The sun shines through heavy canopies, painting dapples of light and shadow that reshape themselves like clouds. The wind blusters, ruffling leaves, shaking them like pompoms, and creosote-stained utility poles with sagging black power lines make me lonely for music. The faces of old homes we pass are tired, and New England pines and hardwoods grow chaotically, the earth a thick compost of tangled vines, dead weeds and rotting leaves.

Buildings are paint-peeled. They lean and sag. I’ll never understand why scarcely anyone seems to care about how run-down and unhappy everything looks. Few Concord residents bother with landscaping or grass, and nothing is gated or fenced-in except Lucy’s estate. Dogs and cats wander at will and I have to look out for them when I drive here. In general that’s once or twice a month for dinner, brunch, a hike, or if Benton is out of town I might spend the night in the guest suite Lucy designed and furnished for me.

Up ahead a green snake as bright as an emerald is stretched out on a sunny patch of pavement, its head raised, feeling the vibrations of our approach. I slow down as it begins to undulate across the road, vanishing into the greenness of dense summer foliage. I speed up. Then I slow down for a squirrel, a plump gray one that stands on his hind legs, its whiskers twitching as if it’s scolding me before scampering off.

Next I come to a complete stop to let a panel-sided station wagon pass. It stops too and for an instant we’re at a stalemate. But I’m not backing up. I can’t possibly. It inches past with difficulty. I feel the driver’s unhappy stare.

“I think you’ve just ruined everybody’s day around here,” Marino says. “They’re wondering who got murdered.”

“Let’s hope the answer to that is nobody.” I glance at my phone for another text from Lucy’s ICE line, but there isn’t one as I continue along the road, the road that leads to her, the road I know so well and have come to hate.

Grass and weeds are chest-high up to the edge of the pavement, and heavy tree branches hang low, making visibility even worse. There are few streetlights, and more often than not when I show up I find some poor creature in harm’s way. I always stop. I’ll hurry along a turtle, picking it up if need be and setting it safely in the woods. I routinely watch for rabbits, foxes, deer, escaped ornamental chickens.