It was a safety hazard.

It was one thing to wave the red flag of guns and illegal drugs before me, but safety hazards, well, that was very difficult for me to overlook.

All Earl needed was one overheated wire to set the entire house ablaze. And once his house was engulfed, would flames spread to the houses on either side of him, or jump across the street to ours, or Trixie’s?

It was enough to keep one from finishing a chapter about busybody atheist missionaries trying to bring technological enlightenment to the rest of the galaxy. So I walked out the front door, noticed there was no car in Trixie’s driveway other than her own, and decided this would be a good time to drop by. Get her take on what was going on in the neighborhood, see if she had any inkling of what was going on across the street without tipping my hand, even get some tax advice.

And I’d be very clear. I wasn’t looking for free advice. I wasn’t one of those people who walk up to a doctor at a dinner party and say, “I’ve got this thing in my shoulder when I move my arm like this, you got any idea what that could be?” She could treat me like anyone else, charge me her regular rates, that was fine. The good thing was, I didn’t have to get out the yellow pages and start cold-calling accountants whose reputations I did not know.

I rang the bell. I always feel a bit stupid, standing outside a door waiting for someone to answer, so I slipped my hands into my pockets and tried my best to look nonchalant for anyone who might drive by, which no one did, since almost every other person in this neighborhood was earning a salary in the city through the day.

I rang again, then pressed my ear to the door to see whether I could hear any activity inside.

And then I heard Trixie’s voice, tinny, coming from a small speaker box mounted on the wall to the right of the door.

“Can I help you?”

“Hey, it’s Zack and-”

“Please press the button to talk.”

I placed my thumb over the small, square black button and pushed. “Trixie? Zack. I catch you at a bad time?”

“Oh, Zack, hi. What’s up?”

“Sorry, I would have called, but I didn’t have your number, and I couldn’t find it in the book.”

“Is there anything wrong?”

“No, listen, I can come back.”

“Look, I thought you were my next appointment. I can’t really come to the door right this second. Why don’t you put the coffee on, and I’ll be by in about an hour?”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

As I was turning to walk down the driveway, a beige Impala pulled in. A casually dressed man got out and, as we passed each other, he gave me a wink.

I PLUGGED IN THE KETTLE, measured some coffee into the coffeemaker, and while I waited for the water to boil, sat at the kitchen table and, pencil and paper in hand, started making a list of things to do.

1. Finish last chapter.

2. Fix barbecue.

3. Write letter to Valley Forest Estates demanding action.

4. Bomb offices of Valley Forest Estates.

5. Shove stick of dynamite up ass of Don Greenway.

6. Prepare materials for tax return, get advice from Trixie.

7. Finish caulking around bedroom window.

I glanced out the sliding glass doors and noticed the extension ladder still leaned up against the brick wall of the house, the caulking gun hooked over one of the lower rungs.

8. Buy new tube of caulking.

I put down the pencil and poured boiling hot water into the coffeemaker. If Trixie was true to her word, she’d be over in about twenty minutes. Since that didn’t give me enough time to tackle any of the items on my list, I went into my study and started working on my model of the Seaview submarine from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I was having trouble getting the rear fins to stay on properly, and was applying some liquid cement to the underside of the left one when the doorbell rang.

“Hang on!” I shouted. This was probably Trixie, but I was still in the habit of locking the door behind me every time I came in, so I couldn’t invite her to walk in on her own. I tried to set the fin in place, but I was going to need to hold it for several seconds, so I abandoned the project and ran to the door.

I was surprised to see that my visitor was not Trixie, but a rugged-looking man in his late twenties, early thirties, wearing a jean jacket and pants flecked with paint and drywall compound and other building materials. In one hand he held an oversized toolbox, and the other was shoved into the front pocket of his pants, only the thumb sticking out. His face was long, lean, and unshaven, at least for a day or so, and his short brown hair was slightly spiked with gel. He was chewing on a toothpick.

“Yes?” I said.

“This is 1481 Greenway?” he said.

“Yes,” I said hesitantly.

“I’m here about the shower. Mr. Greenway sent me over. I’m Rick.”

Thank you, Detective Flint, for not ratting me out!

“Oh!” I said. “Yes! Come in!”

His boots, I noticed, were dappled with dried mud. He made no effort to remove them as he stepped inside and advanced across the broadloom.

“Up there?” he said, standing at the foot of the stairs, looking up, his back to me.

“Yes,” I said. I followed him up and into the bathroom. It was a bit warm up there, and he slipped off his jean jacket and tossed it casually on the vanity, knocking down a little display of small round soaps carved to look like roses, which Sarah likes to put out for guests but which no one has ever dared use to wash their hands. I put them back in their dish and slid them into the corner, next to a single brass antique candlestick holding a single white candle. Rick set down his toolbox and opened it, revealing an assortment of tools and rolls of tape and tubes of caulking. He opened the glass door to the shower, looked down, sat on the bottom of the shower door opening, and ran his hand along the seams where the floor met the wall.

“You see where the grouting is cracked and coming apart?” I said, trying to be helpful. Rick said nothing.

“The water got in there,” I said, “and must have been dripping down to one place in the kitchen, and that’s where the drywall fell away.”

Rick picked away at some of the loose grouting and threw it out onto the bathroom floor, some of it landing on my shoe. He reached not into his toolbox but his back pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a Swiss Army knife, but when he pressed a button I couldn’t see and the blade swung out in a fraction of a second, I gathered this was an implement without a corkscrew, bottle opener, nail file, or screwdriver.

He picked away at more of the loose grout with the knife. I felt a responsibility to make conversation.

“So you work for Valley Forest?” I said.

Rick slowly turned so he could look at me over his shoulder. “You figured that out, huh?”

I went downstairs. I saw Trixie approaching the front door and opened it before she had a chance to knock.

“Hey,” she said.

“I’ve got one of Valley Forest’s finest upstairs looking at the shower. I’m hoping he won’t run off with Sarah’s flowered soap collection.”

We went into the kitchen and I got out two cups.

“Sorry I dropped by unexpectedly,” I said. “I would have called, but I didn’t have your number, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I don’t even know your last name.”

Trixie smiled. “Snelling.”

I tried to recall all the names I’d scanned under accountants in the phone book. I couldn’t recall seeing Snelling. So I mentioned it.

“I’m not in the book yet,” Trixie said. “Should be in the next one.”

I put Trixie’s coffee in front of her, then some more of those Peek Freans. “I guess your next appointment showed up just as I was leaving.”