In my previous job with the NYPD, I’d seen quite a few detectives tackle cold cases. They’d ruffle through heaps of papers on their desks and pore over ancient data, hoping new eyes and fresh resolve would help them see something somebody hadn’t. It was no easy feat. Aside from working with evidence no one else had managed to streamline into a solve, they often dealt with witnesses who’d long since died, taking their testimony with them.

In contrast, my cases were always handed to me. I was typically the one collecting the statements. So I wasn’t sure what to make of the situation with Brett. There was no previous inquest into his death, which meant no files to reference or witnesses that I knew of. No missing persons report or predetermined timeline, either. Alibis would be hard to come by so many years after the fact, and anything else I did manage to rustle up would be tough to corroborate. I stood on the precipice of a crime so masterfully executed it took decades for anyone to realize it even existed.

How on earth was I going to do this? By working the angles you alone can see. I was here in Swanton, with direct access to Brett’s family and friends. My mother hadn’t been entirely surprised this happened to him. That suggested there might be something in the man’s past that could point me to his killer. I may not have been assigned to find Brett’s murderer, or even authorized to run an investigation in Vermont, but as far as I knew I was the only one who understood there was a link between Brett’s death and the current missing persons case in A-Bay. I owed it to my uncle to pursue every line of inquiry.

That said, I didn’t think the local authorities would take kindly to an outsider foraging for information, so I’d ignored the smell of marmalade toast and fried eggs crisp around the edges that wafted in from my parents’ kitchen, and disregarded my yearning to join my family. I had work to do.

Swanton’s police force shared a municipal building with numerous other government agencies, but it took no time at all for me to locate the guy I was looking for. That’s the beauty of village life: the regal lady with the hooked nose at the DMV pointed me to Fire and Rescue, where I got the name I needed from a sinewy man with an earring and a red goatee. Swanton Police Chief Fraser Harmison had a cleft in his chin, a bushy white moustache, and thinning hair scraped back from his face. As he listened to me identify myself and explain that his victim was my uncle, he adopted a sideways squint.

“I’m not here in any official capacity,” I assured him, “or to get in your way. I do plan on asking some questions, though, so I thought you should know who I am.”

“So the stranger nosing around a homicide doesn’t become our next suspect?” Harmison’s jowls bobbed when he chuckled. “Probably a good idea.”