“No, I don’t want to walk. It’s just getting interesting.” McAdams bit his lower lip. “What should I be looking for, Decker? What makes you suspicious?”

“Things that repeat themselves . . . like seeing the same car or the same guy. Also, things that don’t belong. In a small town, that’s a little easier, but harder in the big city. And then there are the basics. I lock my doors and pull down my shades and always give a twice-over before I leave my house or my car. Like I said, detectives are seldom whacked. But seldom isn’t never.”

“We live in Bumblefuck, USA. How can this happen?”

Decker smiled. “You know what they say about good things coming in small packages. Sometimes big-city bad things come to very small towns.”

CHASE GODDARD COULDN’T figure out what to do with his hands. First he clasped them together. Then they dropped by his side. Finally he elected to shove them into his tweed jacket patch pockets. He was in his fifties with a long face, short blond hair, blue eyes, thin lips, and a Roman nose. Under his jacket he wore a pastel blue V-neck sweater over an open-collar white shirt, and he had on dark trousers and black boots. His nails were clipped short and his left hand sported a gold wedding band. Goddard continued to fidget. Maybe it was the lack of space. The three of them were standing, crammed into his office, a small room with a chair, a desk, and piles of paperwork.

“John Latham?” Goddard thought about the name for a decent amount of time. “No, I don’t know him.” A beat. “I certainly don’t know the name.”

“What about Angeline Moreau?” Decker asked.

Again, he didn’t speak right away. “No, I don’t know her. Who is she?”

“She is our murder victim,” Decker said. “Latham’s case belongs to Summer Village. We think the two of them were working together on something illegal and were murdered because of it.”

Goddard winced. “And you’re from . . . where again?”

“Greenbury, New York.”

“Ah, near the Five Colleges.”

“Yes. Do you have any association with the colleges, Mr. Goddard?”

“No, no, but of course I’ve heard of them. They’re quite respectable.”

“But they’re not Harvard,” McAdams said.

Goddard said, “There are other universities, Detective.”

“Not to me.”

The art dealer paused. “You’re a Crimson man, I take it.”

“Graduated almost four years ago.”

“And you’re working as a policeman?”

McAdams simply shrugged. “There’s a real world out there that Harvard chooses to ignore.”

Goddard raised his eyebrows. “I was in Harvard ages ago, when there was still a Radcliffe. As a matter of fact, I was there when it went co-ed.”

“Seventy-seven,” McAdams said. “My father had just started law school. James McAdams.”

“James McAdams . . . James Mc— Do you mean Jack McAdams?”

“That’s my dad.”