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until the jeers of his classmates, who noticed the change in his physiology and accurately deduced the cause, forced Martin to abandon the attempt. Hats,it turned out, were Martin’s most effective means of concealing his ears, and therefore he wore them often, as he did on this day.
    In addition to the change of hats, Martin had also removed his blue button-down work shirt, stuffing it into his backpack and revealing a yellow and black long-sleeved cycling jersey beneath. A pair of mirrored sunglasses had been added to cover his clear blue eyes, and once he had mounted his bike, an aerodynamic helmet had been planted atop the Cardinals cap to complete the image.
    Today Martin’s path would take him west around the duck pond, following the paved path onto the bridge by the picturesque Mill Pond Waterfall. Many a couple, dressed in pale gown and tuxedo, had stood on that bridge overlooking the falls, unwittingly beginning their divorce proceedings with the simple phrase “I do.” From the bridge, Martin would leave the path, pedaling across a soccer field out to Willard Avenue, where he would double back to his car, parked at the foot of the falls.
    This was just one of the many routes that Martin could take to his car, and the parking lot at the foot of the waterfall was just one of many locations to leave the Subaru. Martin could also have parked in the lot on Brookdale Avenue, adjacent to the tennis courts; at the public library on the opposite end of the park; at the Newington Town Hall (across the street from the library); or at the CVS pharmacy, a half mile up Garfield Street. If Martin wanted to bike slightly farther (and he often did), then all of Main Street opened up to him, offering him an almost limitless number of spaces in which to park his vehicle. Today Martin had chosen the parking lot at the base of the waterfall because it was one of the closer places available to him, and the weatherman on Channel Four, a professorial-looking man of at least two chins, had warned of the possibility of rain later that morning. Though Martin often chose his parking spot randomly as well(there was always a die in Martin’s pocket), he didn’t want to be stuck with a three-mile ride through the center of town during a torrential downpour. To anyone who looked out their shopwindow at the right moment or drove by in their car, this would have been a memorable sight indeed.
    Arriving at his car, Martin popped open the hatch and began to unload his newly acquired items into the back of the station wagon. A large cardboard box containing several empty grocery bags from the local Foodmart was sitting beside a Stanley toolbox and a case of bottled water. Martin transferred his newly acquired items from his backpack to the plastic grocery bags, much the same way as a bagger might do in a supermarket (keeping the canned goods together in one bag and items like soap and butter in another), and then neatly packed the three bags that he had filled into the cardboard box. His hope was that if he were ever pulled over by the police for any reason, it would appear that he was returning home after grocery shopping and not from a visit to one of his client’s homes.
    Martin then took a quick look around to be sure that no one was watching, and after he was certain that he was alone in the parking lot, he reached under the left rear bumper of his car and removed a small magnetic box that had been attached to the metallic underside of the Subaru. Into this box, which was designed to hide an extra key (the lid was actually imprinted with the words “Hide-a-Key”), Martin placed Sophie Pearl’s diamond earring, sliding the box shut before returning it to its original position underneath the bumper. If Martin was ever pulled over on suspicion of burglary, the police would find it difficult, if not impossible, to locate the diamond.
    Attaching his bike to the rack atop the Outback, Martin tossed his backpack, now nearly empty, into the