Read Online StoneDust by Justin Scott - Free Book Online

“dear friends.” A guy looking to get laid was a “gentleman caller.” A married woman hosting a boyfriend was “entertaining.” She’s influenced my language as well—how many guys my age say “hosting” for “screwing”?—and we both knew that “festivities” was the proper word for “orgy.”
    â€œYou heard that? Who told you?”
    She fixed me with an iceberg gaze.
    I said, “This isn’t idle curiosity,” and explained about Janey Hopkins.
    â€œFifteen hundred dollars! Ben, you could make a living doing this.”
    â€œI’d rather sell houses.”
    â€œIt never hurts to have a second arrow in your quiver. I’m glad you took the job. You get bored. And when you get bored you get in trouble.”
    â€œSo who told you?”
    â€œI’ve heard it in bits and pieces—oh, don’t look so disappointed. Why don’t you go to the original source?”
    â€œWho is?”
    â€œWho started all the talk about the Jacuzzi and the carpet and the mirrors in that ‘party’ room of theirs?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œMarie Butler. Their cleaning woman. Marie was there for the installation of all the accouterments and must have been there to clean up afterwards. Use your head, Ben. The woman would have won a Pulitzer years ago if she worked for a newspaper.”
    So I called Marie Butler. Mike, her husband, who had retired quite young on a disability that didn’t stop him from hunting, drinking, and bowling, informed me she was working at the Bowlands’.
    I drove out to Rick and Georgia Bowlands’, a 1980s neo-Victorian that sprouted numerous gables perforated by anachronistic Palladian windows. It was situated in a mini-development of a half-dozen houses of similar taste clustered around a cul de sac. Their nanny, a lonely Scottish woman, was sitting in the sideyard gazebo, rocking an English pram draped with mosquito netting. I waved and headed for the front door.
    Rick Bowland, like his corporate neighbors, commuted downstate. They represented a small but growing faction of out-of-towners priced out of the traditional bedroom communities farther south. For half of what they’d pay nearer the Sound, they lived very well in Newbury, though the price was a long drive that got longer every year as more and more of them cluttered country roads.
    Unlike most commuters, the Bowlands tried to fit in with local movers and shakers like the Fisks and the Carters; Rick worked hard as a volunteer on Planning and Zoning. I enjoyed them. He was a trifle too buttoned-down, and took more pleasure than I would in suburban toys like his totally tech gas-fired barbecue, yet we usually found something in The Economist to commiserate about. Also, I admired his bravery to flaunt even a small mustache on the executive floor.
    Georgia was outwardly smooth and upbeat as any publicist. Like most of the breed, she could talk at length about anything, and with a couple of drinks in her she could be very, very funny. She was also fun to look at, as she had a beautiful eye for lothing.
    This morning, of course, Rick was off at IBM. Georgia was apparently gone too, as the garage doors were open, with both bays empty. Marie Butler’s rusty red Thunderbird of many years was parked in the drive. She let me in with a whooped greeting and a big hug. We’d known each other forever, but my twisted background gave me a special place in her gossipy heart. I reminded myself that whatever I asked I’d hear in the General Store by morning.
    â€œWhat are you doing here? They selling? I’m not surprised. Everybody in this development owes more on their mortgage than their house is worth. I heard at the bank that two of them are six months behind in payments. So they’re selling?”
    â€œNot that I’m aware of.” In fact, I’d always assumed Georgia had money. There was a quality to the