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Can’t you buy into that, Ben?”
    I could; on that she had my sympathy, because when my cousin Renny was killed, everyone said he was a smuggler. I knew he wasn’t—just knew it. I told her, “I charge New York rates.”
    Janey said, “I hear twenty-five an hour is the going rate for private investigators in Connecticut. I’ll go thirty-five so you’ll concentrate.”
    â€œSeventy-five.”
    â€œBut this is local.”
    Our negotiation was no contest. Janey had learned business tactics managing Hopkins Septic, while I’d been taught by M&A specialists who regarded their mothers as bargaining chips.
    â€œNaval Intelligence and jail weren’t local. Call me when you make up your mind.”
    â€œAll right,” said Janey. “Seventy-five.”
    â€œTerrific.” I offered my hand. We shook, and I took a clean notepad from my desk.
    â€œWho are his friends these days?”
    â€œSame as always,” said Janey. “I moved to Plainfield; he got the friends.”
    I refrained from reminding her she’d gotten the house and the kids. “Was he dating anybody?”
    A look of profound distaste twisted her mouth like a dried leaf. “No one I knew.”
    I raised an inquiring brow, wondering why she seemed to care so much. She said, “Why don’t you go talk to his AA sponsor? He’ll tell you Reg was clean.”
    I told her I just might do that. She didn’t know the sponsor’s name—hardly surprising, as the second A stands for “Anonymous.”
    â€œYou know how they stick together,” she said with a trace of bitterness.
    She gave me a check for a retainer. A hundred and fifty bucks. Two hours. She seemed surprised I didn’t want more. But I figured that two hours was plenty of time to locate someone who’d seen Reg bombed on Saturday night.
    I might even find somebody he’d shared his dope with, as he was a generous guy.
    ***
    It wouldn’t be right to inquire about Reg’s sponsor from any AA friend who had confided in me. But thanks to a revealing slip of the tongue at a recent Planning and Zoning Commission hearing, I knew a source I could legitimately tap.
    A woman new to town, who was applying for a variance to site a swimming pool too close to her neighbor, had requested that the commissioners stand up and introduce themselves.
    Rick Bowland was the first to rise. His mustache was trimmer than a midshipman’s salute, but he smoothed it anyway and straightened his necktie. “I’m Rick Bowland. I’m new in town too. I moved to Newbury two years ago this July with my wife, Georgia. We live on Mine Ore Road and I commute to IBM headquarters at Southbury.”
    Ted Barrett kept it short. “Theodore Barrett. I teach shop at the high school.” But as his laser-blue eyes and dazzling smile embraced her, the swimming pool lady’s knees appeared to go weak.
    I glanced at Susan, Ted’s platinum-blond goddess of a wife, who was sitting beside me in the audience. Her smile was serene: Ted was Susan’s and Susan was Ted’s, and woe to anyone who tried to get between them.
    Then came the slip. Eddie Singleton stood up and said, “I’m Eddie and I’m an alcohol—Oh.”
    Poor Eddie went red to his hairline. There was some embarrassed laughter, and a number of people found that the ceiling required their attention. At last Eddie shrugged, and, recovering nicely with a smile, said, “I’m also Edward Singleton, who owns the Smoke Shop on Church Hill Road.”
    So I walked down Church Hill to the Smoke Shop—a combination tobacconist and magazine stand—and browsed the racks until a high-school dropout paid for Car & Driver and left us alone. I brought my own Car & Driver to the cash register, but before Eddie could say hello, a UPS driver came in with a delivery and bought a Connecticut lottery ticket. Then, as he was going out, in