“If you think something happened,” Bucky said slowly, “you should call Andy.” Andy Umpleby was Elder Island’s chief of police. In the summertime, there were four meter maids to help him, plus two deputies, who shut down loud parties and pulled over drunk drivers and made the occasional drug bust. But in the off-season, Andy Umpleby was the only law enforcement on the Island.

“And say what?” Vaughn demanded. “I don’t have any evidence!” He lowered his voice. “Just a bad feeling.” In a dazed, almost wondering voice, Vaughn said, “I dreamed about him.”

“About Anheuser?”

Vaughn nodded, swallowing hard. “He was in the woods, and he was all…” Another gulp. “Torn. People were doing things to him.”

“It was just a dream.” Bucky patted the other man between his shoulder blades, then gripped his shoulder. “Just put out some of that Dinty Moore stew that Anheuser likes. He’ll come right home, I bet.”

“Sure,” said Vaughn, sighing as he pulled a black push-up bra out of the filter basket. “Sure.”

Elise Crooks had suffered from insomnia since she was a girl. For the last month, it was the Jenkinses’ Queen Victoria roses that were keeping her awake. She’d close her eyes and see the branches peeling off the wall, going rogue, even dying. She saw blossoms failing to unfurl; a litter of dead leaves and embryonic petals clogging the pool’s drains. She saw Janet Brandywine, that smug bitch, taking top honors in the Labor Day Garden Tour.

One night, after hours of tossing and turning, Elise made up her mind. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. She pictured the Jenkinses’ pool—the low fence, the hinges that Bucky Knight kept well oiled, so they wouldn’t make even the tiniest creak when they were opened. In two nights, the moon would be full, casting enough of a glow to see by, certainly to cut back a rosebush by. Elise lay in her narrow, maiden-aunt bed. A smile crept across her face. She’d wait for the full moon. She’d listen for the sounds of typing, and make sure the house was dark. She’d wear all-black; she’d bring her sharpest shears. She’d be done with her work before anyone ever saw her, leaving nothing but perfectly trimmed roses behind.

The next time Bucky saw him, Vaughn had just finished puking into the ditch by the side of the road, and looked ready to do it again. Vaughn had managed to pull his van mostly off the blacktop, and he’d put his flashers on, but the driver’s-side door was wide open, and Bucky could hear the radio blaring “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” over the sound of his friend dry-heaving in the bushes.

Bucky pulled his own truck onto the shoulder and climbed out of it, hurrying to help his friend.