“See this house. It’s number 46. I’m 135, at the top of the hill. But remember 46. It’s for sale. It was listed a while ago, then the owners stopped showing it because they have some other things going on. You saw it a month, five weeks ago. It looked interesting. Four bedrooms, three full bathrooms, two-story living room with a beautiful fireplace, seven acres, a hot tub, spectacular views, and so on. You decided you wanted to take a look. You couldn’t find the listing, but somehow remembered the address. You came looking. There was no for sale sign and you can easily miss the 46 hammered onto a tree, which you did, so you drove right on past it, until you got to the very end of the road. Up at 135. You saw someone and, logically, stopped—which your GPS will testify to—and got out—which your phone probably knows and will remember. But then you did something they can neither know nor deny, you asked me a question. ‘Excuse me, sir, do you know where number 46 is?’ And I said, ‘Oh, it’s right down the hill.’ I added how far it was and the stand of white birch that helped you spot the driveway.

“Your car and your phone will show you weren’t at my place long enough to plan a murder. Just long enough to get directions. No one was here. But you looked around a bit. You were enthralled with the location and the view.

“Does that make sense to you?”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” she said. “That’s very good.”

“Here’s how we proceed. We’ll get burner phones. I’ll do that. But it will take a few days. In the meantime, you can say you asked for my phone number, in case there was any more information about number 46. You can text me, to ask if the owners are around and say you’d like to see it and say when. If I say yes, come here. Not to my place. Just here. I know the people who own the place. They’re in Portugal at the moment. I’ll actually contact them. As if there really is an interested buyer. If you don’t buy it, that’s more normal than not. Are we clear on that?”

“Yes. Yes, we are.”

I made her tell it back to me. It’s your basic check for understanding. People forget things. I made her do it twice.

“A few more things,” I said. “You tell no one else about this. Just the two of us. That’s it.”

“Yes, of course,” she said.

“You said you had the money, the up-front money, on hand.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Good,” I said. “Tomorrow. By three in the afternoon.”

“But does it have to be that soon? I do have plans tomorrow. I have a school thing for my children…”

“Yes,” I said. “It has to be tomorrow.”