“Come on, we’re going,” I said, putting on a thick sweater and giving Gemma-Kate hers as soon as I saw Jerry get on his bike and turn left at the first street. That meant he would be leaving the Black Horse development on the western side.

“But I wanted to ask Uncle Carlo a few more questions,” she said.

“No time right now,” I said. I hustled her into the car and took the long way around, out the north entrance, and turned left on Golder Ranch. I picked up his bike reflectors crossing Twin Lakes, heading north. I followed far enough behind so I could see him turn right on Hawser, and head to an area where the pavement ended. Not too many houses down there. I pulled the car off the road.

“You wait here,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Aunt Brigid, you worry me sometimes,” Gemma-Kate said.

Here in the desert there’s precious little shrubbery to hide behind and the tree trunks are hardly wide enough, but on Hawser I managed to slip from sage to mesquite to bottlebrush without, I think, him knowing I was there. I made it to the corner in time to see his rear reflector light stop.

I sprinted after him to make sure I saw which house he stopped at, then hid again to watch him unlatch a gate.

I went back to the car, moving at a more leisurely pace now, and Gemma-Kate looked at me with some disdain as I buckled in, drove off, and asked her what she thought about Jerry Nolan.

She didn’t have too much to offer right off the bat. “He’s definitely odd. And the steatopygia is odd.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He has unusually large buttocks for a man,” she said. “And what was that tune he was humming when he walked off after dinner? It sounded familiar.”

“To me, too,” I said. I hummed a bit of it. “But I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the title. I bet Carlo has.”

“He knows everything.” She almost sounded a little peeved by that observation.

“So tell me what you think.”

“I think he’s creepy. I don’t mean in the sense that he shouldn’t be around children, not that kind of creepy, but more like he’s trying really hard to be what he imagines is human. It makes him nervous.”

“Where would you judge his IQ at?”

“Top half of the bell curve but just barely. He strikes me as thinking himself much more clever than he actually is.”

I agreed. “And the name Nolan. It’s old. No-Last-Name.”

“Now, Aunt Brigid,” Gemma-Kate said. “I’m sure that some people actually have that name and are not trying to con you.”

“Why do you think his rear end is significant?”