“If only I were a teenager. Maybe then I could find out what you’re really doing in Lawrence. You weren’t lecturing to the ROTC kids this morning, and there’s no Marlon Pinsen enrolled at the university. Or on Facebook. I know he’s a real person because I shook his hand and he called me ‘ma’am’ in that endearing way you army guys have, but I don’t think ‘Marlon Pinsen’ is the name his mama calls him.”

“Hmm.” Baggetto poured wine into one of the coffee mugs on the desk and sniffed it. “It smells good. Sure you don’t want some? No? I don’t know what his mother calls him, but you’re right, I wasn’t lecturing on the hill. I don’t know why I lied to you.”

“Embarrassment over speaking the truth is sometimes the reason. Or hiding criminal activity—I find that often in my work.”

My feet, my hips, my tibias—every bone from pelvis to toe ached. I pulled my knees up so I could sit cross-legged and began massaging the balls of my feet. Baggetto looked and then made a determined effort to look away, busying himself with cutting the pizza. Peppy, who’d been lying flat next to me, got up to stare longingly at him. I called her to me.

“We don’t beg, remember? Especially not from strangers who might feed us scopolamine.”

Baggetto laughed, put a slice on a napkin, and handed it to me across the dog. “Embarrassment or criminal—those the only two choices? How about hunting in the dark and not knowing what I might trip over?”

“Is AKA Marlon hunting with you?” I asked.

Baggetto took a long time to reply, eating, wiping his fingers, pouring another mug of wine. “He’s at the General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, forty miles up the road, one of their young computer hotshots. He was assigned to work with me.”

“On?”

“The silo. What were you doing there this morning?”

“I could lie or stonewall, since that’s the name of tonight’s game, but I was there out of simple curiosity. The investigation that brought me to Lawrence is exactly what I told you when I met you at Fort Riley a week ago. Emerald Ferring lived with Doris McKinnon when she was growing up and as a university student. She and August Veriden visited Ms. McKinnon, presumably spent at least one night with her—I’m sure your buddy Gisborne has told you that much. I was curious about her land. The air force commandeered eighteen acres from her.

“Various people have told me that the land is contaminated, too radioactive to farm, so I was especially curious about her property lines and whether Sea-2-Sea was farming on land that was contaminated. Your turn.”

“You aren’t eating. Are you a vegan?”