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Moxie Castin called me at 8:30 a.m., which counted as early for me and late for him, Moxie regarding as a poor day one that did not involve greeting the dawn. I found Moxie, like the peace of God, beyond all understanding.

“You ever hear of a guy named Lucius Bleddyn?” he asked without preamble.

“No.”

“You want me to spell it for you? It’s Bleddyn with—”

“I don’t want you to spell it for me. If you do, I’ll just know how to spell the name of someone I’ve never met, because I’m sure I’d recall meeting a man called Lucius Bleddyn.”

“You know, you’re very grumpy in the morning,” said Moxie. “It’s the best part of the day.”

“Only if it doesn’t involve you.”

Moxie tut-tutted. I’d have tried to glower him into silence if he’d been in sight. Instead, I could only glower at the phone.

“A little bird told me that you might still be nosing around that business of Zetta Nadeau’s missing boyfriend despite being fired by her,” he said.

“Which little bird would that be?”

“Her mother.”

“Jerusha’s not one of your clients, is she? If you need money that badly, sell yourself on the street.”

“Amen,” said Moxie. “I’d rather lose a finger than work for that woman. More correctly, I heard it by way of a third party, who heard it from Jerusha. It seems Jerusha was renting a room in her home to Bleddyn’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, whom he’d met while they were both working in the same bar in Norridgewock. Bleddyn is now an ex-employee of the establishment. There was an argument over free shots for Bleddyn’s buddies, in addition to a lightness to the register, and Bleddyn got fired—or quit, depending on whose version you choose to believe. He handed back the keys to the bar, as instructed, but he’d had a second set made, and the owner neglected to change the locks. Bleddyn was arrested while loading a truck with cases of beer, vodka, and bourbon, as well as ten boxes of Red Snapper hot dogs, and is now cooling his heels in the Somerset County lockup in the absence of sufficient shekels to cover his bail bond.”

“And?”

“His girlfriend learned about Zetta’s missing boyfriend from Jerusha, who has always kept tabs on her daughter—not out of any desire to protect her, but more to foul Zetta’s lines should the opportunity arise. Bleddyn says he filed the information away in case it might prove useful, and now it has. He wants me to get his bail reduced and cut a deal with the Somerset County DA for probation, on the grounds that the bar refused to give him his back pay and he was only trying to cover what was owed. If he gets the wrong judge, he could be looking at three years, even the full five.”

“If he’s struggling to make bail, he doesn’t sound like he’s going to be able to put much food on your table.”

“There’s always garnishment, or I could just file it in the drawer marked ‘Favors Folks Owe Me.’ At any rate, Bleddyn says that Jerusha gave his girlfriend the bum’s rush a couple of days ago and refunded her the rent she’d prepaid, which is so out of character for Jerusha asto make one wonder if aliens might not have replaced the original with one of their own. Jerusha told the girl that she needed the room for someone who’d pay better, and if the girlfriend had a problem with that, she could go screw a moose, or words to that effect. The girlfriend was a tenant at will, so no lease, but she still had the right to a seven-day minimum notice. The room was a dump anyway, and Jerusha is nobody’s idea of the perfect landlady, so the girlfriend elected not to kick up.”

“Do we know who the new renter is?”

“No, but here’s the clincher,” said Moxie. “The girlfriend claims it was Zetta who asked her mother to do her a solid and provide the room. She overheard their phone conversation, with Jerusha haggling over the price, because that lady never does something for nothing, not even for her own blood. Now, it may be that Zetta has friends she doesn’t like anymore and wants to enrage them by having them stay awhile with her parents, or alternatively, desperate times have called for desperate measures where Wyatt Riggins is concerned.”

“If it is Riggins,” I said, “I don’t understand why he hasn’t left the state. Why stay close to Zetta?”

“A misplaced urge to protect?”

“If he cared that much, he shouldn’t have been dating her.”

“What is that sound I hear?” asked Moxie. “Hark, it’s alarm bells ringing. As your lawyer, if not your accountant, I feel obliged to remind you that you’re not being paid to find Riggins, and the circles in which he’s been operating—Devin Vaughn, Blas Urrea—are unsavory, to put it mildly.”

“Those circles may be drifting this way,” I said.

“Hand it over to the police.”

“I’ve nothing to hand over, only hearsay.”

“Talk to Macy.”

“I have,” I said, before qualifying that with “some.”

“I’m trying to help here,” said Moxie.

“I know,” I replied. “So am I.”