I made some coffee, added foamed milk and cinnamon, brought a mugful to Robin’s studio.

She put down her chisel and smiled. “This is becoming a regular thing.”

Blanche’s little flat nose quivered as she inhaled the aroma. I fetched her a bacon-bone from the box Robin keeps at hand. She took the treat from my fingers with her usual delicacy, trotted over to a corner to nosh in peace. Robin sipped and said, “You even girlied it up for me, what a good boyfriend.”

“Least I can do.”

“You owe me for something?”

“Cosmically, I owe you a ton. When you call Brent Dorf a second time, my gratitude will blossom further. Ask if I can talk to him in person about Premadonny. If he has nothing to offer, maybe he can refer me to someone who does.”

“You actually suspect those two of something?”

“It hasn’t gotten that far, but a murder victim worked for them and maybe so did a prime suspect. Toss in Qeesha D’Embo, who could be victim or suspect, and it’s well beyond interesting.”

“Weird goings-on behind the gates,” she said. “Maybe they just hired the wrong people.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but all of this has stirred up something that happened a couple of years ago.”

I told her about the canceled referral, my suspicion that Donny Rader had tried to hide his identity. “Back then my gut told me there was a serious problem with the family. Now I’m wondering if that meant a child disturbed enough to hurt a baby.”

She put her cup down. “That’s horrible.”

“Horrible and worth covering up. Prema Moon gave up her career and recast herself as a devoted, protective mother. Both of them have. Can you imagine the repercussions if it turned out they’d raised a murderous child? Even if the baby’s death was accidental—kids horsing around, something unfortunate happened—that kind of disclosure would be disastrous. Any mother would have good reason to go to the cops. But Qeesha D’Embo was no stranger to deceit and working the angles, so she might’ve put a serious squeeze on. We know she had conflict with Wedd, assumed it was a romantic issue. But Wedd could’ve been Premadonny’s paymaster, so maybe the problem between them was business.”

“She wanted more, he said no, she’s dead, too.”

Her nails pinged the coffee mug.

I said, “Sorry to pollute your day.”

“I’m fine—the car scam, Alex. Why would Premadonny stoop to insurance fraud?”

“That could’ve been Wedd improvising so he could pocket the payoff money.”

“Or he really is the only bad guy and they had the misfortune of hiring him. What exactly does he do for them?”

“Don’t know, the agency’s clammed up.”

“A murderous child,” she said. “How old are the kids?”

“Four, eight, eleven, thirteen.”

“So the oldest,” she said.

“Most likely.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Boy.”