“Got that figured out,” I said. “The Breeces have a farm blog, and yesterday Felicia posted that Ian is giving two half-hour presentations on growing plants from seeds, one Friday evening, one on Saturday morning.”

“How about Skyler?”

“Called the gallery this afternoon. He wasn’t there, so I said I was working with him about maybe buying a piece and asked when he’d be there. Turns out he’s working Friday from noon to seven, and Saturday from ten to four. He might have social plans, but if the Conti sculpture is the underlying motive for Pug’s death, dangling one for sale at a rock-bottom price of next to nothing will lure him out from the best party ever.”

Rafe made a noise that sounded like agreement, and we worked on fine-tuning the plan as we parked and walked to Ryan’s cabin, or rather, what we hoped soon wouldn’t be Ryan’s cabin, but would be an old log home back in its former role as a quiet spot in the woods.

“Hey,” a soft voice said.

Both of us jumped, Rafe going significantly higher than I did. “Ryan Anderson,” I said after a moment, putting a hand to my panting chest. “You have got to stop doing that.”

“Good trick, though,” Rafe said, still gasping a bit. “Deer hunting will be a breeze for you come fall.”

Ryan sidled out from behind the trunk of a massive maple tree. “If I get out of this mess okay,” he said, “I never want to set foot in the woods the rest of my life.”

It was the closest thing to a vow I’d ever heard outside a wedding ceremony. “We have a plan,” I said confidently. At least we had the beginnings of a plan. Okay, technically, we had the skeleton of a plan, but that was why we were here, to figure out the rest of it.

“Yeah?” Ryan’s gaze was restless, darting left, right, and all around. The look of the hunted. “What are you thinking?”

“Have you heard about that new website? The Chilson Diversion? Blog, I guess, technically.” I explained how it had started as a kind of bulletin board for informal events around the community, then organically morphed into something bigger. “It started a few months back,” I said. “A high school Advanced Placement project, but it’s taken on a life of its own. It’s not just events that are posted, but local jobs that are open, and”—I paused dramatically—“items for sale.”

Ryan’s reaction was not what I’d expected. He looked blank. “Um . . .”

“This morning,” I said, “we posted a short paragraph about selling this old sculpture that had been in the family cottage for decades. That we were from downstate and would be Up North this weekend only to open the cottage and would be happy to sell the sculpture, first come, first served.”