“No.”
He smiled. It was the uncomplicated, generous smile of a child whose small problem has been solved, and it was worth every minute of the five-twenty alarm.
Karen handed me a coffee when I walked into the office.
“Neighbor problem resolved?” she said.
“Very.”
She looked at me over her mug. “Legally?”
“Specifically and entirely legally,” I said.
She nodded. “Good.”
I thought that was the end of it.
It was not, of course, the end of it.
Denise knocked on our door that evening at six forty-five.
Mark answered, because I was in the kitchen and he got there first, and he opened the door with the open-faced, pleasant expression of a man who has no reason to expect that the person on the other side is angry with his wife.
Denise said, “I need to speak to your wife.”
Mark turned and looked at me.
“What happened?” he said.
