Bertha doesn’t smile when she hands me my pass. Chief Beaumont isn’t smiling, either. “Vandals struck again,” he says. His mouth is a straight ruler. A rigid strip. His shirt wet under the armpits. The sweet-sour tang of sweat fills my nose, and I wonder if I’m smelling his sweat . . . or mine. “Solar lights along certain driveways destroyed,” he says. Certain driveways? I wait, trying to decipher his code. “Ripped out of the ground and broken in half. Malicious mischief. Someone with an axe to grind.” Code cracked. He thinks I did it. “I didn’t do it—honest.” “Don’t think you did, Sam, but others . . .” “Oh. Because I’m an outsider.” “Explained to everyone affected that you wouldn’t jeopardize your job that way. . . .” He pauses. “But the vandalism occurred along the route you take, and . . .” Another pause. Is he telling me he’s firing me? “Justin’s father was so angry when he learned how Justin was acting with you, he’s making him walk Bruno every day.”
