Then Hazard called Cora and asked her to get Evie from preschool, and he disconnected when she wanted to talk about Somers. He powered down the phone just to make sure it didn’t start ringing in the middle of a B&E. Then he got the Blackhawk out of the gun safe, slipped on the shoulder holster, and tugged on a windbreaker. It had been easy to get Rasmussen’s name and information. Hazard had spent the last eight months building a network of informants. Some were holdovers from his days on the police, while others were former clients, and others were simply men and women he had convinced, with favors, secrets, and cash, to help him. Lela Mae Burrows worked at Wahredua Regional Hospital, and when Hazard had given a description of the woman in the convertible, explained her connection to Cynthia Outzen, and asked for a name and address, Lela Mae had sent him an email from a burner address within fifteen minutes.

Now Hazard cut across the neighbor’s lawn. It was quiet this afternoon, and the sun was hot through the thin t-shirt; somewhere, a sprinkler was lazily spit-spit-spitting, and then, inside the house that Hazard was passing, a phone rang, and a woman’s voice, muffled through patio doors, said, “I know, can you believe it?”

He kept going. The lots here were unfenced, and so it was a simple matter to cross over into Rasmussen’s backyard. A cement apron held a patio set, the paint flecking to release tiny rivulets of rust, and terracotta planters held staked tomatoes and thyme and green onions. Weeds grew thickly here too. Rasmussen even had a banana tree, the poor thing thin and wobbly, the bananas green in their tight clusters. The windows along the back of the house had curtains drawn too. Double patio doors led into the house, but the large panes of glass set into the wood were blocked. As Hazard got closer, he realized that the fabric hanging inside the patio doors was a pair of kid’s bed sheets, printed with a dog and a cat in the middle of a boxing match, the dog reeling back and maybe down for the count. Footwork, Hazard could have told him. It was all about footwork.

The curtains in the front might have had some sort of innocent explanation—maybe Rasmussen had a nosy neighbor—but every possible way of seeing into the house was blocked. The patio doors, with their bed sheets, were evidence that Rasmussen had been determined to keep something hidden.

Sweat ran freely down Hazard’s face; more of it soaked his tee at the shoulders. He could smell the sweat, mixed in with the thyme and the green onions. As he jogged the length of the house, broken pieces of the cement driveway crunched underfoot; that was the only sound besides the spit-spit-spit of the distant sprinkler. No Chrysler convertible at the back of the house. Hazard checked around the side. Nothing. Instead of a garage, the house had an aluminum-frame carport, and that was empty too. Hazard went back to the double patio doors and made his decision.