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He handed me a mug of Darjeeling. “I’m glad you came by. I was going to head over to the bar and talk to you later today if you didn’t, but this is much more private.”

Yes, it was. On the surface, that little back room wasn’t anything special, just a place to sit down and have a cup of tea and a snack — and to stack any books he hadn’t cataloged yet, I assumed — but there was a welcoming warmth to the worn floorboards and the slant of light through a side window made of glass so old, it had faint ripples in it.

That was something I loved about this part of Prescott. Sure, the city had plenty of newer neighborhoods, plenty of beige sprawl, as Celeste and I liked to refer to it, but buildings still stood in the heart of the town that had been here since before Arizona was even a state, had been here when Doc Holliday wandered these streets before heading down to Tombstone to seek his fortune.

History still lived here, and I was glad I could be a part of that.

“Ever since my parents died, I was in a kind of fog,” I said. “I didn’t know what to do or what I wanted. Losing them was a massive shock.”

“I can imagine,” Jude said. “People your age shouldn’t be losing their parents.”

That comment was almost amusing. Sure, he was a few years older than I, maybe as much as five or six, but his parents were probably around the same age as mine, since my mother had waited until she was thirty-three to have me. The plan was to have one child and have her stay at home for a year, and then go back to my parents’ shared law practice after that. I honestly don’t know how much time she really took off, since one of my earliest memories was her jouncing me on one knee while she had the cordless phone jammed between her ear and her shoulder and she talked a client through a sticky point in their injury settlement, but at least I didn’t go into daycare until I was around thirteen months old.

But since my parents had both been in their early sixties, I was fairly sure most people would agree that was too soon to lose parents who were in tip-top shape and had always had the best healthcare money could buy.

“It was,” I said. “And they had great estate attorneys, of course, so everything was handled for me. I went from living in a studio outside Paradise Valley and barely scraping by with what I earned from my Etsy store to inheriting this million-dollar house and stocks and bonds and interest-bearing checking accounts and everything else. I didn’t know what to do with all of it.”

Some people might have been interested in the money. But this was Jude Marsh, so he asked, “Etsy store? What did you make?”

“I upcycled vintage clothing,” I said. He looked a little puzzled, so I added, “Basically, I went to thrift stores and antique stores and found pieces that weren’t wearable on their own any longer but which had elements that could be reused on something new, like a beaded collar or fancy buttons, that kind of stuff. And I also found items that just needed repairs, and I fixed those and sold them as well. It wasn’t making me rich or anything, but there’s demand for that stuff.”

“That sounds fascinating.” He paused and looked at me for a second or two, as if taking in the vintage sweater, the skirt that wasn’t vintage but had been made using a vintage pattern, the kitten heels and black stockings. “So, did your style come first, or did you start upcycling and then decide you wanted to wear vintage clothes all the time?”

He sounded genuinely curious. Most of the time, I’d dated guys inside the gothabilly — or at least the rockabilly — community, because normies just didn’t get it. After hearing, don’t you have any regular clothes? for the fourth or fifth time, I’d made a solemn vow not to waste my energy anymore.

“The vintage stuff came first,” I said. “I guess I always just loved old things, and when I was a kid, I saw some Munsters reruns on TV, and I thought that was utterly cool. I started wearing black as soon as my mother would let me, and then I started reading more about gothabilly and started listening to it and…well, I just sort of ended up here.”

“You must love living in Hazel’s house, then,” Jude said with a smile.

That I did. Obviously, I hated the way it had come to me, but even though it wasn’t filled with cobwebs or trapdoors or any of the other elements of the Munsters’ house that I’d found so fascinating, it was still a big Queen Anne–style Victorian with lofty ceilings and dark wood and all kinds of wonderful antiques.

“It does feel kind of made-to-order sometimes,” I admitted. “And I know some people might think I dress like this as a kind of armor, or maybe a rebellion against my lawyer parents and all their expectations. But I also just do it because I like it.”

Something in Jude’s gaze seemed almost admiring. “It suits you,” he replied. “Honestly, I can’t really imagine you in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.”

“You’ve seen me in jeans,” I pointed out.

“Black ones,” he said calmly. “And you were wearing a vintage sweater with them.”

So he’d been paying attention. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, so I reached for my now nearly lukewarm cup of tea and took a sip.

Then I said, “I think Terry Gallego might be a suspect.”

Jude’s brows lifted. “What?”

“Well, the person who broke into the bar was tall and slim, and she’s definitely that,” I said. “And no one seems to know much about her. She’s dating Wes Lindley, so if the murder is connected to the Lindley family somehow, she’d have a motive if she was trying to get brownie points with Diane or something.”

But Jude immediately shook his head. “There’s no way she could be the murderer. She was at a concert with a bunch of other parents from the parish school that night. Dozens of people would have seen her.”

Oh. I suppose that put a different spin on things. But….

“What were you doing at a school concert?”

He only smiled. “I was dropping off some books for the school librarian. So I saw Terry sitting in the front row, and I hung around for a while. The concert ended around eight, and people milled around for a bit after that. Father Frank stopped by to say hello to everyone before he left — I assume to go to the bar.”

I was quiet for a moment, absorbing all that. Since the killer had to have been lying in wait for Father Frank somehow, there was probably no way they could have been at the concert, since they would have had to get to Copper State Cellars before the priest did.

And that seemed to rule out Terry Gallego.