She took a breath. “I figure, what with you being the only person I know who works in journalism, that maybe you could advise me on how to proceed.”

“How to proceed with what?”

“How to proceed with keeping some asshole from writing a story about me.”

“What asshole would that be?”

Trixie hauled her purse, a good-sized one, onto her lap and started rooting around. First, she pulled out a stack of mail and put it on our table so that she could better see what she had in there. “Just give me a minute,” she said. “I have a post office box, get as little mail as possible delivered to my home.” I noticed what looked like a Visa bill, possibly a property tax notice from the town of Oakwood, something from a car company labeled “Important: Recall Notice,” and a number of what appeared to be personal letters, none with return addresses.

I lightly thumbed them. “Fan mail?”

“Hmm?” Trixie said. “Oh, sometimes men write to me ahead of time, tell me what they want. They don’t want anything showing up in the ‘sent messages’ in their Outlook Express, if you know what I mean, in case the wife happens to read it.”

“Sure.”

She saw the recall envelope for, it seemed, the first time. “Oh shit, not another. Never buy a German luxury car, at least not a GF300. I thought the GF stood for ‘goes fast.’ Now I think it’s for ‘get fixed.’ It’s been recalled for the fuel injection, a power seat, cruise control glitches. Who’s got time to get all those things fixed? Open that, see what it’s for while I try to find this thing.”

I opened the envelope, pulled out the paperwork. “Let me see here. Uh, okay, you’ve got extra-sensitive air bag sensors. Slightest hit on the front bumper can set them—”

“Here it is.” Trixie slapped a newspaper clipping onto the table, then scooped all her mail back into the purse. I picked up the clipping. It was a column, with a guy’s head shot, and a name in bold caps: “MARTIN BENSON.”

The headline read, “Council Misses Boat on Harbor Review.”

“Something about the Oakwood harbor? What do you have to do with that?” I asked.

“Nothing. I don’t care about the story. I just wanted you to see who the asshole was.”

“Martin Benson.”

“Yeah.”

“What paper is this from?”

“The Suburban.”

Oakwood’s local, community newspaper. Light on news but heavy on inserted ads, it was delivered free to most of the town’s households.

“I don’t remember this guy from when we lived there,” I said. When we had a house in Oakwood, I’d at least turn the pages of the Suburban before dropping it into the recycling bin.

“He’s a new guy. Trying to make a name for himself. By fucking me over.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

“Okay, this Benson guy, he hears through the grapevine what kind of business I might be operating in my home.”