By the time I finished my exercises and started to jog up Belmont it was past eleven. The heels of my running shoes were so worn down that I had to move slowly on concrete to save my knees. The sides had frayed, too, and weren’t giving my ankles good support. Someone who runs as much as I do should buy a new pair every four months. These had gone seven and I was trying to stretch them to nine. My share of Peppy’s vet bills had eaten away my spring discretionary money; I just didn’t have ninety bucks to spare for a new pair of Nikes.

Most of the people I’d gone to law school with would have been at work for three hours or more by now. And most of them, as Freeman Carter had implied last night, didn’t have to defer a new pair of Nikes because their stupid neighbor let the dog off the leash while she was in heat.

I stopped in front of Mrs. Frizell’s house to frown at the cause of my financial woes. The black Lab and the earmuff had been in back, whining and scratching at the door, but when they heard me they raced to the front to bark at me. Inside the house I could see two other noses push underneath the ratty shade to join in the barking.

“Why don’t you do something useful?” I scolded the Lab. “Get a job, do something to support the family you started. Or go steal me a pair of running shoes from Todd Pichea over there.”

Pichea was the lawyer who wanted the neighborhood improvement association to take Mrs. Frizell to court. His frame house had been restored to a state of immaculate Victoriana, painted an eggshell tan with scalloped trim in bright reds and greens. And the yard, with its early-flowering shrubs and tightly manicured turf, enhanced the raffishness of Mrs. Frizell’s weed bin. It was only perversity that made me prefer the old woman’s place.

The Lab wagged his tail in genial agreement, barked at me a few times, and returned to the back. The earmuff followed. I wondered idly where Mrs. Frizell was; I’d half expected her to appear behind the noses in the front window, shaking an angry fist at me.

I did my five miles to the harbor and back and forgot about the woman and her dogs. In the afternoon I forced myself to do some routine assignments for regular clients. Daraugh Graham, my steadiest and best-paying customer, called at four-thirty. He wasn’t happy with the credentials of a man he wanted to promote. He wanted information on Clint Moss by the next afternoon, which made me grind my teeth—but quietly. Besides Peppy’s bills and new running shoes I had payments on the Trans Am and my apartment to keep up.