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who were standing there. They seemed to know her pretty well. I wondered if any of them were clients of hers but decided they weren’t because nobody paid any attention to the dogs.
    The cop asked me how I knew to come into this neighborhood. I told him that it was all up to the utility companies.
    â€œThey have this graffiti hotline,” I said. “I guess people around here call in a lot.”
    The cop didn’t say anything except, “You can go.”
    I got on my bike. I glanced back, looking for the girl. I didn’t see her, but there was the cop, staring at me as if he were trying to decide whether to arrest me. I felt like pedaling as fast as I could to get away from there. But that would probably make him suspicious, and I didn’t want that. I sure was glad that my next stop was two streets away.

chapter seven
    I calmed down a little once I was away from the cops. I concentrated on what I was supposed to be doing. I copied down the graffiti that I found. And after a while, I started to notice something new. I found different initials in different places, but no matter what the initials were, the style was always the same. Maybe I was wrong—I’m no expert. But I do have a good eye. And what my eye was telling me was that a lot of what I was finding, including the neongraffiti, looked like it had been done by the same person.
    Finally, I took a break for lunch. One good thing about the neighborhood where I was working was that there were little parks everywhere. There must have been six or seven. None of them were big. A couple of them had swings and slides for little kids. One of them had a sandbox with a lot of toys in it. That made me stop and stare. If anyone left toys in a sandbox in my neighborhood, they’d be gone before you knew it. A couple of other parks just had a few benches. In one park, I saw old people feeding the birds. In another one, I saw dog owners letting their dogs fool around.
    I chose a quiet park and sat on a bench to eat. While I munched my sandwich, I glanced around. Someone was sitting with her back to me on a bench at the other end of the park. I didn’t realize at first who it was. In fact I don’t think I would have realized at all if it hadn’t been for Buster.
    He was off his leash and was frisking around, chasing a squirrel one minute,sniffing the base of a water fountain the next and racing in circles around the bench right after that.
    That’s when the girl turned. She said, “Buster, sit.”
    Buster raced around the bench again. He didn’t stop until the girl unzipped her backpack and reached inside. Then all of a sudden he plunked his butt down on the ground and watched her, his ears pricked up like little sails.
    â€œGood boy,” the girl said. “Lie down.”
    Buster hesitated.
    â€œLie down,” the girl said again, firmly but patiently.
    Buster dropped his front end down onto the grass in front of the bench.
    She popped a treat into Buster’s mouth.
    Buster stayed put.
    Then the girl saw me watching her. She turned away like I was poison, even though I had caught Buster for her that time.
    I got up, dropped my sandwich bag into a garbage can and walked over to her.
    I guess I startled her because she dropped the paper she was holding. I was going to pick it up for her, but she snatched it from the ground first. It looked like a letter. I guessed it was personal.
    â€œHi,” I said.
    She just stared at me.
    â€œI saw you this morning talking to those people,” I said. “I heard what happened to that woman.”
    â€œYou
heard
?” she said.
    She was acting like she was mad at me for something. But I hadn’t done anything.
    â€œI heard someone say her place was broken into. I heard a couple of women talking about getting better security. One of them said her husband just puts up security stickers. He thinks that will protect his house.”
    â€œYeah?” she said,