“You still know more than you told Kunkle. You and Don did a lot of business together. You said he’d pass along whatever prescription drugs he came across, but it was more than that. I’ve been asking around about you. You also handled electronics for him, as you do for others—and small antiques, guns, portable and valuable pieces that rich people like to show off. You’re a broad-minded fence, Corey. A man for all seasons.”

“If you say so.”

“The Vermont State Police say so, and the Brattleboro cops, among others.”

“Fine.”

“So, with that on the table,” Joe continued, “let’s pick up where Kunkle left off, but without your tossing around Bader or anyone else to get us out of your hair.”

Browne sighed again. “Fine.”

“You implied the first time that Don’s mom knew what he did for a living, that she might’ve even played a part or got him started. What was that about?”

Browne smiled. “Cheri? Yeah. She’s a piece of work. You ever know her old man? Dave Maccio? Long dead now, but he was a unit. I only heard about him. He was before my time, which is why I thought you might know him. Called himself an antiques dealer, but half the crap he carried was stolen. People don’t know that about this part of the woods. They come up here, looking at the cows and trees and shit, buying maple syrup that’s probably from Canada—if it’s even real—and thinking they’re making like bandits at these hole-in-the-wall antique places. Totally clueless that the silver knickknack they just so-called stole for two hundred bucks was ripped off from a little old lady a month before.”

He laughed and took a pull from his beer bottle.

“Cheri was a part of that,” he explained, “and you know she passed it on to her kid. But he chose the supply side, not the retail end. Sharp, if you ask me. Bigger risks, but better profits.”

“Not necessarily,” Joe suggested.

Browne was becoming collegial by now. “You mean this?” He held up his bottle. “And the drugs? Yeah, you’re right. That’s the norm. You pull off a job, you blow it on girls and dope over a single weekend. Bada-bing. End of story.” He leaned forward and tapped his temple with his finger. “Not Don Kalfus. He may be dead now, but he was smart.”

Joe reserved applause. “Did Cheri work in her son’s business?” he asked.

“You ever meet her?” Browne challenged him incredulously. “She might know stuff, but I don’t see her playing Ma Barker.”

“You think she knows where he kept his overflow? There’s rumor of a warehouse or storage shed somewhere.”

“I heard that.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Hampton Beach somewhere?”

When Lester was a kid, he’d been told the Inuit had a hundred words for snow. He’d imagined that to be an exaggeration, and as an adult, he’d been told fifty was nearer the mark. Being a born New Englander, he did know one thing: the single word, snow, didn’t cut it.