The fall actually helped to dislodge his momentary panic. When he had walked past the fence in the backyard, maintaining a decent distance so as not to appear to be snooping, he saw everything working his way. DiForenza was on the back porch fiddling with what looked like an oversized telescope. Beaufort had walked up to the fence and called out.

Fifteen

The temperature was in the midsixties, chilly for early December in Arizona but balmy for the rest of the country, which was having recurrent blizzard conditions. The windows were open to let the place air out, so I heard the voices in the backyard. When I went to the door I saw Carlo standing at the back fence, talking to someone on the other side. The man was short in stature, though his head came nearly to the top of the metal railing on the fence. He was elderly by most standards. Another head barely cleared the concrete block base at the fence. Dog with floppy ears and big white eyebrows.

Bored with the skip trace I’d been working on, and lured by the fine day, I went out back to join them.

“This is Brigid,” Carlo started.

“Jerry,” the man said with a creamy southern accent.

He doffed his baseball cap. “And this here is Achilles,” the man continued in his good-old-boy voice.

“Ha, that’s a good one,” Carlo said.

The man looked at him as if he expected more without knowing why. Carlo read the look.

“You know, Achilles … Homer…”

The man stared some more.

“The Iliad … Achilles was killed with an arrow to his heel…” Nothing. “… and there’s your dog without a hind leg…” Carlo trailed off, giving up any further attempt at classical allusions.

Jerry laughed, trying to look like he got it.

“Is he a rescue?” I asked, to let the poor man off the hook.

Didn’t work. He gave me a blank look before saying, “No, I got him at the pound.”

Abandoning the topic of dogs altogether, Jerry gestured at the telescope. “That’s a big mother. Sorry, ma’am,” he said, doffing again.

“Carlo is the astronomer,” I said, resisting the urge to assure him I thought the scope was a big motherfucker, too. I’m trying to refine my sensibilities. “It’s all I can do to tell the difference between the Pleiades and a hole in the ground.”

Jerry chuckled appreciatively again as if he knew what I was talking about. Fairly smooth recovery for a guy who says “this here” and has never heard of an adopted animal being called a rescue. “That thing looks heavy,” he said. “It’s mighty impressive.”

“It’s not that heavy, really. If you detach the scope from the stand it’s only about sixty pounds,” Carlo said. He pointed to a square of flagstones close to the fence. “This pad I made?”

“You made that pad?” Jerry asked, and then whistled, “Hoo.”