Detective Rule: Always keep an eye on your peripherals.

I TURNED TOWARD DETECTIVE GROGAN RELUCTANTLY, knowing my cheeks and ears would be aflame. Surprisingly enough, Grogan’s own face looked like a newly ripening tomato. A trickle of sweat rolled down his temple and he loosened the tie around his neck. Come to think of it, the receiving room was warm.

“Oh, we were just talking about that case,” I answered. “The one you mentioned the other evening … what was it, the Red Robin Heists?”

Perhaps it had been a bit much — a cool look from Adele confirmed it. But Detective Grogan didn’t seem fazed.

“The Red Herring Heists,” he corrected. “What was it about the case that interested you?”

Unprepared for that one, I opened my mouth to reply. Nothing exited. Blast.

“Was it ever solved?” Adele piped up.

Grogan took a handkerchief from his suit pocket and dabbed his beading forehead.

“No. The heists are a cold case,” he answered.

“That means it’s unsolved,” Adele said. I glanced at her. She certainly knew her detective terminology.

Grogan put down his handkerchief and grinned. “That’s correct, Miss Horne. One day the art heists simply stopped, and the trail went cold. The police had a prime suspect at one point, but he eluded capture. The investigation went on for a short while after that, though nothing ever came of it. And no other museums or homes were ever burgled to provide more clues. Simple as that, really.”

By Grogan’s smooth, nearly wrinkle-free face I estimated him at thirty years of age or younger.

“You weren’t on the force when the heists took place,” I said. He smiled, almost bashfully.

“No, I’m afraid I was only just graduating from Bellmont’s,” he answered with a nod toward Will. “But I heard the stories and read the reports when I joined the force a handful of years later. Your uncle, though —” Grogan swung an arm out to gesture to Uncle Bruce. “Detective Snow was a rising star on the force at the time. He was part of the investigation. You might want to talk to him, rather than me.”

Talk to Uncle Bruce about a case? That was a bit unlikely.

“Oh, no, that’s not necessary. I was more curious about why someone would steal a well-known painting to begin with. The thief couldn’t exactly go and hang it in his study or hallway,” I said with a false giggle. Adele and Will joined me. We sounded pathetic. But once again, Grogan didn’t pick up on it. He grimaced and loosened his tie even further.

“No, art isn’t stolen for its beauty, but for its value. The thief most likely sold the items unlawfully in the underground market.”

“What happens then?” Adele asked.

“The thief seeks a buyer. Usually, it’s all done anonymously. The buyer doesn’t know the seller and vice versa.”

“Oh,” I said, still confused. “But how do they find each other? Is there some kind of underground market directory?”

I instantly wanted to take the inane question back. Of course there wasn’t a directory! Grogan chuckled.

“Something like that,” he said, laughing again. He looked as if he was about to say something more enlightening when his wife, Hannah, took him by the arm. She eyed his sweaty pallor.

“You’re still not feeling well, Neil?”

He shrugged off her concern with a nonchalant grin. “This is Hannah, my wife,” Grogan said to me. “Hannah, this is Bruce’s niece, Suzanna. She’s visiting from Canada.”

Hannah reached out both of her hands and closed them around mine. She gave them a squeeze.

“Of course! Katherine has told me all about you,” she said breathlessly.

“She has?” I asked, stunned. I hadn’t even met my aunt yet.

Hannah laughed. “You simply must sit beside me at dinner tonight. I don’t care if we have to reshuffle the entire seating arrangement. Even if Neil and Bruce end up beside each other and talk shop all night, it will be worth it. I have to hear everything about the Cook case.”

Oh. The Cook case. Of course. But I didn’t want to think about that old case. The stranger who’d tipped off Adele to the art theft theory had mentioned the red herrings had returned. And the Red Herring Heists had involved stolen art. There was a connection there. Why hadn’t my uncle — or Detective Grogan for that matter — picked up on that?

Detective Grogan bowed out of the group, heading for a window. He opened the sash a few inches and breathed in a gust of cold autumn air just as Aunt Katherine, her ears and neck and fingers shimmering with gaudy baubles, joined us.

“Don’t be silly, Hannah darling. The boys can’t sit next to each other. They’ll bore the rest of us to death with their police talk.”

Will began to introduce me to her. “Aunt Katherine, this is —”

“Suzanna. It’s wonderful to meet you at last. Bruce has told me so much about you.”

My heart seized. He had? Oh no. What had he said? The way Aunt Katherine’s inflexible gaze took me in from head to toe, I gathered it couldn’t have been anything very flattering. I managed to stammer how nice it was to meet her as well, before the dinner bell, mercifully, cut me off.

She and Hannah turned to join their husbands, leaving Will, Adele, and me alone. Adele didn’t waste a moment.

“I need to protect the rest of my papa’s artworks,” she whispered. We hung back, slowly following the adults. Detective Grogan was the first to disappear through the rolled-open pocket doors, Hannah at his side. I waited until Mr. Horne followed Grandmother and Uncle Bruce out of the room and into the foyer, leaving the three of us by ourselves.

“Uncle Bruce said the rest of your father’s art was safe and sound in its new location,” I replied. “I’m guessing neither of you knows where it was taken?”

Adele shook her head. Will did the same. I was sure there was plenty of valuable art right here in the house on June Street. Mr. Horne didn’t seem worried about it, though, at least not like he had about that Degas sculpture.

“The Degas,” I whispered aloud.

“The one Adele’s father is keeping under lock and key,” Will added. I flashed him a smile. He was supposed to have been chatting with Aunt Katherine, not eavesdropping like Adele and I.

We both looked to Adele. She took an extra-long moment to begin.

“It was my mother’s most cherished piece. My father’s, too. It’s a preliminary statue Edgar Degas sculpted to prepare for his Little Dancer statue. You must have seen his Little Dancer before, haven’t you, Zanna?”

I wished I had, but exposure to fine art was a rarity back home.

“Why is it so special?” I asked instead.

“Because hardly anyone in the world knows it even exists,” Adele answered. “My father once said it would be worth an unbelievable fortune, but that’s not why he loves it. It’s the secret of it he loves so much, I think. He never displays it and moves it from safe to safe regularly. I’ve only laid eyes on it once or twice myself.”

If an art thief knew about the existence of this rare Degas, I imagined it could be a prime target. I listed who would know about the Degas: my uncle and his department, Adele, the Horne house servants perhaps. Adele confirmed the list, also saying a close handful of collectors her father associated with had probably seen it. Then a speculation struck me.

“Does Mr. Dashner know about the Degas?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “Papa has the Degas cleaned every year and Mr. Dashner does it.”

A proper theory was taking shape and my head spun with it. We then heard the sound of shoes tapping along the polished hallway floor.

“What about the other paintings? The ones that were removed from the warehouses,” I went on. “Would Mr. Dashner have known they’d been moved?”

The footsteps down the hallway sounded closer. Someone was coming to fetch us.

“Yes,” she answered again. I saw the light of striking gold in her wide eyes. “Since Papa was already moving the pieces, he thought it would be a good time to have the frame for a Cézanne regilded. He had Mr. Dashner meet him at Noone’s Wharf to pick it up!”

At that moment, Adele’s dour, prune-faced butler found us huddled in the receiving room.

“Dinner, Miss Adele. May I escort you and your friends to your seats?”

It was an order masked by politeness — he was the butler, but he ran the house. My mind galloped in circles as we were led to the dining room. Mr. Dashner knew about the existence of the Degas, and that the paintings had been taken from the safe boxes. He probably knew where they were being held as well. But did he know where Mr. Horne had stashed the Degas?

We entered the dining room just as Detective Grogan was exiting.

“I’ll fetch your coat, Detective,” the butler said with a slight bow.

Grogan was still blotchy and sweating profusely.

“You’re leaving?” I asked. He didn’t need to answer, really. He looked ready to vomit all over the Persian carpet.

Grogan raised his thin, light-colored eyebrows and tried to smile at Adele. “I apologize, Miss Horne.” He then turned to me. “Let me know if you’re still curious about the Red Herring Heists, Suzanna. I’ll see if I can pull the files for you if they’re public.”

I said thank you and then Detective Grogan was gone. Nearly all the others had taken their seats at the table, including Hannah. A suited footman pulled out the chair beside hers and bowed toward me. She’d managed to switch the seating arrangement after all. I slipped into the chair, dreading having to talk yet again about the Maddie Cook case.

“The Red Herring Heists?” Hannah asked, having overheard her husband. “Why, I don’t think I’ve heard of that case before.”

Uncle Bruce was settling down into his seat across from me. He snatched the cloth napkin away from the footman who was trying to place it in his lap.

“Why are you asking about that case?” he barked. I was quickly learning that the ability to hide his feelings was not one of Uncle Bruce’s strengths.

“It just caught my interest,” I replied. He held my gaze another moment but didn’t make a reply. He cut his eyes away from me and sent a fast glance down the table. They landed on Grandmother. I followed the look and saw she also had a drawn expression. When she saw me watching her, she painted on a smile.

Hannah began asking questions about the Cook case, and I answered dutifully. Every now and then I heard an irritated sigh or throat clearing from across the table. Uncle Bruce tried to redirect the conversation, asking Mr. Horne about business, imploring his wife to regale us with stories of Venice, and even going so far as to ask Will how Bellmont’s was going for him this year. As if Uncle Bruce actually cared.

I didn’t pay any attention to it really, because it wasn’t the Cook case I wanted to be talking, or even thinking, about. It was the Red Herring Heists that were now firmly nagging at me. Uncle Bruce and Grandmother didn’t like my interest in them. And that, naturally, only made me want to know more.

Bertie had a pot of tea ready for us when we arrived home. We unwrapped ourselves in the foyer and went into the parlor, where a fire licked the hearth logs and a plush chair beckoned me. Grandmother sat back in her chair and lifted her small feet onto a low, ruffled footstool.

“Miss Zanna, you’ve a telegram,” Bertie said, placing the rectangular envelope on the sofa’s end table.

“They certainly miss you,” Grandmother said, her lids closing in exhaustion.

My parents did seem to be overdoing the correspondence a little, and I was running out of things to say in my responses that didn’t involve the case. Thank goodness telegrams required short sentences. But I had to give my parents some leeway. It was my first time away from home, and my father hadn’t even wanted me to go in the first place. I put the telegram in my skirt pocket and accepted a cup of tea from Bertie.

“Grandmother,” I began. “Why do you think my father dislikes Boston so much?”

I couldn’t imagine it had anything to do with her. Grandmother wasn’t overbearing or mean or someone to avoid at all costs.

“Dislike?” she echoed. Her eyes fluttered open. “I don’t know what you mean. Why would Benjamin dislike his hometown?”

I sipped the peppermint tea. Grandmother also wasn’t a very good liar.

“He never visits,” I said.

“He’s a very busy man.” Her immediate excuse had the worn, overused quality of something she’d said time and again. Much like my answers to questions about the Maddie Cook case.

Grandmother closed her eyes again, but her relaxed posture in the chair had turned slightly rigid. I sensed she was waiting to see if I’d give up. She really should have known better.

“My father didn’t want me to visit. He said it was too dangerous. Why would he think that?”

She flapped away my question with a tired sweep of her hand. “I’m sure I have no idea. My house is far from dangerous and I am completely capable of seeing to your protection.”

I set my teacup on its saucer and balanced it on my lap. “Protection from what?”

Grandmother’s lids sprang open. Her startled, caught-red-handed expression threw me back to that evening around the Horne table.

“Both you and Uncle Bruce reacted so strangely when I brought up the Red Herring Heists tonight. Won’t you tell me what it is about that case that frightens the two of you?”

I hadn’t known those were the words I was going to choose. The question of what frightened them about the cold case made Grandmother sit forward and look me in the eye.

“Frightens us? That’s absurd, Zanna. We aren’t frightened by some dusty old case that no one has thought of for over a dozen years.”

I didn’t believe her. Uncle Bruce had just about burned me with his scathing stare, and Grandmother had paled drastically. The same way she had at her own dinner party last weekend, when Mr. Horne had asked me about my middle name. I sat straighter, nearly spilling my tea onto my lap.

“You both reacted strangely then, too,” I said softly to myself. Grandmother frowned.

“When?”

I set my cup on a low table and stood up.

“At your dinner party, when Mr. Horne wanted to know my middle name. You interrupted to say you’d heard the dinner bell chiming —” I took a breath, figuring something out. “But you hadn’t really heard it, had you? You made it up. The servants were all surprised to find us in the dining room. They hadn’t rung the bell, and you knew it.” I pointed my finger at her even though I knew I shouldn’t. “You lied. You jumped in and lied to keep me from saying my middle name.”

Grandmother opened her mouth to reply, but instead shut it and dipped her head. It was as good as an admission of guilt.

“You don’t want me to ask about the Red Herring Heists, and you don’t want anyone to know Leighton is my middle name. Why?”

I decided to give her a few moments, even a full minute, to gather her response. I was on the right track, but I didn’t want to push her. She wasn’t fanning herself or looking breathless, but I didn’t want to take the chance of having her collapse and stop breathing. I waited. The only noise was that of the hearth fire and of a fast-moving carriage coming up Knight Street.

She looked up and met my patient stare. “Suzanna, I understand that you’re full of questions. I know you aspire to be a detective, too, like Bruce. You’re well on your way already.” A fleeting grin lifted her serious expression. “If you weren’t so astute, you never would have noticed anything amiss. I won’t treat you like a simple child, but I also can’t tell you everything. The truth involves many —”

A few hoarse shouts came from outside the parlor windows. The slam of a carriage door interrupted the confession I’d nearly won from Grandmother. A fist thumped heavily on the brownstone’s front door. Bertie raced to the foyer, her starched cotton skirts swishing loudly at the incessant pounding.

“Mr. Snow!” Bertie exclaimed, and within a second Uncle Bruce was inside the parlor. He looked from Grandmother to me, his eyes blazing, his hair disheveled. The white shirt he’d worn that night under his suit jacket was streaked with sweat and soot.

“My goodness, Bruce, what on earth has happened to you?” Grandmother went to him and he grasped her arms tightly.

“You’re all right?” He swiveled toward Grandmother’s stunned servant. “Bertie, have you or Margaret Mary seen anyone strange lurking about tonight? Anyone at all?”

Bertie shook her head, her white-gloved hands clasped together at her lace collar.

“Bruce, what’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Grandmother asked again.

He let go of his mother’s arms and went to the hearth, pacing in front of the flames. Grandmother and I watched, waiting for an answer. He braced himself against the mantel and hung his head low, his back turned to us.

“Bertie, some more tea,” Grandmother said quietly, but Uncle Bruce whipped around.

“No tea, Mother, not now. My God,” he said, his voice hoarse, as if he’d been shouting. “It’s Neil. His home … it’s gone. Burned. Burned to the foundation and —”

He shook his head, ran his hand through his thick black hair. A new emotion played across his face, one I had not yet seen: anguish.

“And we fear Neil has burned with it.”

My knees gave out. I collapsed into the seat of my chair. Grandmother gasped and whimpered.

“No! Oh no, tell me it’s not true!” she cried.

Detective Grogan was … was dead? I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. Tears smarted in my eyes and blurred the parlor, which was already dim in the firelight.

“That’s not all, either,” Uncle Bruce continued. “My home is gone as well.”

Grandmother all-out screamed this time. She fell onto the sofa, thankfully caught and guided by Uncle Bruce.

“It’s all right, Mother, no one was injured there. I’d dismissed the servants earlier in the evening since we were attending the dinner at Xavier’s.”

I sat immobile, my limbs numb. But my mind raced with questions.

“Both of your homes were set on fire during the dinner party?” I asked.

Uncle Bruce nodded. “It looks that way. Perhaps retaliation from the Irish mob for all of the investigating we’ve been doing on the Horne fires. We’d just brought in one of their higher-ups for questioning.” Uncle Bruce closed his eyes, no doubt thinking of his partner.

“So you think they somehow knew you’d be gone from your homes tonight?” I asked.

“Except Neil had felt ill…. He’d gone home early …” Uncle Bruce couldn’t finish his sentence. He dipped his head and worked the muscles in his jaw.

Grandmother seemed to lift from her shock. “Great heavens, Neil’s wife. Poor Hannah, where is she? Is she all right?”

Uncle Bruce, now sitting beside his mother, nodded heavily. “She and Katherine are at Will’s mother’s home. The police and fire crew didn’t want her near the scene…. She was in hysterics, trying to get inside while the house was crumbling.”

I didn’t want to consider it possible that Neil Grogan was dead. Perhaps he’d gone to call on a doctor before going home, or a pharmacy. Perhaps he’d not been at home like everyone feared.

“Have they found the — the body yet?” I asked, lowering my voice when I said “body.” It seemed so disrespectful to refer to a man I’d just spoken to earlier in the evening as a “body.”

Uncle Bruce shook his head and stood.

“No, but I must get back to the scene. When they do, I should be there. And then I need to pay a visit to Xavier.” He ran a hand through his messed hair. “On top of everything else lost tonight are the paintings we’d moved from his warehouses. We thought Neil’s house would be safer. We thought …” But he couldn’t finish. He made a face, scrunching up his eyes and nose to block tears.

That was where they’d taken the paintings? And now Detective Grogan’s home had been burned. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

“I just needed to be sure you were all right, Mother,” Uncle Bruce said once he’d recovered. “With two homes burning, I worried those criminals might have targeted other people connected to Neil or me.”

Grandmother blotted her eyes and tear-streaked cheeks with her lace handkerchief.

“Of course, Bruce, of course. Oh, I just can’t believe —” She gasped sharply. I jumped up.

“Grandmother, are you feeling all right? Do you need me to call for Dr. Philbrick?”

She shook her head. “No, no. I’m fine, just devastated. Devastated,” she repeated. “Bruce dear, I won’t keep you. Thank you for coming.”

Uncle Bruce hesitated, eyeing his mother warily. He then stooped to kiss her cheek.

“Please rest, Mother, and don’t work yourself into a panic. I’ve got two officers on watch out front just in case. I’ll be back in the morning if I can.”

He left the sofa, and as he passed me, said beneath his breath, “Make sure she rests, Suzanna. I’m depending on you.”

He flinched, as if he hadn’t meant to say the last part. But then, knowing he couldn’t take the words back, darted out of the parlor.

Grandmother sat on the sofa quietly sniffling into her handkerchief. Bertie came in with more tea. Smartly, she’d brought one of Dr. Philbrick’s prescribed tonics as well.

Grandmother sipped while I sat trying to wrap my mind around every aspect of the tragic news Uncle Bruce had just delivered. Detective Grogan was feared to be dead. His and Uncle Bruce’s homes lay in burned shambles, and there was one more loss to deal with on top of it all.

The paintings removed from Mr. Horne’s warehouses for safekeeping had ended up being destroyed anyway. Any normal person might have chalked it up to irony, bad luck, or fate. But I wasn’t a normal person. I was a detective-at-large. And I was angry.

“I’m going to solve this, Detective Grogan,” I whispered into my tea. “I promise.”