I couldn’t get a very good view, standing as close to the house as I was, so I went out to the curb to take in the whole picture, and while I couldn’t see anything wrong with the windows, I noticed for the first time that the framing around the front bay window was slightly crooked, and that the house numbers over the double garage were not centered properly. Honestly.

The front door of Trixie’s house opened and a well-dressed man, mid-fifties I’d guess, came out. He was a bit tentative about it, glancing out to the street as he did so. He reached into his pocket for his keys, unlocked the Lexus with his remote, then strode quickly from the front door to the car. As he did so, his eyes happened to lock on mine.

“Hi!” I said. I may have my faults, but I’ll always say hello to people.

He looked as though I’d just shot him with a dart. He quickly got into the car, where he was obscured by heavily tinted windows, backed out onto Greenway, then headed down the street, the Lexus making a deep, throaty roar the whole way.

The guy looked rattled, no doubt about it. Maybe Trixie’d told him he was going to have to pay a lot more in taxes than he’d budgeted for. Maybe he’d have to turn in the Lexus.

If he was rattled, maybe Trixie was, too. Maybe this was a bad time. I went back into the house.

I WAS ACTUALLY WORKING WHEN Sarah got home. Not building a kit. Not flying a model of the starship Enterprise around my study, humming the theme from Star Trek. Not playing Star Wars computer games. I was working on the last chapter when I heard Sarah unlock the front door and come in.

I didn’t call out. I didn’t know whether she was still angry with me about the keys thing. But I started hitting the computer keyboard with more intensity, so she’d know I was home, hear where I was, and possibly think I didn’t hear her come in because I was consumed with work. Soon, there was some racket coming from the kitchen, where it sounded as though she was putting away some food, and then it was very quiet, save for the sound of my typing. Although shortly before her arrival I’d actually been writing, I wasn’t, at that moment, being overly creative. What I’d typed since I’d heard Sarah’s key in the door was “Sarah’s home so I better sound busy and it sounds like she’s inside the house now and she’s going into the kitchen and she must have bought something for dinner and I hope it’s something good because it’s just occurred to me that I’ve eaten nothing this afternoon what with finding a dead guy which can have something of a negative effect on your appetite and”

And then I could sense her presence behind me. I work with my back to the door, which means the screen is visible to anyone walking in, but fortunately, Sarah doesn’t have telescopic vision like the Superman statuette up on my shelf.

“Hey,” she said, standing in the doorway.

I whirled around in my computer chair. “Hi.”

“Sounds like it’s going really well,” Sarah said. “I didn’t know, after what happened to you today, whether you’d feel like working.”

I shrugged, clicked the mouse in the upper right corner and made the text vanish from the screen. “I only got back to it in the last hour or so. Got an e-mail from Tom that kind of encouraged me to get going.”

I turned back to the computer and heard Sarah come up behind me. She rested her hands on my shoulders.

“I was wondering if we could be friends,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

“I picked up some fettuccine and some chicken, thought I’d make us something nice for dinner.”

I hesitated. “Sounds nice,” I said.

“And just so you know, not only did I take the keys out of the door, I set them on the table, and locked the door behind me.”

I definitely said nothing.

“You know what that means?” she asked. She slid her hands down more so that they were rubbing across my chest.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re locked in the house, and I think we’re all alone.”

“The kids will be home any time now, I think.”

“Why don’t we give them twenty bucks for pizza, tell them to get out of the house, and after I’ve made you some dinner, maybe we could mess around.”

I spun around slowly, nuzzling my head between Sarah’s breasts. They were very nice breasts. “That might be nice,” I said. “That might be very nice.”

Sarah slipped her arms around my head, drawing me in even closer, if that was possible. “I don’t know how much work you’ve got left here, but I’ll have dinner ready in about twenty minutes. Okay? And then you can tell me more about finding that man’s body. That must have been awful.”

I came up for air and looked into her face. “I’m sorry for being such a jerk. With the keys, and the car, and everything.”

Sarah smiled. “You can’t help yourself.”

“Possibly.”

And she bent down and kissed me, a quick peck at first, then a longer, more exploratory kiss, with her long dark hair spilling across my face, that hinted of much better things to come. She untangled herself from me, smiled, and left for the kitchen while I swiveled back around, made an adjustment in my jeans, and brought my chapter back onto the screen. I deleted the parts I’d written since Sarah’s arrival, then reread the last few paragraphs before that to reacquaint myself with where I was in the story.

A few moments later, from the kitchen, Sarah said, “Shit!”

I jumped up and ran in to see what was wrong. A chunk of drywall, about the size of a paperback, had fallen from between the pot lights, in that spot where the shower water leaked down. It had landed on the just-opened package of fresh pasta.

MY FIRST INSTINCT, IN THE HOURS following the discovery of Spender’s body, even without knowing exactly how he’d died, was to give everyone a security lecture. Don’t talk to strangers or pick up hitchhikers, make sure you haven’t left the keys in the door, make sure you throw the deadbolt, obey your “walk” and “don’t walk” signals, don’t use the electric hair dryer while you’re sitting in the bathtub, wait an hour after eating before swimming, never run with scissors.

But I sensed this was the wrong way to go. It had only been a couple days since the hidden car incident, and now that Sarah and I were speaking to each other again, I didn’t want to set things back. My goal was tolerance. I would not let things get to me. I would let things go. Like water off a duck’s back. I’d stop telling everyone how to behave. I’d mellow out.

I’d learn to chill.

When Paul and Angie got home, I told them what had happened down by the creek. Angie said, “Are you sure the guy was dead? Maybe he was just pretending to be dead to teach you a lesson about safe hiking.” Then she ran for her camera and persuaded her brother to come with her so she could take her first pictures of a crime scene. On their way out, Sarah shoved a twenty into her hand and told her to buy her brother and herself some pizza for dinner, and to eat it at the restaurant, not bring it home.

“Oh God,” Paul said under his breath to his sister. “They’re going to go at it.”

After Sarah and I had picked the drywall out of our fettuccine, and had dinner, Paul’s worst fears were realized. There’s nothing like brushing up against death to reinvigorate the lovemaking process. My disposition was definitely improving.

My resolve to be less of a know-it-all jerk was tested early the next morning, when I found the front door unlocked. Once Angie and Paul had returned from dinner, Paul had gone back out with his friend Hakim, sneaking from one movie to another at the multiplex, buying tickets for a PG show and then slipping into the theater showing an R-rated slasher pic where women with heaving bosoms kept falling down while trying to run away, so he wasn’t in until after midnight. When I went down in the morning to get The Metropolitan, the bolt on the door hadn’t been turned. And there, sitting within an arm’s reach of it, was Sarah’s purse. I nearly mentioned it to him at breakfast, but didn’t. Next time, I’d just wait until Paul was home and go down and check the door myself.