“Last night you told me you were fixing his plumbing on Maple Street,” I said.

“I handle family business the way I see fit,” Bob said, his voice dropping into a tight, hard, flat tone.

“If you can’t trust your own husband after seven years, Penelope, then we’ve got bigger problems.”

He opened the driver’s door and pulled his coat snug across his chest.

“Don’t wait up past six thirty,” he said through the open window.

The sedan reversed out of the gravel alley before I could step down off the dock.