“You have to promise not to share, as I’m about to break the male code of silence. I’ll take your suddenly blank look as agreement. The secret is . . .” He muttered, “I can’t believe I’m breaking the code. Ash is going to have a cow,” and threw his shoulders back and put his chest out and chin up. “The secret is . . . beer!” He held his can of PBR up high, like the Olympic torch.

“How could I not have guessed?” I asked. Actually, halfway through his performance, I had guessed, but I hadn’t wanted to spoil the show. “Is this true, Eddie?” Because my cat had joined us in the kitchen. His yellow eyes shifted from focusing on me, to Rafe, then back. “Is beer the secret to male prowess in certain specific, but very limited, aspects of life?”

“Mrr,” he said, and sauntered over to whack Rafe’s shin with the top of his head.

“See?” Rafe crouched down to pull lightly on Eddie’s tail, hoisting his back legs off the floor, then suddenly released to let the furry back feet go thud. Eddie, who would have hissed at anyone else who did that, purred.

Rafe grinned and stood. “He agreed completely.”

“Sure he did.” I seated myself at the kitchen island and nodded when Rafe held up a bottle of red wine. “What do you think about John Pinnock? Do you think he knows your dad?”

“Could be.” Rafe opened the cupboard and took out a wineglass. “Dad knows lots of people.”

Rick, Rafe’s dad, worked for a regional power company. He’d started as a lineman, moved into management, and was now a vice president at Northern Energies. I had no idea what he actually did on a daily basis, but the same was true of my brother, Matt, who was an Imagineer at Disney World. Every so often I’d ask Matt or Rick a question about their jobs. They’d tell me, speaking in acronyms and multisyllabic terms that sounded completely made up, and I’d walk away knowing less than when I started.

I thanked him for the wine. “Are you going to ask?”

“Ask who what?”

“Your dad,” I said. “Are you going to ask him if he knows John Pinnock?”

Rafe leaned against the kitchen counter. “Sure, if I remember.”

Which meant probably not. I reminded myself that I loved this man very much. Reminded myself again. “Okay, then I’ll do it.”

“What for?” Rafe put his beer on the countertop and leaned down to swoop Eddie up in his arms.

“Because,” I said patiently, “John Pinnock clearly couldn’t stand the idea of Pug and Sylvia living there full time. Pinnock seems like a really angry kind of guy, and I think it’s within the realm of possibility that he could have killed Pug.”