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so dark and slender, so precise in his movements, lithe and graceful and possessed of a mystery absent in Sam's bluster. She hadn't asked the keeper at the pound who his previous owner was or how he had ended up there because she thought it unfair to Wilkie to judge him on his upbringing. His good demeanor had spoken for him that day.

The two of them led her over the footbridge, past the green, and back onto the road again. The turning of the earth had brought the light of the sun into the tops of the trees now, and it cast long shadows across the pavement and the fronts of the houses whose east-facing windows shone with the white-and-orange flood. Another few minutes and they were back by the stone wall that ran between the road and Charlotte's front yard.

As they turned into the drive, Fanning's great, gaudy pretense came into view again.

Planks of the tree fort she and Henry used to play in had still been rotting up in the old sycamore by the river when they cut it down, a tree from whose branches her father had hung a swing that swung you out over the footpath high enough at times it seemed you could fly right into the water.

When she'd seen that intruder coming down the steps yesterday morning, the first thing she'd noticed was his suit, too slick by half. It fit him more like a diving outfit than a proper set of clothes. But then why should one expect anything discreet from such a person? That was not the logic of his kind. Theirs was the reign of endless display.

"The new place is mine," he'd said, shoving his car up beside her.

They would see about that.

In the breezeway, the dogs sat on their haunches, waiting. As she reached for the latch, Charlotte glanced down into Sam's face: the loose, moist folds of his jowls, the curtains of his ears, his eyes a dark vacuum.

Your town walls are fallen down, he said. But such is the descent of the devil at this day upon ourselves, that I may truly tell you, the walls of the whole world are broken down, such a gap made in them, that the very devils are broke in upon us. And what use ought we to make of so tremendous a dispensation? What use?

Chapter 3

Stuck behind a Volvo moving in slow motion through the center of Finden, Doug examined the suburban scorecard stacked up its rear window. According to the stickers, the driver or various members of her family had attended Andover, Stanford, Cornell, and Yale Medical School. When the woman came to a complete halt in front of the coffee shop and began chatting with a friend on the sidewalk, Doug leaned on his horn, wishing sorely it were the trigger of a cannon. The two women glared back at him in disdain.

For you I served, he thought. For you we killed. For this.

As he often did to calm his nerves at such moments, he dialed Mikey.

"So what's with the neighbor?" he asked him.

"I love you, Doug, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The place next door. Up on the hill. Turns out some old hag lives in there. She didn't exactly roll out the welcome mat."

"You mean Miss Charlotte Graves? Yeah. I've been meaning to call you about her. She's a problem."

"The way she's keeping that place, she must be violating some kind of ordinance, right? Some Keep Finden Beautiful shit? You should be able to find something to get her on."

"Trouble is - "

"She's just the type, isn't she? Trees, she said. And then walked off. Like I'm the first person ever to cut down woods to build a house in this town? Like her fucking ancestors didn't clear cut it three hundred years ago. I'll tell you something, Mikey, some days I wish I was a Russian gangster with twenty cousins and a stretch Hummer. Just to piss people like her off."

"I think you got that covered, my friend. But listen. When I say she's a problem I'm not kidding. She's filed a lawsuit against the town - saying she owns your land."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"My guy on the board of selectmen told me. She wrote the complaint herself. He says it reads like something out of the Old Testament. But she's pro se, so some judge'll have to give her a hearing and try to piece her shit together