the fire happened, I was at college.”

“Out of town?”

“No, U of W,” she said. “Geographically not far, but I was into my own life.”

“The arson file names Van as one of Desi’s hiking companions.”

“Then I guess he was.”

“Did your family discuss the fire?”

“We probably talked about it, it was a big local story. But as I said, I wasn’t living at home.”

Ricki Flatt folded her lips inward, fighting tears. Milo placed a hand atop hers. She lost the battle and burst out sobbing.

Rather than hand a tissue to her, he dabbed.

Ricki Flatt said, “Now I’m a traitor.”

“To who, Ricki?”

“My family. I just lied, we didn’t talk about the fire. It wasn’t supposed to be talked about. Ever.”

“You parents said that?”

“Unspoken rule, Lieutenant. Something I just knew not to talk about. That wasn’t my parents’ usual way. That’s why I’ve always suspected Desi was involved.”