“The way he died,” I said. “Falling off that horse. Any thoughts about that?”

He uncrossed his leg, tapped a rosy cheek, and allowed his hand to brush against an ornate concertina. “You suspect something other than an accident? Why, Alex?”

“Because that’s the way my mind works.”

“Ah,” he said.

I could hear Milo laughing.

“Small world,” he repeated. “That’s about all I can tell you . . . can I fix you some tea, Alex? Wait—you’re a guitarist, aren’t you? I’ve got something in back that might interest you. A turn-of-the-century Knutsen Hawaiian harp-guitar. Perhaps you can tell me how to tune the drone strings.”

His spare bedroom was filled with instruments and antique music stands, and I hung around for a while watching him fiddle and tinker, listened to him expound on music and rhythm and culture. He began to reminisce about his time in Chile. Ethnographic research in Indonesia, a summer of musicology in Salzburg, ministering to Israeli kibbutz children who’d been traumatized by terrorism.

No mention of his Santa Barbara days—the years he’d spent at a school for troubled kids, just a few miles away. The kind of place someone like Caroline Cossack might easily have ended up. That high-priced travesty had caused more problems than it had solved.

Bert had a selective memory for the positive. Perhaps that’s why he’d seemed reluctant to imagine a young girl evincing brutality.

He stopped narrating and threw up his hands. “I’m such a bore—you’ve probably begun wondering if I’m going senile.”

“I haven’t at all, Bert.” Though I had thought: He seems distracted.

“The truth is, I have lost some short-term memory. But nothing beyond my age norms.”

“Your memory seems fine to me,” I said.

“That’s kind of you to say . . .” He gestured around the room. “All this—all these toys, Alex, they’re a wonderful distraction. A boy needs a hobby.” Pudgy fingers took hold of my forearm. His grip was forceful. “We both know that, don’t we?”

I stuck around for tea, finally told him I needed to get back to L.A.

As he walked me to my car, he said, “That girl. So monstrous, if it’s true.”

“You seem skeptical.”

He nodded. “I do find it hard to believe that a young female would be capable of such savagery.”

“I’m not saying she acted alone, Bert, or even initiated the murder. But she could’ve lured the victims, and either receded into the background or participated.”

“Any theories about the main perpetrator?”

“The girl had a boyfriend, six years older, with a criminal history, including murder.”

“Sexual murder?”

“No, an ambush killing.”

“I see,” he said. “Any particular reason you didn’t mention him, initially?”

“The cover-up’s more likely related to the girl.”

“This fellow wasn’t wealthy.”

“Young black street pusher.”

“I see—and what became of this murderous young felon?”