No ghosts figured in any version of the death, though Emma and Steven couldn’t keep from embellishing. When guests were staying here they’d gleefully take note of who kept the bathroom lights on and who braved the dark after hearing the tales.

Two more snaps outside. Then a third.

Emma frowned. “You hear that? Again, that sound. Outside.”

Steven glanced out the window. The breeze kicked up now and then. He turned back.

Her eyes strayed to her briefcase.

“Caught that,” he said, chiding.

“What?”

“Don’t even think about opening it.”

She laughed, though without much humor.

“Work-free weekend,” he said. “We agreed.”

“And what’s in there?” she asked, nodding at the backpack he carried in lieu of an attaché case. Emma was wrestling the lid off a jar of cocktail olives.

“Only two things of relevance, Your Honor: my le Carré novel and that bottle of Merlot I had at work. Shall I introduce the latter into evid…” Voice fading. He looked to the window, through which they could see a tangle of weeds and trees and branches and rocks the color of dinosaur bones.

Emma too glanced outside.

“That I heard,” he said. He refreshed his wife’s martini. She dropped olives into both drinks.

“What was it?”

“Remember that bear?”

“He didn’t come up to the house.” They clinked glasses and sipped clear liquor.

Steven said, “You seem preoccupied. What’s up, the union case?”

Research for a corporate acquisition had revealed some possible shenanigans within the lakefront workers union in Milwaukee. The government had become involved and the acquisition was temporarily tabled, which nobody was very happy about.