“This guy you found at the side of the road, I don’t see how it could have anything to do with those other homicides, so I’m sorry if I got your hopes up, thinking there was a pattern. For it to be the same perpetrator, you’re looking at someone who’s been active for nearly fifty years. Even if he—and we always assume it’s a he—started off in his late teens or early twenties, we’re talking someone who’d now be in his seventies. Doesn’t fit any pattern that I’m familiar with.”

“Look, I appreciate this. I really do.”

“If you had any other commonalities, I could see whether there was anything that jumped out.”

Commonalities, he thought.

Harry had been looking for commonalities between his one homicide and any others that might have happened. But maybe that wasn’t where he needed to be looking for things in common. They had been occurring elsewhere, in events that were in no way related to the death of Angus Tanner.

Unless they were.

“You there?” Melissa asked.

“Yeah, sorry. My mind was wandering there for a second.”

“How’s Janice?” she asked.

“She’s good, she’s great. And Dylan’s getting taller every day.”

“Kids have a way of doing that.”

Harry knew that Melissa had two children of her own, two girls, and that her husband, Albert, also worked for the FBI.

“You take care, Harry, and if there’s anything else you want to bounce off me, let me know.”

Was there a hint, Harry wondered, of condescension in her voice? Like she was the big federal agent, counseling the small-town chief who stayed behind because he didn’t think he could make it in the big leagues? Or did he hear that tone because that was exactly how he felt? He was in over his head and knew he couldn’t handle this on his own?

“Thanks, Melissa,” he said. “Best to the girls and Albert.”

He hung up the phone and took a sip of his cold coffee.

Commonalities.

Darryl Pidgeon died when his barbecue blew up in his face. Not a murder. An accident.

Nadine Comstock died of an electrical shock in her bathtub. Not a murder. A suicide.

Delbert Dorfman smoked himself to death on the roof of his house.

Betty Wilford shot her dog dead when it went crazy and attacked her.

Four unrelated tragedies.

But at least three of them had something in common.

“This is nuts,” Harry said under this breath. “Totally nuts.”

When Darryl Pidgeon died, there was a train.

When Nadine Comstock died, there was a train.

When Betty Wilford shot her dog, there was a train.

And in each case, he was willing to bet, they had come from a shop run by Mr. Edwin Nabler. But none of these events had anything to do with what had happened to Angus Tanner.

Hang on.