“You have nothing but rumor and lies,” Greenway spat at him. The vein on his forehead was a garden hose now, ready to blow. “You’re out to ruin people’s jobs, to end their livelihoods, to save a few fucking tadpoles, you fucking moron.”

“It’s salamanders, not tadpoles, you jackass, but you wouldn’t give a shit either way, would you?”

Greenway started to lunge for Spender, and instinctively I stepped in to hold him back. He broke free of my grasp, which really didn’t amount to much, but my brief interference seemed to have been enough to make him reconsider any sort of physical attack.

Spender hadn’t stepped back when Greenway appeared ready to attack. He looked ready to fight if he had to, and if those hiking boots were any clue, he got a lot more exercise than Greenway and could probably clean his clock.

“You can’t buy me,” Spender said. “I’m not for sale.” And then he left, kicking the trailer door wide open on his way out. Greenway stuck an index finger down between his neck and shirt collar, moved it around in a futile attempt to let in some air. He reached inside his jacket for a handkerchief and blotted his cheeks and forehead.

“You should sit down,” Stef told him.

“Get me Carpington, and then Mr. Benedetto,” he said, went back into his office, and closed his door. Stef got back in position behind her desk and picked up the receiver, then noticed I was still standing there.

“What about my shower?” I asked.

She looked at me for only a second, then started making calls for Greenway.

BACK HOME, I PLUNKED MYSELF down in the computer chair, and sat, staring at the screen, for a full ten minutes, working up my nerve. Then I called Sarah.

“City. Sarah here.”

“Hi. It’s me.”

It was like I’d placed a long-distance call to the North Pole. You could feel the chill coming through the line.

“What,” Sarah said.

“I just wanted to say again that I’m sorry.”

Nothing.

“Did I tell you about that guy who was going around the neighborhood with a petition?”

“What guy?”

“Okay, then I didn’t. Some guy, his name’s Spender, he’s trying to keep Valley Forest from building homes near Willow Creek.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I ran into him when I was over at the sales office today.”

“You told them about the mark on the kitchen ceiling?” Now, she was talking.

“Well, I brought it to their attention, anyway. They might need to be reminded again. They seem to have a lot on their minds over there. It’s not that big a job. I might be able to do it myself.”

“You’re joking.”

“I could take a shot at it. I’ve got the caulking gun. I could put some stuff in the corners of the shower, see if that took care of the problem.”

“I’ve seen what you can do with a caulking gun. There should be a three-day waiting period before people like you are allowed to own one.”

“Anyway, what I wanted to ask you was, do the names Benedetto and Carpington mean anything to you?”

“What?” Annoyed again.

“Benedetto and Carpington. They came up when I was over at the Valley Forest office. Greenway, you know, the guy we bought from? He got in a bit of a discussion with this Spender guy, and those names came up.”

“Well, Carpington, I think, is the councilman for our area,” Sarah said. “In the city, I always used to know the name of my alderman and the school board members, but since we moved I don’t keep track as well. But I think that’s the guy.”

“And Benedetto?”

“That sounds familiar. Hang on-” big sigh “-let me do a library search.” I heard her hitting several more keystrokes, muttering “Come on, come on” under her breath. “Okay, it’s Tony Bennett’s real name, but that’s probably not the guy you’re looking for. There’s two other hits for this year, four for last, then, like thirty, the year before. Just a sec.” More waiting. “Yeah, here’s why I remembered the name. He’s some developer-wheeler-dealer guy, government department that was unloading tracts of land had a guy who allegedly, hang on, I’m trying to get another screenload here, okay, allegedly took kickbacks from this Benedetto guy so that his bid for the lands would be accepted. Of course, the bids were ridiculously low, then Benedetto resold the land in parcels and made ten times the money back.”

“So what happened?”

“I’m just looking ahead here. Looks like not much. There was some sort of government investigation launched, but you know how those things can go. People forget about it, it never gets wrapped up, who knows. That’s it.”

“Thanks,” I said, paused. “What time you think you’ll be home tonight?”

“Gosh,” Sarah said, “it could be late. I misplaced my keys, so the car’s probably stolen, so I could be late.” And she hung up.

THE NEXT MORNING, THE MORNING OF the day that I found my first dead guy, Trixie asked me, “So what, exactly, was The Backpack Incident?” She was sitting in our kitchen, taking a sip of her coffee.

Trixie lived two doors down and, like me, didn’t head into an office every day. I try hard to be interested in what other people do for a living, but when Trixie first told me about running a home-based accounting firm, I kind of glazed over. Any occupation in which the majority of your time is spent filling in lots of forms and adding up columns of numbers is one I want to stay as far away from as possible.

We had regular curbside chats, like the ones I had with Earl, and we were dragging our garbage to the end of the drive two days after I’d decided to teach Sarah a lesson about leaving her keys in the door.

“Hey,” I said.

“How’s things?” she said, dropping a recycling box full of newspapers by the edge of the street. She looked smart, even in a pair of ratty jeans and sweatshirt. Trixie’s a good-looking woman, late thirties, petite, with dark hair and green eyes, and the first time we introduced ourselves I commented that I couldn’t recall hearing the name Trixie since The Honeymooners. It conveyed to me a kind of wholesomeness from another era.

We got talking one day about what we each did for a living, and she asked whether I was taking advantage of all the possible tax deductions for a person who works from home. She gave me a couple of useful, and free, tips. As someone who ran a business from home herself, she seemed to know all the angles.

This day, when she asked me how things were, I guess I didn’t respond positively enough. I merely shrugged, so she strolled over. “What’s up?”

“I’m sort of in the doghouse,” I said. “Sarah’s barely talking to me. It’s been a day and a half now.”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“You feel like a coffee?” I asked. “I was just getting ready to work and put on a pot. Unless you’re busy.”

Trixie glanced at her watch. “My first client isn’t coming by till after lunch, which still gives me time to get into my workin’ clothes, so sure, why not.”

While I got out cups for the coffee I told her about hiding Sarah’s car, and how things had unraveled from there. Trixie didn’t express any real shock. She wasn’t a judgmental person. She was open-minded on social issues and tolerant of human frailties. Over earlier cups of coffee, she’d advocated same-sex marriages, defended Bill Clinton’s personal behavior, refused to demonize welfare recipients. And she called things as she saw them.

“God, Zack,” she said, shaking her head and reaching for one of the Peek Freans cookies I’d set out on a plate. Sarah’d taught me never to serve right out of the bag. “You’re a piece of work. And a control freak. Where do you get off, trying to control everyone else’s behavior?”

“Sarah called me an asshole.”

Trixie nodded. “Big surprise there.” She had a bite of a jelly cream. “What do the kids think when you pull a stunt like that?”