“Using it improperly? We turn it on, stand in there, and shower. If there’s a wrong way to do that, we haven’t figured it out yet.”

Greenway shook his head, suggesting I didn’t understand. “Pretty long showers?” he asked. “I seem to recall you saying you have teenagers? You know how they can be, letting the water run and run and run.”

“Look,” I said, starting to bristle, “I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Water’s leaking out and wrecking the ceiling in the kitchen. And I think you guys should do something about it. This isn’t the first time we’ve had a problem, you know, and I don’t exactly think we’re the only ones in the neighborhood who’ve been having problems.” I thought of Earl, whose windows were often fogged up with condensation. I’d been meaning to ask whether he’d launched a complaint of his own. “My neighbor across the street, for example, all his windows, they’ve got moisture or something trapped between the panes, you can’t see through them, and—”

“I don’t have to listen to this. By your own admission, you’ve acknowledged that your teenagers are running that shower virtually twenty-four hours a day, so it’s no wonder some water may have spilled over the sill and that’s why you’re having the problem you’ve described.”

“By my own admission? I never said that. You just said that. What’s the deal here?”

Greenway’s cheeks were starting to get red, and a vein in his forehead was swelling. He was raising a finger to me, about to say something else, when he saw someone over my shoulder coming through the front doors. Now the finger was moving away from me and pointing to the newcomer.

“You get the hell out of here!” Greenway said.

I whirled around to see who he was talking to. I recognized him instantly as Samuel Spender, still dressed in his jeans and hiking boots, but this time wearing a white cotton shirt. He glared angrily at Greenway.

“I know what you’re up to, you son of a bitch,” Spender said. “You think you can buy them off but you can’t.”

“Get out! Get the hell out!”

Stef, the receptionist, was on her feet. “Mr. Spender, I’m going to have to ask you to leave or we’ll have to call the police.”

“Go ahead and call them,” Spender said. “I got lots to tell them.”

“You have nothing but rumor and lies,” Greenway spat at him. The vein on his forehead was a garden hose now, ready to blow. “You’re out to ruin people’s jobs, to end their livelihoods, to save a few fucking tadpoles, you fucking moron.”

“It’s salamanders, not tadpoles, you jackass, but you wouldn’t give a shit either way, would you?”