The time had come. Pencil in hand, notepad and coffee atop the mahogany desk where he sat with his eyes wide and his every nerve ending alive with possibility, he took a drink of coffee, and though it wasn’t very good—he suspected the Folgers can he’d discovered in the pantry was long past its prime—he could still feel it doing its work, surcharging him with energy, readying him for what he was about to do. He breathed deeply of the musty den and the fragrant spring air coming through the window, commingling scents that fused the best of both worlds, the realm of thought and the realm of nature. He exhaled, scooted under the desk. He stared at the paper. And wondered what to write. Julia walked to work in tears. She thought fleetingly of Watermere, of the new owner. Though both mind and body were numb, she was able to speculate about her new neighbor. She scanned her memory for the few details she could from her conversation with… (Ted Brand, his name was Ted Brand, the man you killed) …the lawyer, the fact that Paul Carver was in his thirties, had lived in Memphis until recently, and that he had a girlfriend, but no, they weren’t yet engaged.
