Carol Briggs came through Ethan Cole’s side gate carrying a yellow bucket in both hands.
The bucket was heavy enough to make her shoulders sag, but she never slowed down.
She crossed the patio, planted her feet beside the deep end, and tipped the contents into the water.
A thick brown cloud rolled beneath the surface.
It spread around the ladder and drifted toward the pale blue tiles like smoke trapped underwater.
Carol shook the bucket twice to dislodge the last clumps.
Then she lowered it and waited.
The sliding door rattled open behind her.
Ethan Cole emerged barefoot, still holding the sandwich he had been making for lunch.
He looked at the spreading mess, then at Carol, then at the bucket.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Carol let the empty bucket fall on the concrete.
“You should have listened when I warned you.”
“You warned me about parking.”
“I warned you about the people coming to this house.”
“You ruined my pool because you don’t like my visitors?”
“You don’t understand what they’re doing.”
Ethan stopped three steps away from her.
The old woman had angry eyes, but her hands were shaking.
She looked up toward the upstairs bedroom window.
She looked there again even while Ethan spoke.
It was the room where his guest, Oliver Venn, had been staying since Monday.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“You weren’t trying to ruin the pool, Carol.”
Carol stared at him.
“You were trying to make me drain it.”
The color left her face.
Three days earlier, Ethan had removed a leaf from the deep-end drain cover and noticed an orange plastic object wedged beneath the grate.
It looked like the corner of a tiny propeller guard.
He had taken a photograph, then decided to leave it until the pool service arrived.
Now Carol was looking straight at that part of the water.
“Who told you it was down there?” he asked.
“Nobody.”
“Then why did you look at the deep end before you emptied your bucket?”
Carol bent to pick up the bucket.
“Drain it and find out.”
Ethan caught the handle before she could lift it.
“Tell me what I’m supposed to find.”
A window slid open above them.
Oliver leaned out, a cheerful man in his late thirties with close-cropped hair and the permanently pleasant expression of a salesman.
“Everything okay down there?”
Carol turned her back to the house.
Ethan saw the change immediately.
The woman who had just marched into his yard swinging a full bucket now seemed frightened of being recognized.
“Someone dumped something in the water,” Ethan called.
Oliver’s eyes traveled from the muddy surface to the deep end.
“That’s unfortunate,” he said.
He closed the window without asking who had done it.
Carol whispered, “Don’t let him near the equipment in your garage.”
Ethan opened his mouth, but a horn sounded from the street.
A white van had stopped outside the gate.
On its side was the logo of the junior engineering competition Ethan had agreed to host that Saturday: BLUE CURRENT CHALLENGE.
Carol stepped away from him.
“I did something terrible,” she said.
“Then help me understand it.”
“I will.”
She looked up at the closed window one last time.
“But not while he’s listening.”
