Burt was a notorious asshole, but he was also an investor in the Elite. He’d asked Graham to lean over the bar and whispered something to him—Burt had been too drunk to recall, and was annoyed to be writing on a pad, given his wired jaw. It didn’t matter. Burt might have started the fight, but Graham almost started a lawsuit, and Ned and Polly lost any leeway when they learned that Graham had done two tequila shots in the kitchen after Burt began to hector him, and just before he knocked Burt off his stool and kicked him in the face. Their perfect, charming bartender had a short fuse when drinking.

“What did he say to you?” asked Polly.

His cheeks burned—Polly the editor hated meaningless phrases, but Graham’s truly burned maroon. “I can’t say it.”

“Tell Ned, then.”

A stunned look, then a flash of humor. “I really can’t tell Ned.”

Polly wondered about Graham’s inner life, mostly whether or not it existed. Girls, sports, resentments, better angels blunted by envy and insecurity, the sweet kid who’d visited Vinnie most summers beaten down by the world’s itchy bits. The Wednesday after the fight, when they tried him in the restaurant for prep, he was unable to peel a carrot or a potato in less than a half an hour, and they loaned him out to Harry for the archaeological survey at the site of the old Poor Farm—the defunct county home for the indigent, with a potter’s field—that had been scheduled before Polly was hurt, or Maude planned her birthday, or Ariel disappeared. Polly was tormented by the thought that if they’d kept him in the kitchen, Ariel and Graham would not have worked together and might not have ended up in the kayak together on Friday. But there was Graham, telling the police they’d been in love.