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days. Are you sure it’s necessary to switch phones so often?”
    “The police want to listen in to everything I say. I don’t think they need to hear what you and I talk about, do you?”
    “You have a point. But—all right, mostly I feel as if having a cell phone just makes it okay for people to be late.”
    He gave a disbelieving laugh. “What?”
    “If people make arrangements to meet me and they have cell phones, they always call to say they’ll be late. But when I don’t have a phone, everyone makes an effort to be on time.”
    “Nora, that’s—”
    “I’ll take it.” I began to tuck the phone into my handbag. “I know how you feel about constant communication. And you’re right about my sisters. Thank you for getting it for me.”
    Gently, he said, “It doesn’t work if you don’t turn it on, Nora.”
    “Oh, right. How do I do that again?”
    He took the phone back and showed me which button to push. I heard a beep and saw a light blink. Michael handed over the functioning phone, and I accepted it sheepishly.
    He said, “The guy collecting tickets wouldn’t take my money. So I parked up the road and walked in.”
    “You’re supposed to have an invitation.”
    “I don’t think it was my lack of an invitation that kept me out.”
    No, probably not. Most people took one look at Michael Abruzzo and figured he was the kind of goodfella who left severed horse heads in people’s beds.
    But not me. When we’d returned from our cruise, Michael had officially moved to Blackbird Farm to live with me. He brought most of his clothes and a couple of cartons of personal things that were gradually finding their rightful places in my house. His fishing rods cluttered my back porch, and his collection of surprisingly fine wines took up half the pantry. Along with his possessions, he brought a lot of laughter.
    Late at night when I returned from whatever party I was covering, he cooked supper for us, and we ate in the kitchen and spent a few hours entertaining each other before going upstairs to my bed—our bed now. That was the only domestic routine we’d established. As for the rest of his day, he kept his own hours and rarely told me where he went or what he did. I only hoped he abided by the law. He was neat in the bathroom, but the rest of the house had become one big playpen. He sang lustily on the staircase, sometimes knocked me into a sofa for impromptu lovemaking and had already broken the leg off a valuable chair just because he was six feet four inches of impulsive, active man.
    Sometimes it felt as if I were civilizing a wild animal. At other times I wondered how I’d ever lived without him.
    And yet, there were still things we hadn’t resolved.
    “I’m sorry about this morning,” I said, “but Libby’s kids—”
    “Forget it. You had your hands full. I should have been more helpful. But those twins? They creep me out. What’s the smell they’ve got going in the basement?”
    “Formaldehyde.”
    “Jesus. Who are they embalming?”
    I smiled. “Don’t worry. The neighbors are all accounted for.”
    He absorbed my smile and seemed to relax. “Nice place, this,” he said, casting his gaze along the landscaped property, the many cars parked in the lower field, the throngs of people entertaining among the tents and tables. “It’s somebody’s estate?”
    “The Devine family. They’re cousins of mine. My mother’s relatives, distantly.”
    “Lots of land, even for this neighborhood,” he noted.
    “It’s getting a little run-down. The previous caretaker took much more time keeping up appearances.”
    Michael turned and looked across the stream. “What’s behind the big fence?”
    “Fence?”
    He pointed. “Through the trees there. It’s, like, twenty feet high.”
    “I have no idea. Maybe it keeps the deer out.”
    “Looks more like a fence to keep things in, not out.”
    Michael knew about such fences, of course. As a teenager, he’d gone to jail for stealing