“Let’s work with this a little. There’re two different things you’re saying. First, somebody stole your hammer before Herron was killed, murdered him with it and now, all this time later, dimes you out. But your second version is that the police got your hammer after Herron was killed by someone else altogether and planted it in the well to blame you. Those’re contradictory. It’s either one or the other. Which do you think?”

“Hm.” Pell thought for a few seconds. “Okay, I’ll go with number two. The police. It’s a setup. I’m sure that’s what happened.”

She looked him in the eyes, green on blue. Nodding agreeably. “Let’s consider that. First, where would the police have gotten the hammer?”

He thought. “When they arrested me for that Carmel thing.”

“The Croyton murders in ninety-nine?”

“Right. All the evidence they took from my house in Seaside.”

Dance’s brows furrowed. “I doubt that. Evidence is accounted for too closely. No, I’d go for a more credible scenario: that the hammer was stolen recently. Where else could somebody find a hammer of yours? Do you have any property in the state?”

“No.”

“Any relatives or friends who could’ve had some tools of yours?”

“Not really.”

Which wasn’t an answer to a yes-or-no question; it was even slipperier than “I don’t recall.” Dance noticed too that Pell had put his hands, tipped with long, clean nails, on the table at the word “relatives.” This was a deviation from baseline behavior. It didn’t mean lying, but he was feeling stress. The questions were upsetting him.

“Daniel, do you have any relations living in California?”

He hesitated, must have assessed that she was the sort to check out every comment—which she was—and said, “The only one left’s my aunt. Down in Bakersfield.”

“Is her name Pell?”

Another pause. “Yep…That’s good thinking, Officer Dance. I’ll bet the deputies who dropped the ball on the Herron case stole that hammer from her house and planted it. They’re the ones behind this whole thing. Why don’t you talk to them?”

“All right. Now let’s think about the wallet. Where could that’ve come from?…Here’s a thought. What if it’s not Robert Herron’s wallet at all? What if this rogue cop we’re talking about just bought a wallet, had R.H. stamped in the leather, then hid that and the hammer in the well? It could’ve been last month. Or even last week. What do you think about that, Daniel?”

Pell lowered his head—she couldn’t see his eyes—and said nothing.

It was unfolding just as she’d planned.