“Quincy.”

“Yes! That was its name! And he starts slithering around, and I swear to God, I was never so scared in my life. I started screaming at Rick to let me up, to put the ladder back down, but he stood up there, looking down at me through this hole where the stairs would go, and he just laughed. I was running around the whole basement trying to stay ahead of this snake, and Rick’s asking me whether they can count on my support at the council, and telling me that when I say yes, he’ll put the ladder back and come down and deal with Quincy. He’s the biggest snake I’ve ever seen.”

“Who, Rick? Or Quincy?”

Carpington almost smiled. “Mr. Greenway apologized for him later. Said he wanted our relationship to be more cordial than that.”

“The question was, do you think Stefanie is seeing Rick?”

“I suppose it’s possible; they went out a long time ago. Rick still keeps in touch with her mother, that’s who looks after the snake, I think. But I don’t think Stef wants anything to do with him anymore. I think she’s scared of him.”

“What about Greenway? I mean, she’s working with him every day in the office.”

“Maybe.” Carpington thought. “Or maybe Mr. Benedetto. He usually gets what he wants.”

“Greenway’s boss? Is that who you’re talking about?”

“That’s right. He’s the one who bought the land for the development. But he turns things over to Greenway, to get the actual subdivision going.” Carpington took another look at the photo, pressed his lips together. “I can’t believe she’d be in on something like that. I thought she was better than the others, than the rest of that bunch at Valley Forest.”

“Yeah, you must be very disappointed. You hang out with a woman whose coworkers resort to blackmail and drop you into basements with snakes, it must be a shock to learn she might be less than upstanding.”

“I have to talk to her,” Carpington said. “I have to find out why she’d do this to me.” He grabbed the one print, folded it in half, and shoved it inside his suit jacket.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I have more. But I think you’re wasting your time.”

“What do you mean? Has she left? Did she actually go away? It was only yesterday that she was talking about this.”

“No,” I said. “Stefanie’s dead.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but there were no words. He got up suddenly, shoved his way past me to get to the hallway. By the time I was out of my chair and had my head out the door, I could see him running down the hall for the doors to the parking lot.

WHEN I GOT TO THE DOOR, I spotted Carpington getting into a dark blue or black Cadillac. I ran to my Civic, got in, and debated my next move. I’d rattled Carpington’s cage, to be sure, and it seemed worth knowing what he’d do next. I’d set something in motion by letting him know I knew about his affair with Stefanie, and by telling him she was dead, and I wanted to see where it went.

He didn’t immediately race out of the parking lot, as I’d expected. I could see him in the car, punching numbers into a cell phone, waiting for someone to answer, then talking rapidly, waving his one free arm around inside the car. He talked for two, maybe three minutes, then threw the phone down. The brake lights came on, the Cadillac was put into drive and squealed out of the lot.

The Caddy had a lot more pickup than the Civic, which wheezed in pursuit. There weren’t many cars on the road this late at night, and I didn’t want to follow so closely that he’d notice me, and that was exactly how it was working out. The Caddy’s taillights receded into the distance as Carpington floored it.

He was heading in the direction of Valley Forest Estates. He approached the subdivision from the south side, down by the creek, and I watched as the red lights sped into an area where the homes were in the earlier stages of construction.

When I saw the red lights come to a stop, I hung back, pulled over to the side of the road and killed my lights. The Caddy sat there, idling, Carpington staying behind the wheel, evidently waiting for a meeting. I backed the Civic between a stack of lumber and an idle forklift, figured it was far enough off the street not to be noticed, and got out. I was a couple of hundred yards away from Carpington’s car, and crept along carefully, behind the houses, making my way between wheelbarrows and stacks of bricks and two-by-fours. The sky was clear, the stars were out and the moon was nearly full, so I could see fairly well once my eyes adjusted. Still, at one point, my right leg dropped down into a shallow ditch and I went down, but I was still far enough away from the Caddy not to have attracted any attention. I got up, worried that I might have twisted my ankle, but everything seemed to be working properly. My jeans and shirt were scuffed with dirt.

I wanted to get as close to the Caddy as possible without being detected. It was parked, the motor still idling, directly in front of a two-story house still in the skeletal stage. Boards that would later be covered with insulation and drywall marked out the exterior and interior walls. I bypassed the door frames and slipped between two studs into the house, making my way to the front, where I got down on the floor, made myself as flat as possible, and settled in to watch the show.

Carpington constantly checked his mirror, made another call on his cell, fiddled with the radio, blotted his brow. The two of us waited nearly ten minutes before a set of headlights appeared at the far end of the street, followed closely by a second. The two cars approached slowly. The first, a four-door imported sedan, drove past the Caddy and angled in front of it, while the second car, a small Lincoln, pulled up tight behind it. Carpington was effectively boxed in.

The driver of the Lincoln killed the lights and engine and got out. In the moonlight, I could see that it was Don Greenway, still in his suit. Carpington got out of the Cadillac, turning off the engine but leaving the headlights on. Rick, who got out of the import, shielded his eyes from the glare as he joined Greenway, who was standing in front of an already raving Carpington.

“She’s dead!” he shouted. “This guy comes and sees me and tells me she’s dead!”

“Roger, calm down,” Greenway said, trying to maintain a normal tone of voice.

“How do you expect me to calm down? Stefanie’s dead!”

“I only just heard about it myself,” Greenway said. “The police were by the office.”

“Look, I never signed on for anything like this! Spender was one thing, and I never wanted to go along with that, but this is too much!”

Rick said, “I think you should lower your voice, asshole. There’s houses over that ridge people are living in, dickwad, and they might hear you.”

“Maybe I don’t care about that. Maybe it’s too late to care about anything.”

Greenway looked at Rick and nodded. Suddenly, Rick slapped Carpington across the face savagely, sending the councilman sprawling up against the side of his Caddy. Before he even had time to touch his cheek, Rick had him by the shirt and was dragging him across the mud-caked street in the direction of his car. Rick reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of remote keys, and popped the trunk on the sedan, which opened about an inch.

As Rick swung the trunk open a tiny light came on long enough for Carpington to see what was inside. There was barely time for him to scream “No!” before Rick had shoved him inside and slammed the trunk shut.