These weren’t commonalities that meant anything. They were coincidences, plain and simple. Maybe these families struck by tragedy all went to the same grocery store. Maybe they used the same toothpaste, dined at the same restaurants. And plenty of families could have made purchases at Choo-Choo’s Trains. Nabler was doing a brisk business the morning of the street sale. Who knew how many trains were chugga-chugging away in homes across Lucknow?

Take Delbert Dorfman. Harry had been in that house later, after the man’s body had been removed from the roof and taken away in an ambulance. He had spoken with his mother, who had been at a loss to explain his behavior. Her son had no history of mental illness, was not depressed, did not use, so far as she knew, hallucinogenic drugs. He was not in the care of a psychiatrist. Sure, Harry thought to himself, he was a racist asshole, but that would seem to have no bearing on how he had taken his own life.

Baffling, like the other recent events. But that was the only commonality. The Dorfmans had not spent any money at that new shop in town, so far as Harry knew, which kind of shot to hell his theory that Nabler was behind all these occurrences.

Unless Harry missed something.

It wasn’t like he’d actually searched the house. Why would he have? On what pretext?

This was going to nag at him. He had to know.

But as he got into his car, he had two other stops before going back to the Dorfman house. The first was at the Pidgeon home. Darryl’s wife, Christina, came to the door after Harry rang the bell, opening it only a few inches.

“Oh, Chief Cook,” she said, opening the door wider upon seeing who it was.

“Ms. Pidgeon,” he said, nodding his head. “Forgive my coming unannounced.”

“It’s okay. Come in.”

He followed her into the living room, where they both took a seat. There was no longer a train setup on the dining room table. He managed a quick glance through the kitchen doorway and saw a sheet of plywood where the sliding glass door once was.

Christina caught him looking and said, “The new door goes in tomorrow. It had to be ordered. It was some special kind of glass that takes a week or more to get. The insurance people were a problem at first, but that got ironed out.”

“How’s Auden doing?”

“He’s back at school. Everyone’s been very supportive. His teacher’s been great and the kids have been pretty decent. But”—and she clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palm—“he’s pretty devastated.”

“Of course. I had a couple of quick questions.”

“Um, okay.”

“Did they find out what caused the accident? Why the barbecue ignited?”