He’s not good about hanging up towels.

“While you were out tonight,” he said, “Sally called.”

I raised my eyebrows interrogatively. Sally Allison was the kingpin reporter for the Lawrenceton Sentinel.

“She wanted you to know, for some reason, that Jack Burns had rented the plane himself, from the Starry Night Airport ten miles away on the interstate.”

“He rented it himself?”

Martin nodded.

Good friend that Sally was, she knew I’d be intrigued by that little fact. I clipped my pencil to the puzzle book and tried to imagine how someone had gotten Jack into the plane and then killed him and thrown him out; could one person do that? Could little planes be set on autopilot? Wouldn’t someone be at the airfield to monitor arrivals and departures?

“From the very little Burns’s wife said to you, he knew the identity of someone here in Lawrenceton who’d been hidden by the Federal Witness Protection Program,” Martin said.

“So why would the-I don’t know, what do you call ‘em, protectee? Why would he kill Jack?”

Martin raised his eyebrows at me. I’d missed something very obvious.

“I imagine whoever killed Jack Burns wanted the new name of the hidden person.”

Naturally. I should have seen that before. “But if these were the people this witness had testified against, wouldn’t they know what he looked like?”

“Maybe he’s had plastic surgery,” Martin said. “Or maybe these people only suspect they know who betrayed them.” But his interest in the subject had ebbed. Once he’d decided we were safe, not implicated, he’d begun losing interest in Jack Burns’s death, except as it upset or concerned me.

“But why in our backyard, Martin? You were worried about that earlier,” I challenged him. “Let’s hear a good reason.” I took off my glasses (I was wearing my blue-framed ones that day) and crossed my arms under my breasts. They were more or less covered in ivory lace, the top of a concoction Martin had given me for his birthday.