“Very opinionated—" Foster Hanlon said.
Jane nudged Shelley with her knee to keep her from exploding.
“—and unwilling to listen to other views," Hanlon went on. "In fact, I had rather strong words with him over his proposal to put in bicycle lanes. He felt strongly about it, of course, but was blind to the fact that it would have been terribly expensive to widen the roads and repave them. It would have meant condemning a few feet of property along the entire length of the routes he proposed. The way the city code is drawn up in regard to benefit districts, it would have raised taxes so that the very people who were losing their land would have ended up paying for the loss.”
Shelley said, "I presume this street was one of the ones he wanted to widen."
“Yes, but that's not the point!" he said defensively.
“He lost that battle, didn't he?" Jane said.
This soothed Hanlon. "Yes, I'm glad to say he did. But I believe it was only a temporary setback. He would have brought it up again, I feel certain. Do you know, I heard he was planning to propose that the city council be increased in number and was going to try to get some of his adherents on. Sort of like" — he lowered his voice as if uttering an obscenity—"Roosevelt trying to pack the Supreme Court."
“How interesting," Jane said. "Where did you hear that?”
He replied warily. "I don't recall exactly. Several people mentioned it to me.”
Jane had a sudden bizarre vision of groups of neighbors holding secret meetings in a deserted farmhouse at night to think up false rumors to pass along to Foster Hanlon just to drive him crazy. Driving dark cars and wearing trenchcoats. Meeting by candlelight with the windows covered. Speaking in whispers. The image tickled her and she couldn't help but smile.
Hanlon glared at her. "You find this amusing?"
“No, no. I'm sorry. I was thinking about something else entirely," Jane said. "So you didn't come to the deli opening with Mr. Stonecipher?"
“No, I didn't." He kept glancing at his watch nervously, hoping for someone to rescue him, Jane assumed.
“Why did you go at all?" Shelley asked. He drew himself up. "It was, I believe, a public event. I was as entitled to come as anyone else."
“Of course. But why did you want to go?" Shelley persisted.
“To see if the zoning regulations and health codes were being observed," he said. He seemed proud, rather than ashamed, of him‑ self. "This dreadful intrusion of a retail business in a residential neighborhood could be catastrophic to our property values. Yours and mine! And they're not even respectable people."
“Who's not respectable? What do you mean by that," Jane said, her amusement fading.
“The Bakers. They're hippies. That's what I mean. Oh, yes. They started out here, but they didn't absorb any of the family values of the community."
“Excuse me?" Shelley said.
Anybody else would have backed off at her tone, but Hanlon plowed on. "They're just fly-by-nights. No permanent home until they came here. You mark my words, they'll soon trash that place and trash the whole neighborhood. Pretty soon they'll start hiring blacks and Mexicans and—”
Shelley suddenly stood up and headed for the front door. "I'm sorry, Jane. This is all I can take.”
Jane was right behind her, with Hanlon bringing up the rear, making insincere remarks of gratitude for the lift home mixed up with further warnings about property values and the shortsightedness of people who made no effort to protect their investments.
The two women leaped into the van and sped off.
“I feel like I need to soak in a vat of disinfectant," Shelley said when she pulled into her driveway. "I've already thought of at least sixteen really nasty things to say to him and I'd like to drive straight back there and say them all."
“And none of them would make the slightest difference," Jane said sadly.
“No. A bigot is a bigot is a bigot. Ugh! What a thoroughly, bone-deep nasty person he is. Why did you make us do that?"
“To see if we could learn anything, of course."
“Did we?" Shelley asked with disgust. "Anything we wanted to know?”
Jane thought for a minute. "Only that he wasn't great chums with Stonecipher—"
“The man's never been chums with anyone. Who could stand him for more than five minutes?"
“—and that he didn't seem to know who Emma Weyrich was.”
Shelley waved this away, still furious. "Come on, Jane, if you thought you could get away with pretending you didn't even know her, wouldn't you? Not you, of course, but if you were he?"
“That's a hideous thought. Being him," Jane said.
1 5
Shelley arrived at six-thirty for her ride in Mike's truck. Mike had to show them how everything worked, as if they weren't capable of figuring it out themselves. "Where are we going?" Shelley asked when they pulled out of the driveway.
“There are a couple houses over in the fancy new subdivision just to the west open today. If it's not too late, I thought we might go gawk," Jane replied.
“Thinking of moving?" Shelley asked with a laugh.
“No way on earth. But I like to torture myself with the idea of clean closets and new kitchens. No, the only way I'd leave my house is on a gurney. You know, I cleaned out the upstairs hall closet last week. Took every single thing out, threw half of it away, and the half I kept wouldn't fit back in. What bizarre law of physics makes closets that way?"
“I don't know. But I've experienced it myself. Things seem to fluff up just by being taken out and handled. Somebody's probably got a million-dollar government grant to study it as we speak.”
They stopped at a light, and a car full of teenagers pulled up next to them, admiring the truck and laughing hysterically at the incongruity of the middle-aged passengers. "Feel a little silly?" Shelley asked Jane.
“Wait until we get to the show house and the realtor runs around turning off lights and locking the doors," Jane said with a grin.
They were too late and doors were already locked and lights off when they arrived, so they contented themselves with driving around looking at the outsides of the new homes and imagining what wonders might be within.
“I've been thinking all afternoon about that old jerk Hanlon," Shelley confessed as they stopped in front of an enormous house with elaborate landscaping. "Imagine still holding a grudge against Roosevelt more than half a century later. That's world-class rancor. I want to know what you were grinning about like a Cheshire cat while he was ranting.”
Jane told her about her vision of neighbors meeting to think up rumors to upset him. "An abandoned hunting lodge, way out in the country, I think," she said, giggling.
Shelley laughed. "A special knock and a password. Like 'New Deal.' "
“ 'Long live the NRA,' " Jane suggested with a laugh.
“I hate to admit it, but as much as I'd like to see Foster Hanlon blamed for almost anything," Shelley said, "I can't believe he was responsible for Emma's death. Or even the business of pushing the rack over on Stonecipher. Both of those events were messy. And Hanlon's too fastidious to be involved in anything messy.”
Jane had been studying the lawn of the house they were parked in front of while Shelley talked. "And they both took a bit of strength. Not a lot, but he seems so frail. No, I think if he were going to kill someone, he'd just talk to them until they had a stroke out of sheer frustration."
“Interesting, though, that he made no bones about not liking Stonecipher."
“Oh, he speaks his mind, all right. I think he's so used to people being offended by what he says that it would never cross his mind that he might actually endanger himself with his opinions. Imagine going through life with people looking shocked or offended or edging away from you every time you expressed one of your opinions. Wouldn't you catch on eventually that your opinions were pretty nasty?"