She shook her head silently, her wide eyes taking them in.

Joe, still crouched, glanced up at his colleague and raised his eyebrows. The question was intuitive. With Joe’s recognition of Angie as the victim, exigent circumstances had come into play.

Joe’s assigned partner nodded wordlessly and reached out his hand.

“Angie?” Joe began, easing the girl toward the outside hall. “I want you to go with this policeman right now, while we go in to meet the rest of the family.”

“You like doughnuts?” the Keene officer asked, escorting her toward the others out of sight. “I think we’ve got some in the car.”

Joe waited until he returned. “So far, so lucky,” he said. “You set?”

The man nodded, pulling out his sidearm but keeping it low by his leg.

Joe and he moved to the master bedroom door, quietly followed by several others, one of whom continued down the hall to make sure the other child was where Angie had claimed.

Upon getting a thumbs-up, Joe seized the doorknob and pushed.

“You want some coffee?” Lemuel Shaw asked. “Just made it. It’s good stuff, if I do say so myself. It sure as hell costs enough.”

The two cops were already seated at an antique trestle table in a kitchen well suited for a cruise ship.

“I wouldn’t say no,” Lester accepted, taking the lead after assessing Sam’s dark mood. “It’s quite the place you got here.”

“Thanks.” Shaw kept his back turned as he tended to an overbuilt machine whose noises promised an ostentatious cup of coffee, if not a good one.

“I know it looks like a McMansion some downriver yuppie would build to piss off the locals, but I was born in this county. Left as a young man, made my nut in the big city, and then dropped that shit as soon as I could to come back home. This house is my way of flipping the finger to everyone who says no local cracker has a chance in this world.”

He joined them at the table carrying a tray with three cups. “You don’t fuck it up with cream or sugar, do you?”

Nice way of asking, Sam thought sourly, resigned to drinking whatever this was straight.

“Nope,” Lester said cheerfully. “Black’s great.”

Shaw nodded approvingly and settled down. “Good. What I expected from cops. So, you found my car, huh? I wasn’t expecting that. Will I be getting it back, or did the son of a bitch total it, too?”

“He didn’t total it, no,” Lester continued, “but it’ll be a while before you see it again. We’re hanging on to it as evidence.”

Shaw made a face. “Great. Use a high-end car for a bank robbery or whatever. These guys are such geniuses.”

“There was a dead body in the trunk,” Sam said shortly, taking a sip of the coffee for its medicinal effects only.

Willy really was rubbing off on her, Lester thought, addressing Shaw’s startled expression with, “That’s actually why we’re here, Mr. Shaw. We need to ask you for details about the theft of your car.”