"Maybe Susan's wrong," Hawk said.

"Maybe."

"Maybe Sampson lied to her."

"Maybe."

Hawk grinned.

"Or maybe DeSpain lying to you."

"Maybe," I said.

"I figure I'll just keep still until I find out what the sides are up here."

"Never got in no trouble keeping still," Hawk said.

A nine-passenger van rolled by, its headlights on, its wipers working, splashing water from the gutter onto the sidewalk. In the van were nine Chinese men, waiters probably, going to work.

"Me either."

Hawk was wearing something that looked like a black silk raincoat. The rain beaded up on it in translucent drops before it serpentined down the fabric. He wore no hat, and if he minded the rain on his skull, he didn't show it. On the other hand, except for amusement and not amusement, he never showed anything.

"What we going to do about the lovely Jocelyn?"

"You think she's being followed?"

"No."

"I don't either," I said.

"Why don't we believe her?"

"Instinct, babe. We been doing this kind of thing a long time."

"What if we're wrong."

"I'm not usually wrong."

"That's because you're closer to the jungle than I am. But maybe we better be sure."

Hawk shrugged.

"You want me to shadow her?"

"For a while."

"I bet I be the only one," Hawk said.

I shrugged.

"Besides," Hawk said.

"They never had no jungles in Ireland.

Your ancestors just paint themselves blue and run around in the peat bogs."

"Well, it was a damned nice blue," I said.

CHAPTER 16

A cop I knew named Lee Farrell was working with me in Concord, and when we got the back stairwell down, and the rubble cleaned away, we noticed that the beams supporting the open perimeter of the now st airless well rested, at either end, on nothing at all. As far as we could tell, they were held up by the floor they were supposed to be supporting. This seemed to me an unsound architectural device, so Lee and I went down to Concord Lumber and bought a couple of ten-foot two-by-eights that were long enough to reach the cross members, and scabbed them onto the unsupported beams with ten-penny nails. Then I climbed down off the step ladder and we went out to have lunch with Susan on a picnic table she'd bought and had delivered, under one of the trees she'd pruned. It was October and bright blue, with a background of leaf color, and no wind. There were enough leaves underfoot to help with the autumnal feeling, but the weather was warm, and the sky was cloudless.

"Before you sit down," Susan said, "get me that blue tablecloth out of the car."

I got the tablecloth and started to spread it on the picnic table, and Susan thought that I was not doing a good job and took it over.

She got the cloth situated on, and put a purple glass vase with wild flowers in it at one end of the table.

"Isn't that pretty?" Susan said.

"Lee found it in one of those closets you ripped out in the dining room."

"Who picked the flowers?" I said.

"Lee," Susan said.

"There's a whole sea of them down there."

She nodded toward the stream at the foot of the property, where the woods began.

I looked at Farrell. He shrugged.

"I'm gay," he said.

"Whaddya want?"

"What next," I said.

"A lavender gun?"

Susan put a large takeout bag on the table and began to distribute food.

"Turkey, lettuce, tomato with sweet mustard on fresh whole wheat bread," she said.

"There's a nice little sandwich shop in town. And some bread and butter pickles, and some spring water.

Does anyone want beer? Or some wine?"

"Rip-out guys don't do wine," I said.

Farrell grinned.

"Whoops," he said.

I settled for spring water, hoping not to sever a limb with the Sawzall, and Lee did the same. Susan had a Diet Coke, warm.

Farrell stared at it.

"Diet Coke? Warm?"

"I hate cold things," Susan said.

"People clean battery terminals with warm Diet Coke," Farrell said.

"That's their privilege," Susan said and drank some.

"You working on that thing up in Port City?" Lee said.

"Yes."

Pearl the Wonder Dog came loping up through the stand of wild flowers, jumped effortlessly up onto the table, poked her nose into the takeout bag, and held the point, her tail wagging like the vibrations of a tuning fork.

"She appears to have bayed the sandwiches," Farrell said.

"Get down," Susan said forcefully, and Pearl turned and lapped her face vigorously. I reached across and picked her up and put her on the ground and gave her half my sandwich.

"Isn't that rewarding inappropriate behavior?" Farrell said.

"Yes," I said and gave her the other half of my sandwich and rummaged in the bag for a new one.

Farrell turned and gazed at the house.

"This is a hell of a project," he said.

"Also long-range," I said.

"You going to move in together when it's done."

Susan and I said "No" simultaneously.

Farrell grinned.

"Okay, we're clear on that. You got a plan?"

Susan looked at me. I shrugged.

"Outside," Susan said.

"My plan is to cut almost everything down and start over."

"Inside," I said, "I plan to rip nearly everything out and start over."

"But no vision of what it will look like when it's done?"

"Step at a time," I said.

"Part of stripping it down is learning about it. You get to know the house, and when it's stripped back to the essentials, it will sort of tell you what to do next."

"Like an investigation," Farrell said.

"Very much like that," I said.

"Except the house doesn't lie to you."

"Are they lying to you up in Port City?" Susan said.

"Yeah. Did you tell me that Sampson went to school on the GI Bill?"

"Yes."

"So he was in the military?"

"Yes."

"He told you that?"

"Yes, and showed me pictures of himself, in uniform, in front of some kind of bunkery thing. Why?"

"DeSpain says the FBI has no record of his prints."

"But if he was in the army…" Susan said.

"Yeah. They should have them."

"I should be able to run that down for you," Farrell said.

"Take a while."

"I'd appreciate it," I said.

Farrell nodded. Pearl had moved under the picnic table and was resting her head on Farrell's leg. He looked down at her and broke off a small portion of his sandwich and fed it to her.

"What do you do about people who don't like having your dog in their lap when they come to visit?" Farrell said.

"We assume there is something wrong with them," Susan said.

"And we try to help them."

CHAPTER 17

I met Herman Leong in a diner on South Street. He was a short guy with horn-rimmed glasses, a thick neck, and a close crewcut.

His eyes were humorous. He wore a buttoned-up tan sweater under a black suit. When I joined him at the counter, he was eating pancakes. I ordered coffee.