bit more conservative, but the marks on her neck were still red and swollen, as if her body was staving off an infection, and if she just slapped another bandage on her neck, she’d look like she was trying to hide a hickey.

Anselm was waiting at a four-top on a covered deck that faced the ocean, the harbor crowded with boats, their masts tilting one way or the other, some of them christened after women, others with names like The Hull Truth, Knotty Girl, Reel Easy. He’d slung his arm over the chair beside him, and he looked like an ad for an expensive watch. The other tables were crowded with Yalies and their parents, businessmen taking long lunches, a few older women in quilted coats lingering over glasses of rosé.

“Alex!” he said when he caught sight of her, his voice warm and vaguely surprised, as if he hadn’t invited her there. “Have a seat.” He waved over a server who placed a menu in front of her. “I’ve already eaten, but please, get whatever you like.”

Alex wasn’t going to say no to a free meal. She thought she should probably order something like mussels or grilled fish, but years of eating her mother’s all-grain, sprouted carob experiments had left her with a lifelong craving for junk food. She ordered the sliders and a Coke for the caffeine.

“I wish I could eat like you,” Anselm said, patting what looked like a flat stomach. “Youth is wasted on the young. If I’d known what middle age would look like, I would have spent more time eating fried chicken and less time at the gym.”

“You’re middle-aged?”

“Well, I will be … What?”

Alex realized she was staring. “Sorry, you just seem different, more relaxed.”

“Is that surprising? Believe it or not, I don’t relish chastising undergraduates.”

“Dawes is a Ph.D. candidate.”

He cast her a glance. “I think you know what I mean.”

Now that the new Praetor had been appointed, Anselm seemed like a different person, unburdened by the worries and obligations of Lethe.

“I’m surprised you’re back in Connecticut,” she said. “I thought I’d have to come to New York.”

“I’m usually in Connecticut once or twice a month for meetings. It’s why the board asked me to step in and oversee things at Lethe. And given what happened to Dean Beekman, I thought it couldn’t hurt to check in. He was a legend. I think everyone who knew him is pretty shaken.”

“Did you know him?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Is this why you wanted to have lunch?

Does Centurion have you checking alibis?”

“No,” Alex said, which was true. And there was no reason for her to suspect Anselm had anything to do with Marjorie Stephen or Dean Beekman.

“I’m sorry. After everything that happened last year.” She shrugged. “Old habits.”

“I get it. The people who were supposed to protect you didn’t really do the job, did they?”

And they never had. But Alex didn’t want to think too much on that, not at this table with this stranger on a sunny afternoon. “I guess not.”

“Lethe asks a lot of us, doesn’t it?”

Alex nodded. She felt nervous and her palms were damp. Between her miserable nightmares, she’d lain awake last night, trying to think of the best approach for this. But Anselm had offered her an opening so she was going to take it. “It does,” she said. “You’ve seen my file.”

“And now you’re rolling in clover.”

“Something like that.”

“Tell me about California.”

“It’s like this, but the water is warmer and the people are betterlooking.”

Anselm laughed and Alex felt herself unwind a little. She’d been prepared for Anselm in authority mode, but this guy wasn’t all bad. He’d clearly had a couple of glasses of wine with lunch and he was enjoying being out of the office. She could work with this.

“Who were you meeting?” she asked.

“A few friends working out of Stamford. You know where the old AIG

offices are?”

“Not really.”

“You’re not missing much. Anyway, they’re kind of black sheep in our business, but I like underdogs and they needed some advice.” “Hide the outcasts,” she murmured.

Anselm laughed again. “That’s a pull.”

So Anselm knew the Isaiah quote. But if he was somehow involved in the murders, he probably wouldn’t have volunteered that knowledge. “You don’t strike me as the religious type.”

“Not at all, but that’s an essential bit of New Haven lore. God,” he said, shaking his head. Not a single carefully styled hair moved. “I’m even boring myself.”

“Go on,” she said. “I like this kind of stuff.” Especially if it could help her catch a murderer and put her in Turner’s good graces.

Anselm looked skeptical, but said, “It’s from the sermon John Davenport gave in support of the three judges.”

Judges. Interesting. “That clears up everything.”

Again his brows rose, and Alex realized why she liked this version of Anselm. He reminded her just a little of Darlington. Not the Darlington she’d known but who he might have been if he hadn’t grown up in Black Elm and fallen in love with Lethe, a slicker, less hungry Darlington. A Darlington less like her.

“You’ve never been to Judges Cave?” Anselm asked. “Okay, so the year is 1649, and Cromwell orders the execution of Charles I. Fifty-nine judges sign the death warrant. All well and good. Off with his head. But just a decade later, the monarchy is restored, and his son Charles II—”

“Junior.”

“Exactly. Junior isn’t pleased with what happened to his father or the precedent of killing off kings. So, ruthless he must be. He sentences all of the judges to death.”

“That’s a lot of dead judges.” And it lined up with Turner’s initial theory of the crime, that the disgraced Professor Lambton had gone after the people who had sat in judgment on him.

“Some of them were executed, others fled to the colonies. But there are British soldiers everywhere and no one is particularly excited about harboring

fugitives and bringing down Junior’s wrath. Except for the good citizens of New Haven.”

“Why?”

Anselm gestured to the boats in the harbor as if they might have an answer. “It’s always been a contrary town. The good Reverend John Davenport steps up to the pulpit and preaches, ‘ Hide the outcasts. Bewray not him that wandereth. ’ And hide the outcasts they do. When the British come snooping around, the townspeople keep their secrets and the judges hide out near West Rock.”

“At Judges Cave?”

“It’s technically just a cluster of big rocks, but yes. Their names were Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell.”