Next, he drove to Walmart, where he bought two cheap burner phones. Just to be safe, he wore a ball cap and kept his head down for the cameras. He paid cash and loaded sixty minutes of time onto each phone.

When he got back to the cabin, Lyle was just finishing up his lock-pick set. He had filed a hacksaw blade down to make two different versions of a rake, the part of the set that he would slide into the lock to move the tumblers out of the way. He had pulled the metal insert off of one of his wiper blades and fashioned a tension bar, a simple twist of metal that looked like a paper-thin Allen wrench. He would use that to turn the lock once the tumblers were pushed back. “It’s a thing of beauty,” Lyle said holding up his creation.

“Kind of scary that it’s so easy.” Max handed one of the burner phones to Lyle. “Keep communication to a minimum,” Max said. “Nothing that can be used as evidence.”

“Got it.”

Max also gave Lyle a dark stocking cap and a black sweatshirt to help him blend in with the night. Max didn’t own any latex gloves but had a pair of leather ones that would work. As Lyle dressed, Max looked around as if there might be something lying on the floor or countertop that they were forgetting. It was their last chance to back out.

“I think we’re ready,” Lyle said.

Max nodded, and they walked to his Cherokee.

Other than Lyle giving Max directions to Reed’s house, neither spoke on the drive. It was a rental, small and surrounded by overgrown shrubbery. It had brown siding, broken in a couple places, and the paint peeled off the shutters in leafy strips.

Max drove past the house, looking for a place to drop Lyle. About fifty yards away, he saw a stand of trees. He pointed as he passed them. “Stay in the woods until I text you that it’s clear.”

Lyle nodded. “Let’s do this.”

Max turned the SUV around on the empty street and rolled to a stop by the trees. Lyle opened his door and slid out quickly, the interior light staying on for only a second or two. As he drove away, Max looked in the mirror for Lyle, but the man had already disappeared.

The Dizzy Duck was on the southern edge of the city. Part sports bar, part family restaurant, it overlooked a small lake. Max had eaten there with his brother a time or two back when Alexander was alive, so he had a basic memory of the layout. Again he wore a baseball cap and kept his chin down, taking a seat at a table near the bar but not so close that he might stand out to Reed.

About half of the tables in the restaurant were occupied, and only three people sat at the bar, a slow start for the night. A waitress in a black T-shirt brought Max a glass of water and a menu and told him that the special was deep-fried walleye.