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    He was no absentee owner. From noon to midnight seven days a week you’d generally find Skeeter himself behind the bar. His old Red Sox buddies liked to hang out there, and so did the new generation of Sox players when they were in town, and now and then they brought some of their friends from visiting teams. Celtics and Bruins and Patriots players showed up, too, and they all mingled comfortably with the State Street crowd—the bankers and lawyers and secretaries and account executives and reporters and hookers who worked in the neighborhood.
    Skeeter had one rule, which he strictly enforced: Famous athletes are people, so don’t gawk at them. There were logical corollaries to the rule. Don’t start arguments with the celebrities. Don’t ask them for autographs. Don’t sit at their booth unless you’re invited. Don’t offer to buy them a beer.
    I hung up my coat on the rack inside the door and found an empty stool at the end of the bar. The guy on the stool beside me was fat and bald and wearing a gray suit, clearly not a celebrated Boston athlete. He nodded at me, then turned back to his conversation with the woman on the other side of him.
    SportsCenter was playing on both TVs over the bar.
    Skeeter was down the other end. When he saw me, he grinned and came over. “Hey, Mr. Coyne. Long time. You get married, you forget your friends, huh?”
    â€œI’m not actually married, Skeets,” I said. “Just, um, cohabiting.”
    â€œSame thing, ain’t it?”
    I nodded. “It’s pretty much the same thing, I guess.”
    â€œSo how’s Miz Banyon?”
    â€œShe’s great,” I said. “Except she’s in Phoenix.”
    Skeeter smiled. “Great for her, anyway. You ready for a brew?”
    â€œLong Trail Double Bag, if you’ve got it.”
    â€œCourse I got it,” he said. He reached into a big cooler and came up with a brown bottle. He popped the cap, slid the ale in front of me, and gave me a frosted mug. “You gonna want something to eat?”
    I ordered a cheeseburger, medium rare, with a slice of Bermuda onion and a side of home fries, and Skeeter went off to deliver my order to his cook.
    I took one of the copies that Julie had made of the dead girl’s photo out of my jacket pocket, put it on the bar in front of me, and looked at it.
    Who are you? Who gave you my address? Why did you pick my backyard to die in?
    â€œWhat happened to her?”
    I turned. The bald guy on the barstool next to mine was frowning at the photograph.
    â€œShe died,” I said.
    He shook his head. “Jesus. Just a kid, isn’t she?”
    I nodded. “Just a kid.”
    â€œShe’s not?…”
    â€œI don’t know who she is,” I said. “She was—I found her—her body—in my backyard this morning.”
    â€œOh, man.”
    I nodded.
    â€œSo whaddya think?” he said. “Some runaway or something?”
    I shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t know.”
    Skeeter came over and craned his neck at the photograph. “Whaddya got there?” he said.
    I turned the photo around so he could look at it.
    â€œShe looks dead,” he said.
    I nodded. “She is.”
    â€œDid I hear you say she’s a runaway?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know who she is or where she came from.”
    He shook his head. “What a world.”
    I nodded.
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œShe bled to death,” I said. “She was pregnant, had a miscarriage or something. My dog found her in my backyard this morning. I brought her inside, called 911, but she—she died.”
    Skeeter shook his head. His eyes brimmed with sympathy. “Hang on a minute,” he said. He turned and went back to the kitchen.
    A minute later he returned, steering a lanky fortyish woman by her elbow. The woman shuffled along, looking down at her feet. Under her long apron she was