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“Hazel, I can’t take a dachshund to confront a murderer’s grandmother. For all I know, Meg’s allergic to dogs.”

Again, Hazel’s mouth compressed. “Take him anyway,” she said. “He can wait in the car.”

The days were cool enough now that leaving Chauncey in the Mercedes for fifteen or twenty minutes or even longer wouldn’t be a problem. And he did love riding in the car. But….

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

In the end, I decided not to take Chauncey, mostly because doing so would only add another complication to a plan that already had enough moving parts. Jude called me around three to go over everything.

“I’ll be on Meg’s street at four-thirty,” he said, which to me seemed a little excessive, considering how the trunk-or-treat started at five, and I wouldn’t be showing up at her house until a quarter after.

When I tried to argue, though, he shot me down almost immediately.

“Meg lives on a quiet street,” Jude said. “There isn’t a lot of coming and going. If we both show up around the same time, someone might notice. If I get there early and park in front of a house where I know the residents are going to the trunk-or-treat, there’s less chance of anyone seeing me.”

I didn’t ask him how he knew that. He might have been out of the priesthood for years, but he was still connected to Sacred Heart, would still know where people with kids in the right age group would live.

“Okay,” I said. “When I go in, I’ll have my phone on speaker in my coat pocket so you can hear everything. If I say, ‘I should be going’ twice in a row, that’s the signal that something is wrong.”

“Got it,” Jude replied. “Connect the call on your way over — and make sure your phone is fully charged.”

Did he think I was an amateur? “Done,” I said blithely. “It’s all going to be fine.”

Rather than directly respond to that statement, he only said, “I’ll be there,” and then ended the call.

Meg Lindley’s house was a small Craftsman cottage on Madison Avenue painted yellow with white trim. A wreath of dried wheat with orange ribbon hung on the front door, and a single jack-o’-lantern sat on the porch, its uneven teeth grinning at me as I approached.

Luckily, I hadn’t seen any kids around the neighborhood as I drove in, and I hoped a lot of them would be at the trunk-or-treat, since it was for all kids under the age of twelve, not just those who were part of Sacred Heart’s parish. My heart was beating a little faster than I would have liked, and I stopped for a second after I climbed the front steps so I could pull in a calming breath.

You got this, I told myself, and patted my coat pocket. I’d called Jude on the drive over here, so I knew the call was connected.

I reached out and rang the doorbell.

A moment later, the door opened, and my stomach dropped to roughly somewhere around my feet.

Diane Lindley was standing there.

“Lorelei,” she said. Her smile wavered and then recovered. “What a surprise! What brings you here?”

I knew that standing there and gaping at her wasn’t a very good strategy, so I managed to say, “I came to see Meg — if she’s free, of course.”

The manufactured smile stayed firmly in place. “Oh, Meg’s resting,” Diane said. “She’s been so worn out lately. The change of seasons is always hard on her. Maybe another time would be better.”

Before I could respond, a new voice called out from inside the house, thin and wavery. “Diane? Who is it?”

Diane’s smile went tight. “It’s Lorelei Cosgrove, Meg. From Copper State Cellars.”

“Oh, Hazel’s niece. Send her in. I’ve been wanting to meet her.”

A pause, one so brief that I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if I hadn’t already been on edge. But in that hesitation, I could see Diane thinking fast. She knew she couldn’t refuse me entry without raising suspicion, but I guessed she was still trying to figure out a way to salvage the situation.

“Of course,” she said.

She led me past the tiny foyer into the living room, which was also small but neat as a pin, with a prim little couch and an equally pint-sized coffee table in front of it, and a wide fireplace that didn’t look as if it had been used in a while. Meg Lindley was sitting in a wing chair by the window, a soft afghan covering her knees and a cup of tea sitting on the side table next to her. Up close like this, she looked even smaller and frailer than I remembered. Her face was kind, with delicate features that had probably been beautiful when she was younger and still had a kind of faded prettiness.

Looking at her, I had a hard time believing that she and her husband could have hit an innocent pedestrian and just driven away as though nothing had happened, but people were often very good at hiding what they actually were.

Meg gestured toward a chair across from her, and I lowered myself onto it, taking care not to squish the coat pocket that held my phone.