“Of course,” Dan says.

“Shannon Jenkins had the Jenkins property transferred to his name recently.”

“Yes.”

“Did he come in here alone? Did he arrange that with you? Pay for it himself?”

“Um,” Dan says, stalling. He laces his fingers together.

Kateri holds her palms up, asking. “I need to know who that person was. Shannon Jenkins is a suspect,” she says. “I need to reach his associates, to verify his activity and motives.”

Dan Sullivan works his jaw, and his eyes drift from Kateri’s to the table.

“Do you have a warrant?” Dan asks.

“It’s in the works,” Kateri says.

Dan nods, curt. “Keep me posted,” he says, and then checks his cell phone. “I have a ten o’clock,” he says to Kateri. “You’ll excuse me.” He jogs off up the stairs.

She stands still in the conference room, a little stunned but thinking. She waits until she hears the floor creak above her, the close of a door upstairs. Then she goes back to the desk.

“I forgot to ask Dan,” she says to the receptionist, “who handled the expense for the property transfer.”

The girl opens a folder and looks at a yellow receipt, handwritten in what looks like the girl’s handwriting, round and small. “Um, it was paid cash,” she says. Underneath the receipt, there’s a pink Post-it with the name Bear Miller in a different hand, capital block letters.

Bear Miller is not a name Kateri has heard in town. She nods to the girl as if it’s exactly what she expected to hear. “Thanks so much,” she says on her way out.

Outside the station, handmade JUSTICE FOR CRAIG signs have gone up on the lawn, ribbons have gone around trees. No one thinks about justice for Pearl.

She finds a landline for Bear Miller and no legal records, not even a speeding ticket. She uncovers useless information, that he went to UVM, that his tax status is married.

She begins to leave a message: Detective Fisher, investigating Craig O’Neil, Pearl Jenkins, and so on, and he picks up, hushed, halfway through her message, and she hears the machine beep.

“What can I do for you?” Bear asks.

“I need to ask you some questions,” she says.

“I’ll meet you,” he says.

“At the station?” she asks.

He chuckles, low and familiar. “How about coffee?” he says.

“Fine,” she says.

“I’m free at five thirty,” he says.

“Sounds like a date,” Kateri says.

At 5:25, as the sun is slipping behind the tallest brick building in the center of town, Kateri waits in front of the closed Center Street Café, not understanding why coffee shops in small town don’t stay open into the evening. Where are you supposed to get coffee after five o’clock? she thinks. Maybe in the basement of the Presbyterian Church at the AA meeting. It’s the worst coffee in the world.

The sky has deepened to a rosy gray. The spate of cars usually parked in the tiny downtown are thinning out. Bear comes around the corner, tall, lithe. He wears a European-style leather motorcycle jacket and slim jeans with purposeful tears. A slouched knit hat. Kateri thinks his clothes look about fifteen years too young for him.