"Looks in good shape to me. And clean as a whistle. Real Real clean for a gardener's truck." clean for a gardener's truck."

Pickup truck owners in this valley were known for putting spit shines on their rigs. The spotless condition meant nothing.

"Every inch," he said.

"Got it."

"What is it you're hoping to find?" the caretaker called out.

"We'll know when we find it," Walt said.

"You do and it'll be news to me," the man said brazenly.

Walt wasn't accustomed to feeling desperate, but his eyes darted between Fiona busy at work and Boatwright's estate, with the growing sense of walls closing in.

"What was Caroline Vetta like?" Walt asked the man, seizing on the idea of blindsiding him.

"I don't know any of Mr. Boatwright's guests personally."

"Quite a looker," Walt said. "Kind of hard to miss."

"Wouldn't know."

Walt pulled the photo from his pocket, separating out Gale's, which he returned to the pocket. "Jog your memory? Remember, we're here on a warrant," he said, hoping the caretaker didn't know his law real well.

"Mr. Wynn's friend. Yes."

"Nice lady?"

"I told you: I wouldn't know."

"What was your impression of how she got along with Mr. Wynn or Mr. Boatwright?"

"I wash the windows. I oversee grounds maintenance. I'm not paparazzi, Sheriff."

"Do you compost?"

"What?"

Walt appreciated the surprised reaction, appreciated the effect the question had.

"Around back?" Walt asked.

"In the aspen stand. East light. Early light. Get as much warmth on it as I can."

"Show me."

"You want to see my composter?" He seemed dumbfounded.

"If you don't mind? Actually," Walt said, now spotting the twin geometric shadows in the tight stand of aspens on the back side of the sprawling house, "I can see it from here." Plain sight Plain sight, he was thinking. "Fiona?"

She joined him and they walked behind the house across a magnificent patio and past a bubbling fish pond. He had a dozen questions he wanted to ask her, but didn't want to blow the timing or sound suspicious. He needed to think about how to proceed.

"You're awfully quiet," she said.

"A lot to process," he answered honestly.

"The tires."

"Among other things."

"You think he switched them out?"

"I think it's possible. All I go on are possibilities."

"Got it."

"What are the possibilities our mountain man paid your place a visit?" He wondered why he'd suddenly started down this path, why he'd chosen to sound so certain of himself.

"We talked about this."

"Kira heard things."

"Kira imagined things."

Should he bring up the bat? The emergency room? Could he bring himself to believe any of what he was thinking?

Inside the stand of aspen the air cooled significantly. The two compost towers were green plastic with stackable sections. The lids to both were closed.

"Look over there," she said, pointing out toward the house.

Walt followed her arm. "What?"

"Huh!" she said. "Wonder what's inside?"

Walt turned around. One of the lids was laid back, open.

They exchanged a glance.

"I'm not deputized," she said. "It's why you wanted me to come over here, right?"

Walt said nothing.

"Thing is," she said, "we know each other too well. Personally, I think that's a good thing, but you're going to have to tell me if you think otherwise."

"I want to know you better," he said. "I want in. And I want to let you in. I want to reach that place that we're so far in that anything can be said, anything shared. I want to find that place where when one of us laughs, the other knows why, and when one of us is about to cry, the other is already reaching for the hankie. Like that."

"Hankie? Haven't heard that one in a while."

"I'm old-school."

"You are nothing of the sort. You are . . . dreamy. Thank you for that." She peered inside. "Blue and white lilies," she said. "You want pictures?"

He stepped closer. "Blue and white? I remember them as . . . yellow, when he was working on the bed."

"Yellow?" she said. "That would be my place. Leslie and Michael's. They have, like, five beds planted in yellow lilies. Unbelievably pretty."

"Your place," he stated, his voice raspy, his throat dry.

"You want me to shoot these?" she asked.

He nodded, unable to get another word out.

"You okay?"

He nodded again.

"Walt? Something wrong?"

His mind tried to stop his mouth, but it was over before he could stop himself.

"Everything," he said.

31.

Walt stood, backlit by the glare of the Jeep's headlights, his ghoulish shadow stretching far in front of him. Fiona parked her Subaru by the cottage and stood alongside him.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked.

"That flower bed is damaged," he said, his eyes on the freshly turned earth.

"The deer wreak havoc," she said.

He looked over at her, the harsh light playing across her face. "When did Kira go missing, exactly?"

"I don't know exactly. A couple days after the Advocates dinner."

"The right timing and she's in the clear."

"Do not go there."

"Believe me, I'd rather not. Occupational hazard."

"You don't really believe that? Kira, I mean?"

"Unfortunately, it's not about what I believe. It's what the evidence proves. You know that. And before it proves, it suggests. Right now, it's suggesting things I'd rather it didn't. I don't like any of this, believe me."

"It was a few nights after the Advocates dinner that she took off. That's all this is about. She was upset. At me. At having a flashback in the middle of her talk." She drew in a deep breath. "You know, I have this weird memory of you coming by here one night, but I'm not real clear on which night it was, or what was said."

"Nothing was said."

"Because?"

"Because you wouldn't open the door."

"That's ridiculous. If I didn't open the door it was because I wasn't home."

"Or it wasn't you. I saw someone on the couch."

"My door doesn't have a window in it."

"Yeah, I know that."

She crossed her arms. "Well, maybe it was me. For the record, I don't like guys peeping on me."

"For the record: I care about you. I was worried about you."

"Well, don't be. I'm fine."

"And Kira? Is Kira fine?"

"You're beginning to be annoying."

"You're beginning to p.i.s.s me off."

"Maybe it's late."

"Maybe it is. I'd like to bring a team up here. I'd like to eliminate her from consideration, and that's the best way to do it."

"Don't you need a warrant for that?"

"Do I?"

"It's not my property, Walt. I, or I guess you, can ask Michael and Leslie, if we can find them. They're in Tibet or Bhutan or something. She's on a meditation retreat, so who knows? It could be weeks. A month or more."

"It's to help eliminate Kira from-"

"I get it, okay! I understand it. I'm just saying that Michael and Leslie aren't easy to find."

"Find them," he said. "For Kira's sake."

"It's not that simple."