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ago.” She shrugged. “It’s probably changed since then. Albert’s family is all gone, and we never went back.” She looked up at me. “I haven’t gone back, anyway. Maybe Albert has.
Maybe that’s where he goes on weekends when he … when he goes away.”
    â€œI’m pretty sure it is,” I said. I placed my forefinger under the tiny blob of greenish yellow. “See this?”
    She bent close to the print. “What is it?”
    â€œI enlarged it on my computer. It looks like the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle.”
    â€œIt looks like Albert’s car,” said Ellen. “When was this photo taken?”
    â€œFriday or Saturday.”
    â€œSo that’s where he is,” she said.
    â€œIt’s where he was on Friday or Saturday, apparently.”
    In my head, I popped up a mental map of New England and tried to figure how I might drive from Boston to Mount Monadnock in southwestern New Hampshire. There were a lot of ways to get there. One fairly direct route would take me through the Willard Brook State Forest between Townsend and Ashby, Massachusetts.
    â€œDoes Albert own shotguns?” I said.
    Ellen looked at me. “You’re not thinking …”
    I didn’t say anything.
    She nodded. “Yes, as a matter of fact. He has quite a collection of shotguns. He considers them works of art. Shotguns are very expensive. They’re Albert’s only extravagance.” She paused, then added, “As far as I know.”
    â€œHe’s a hunter, you said.”
    â€œBirds. He doesn’t hunt animals.”
    â€œYou hunt birds with shotguns.”
    â€œWell, sure. He uses some of his guns for hunting, I guess. I never paid much attention. Doesn’t seem to me he’s done much hunting in recent years. Albert and my father used to
go hunting together. Once in a while he came home with a couple of ducks or something, and when he did, he cooked them himself. He always made a production out of it. Said that preparing the birds he’d shot elegantly and eating them ceremoniously was a way of honoring them. He cooked wild rice and found some fresh asparagus and bought an expensive wine, and I must say, they were unfailingly delicious.” Ellen narrowed her eyes at me. “I know what you’re thinking, Brady Coyne. It’s crazy.”
    â€œOne of us has to be objective,” I said.
    â€œAlbert keeps his shotguns locked up in a steel cabinet in the basement. He’s got the key.”
    â€œMaybe he keeps one at his camp,” I said.
    â€œMaybe he does. I don’t know. But even if he does …”
    â€œI need to talk to him,” I said. “The sooner the better.”
    â€œWell,” she said, “I wish you would. You might be thinking about who blew out that poor man’s tire with a shotgun, but that’s not what I’m thinking about.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œBrady,” said Ellen, “will you find Albert for me?”
    â€œI don’t know if I will,” I said. “But I’ll try.”

EIGHT
    B y the time I got home from my visit with Ellen, Evie had already left for work. On the bottom of the note I’d written for her she’d scribbled: “Tonight’s my turn,” followed by several X’s and O’s.
    That meant she loved me and would take care of dinner.
    I put on a fresh pot of coffee, and while it was brewing I opened my big Rand McNally Road Atlas. I flipped to the index for New Hampshire and ran my finger down the list of New Hampshire towns. Southwick wasn’t listed. It puzzled me until I deduced that towns with populations under five hundred didn’t qualify for mention in the Rand McNally index. I guess you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
    I turned to the state map and finally located Southwick about halfway between Keene and Peterborough in the southwestern quadrant of the state. Just one road—it