I was half expecting a maid or butler to materialize after I pressed the bell, but it was Madeline Plimpton herself who opened the door and invited me in.

I put her at about seventy. She was a thin, nice-looking woman, bordering on regal, dressed in black slacks and a black silk top, a tasteful strand of pearls at her neck. Her well-tended silver hair came down to the base of her neck, and she eyed me through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Weaver,” she said.

“My pleasure. Please call me Cal.”

She did not invite me to call her Madeline.

She led me from the front hall into the dining room, where things had been set up for tea. China cups, milk and sugar cubes in silver servers.

“Can I pour you a cup of tea?” she asked.

“Thank you,” I said.

She poured, then took a seat at the head of the table. I pulled up a chair near the end, to her right.

“I’ve heard good things about you,” she said.

“I suppose, as a former newspaper publisher, you have good sources,” I said, smiling.

I caught her briefly wincing and thought it was my use of the word former. “I do. I know just about everyone in this town. I know you used to work for the police here. That you made a mistake, moved away for a few years to Griffon, where you set yourself up as a private investigator, and then came back.” She paused. “After a personal tragedy.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You’ve been back here a couple of years.”

“Yes.” I dropped a sugar cube into my tea. “So I guess I passed the background check. What seems to be the problem?”

Ms. Plimpton drew a long breath, then raised her cup to her lips and blew on it. The tea was hot.

“It’s about my grand-nephew,” she said.

“Okay.”

“My niece’s son. It’s been quite a year for them.”

I waited.

“My niece and her son live in Albany. But life for them there has become untenable.”

I was pretty sure I knew what that word meant.

“And why would that be?” I asked.

Another pause. “Jeremy—that’s my grand-nephew—had some issues with the courts this year that attracted an unfortunate degree of attention. It’s made life very difficult for him there. Some people who don’t seem to have much appreciation of the justice system have been harassing Jeremy and my niece, Gloria. Late-night phone calls, eggs thrown at the house. Someone even left a death threat in the mailbox. It was written in crayon on a piece of paper that had been smeared with excrement, if you can imagine such a thing.”

“What do you mean by ‘some issues,’ Ms. Plimpton?”

“A traffic mishap. It got blown out of proportion. I mean, I’m not suggesting it wasn’t a tragedy, but the fallout has just been over the top.”

“Ms. Plimpton, maybe you should start at the beginning.”