“Maybe.”

“Are you just being cagey or is that a sincere maybe.”

“This is what I think. The thefts weren’t what caused her problems . . . it was you and me uncovering the thefts. Someone wanted to silence her. But do I really believe that someone would murder over a few Tiffany panels? Doubtful. We’re dealing with something bigger . . . no offense to Tiffany . . . or Clara Driscoll.”

“Who’s that?”

“Karen Bronson, Angeline’s mother, told me that Angeline like stained glass because Clara Driscoll, a woman who worked for Tiffany, actually made a lot of the designs.”

“Hold on, let me look her up.” McAdams took out his iPhone. “It may take a minute. I think we’re in a dead zone.” He looked up. “For the phone, I mean. My brain, that’s another story . . . what’s it going on without sleep? Like thirty hours? How do you think, let alone stay awake?”

“That’s why I brought you here, Harvard.”

“I’m a fancified alarm clock. Okay, here we go. Wikipedia at its finest.” McAdams paused while he read. “Clara Driscoll was indeed the head designer for Tiffany and worked there for twenty years. She chose the colors and the type of glass and designed some of his most famous lamps. Before her, the designs were more symmetrical and static. Her first design was the Daffodil, but she is also known for the Wisteria, the Dragonfly, and the Peony. She was given her just due when the New York Historical Society gave her an exhibition in 2006 entitled ‘A New Light on Tiffany.’ ”

“Angeline would have been about fourteen at that time,” Decker said. “That’s the age when she became interested in stained glass according to her mom. Maybe she saw the exhibition or read about it.”

“How would Angeline have heard about it if she was in Florida?” McAdams said.

“There’s a museum in Orlando that features lots of Tiffany. Damned if I can think of the name.”

“Morse Museum of American Art.”

“Yes! Exactly!” Decker turned to him. “Did you just look that up?”

“I’ve been there. My grandfather had a place in Bal Harbour.”

“I also keep you around because you have a memory.” Decker grinned. “Anyway, Karen Bronson told me that Angeline liked that Clara Driscoll because she appealed to Angeline’s ideas of talented, strong women and the arts.”

“Makes sense. Girls in college were always yakking about being strong and independent. God, it got so damn sophomoric. Just quit your bitching and actually do something.”

“I can see that patience isn’t your strong suit.”

“You’re right about that.” McAdams gave out a mirthless chuckle. “Most of my classmates at Harvard were living away from home for the first time. But there were some like me: boarding school since first grade with absentee parents. Granted we were privileged as far as education, money, and connections go. And yes, we were spoiled beyond the point of ridiculousness. But we were independent. The first timers . . . man, they were still attached to the umbilical cord. They had absolutely no concept of how utterly dependent they were on mommy and daddy. God, how I envied them.”

Decker was quiet.

McAdams said, “Don’t mind me. Go on.”

“Pour me more coffee. Just half full so I don’t burn my fingers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re allowed to call me Peter.”

“I prefer Old Man.”

“Am I like your real old man?”

McAdams shrugged. “Yes and no. He’s a prick in a bad way.” He handed Decker his coffee. “You’re a prick also, but in a good way.”

“You have a way with words. Can we get back to the case now?”

“Gladly.”

“Being that Clara Driscoll made the designs and Tiffany put his name on it, do you think that it might have mitigated Angeline’s conscience when she was making the forgeries?”

“Huh!” McAdams was quiet. “She was doing to Tiffany what he did to Driscoll. I like it. Not that it helps us understand why she was murdered, but there is a sort of lex talionis to the whole thing. That means—”

“Eye for an eye, I know.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You were a lawyer. What kind of law again?”

“Estates and wills.” When McAdams started to snore, Decker said, “Exactly. You know eye for an eye doesn’t mean exacting retribution. It’s actually tort law.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because it’s in the section of the Bible that deals with property law. You injure a guy’s eye through negligence, you pay the victim for the value of what he would have earned with the eye versus what he makes because he’s missing an eye. Courts do that all the time. It’s called economic forensics.”

“Yeah, I know. I interned for several white shoe law firms in my college days courtesy of Daddy.” He took out his phone. “Where is the saying in the Bible?”

“Eye for an eye?”

“Yes.”

“It’s in Exodus . . . in the Hebrew section called Mishpatim if that helps.”

“Hold on . . . Exodus 21 paragraph 22 through 25 . . .” He read. “It doesn’t say anything about monetary compensation.”

“It’s in the commentary from Rashi. He was a great, eleventh-century—”

“I know who Rashi is. I took Moderation and Extremism at Harvard—Twersky’s class—although he was dead by the time I took it. But people still refer to it as Twersky’s course. The point is why should I believe some guy’s commentary? Just go with the text.”

“Law is always about interpretation. Nothing is ever face value. And the background of the biblical section deals more with torts than with capital cases.”

“Aren’t you the hotshot, biblical scholar?”

“This is pretty rudimentary, Tyler, but if you’re impressed, I’m fine with that.”

McAdams was still reading text. “The sections deal with tort law as well as capital cases. It’s all mixed together.”

“Traditionalists go by rabbinic law because the sages can interpret Jewish law better than the layman.”

“You need a learned mind,” McAdams said.

“Exactly.”

The kid grinned. “Or a Learned Hand.”

Decker groaned at the pun. “You were setting me up for that one, weren’t you.”

“I was.”

“Clever, but awful!”

“It wasn’t awful!” McAdams sniffed. “It was just . . . Harvard.”

THE RURAL NORTHEAST was white and stark, giving the region an aesthetic minimalism. Urban Northeast was gray and depressing. Grime mixed with snow equaled sludge, and the old factories and crumbling brick warehouses were bereft of any kind of beauty. The only saving grace today was the bright sunshine and the clear skies, which only served to highlight the sprawl. According to the GPS, Decker was only a mile from Latham’s address. He said, “Are we near the university?”

“I take it you mean Tufts. We’re not far in distance, but worlds away socioeconomically. If Latham was doing something illegal, it wasn’t paying him big dividends.”

“Or he chose the area because petty criminal activity might go unnoticed.”

“That’s certainly possible.”

“Or Latham was a poor grad student who was strapped. Or he was just cheap.” Decker pulled up to the apartment building and killed the motor. “Hopefully, we shall find out something about the lad.” He clicked open the glove compartment and took out his gun.

McAdams said, “I don’t think you’ll need that in the daytime.”

Decker strapped it into his harness. “I’m not leaving a loaded Beretta in the car.”

“Why’d you bring a piece? I mean, do you routinely carry it in Greenbury?”

“No. Don’t need it there. But here we don’t know what we’re dealing with so I like to err on the overcautious side.” Decker opened the door. “Let’s go.”

“I’m with you, partner.”

Together, they walked up to the apartment building—an old square made of bricks and stucco. In a perfect world, the glass front door was locked for security. But the hasp appeared to be broken so they slipped inside, walking up a flight of stairs, down the hallway until they found Latham’s unit. Decker knocked on the door. After a few minutes of futile banging, Decker gave up.