Spender, who was predeceased by his wife Linda in 1993, leaves two sons: Mark, 28, of Seattle, and Matthew, 25, of Calgary. Funeral arrangements were not available at press time.
And that was it, except for a picture of Spender, a file photo taken by a Suburban photographer that had run with a feature on the man when he was still alive, and a headshot of Councilman Roger Carpington, a balding, round-cheeked individual with thick glasses. Spender was shown standing at the edge of the creek where I’d found him.
Clearly, the police hadn’t disclosed to the local reporter the name of the person who’d found Samuel Spender’s body. Surely I would have gotten a phone call if they had. I found it interesting that Don Greenway had been sought out for a comment. You’d never know, from the way he’d been quoted, that he and Spender were on such bad terms.
Did Greenway have something to do with it? And what about this other guy quoted in the story, Roger Carpington? He’d been one of two people Greenway had wanted to talk to after his fight with Spender. What was that about? Was Carpington supposed to do something about Spender? Did my local councilman moonlight as a hired killer? And what about-
“Okay,” I said, sitting at my desk. “Enough. Write your fucking science fiction book.”
When I wasn’t thinking about Spender, I was thinking about Earl. I didn’t want Paul getting any more gardening advice from across the street. The day the drug cops did finally swoop down on him, I didn’t want Paul in his company. Not that Paul couldn’t learn a lot from Earl. Judging by the fact that those basement plants of his were thriving, he did have the magic touch. And the thing was, it was hard to believe Earl was all bad. He had, after all, helped focus Paul’s interest in gardening and landscaping.
I was hoping things would work themselves out without my doing anything, that if Earl was going to get caught, it would be someone else who turned him in, someone else who spotted something suspicious, like his fogged-up windows and the constant hum of ventilation fans.
Someone like Trixie, maybe. How would she feel, knowing something like this was going on across the street? I wondered if she already knew, had any inkling. Her house, after all, was directly across from Earl’s. Every time she looked out her window, she saw his place. Maybe she’d seen something, noticed him backing into the garage late at night, loading up his truck, heading off for a delivery. This couldn’t be good if you were in the accounting business, meeting with clients all the time, having an illegal pot operation going on a stone’s throw away.
It wasn’t just the nature of Earl’s business that had me worried, or that he had a gun and might use it if necessary. I’d seen stories in The Metropolitan about basement marijuana operations and the massive amounts of electricity they consumed. Earl had mentioned he’d had to do some rewiring, so as not to arouse the suspicions of the utilities people. Which meant that his place was probably a fire waiting to happen.
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.