“Who are the other victims?” I asked, casually, knowing what conclusion he would draw. Which he did.

“Let us do the investigating,” he said. “I don’t want you making people more upset than they already are.”

“So the sign on the wall, this happened at the other houses. But these aren’t just kids. Kids would have broken a window,” I said.

“And that sign is staged,” he said, still not admitting that’s what had happened before. “In the few minutes that you went around the house, did you notice anything else?”

“Like what?” I asked.

Max shook his head like he didn’t have a clue like what, so I said, “Hardly anything. I was looking too hard for someone who might try to kill me. That was after losing my brakes coming down from Kitt Peak. I’ve been a little tense,” I added, rubbing a nerve that jumped under my right eye.

He stood, clearly as uninterested in my near-death experience as Gemma-Kate had been, and gestured to Eric that they were done here.

“You’re not going to dust?” I asked.

“We did at the first two houses and got nothing. He’s wearing gloves. This looks like the same MO. Just hard to tell if it’s a pro or an amateur. Seems to be signs of both. Either. You don’t want me to mess the place up, do you?”

“Rather you didn’t,” I agreed.

When Max got up and gestured at Deputy Stamen that they were leaving, I said, “Max, Carlo misses you.”

He didn’t say I miss him, too. Guys didn’t say that. He glanced at Eric and Gemma-Kate as if he did want to say something, but not in front of them. The two deputies left, not bothering to reassure us that we were safe. Max would never think there was a doubt about whether I could take care of myself.

“The burglar apparently didn’t want these,” Gemma-Kate said, pointing at two things that looked like yellow-and-black-striped pillow covers, draped over the back of one of the living room couches.

I balled up the costumes and threw them on the shelf in the coat closet. “The pugs were bumblebees for Halloween.”

Gemma-Kate looked at me, her little round features flashing into an expression of disgust that gave her the passing look of a gargoyle. “You got costumes for the dogs. Aunt Brigid, do you think you’re trying too hard with this suburban housewife schtick?”

“You should learn how to blend in as well as I do,” I said, finally putting my pistol down on the kitchen counter. I took a bottle of opened white wine that still had a few glasses left in it out of the fridge.

“Got saki?” Gemma-Kate asked. “All this stress, I could go for some hot saki.”