She had no trouble finding the path and hurried along keeping her eyes out for the ring of stones she’d discovered yesterday. She soon found it but there was no sign of a recent fire. Some animal, probably a raccoon, had spilled the coffee and eaten the doughnuts, leaving the ripped paper bag stuck in a bush. Discouraged, she picked up the trash and retraced her steps, heading for home. Somehow the morning hadn’t gone the way she had planned. Instead of a restorative half-hour with a cup of coffee and her own thoughts, she’d witnessed Fred Stanton’s arrest. If that wasn’t upsetting enough, she’d also discovered that Tommy and Preston were left to their own devices and would have to manage as best they could without either mother or father. She knew there was nothing she could do about it, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

When Lucy arrived at work an hour late, Ted was simultaneously talking on the phone, holding the receiver against his shoulder by crooking his neck, picking away at his keyboard with one hand, and waving a handful of papers at Phyllis with the other. Phyllis was also multi-tasking, talking on the phone while applying a fresh coat of Tropical Melon to her nails.

“About time you got here,” he muttered to Lucy, throwing the papers down on his desk.

“The cops arrested Fred Stanton,” she said. “I saw the whole thing.”

“That’s great,” he said, covering the mouthpiece. “You can write a first person account. Then I want you to cover…” He held up his hand, signaling that she should wait for him to continue, and spoke into the phone. “So when do you expect we will know the tax rate?” he asked. “What do you mean, not until October? The fiscal year began July 1, didn’t it?” He slapped his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to her, picking up where he had left off, “…the police press conference. It’s at ten. When you’re there you can ask them about the homeless guy—some of the fishermen found his body floating in the harbor early this morning.”

Lucy sat down hard in her chair. “I can’t believe it.”

“If you ask me, he was an accident waiting to happen,” said Phyllis. “Wandering around town half-drunk.”

“Did he drink?”

“All homeless people do, don’t they? That’s the reason they’re homeless.”

“I think that might be an oversimplification,” said Lucy, recalling the extremely neat campsite she had discovered in the woods. There hadn’t been a single liquor bottle.

“I guess some of them do drugs,” conceded Phyllis.

“Ah, ladies, I hate to interrupt this discussion but it’s almost ten.”