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landings on the Baltic Coast. For all his heavy-handed flattery, I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure why he wanted me. That might be part of the fun. And I had a feeling if I opened the door without speaking, he’d up his offer.
    I opened the door.
    â€œFive thousand.”

Chapter 2
    The wildest thing my father ever did in his good and orderly life was marry my mother, Margot Chevalley—bastardized “Chevalier” in New England, where folks never needed black people to dump on because they already had the French.
    Centuries before the railroad, Newbury had a wrong side of the tracks, named Frenchtown. Mother’s people farmed outside of Frenchtown, on a hodgepodge of swamp and cold north slopes. After my father died she moved back to the farm, leaving me the big white Georgian house on Main Street, with the shingle out front, office in a glass porch, and a red barn in the back yard.
    Alex Rose, P.I., wrote a down-payment check for five thousand dollars and extended it with a flourish. “Sorry I can’t do this in cash.”
    â€œMakes no difference to me,” I said. “It’s going straight to the bank.”
    â€œMr. Long likes his paperwork.”
    He opened a leather shoulder bag he had brought in from his Mercedes and took out the camcorder. “Maybe you want to practice a little in the back yard, but it’s real simple. It’s got a little computer that adjusts for your hand shaking.”
    â€œWhy would I be shaking?”
    He answered me seriously, explaining that everyone’s hands shake and that when the Japanese made the camera so small it could be held in one hand, they discovered that they had to compensate for that one hand shaking. He demonstrated.
    â€œWhat’s that red light?”
    â€œIndicates you’re taping.”
    â€œI don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
    â€œSo you know it’s working.”
    â€œYou’ve indicated that you want me to shoot through a window at night, while hiding in the woods. Let’s assume that in the midst of entertaining her boyfriend, Mrs. Long glances at the window, perhaps to enjoy their reflection in the glass, and sees instead this little red light in the woods.”
    â€œOkay, I see what you mean. Put some tape over it.”
    â€œTerrific idea.” I was indeed loving this whole concept less and less. It seemed I’d gotten caught up in negotiating a price instead of questioning the deal—an old ’Eighties habit that apparently died hard.
    â€œYou know, I don’t get the point of this. New York and Connecticut are both shared-property states. What does Mr. Long get out of a video of his wife cheating on him? She still has the protection of equal distribution. She won’t lose it all for getting caught.”
    Rose looked superior and said, “Divorce law is a little more complicated than that, Mr. Abbott.”
    I was about to retort that realtors, who end up selling the debris of broken marriages, are intimately familiar with divorce law, but at that second a scrawny eleven-year-old with a shy, crooked-tooth grin darted into my office like a muskrat. “Mom wants to know if you’ll have supper with us tonight.”
    â€œTell your mom thank you very much. I would be delighted. And what can I bring? You come back and tell me. This is Mr. Rose, up from New York looking at houses. This is my neighbor, Alison Mealy.”
    Alison froze.
    I said, “Say hello to Mr. Rose and shake his hand.”
    Rose had the wit to extend his hand, and the child did her part. She saw his camera, and her eyes grew big. I handed it to her. “Go take some pictures of your mother cooking supper.”
    Rose blanched as his camera went out the door at a high rate of speed. He watched Alison run down the driveway.
    â€œShe’s taking it into the barn.”
    â€œShe lives there.”
    â€œYou rent it out?”
    I said yes, because it was