I slowed and the passenger door opened on the parked blue Ford and agent Wesley Grapp stepped out. Like me, he was in a raincoat, just not a Burberry—I made more money than FBI agents, which wasn’t fair but that was capitalism for you.

I pulled over and, leaving the motor running, met him just outside the driver’s door of the Cadillac.

We skipped any greeting.

I went right to: “Has anybody informed Bob Greenlease yet?”

Once again, it was cold enough for our breath to smoke, and his glasses were already fogging. “Informed him of what?”

“That the kidnappers are in the custody of the St. Louis police.”

His face was immobile but I could tell he was frowning inside. “What do you know about it, Nate?”

“I asked you first, Wes. I’ll remind you that I’m in Mr. Greenlease’s employ.”

His sigh made a misty cloud. “We don’t know much yet. Just that the two suspects keep confessing but never the same way twice. They can’t seem to stop gilding the lily. We’re looking for a third suspect.”

That would be Tom Marsh. I could have told him it was a waste of time, but better to let the feds track the guy down and make sure he really didn’t have anything to do with anything.

Now Grapp’s frown emerged. “What’s your role in this, Nate?”

“I did some poking around in St. Louis. Undercover, essentially. The key cops are in the know, but I’m to stay off the official radar, unless I’m needed.”

His jutting chin came up. “You like these suspects?”

“In the ‘like’ sense of yes, they are the scum responsible. That boy is dead, Wes. His body will turn up tomorrow at the latest. They were thoughtful, though. They planted flowers over him.”

“This is our case now,” Grapp said. “Lindbergh law kicks in—maybe you’ve heard of it.”

I didn’t rise to the bait. “I’m guessing there will be some jurisdictional squabbling between county and city and federal, but I don’t care about that. I might lean toward Missouri because they are more liable to execute this lovely pair. Uncle Sam hasn’t killed a woman since Mary Surratt. That’s before your time—she conspired to kill Lincoln.”

“I know my history. What are you doing here?”

“I want to prepare Bob Greenlease for what’s coming. He has a right to know.”

He sighed another cloud, then said, “I don’t know that that’s your call.”

“You don’t know that it isn’t. Let’s just say I’m returning the Cadillac he loaned me.”

I gave him a smile that barely cracked my face and got back in the Caddy where it was warm. He seemed to be thinking about stopping me, but probably couldn’t think of a legitimate reason why.

The Greenlease house, so austerely lovely by day, seemed just a barely defined geometric shape on a night so black it threatened to swallow the structure up. The handful of yellow flickery windows might have represented a fire not quite out of control yet.