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within its scaffolding of pins, painted a thin copper line across her lips for makeup, and aside from her wedding ring the only jewelry she generally wore was a pair of half-moon reading glasses tied around her neck with a length of athletic shoestring. Undressing her was an act of recklessness, a kind of vandalism, like releasing a zoo full of animals, or blowing up a dam.
    “I’m so glad to see you,” I told her, whispering into her ear as she stepped aside to let Crabtree and Miss Sloviak into the oaken foyer of her house. I had to whisper rather loudly because the dog, an Alaskan malamute named Doctor Dee, found amusement in greeting every one of my appearances in the Gaskells’ house, regardless of the circumstances, with an astonishing display of savage barking. Doctor Dee had been blinded in puppyhood by a brain fever, and his weird blue eyes had an unnerving tendency to light on you when his head was pointed in some other direction and you thought, or in my case hoped, that he had forgotten all about you. Sara always blamed the hostile reception I got on his fever-addled brain—he was a loony dog to begin with, an obsessive burrower, a compulsive arranger of sticks—but he had also been Walter’s dog before he was Sara’s, and I supposed that had something to do with his feelings about me.
    “Hush, now, Dee. Just ignore him, dear,” she told Miss Sloviak, taking the newcomer’s hand with the faintest glint of scientific curiosity in her eye. “And Terry, it’s nice to see you again. You look very dashing.”
    Sara was good at the handshaking part of her job and she appeared delighted by our arrival, but her gaze was a little unfocused, there was a tense pleat in her voice, and I saw at once that something was bothering her. As she leaned to accept a kiss from Crabtree, she took a false step and lurched suddenly forward. I reached out and caught her by the elbow.
    “Easy there,” I said, setting her back on her feet. One of the chief pleasures of the opening party of WordFest, at least for me, was the opportunity it afforded to catch a glimpse of Sara Gaskell in high-heeled shoes and a dress.
    “I’m so sorry,” she said, blushing all the way down to the backs of her freckled arms. “It’s these goddamned shoes. I don’t know how anyone can walk on these things.”
    “Practice,” said Miss Sloviak.
    “I need to talk to you,” I told Sara, under my breath. “Now.”
    “That’s funny,” said Sara, in her everyday, bantering tone. She didn’t look at me, but instead aimed a sardonic smile at Crabtree, whom she knew to be in on our secret. “I need to talk to you, too.”
    “I think he needs to talk to you more,” said Crabtree, handing her his coat and Miss Sloviak’s.
    “I doubt it,” said Sara. The dress—a fairly amorphous black rayon number with a boxy bodice and cap sleeves—rode up a little behind and clung to the fabric of her panty hose and as she clattered around the foyer, arms and throat bare, ankles wobbling, hair piled atop her head with the relative haphazardness she reserved for festive occasions, there was an awkward grandeur to her movements, an unconscious headlong career, that I found very appealing. Sara hadn’t the faintest idea of how she looked, or of what effect her deinotherian body might have on a man. Balanced atop those modest two-inch spikes of hers she projected a certain air of calculated daring, like one of those inverted skyscrapers you see from time to time, sixty-three stories of glass and light set down on a point of steel.
    “Tripp, what did you do to this dog?” said Crabtree. “He can’t seem to take his eyes off your larynx.”
    “He’s blind,” I said. “He can’t even see my larynx.”
    “I bet he knows how to find it, though.”
    “Oh, now, hush you, Doctor Dee,” said Sara. “Honestly.”
    Miss Sloviak looked uneasily at the dog, who had assumed his favorite stance, directly between me and Sara, teeth bared, paws planted,