McMansion by Justin Scott

went down. Paid my bill and even sent some work my way. Why?”
    â€œI want to see where he stood with Billy.”
    Tim gave a big-shouldered shrug and said, “He struck me as a guy who would rather just move on.”
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œMeaning that even if Ira’s client didn’t murder Billy, this guy would still not be a legitimate suspect.”
    â€œYou mind if I tell him we talked?”
    Tim shot me the kind of look you can only shoot at an old friend. “If you were going to talk to him anyhow why didn’t you just drive out there instead of bothering me?”
    â€œBecause he put up a huge iron gate and I can’t see the house from the road and he’s got an unlisted telephone number.”
    Tim shook his head and said softly, “Goddamned Billy. He had no idea how he hurt the guy.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I asked. It wasn’t the first time I had found Tim to be a touch more complicated than his open face would suggest.
    â€œSorry, Ben. I’ve said more than enough.”
    â€œOkay. I appreciate what you did say. And I won’t tell him we talked. Later.”
    â€œBy the way, Vicky keeps saying we should invite you to dinner.”
    â€œI never turn down a free meal.” Vicky McLachlan—Newbury’s First Selectman and a good prospect for governor of Connecticut one day—could not cook worth a damn. But in her company, food was the last thing that came to mind.
    ***
    Tim’s client whose trees Billy Tiller had stolen was named Andrew Sammis. He was new in town, an apparently wealthy man who had bought one of the old estates that had been another rich man’s country house for the past sixty years. Unlike many newcomers, he had kept it intact. It was quite private, the house nearly a quarter mile from the road and no other houses in sight, a small, handsome, well-kept Greek Revival with white pillars that was dwarfed by a bloated Cadillac pickup parked in front.
    When I finally got through to him by trailing his cleaning lady, Marie Butler, through his gate and up his driveway, I was confronted in the parking area by a man a little bigger than me and several years younger who had recently erected an enormous gate and surrounded his property with ten-foot chain link fence and was now accusing me of trespassing, even as I stuck out my hand to introduce myself.
    Marie Butler—the town’s primary gossip—a big, loud woman who was never that anxious to get busy cleaning, shoved between us with introductions of her own. “This is Ben Abbott. I’ve told you all about him, Mr. Sammis. You know, from the Main Street Abbotts. His father married a Chevalley—and boy I bet he never heard the end of that from his parents. They were a pair of tight old Yankees.” She paused to gulp breath and it occurred to me that Marie did not think there was anything wrong with gossip. No way a person could be that good at it if she felt guilty. “He’s the real estate agent. The one who went to—”
    â€œThank you, Marie,” I interrupted.
    â€œâ€”jail for—”
    â€œThank you, Marie.”
    â€œâ€”fraud.”
    God knows what Sammis thought at that moment, but at least Marie calmed him down and got him off the trespassing subject. I pressed the small advantage she had gained for me by saying to Sammis, “I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea. It wasn’t exactly fraud. It had nothing to do with real estate. It wasn’t in Connecticut. And it was a long time ago.” He didn’t bite. I went on, “Wall Street. It was insider trading. According to the government.”
    â€œWhat did they give you?”
    â€œThree years.”
    Marie felt obliged to add, “In Leavenworth Penitentiary.”
    Sammis finally looked interested. “How’d they manage hard time on insider trading?”
    â€œThere was a dispute about testifying against—” I