There was the shadow of another person, briefly illuminated by a quick reflection, sitting in the Mercedes’s passenger seat.

“Seamus?” asked Sam.

Lester kept staring, baffled. “It’s the wrong car. That would make him riding with Don. How’s that make sense?”

Sam paused before saying, “It wouldn’t be the first time we heard of Don taking his girlfriend for an adventure.”

Patrol officer Rowe had been correct about the Thomaston town clerk. She was short, round, and infectiously affable. She was also very helpful to the two gentlemen from out of town who wanted access to the public tax records, even making sure they had some privacy by setting them up inside the enormous vault at the back of the building, which, fortunately for her, had once been a bank.

Nevertheless, well attuned to the hearing within small communities, the men worked in silence or spoke only in muted tones as they pulled ledger after ledger and scanned the lines and columns for anything of interest.

It was a borderline fool’s errand. They knew that. The connection between Shaw and Thomaston was tenuous at best, and it certainly didn’t extend to his definitely owning property up here.

On the other hand, that was the nature of leads in this peculiar business. Sometimes, it came down to all scent and no sight in the pursuit of one’s prey.

And—occasionally—instinct.

“Huh,” Willy said, an hour into it.

“Find something?”

“Not sure.”

Joe sidled over to see where he was pointing at an entry.

“Four hundred and eighty acres. Farquar LLC. That ring a bell?”

Joe nodded. “Vaguely. I just don’t know why.”

Willy pulled out his phone, laid it on the desk, and tapped out a message.

“Lester?” Joe asked.

“Closest thing to Siri we got.”

Instead of a return text, Willy’s phone vibrated within a minute.

He turned it on and adjusted the volume to its lowest setting, forcing both men to lean in to hear.

“Farquar?” Willy asked.

“Lucy’s maiden name,” Lester answered as they’d hoped he might. “But that’s not as big as what Sam and I just caught. We got footage of both Shaws braining Kalfus and tossing him into the Mercedes, the same day we later found him in Vermont. And you’ll love this: the late, lamented Lucille Farquar Shaw delivered the whack. With a two-by, no less. We’re hoping for his blood at one end and her prints on the other. They chucked it under a shed, right across from a trucking business’s surveillance system.”

“God bless technology,” Joe said, much as he regularly cursed it. “Nicely done.”

“Why the question about Farquar?” Lester asked.

“We found a piece of land in Thomaston belonging to Farquar LLC.”

“Ooh,” Lester reacted. “How discreet.”

Forty minutes later, Joe and Willy discovered how Shaw’s interest in discretion wasn’t restricted to a deed owner’s name. They found themselves on a dirt road, high in the hills, looking at a chained-off driveway decorated with No Trespassing signs.

“So much for mistaking that for an unmarked country road and asking the homeowner for directions,” Willy said.