Julian had put up tall privacy panels around the whole backyard, sudden and high, so you couldn’t see in from anywhere.

And then Mrs.

Harris lowered her voice, though there was no one to hear us, and told me the thing she’d seen the night before — the thing that turned the cold feeling in my stomach into something closer to panic.

“Last night, late,” she said, “I saw Julian carrying bags out to the backyard.

Big black trash bags, heavy ones, more than one.

And he threw them into the swimming pool.” She twisted her hands in her cardigan.