“Minnie . . .” Ash sighed. Looked at Rafe. “Hey. Buddy,” he said. “Help me out here.”

Rafe laughed. “Side with you against my fiancée? How stupid do you think I am? No, don’t answer that.”

Ash made a grunting noise. “You could at least toss some questions at her theory. You must have some, right?”

“Sure.” Rafe slid the bottle of ketchup across to his friend. The three of us were eating in our dining room, looking for all the world like actual adults. Ash had dropped by to give us a half-full bucket of drywall mud that he wasn’t going to use and we’d told him to stay and eat. Rafe had fired up the grill for the first time since October and I’d opened a bag of chips, which went along just dandy with the hamburgers and the grilled red peppers.

Rafe picked up his burger, loaded with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and bacon, with two hands and raised one index finger. “Question number one. Was Marguerite’s hair natural or dyed? She was, what, eighty years old. Can’t be natural, right?”

“Mr. Valera said it is.” I added another pickle to my burger. “I asked him when you stopped at that jigsaw puzzle. Runs through the female line in their family.”

“Yeah? Huh.” Rafe took a bite. Chewed and swallowed. “Okay, question number two. How big is that stolen sculpture?”

Mr. Valera had told me that, too, as we’d waited for Rafe to find “just one piece” to fit into the hallway puzzle. “Heavy, but not huge.” I held out my hands to illustrate. “It’s made of some metal. About eighteen inches high and a foot around, set on a black granite base. He’s going to look through photo albums for a picture.”

What he’d actually said was, “I suppose I have to report it as stolen to keep everyone happy.” He’d made a face, then brightened. “Maybe I can wait and see if someone else notices. Last thing I want is to get the frightful thing back.” But then he’d remembered how much his sisters—particularly Marguerite—loved the object and grumbled that he’d talk to the sheriff’s office first thing on Monday.

“Question number three.” Rafe rotated his burger to keep the slippery bits from falling onto his plate. “Nope. Don’t have a number three,” he said, and took a massive bite.

“See?” I demanded of the deputy at the table. “He doesn’t have any real questions, because it just makes sense. The person who killed Pug is the same person who stole the Valeras’ sculpture.”

“Makes sense?” Ash repeated. “Is that what you’d tell Hal?”

I rolled my eyes. Why did he think I was telling him all this on a Sunday evening instead of stopping in at the sheriff’s office on Monday morning? Of course it was so I could talk to him and not Hal.