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on.
    “And they did it right away because they wanted to get it done,” I added, “get the worst over right off the bat so there’d be nothing else for anyone to complain about.”
    This I’d gleaned from talking to the fellow who’d held the radio controller. After running around forewarning the Water Street shop owners, all the crew wanted was to get the deed done before word spread any further. A crowd of onlookers would have spoiled their shot, and they hadn’t noticed Ellie and me when they were putting up the sawhorses or they’d have shooed us out of the area, too.
    “I wish Harriet
were
still here,” Ellie fretted. “She’d have plenty to say about setting off a bomb downtown.”
    “Harriet never minced words,” I agreed distractedly. Then: “Ellie, what’s so different about this house?”
    The porch leaned drunkenly, one end on concrete blocks and the other on a tree stump. The steps were a death trap promising a broken ankle or worse. The windows sagged, the walls bowed, and the roof resembled the aftermath of a major hurricane.
    All that, though, was normal, as were the heaps of rusting scrap metal, old plastic toys, and boxes of magazines poking from the tangled weeds. What puzzled me was what was missing. There’d been something else in the yard and it was gone now. But I couldn’t quite remember . . .
    “Hello.” A man’s voice came from behind me; I jumped about a foot just as I realized what the absent element was.
    The “for sale” sign was gone.
    “Sorry if I startled you.” Then he saw my face, more of a shambles than the house. “Are you okay? Can I get you a glass of water or something?”
    He was mid-fiftyish or a little older, attractive in an ordinary-guy way, with crinkled brown eyes and greying hair clipped short. He held a box brimming with old kitchen stuff in both work-gloved hands.
    “I’m fine,” I replied, ignoring Ellie’s glance, so full of unspoken Maine twang it could practically have tied itself in a knot. “Had a little accident earlier, that’s all.”
    “Sorry to hear that. Well, I’m Harry Markle. From New York. I just bought this old place from the bank.”
    He grinned, showing white, well-kept teeth. “Guess I’ve got my hands full. Getting it back in shape’ll keep me busy a while.”
    I smiled in return; this guy had no idea how busy he was about to be. Just not drowning in his bed when it rained would be a project, by the looks of that roof.
    I got my wits together, or what was left of them after a concussion and a bomb blast. “I’m Jacobia Tiptree,” I recited, “I live over there in that big old white house. This is my friend Ellie White. Welcome to Eastport.”
    “Thanks.” His handshake was papery-dry despite the glove he pulled off. And minutes earlier he’d heard a blast that must’ve suggested nuclear attack.
    But no comment came from Harry Markle. A cool newcomer, I diagnosed. He went on enthusiastically.
    “Wonderful town. I’d been moving around all over the country for a year or so. But when I got here I just fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. And with the house.”
    I understood; it had happened that way to me. You may cross the long causeway that leads here from the mainland meaning only to spend a few hours sight-seeing, but unless you hightail it back before Eastport captures you, you can end up here for life.
    “So what’ll you do here, Mr. Markle?” I asked.
    Besides keeping his house from falling in on him, I meant. He shrugged. “Make it Harry. I’ve got a feeling folks don’t stand on ceremony, this far downeast.”
    “You’ve got that right.” But he hadn’t answered my question.
    So I said nothing, which is a little-known but tremendously effective method of getting other people to say things, instead. Seeing that I was still waiting, Harry continued, “I guess first I’ll clear out more living space, set up some sort of work area, a place I could get a few things done from.”
    Again, not