“Goodbye, Grant,” she said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

Grant held onto her hand another second before letting go. There was some kind of history there.

As he departed, I caught Ms. Plimpton’s eye and said, “Could you direct me to the facilities?”

She pointed.

I already knew where the bathroom was. I’d seen it on our way to the porch. Visiting it wasn’t my true mission.

I stopped at the open doorway to the porch. Jeremy Pilford had put aside his phone. The can of Coke sat on a table in front of him.

He was staring out through the screen to the backyard.

Just staring.

Moments earlier, I’d thought he could pass for twenty or older, but now he looked no more than fourteen or fifteen.

Maybe that was what he really was. Emotionally.

He must have sensed I was standing there. He turned his head slowly and took me in. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought what I saw in his eyes was hopelessness. Maybe even fear.

I nodded, stepped back, and returned to the kitchen. The three of them had been talking quietly, but went silent and focused on me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

SIX

“WHAT do you mean, she’s lost her marbles?” Barry Duckworth asked Monica Gaffney.

Looking at the house across the street, Brian Gaffney’s sister said, “Mrs. Beecham is really old and I don’t think she always knows what’s going on. Like, one time she left her sprinkler going for five days, most of the water hitting the driveway. We’ve had our ups and downs with her over the years, but it got a little better after her husband died, like, ten years ago, because he was a miserable bastard, pardon my French, although she’s no barrel of laughs. Why are you asking about Sean, anyway?”

“It’s a name that came up,” he told her.

The front door of the house opened and Brian Gaffney’s parents emerged.

“Monica, Brian’s in the hospital,” Constance said.

She tipped her head at Duckworth. “He told me.”

“Come on,” Albert said, his head down as he headed for the car.

Monica broke off from Duckworth without another word and got into the back seat as Albert took up position behind the wheel and Constance settled in beside him. Duckworth watched them drive away up the street.

There was an old blue minivan parked in the driveway of the Beecham house. It was a small one-story building nearly swallowed up by untended shrubs reaching toward the eaves. The roof shingles were curling up, and a couple of cracked windows were held together with duct tape. Duckworth crossed the street, walked past the van, and rang the bell.

It was not an old woman who answered, but a thin, bald man in his forties dressed in cutoff jeans and a dark green T-shirt. He eyed Duckworth through glasses held together with a piece of tape in the middle.

“Yeah?” he said. “You here about the bedroom set?”