Free Outwitting Trolls by William G. Tapply

divorce ended up paying it.
    Condominium buildings had popped up like mushrooms along 2A in Acton during the real estate boom of the late seventies and early eighties. Speculators bought six or eight units at a time, and sometimes entire buildings, with the intention of renting them out while the market continued to grow and then flipping them for big profits. Then pretty soon the boom busted, and a lot of smart investors were suddenly stupid and ended up stuck with big mortgages and depressed rents and scarce tenants and high maintenance fees and no buyers.
    I parked in the lot behind Sharon’s building, told Henry towait in the car, went to the back door, and pressed the button beside her number.
    A minute later her voice came to me from a speaker beside the door. “Brady? Is that you?”
    I leaned to the speaker and said, “I’m here.”
    â€œI’ll be right down,” she said.
    â€œTake your time,” I said.
    I went over to my car and let Henry out. He proceeded to investigate the weeds that grew amid the trash along the chain-link fence that bordered the parking lot, and he was still at it when Sharon emerged from the back door about five minutes later.
    She waved at me and came over to where I was leaning against my car. She was wearing a pair of snug-fitting jeans and a red-and-white-striped long-sleeved jersey. Her blond hair was artfully tousled, and she’d done some neat tricks with makeup to hide evidence of the previous night, when she’d found the murdered body of her former husband, answered the hard questions of suspicious police officers, and then drunk wine and cried and stayed up till after sunrise with her daughter.
    She looked, in other words, spectacular.
    She put her hand on my shoulder, tiptoed up, kissed my cheek, and gave me a quick one-armed hug.
    I returned the hug but not the kiss. “You look nice,” I said.
    She smiled. “Thank you.” She had the jacket I’d loaned her folded over her arm. She handed it to me. “For this, too. Again. It was very gallant of you.”
    â€œGallant,” I said. “That’s me, all right.” I whistled to Henry, who came trotting over. “This is Henry,” I said to Sharon.
    â€œHey, Henry,” she said. She bent over and scratched the special place on his forehead, and her ease with Henry remindedme that she used to work with Ken at their veterinary hospital. She obviously understood and liked animals.
    â€œThat’s his G-spot,” I said. “Right there in the middle of his forehead.”
    Sharon straightened up and smiled. “Everybody’s got one, even dogs.”
    I opened the back door for Henry, and he jumped in. Then I went around and held the passenger door open for Sharon.
    â€œOh, thank you,” she said as she slid in. “ Gallant, as always.” She pronounced it with the accent on the second syllable, making it the French word. “Chivalry is not dead.”
    â€œMy mother again,” I said, “reminding me to hold the door for the lady.” I shut her door, went around to the driver’s side, and got in. “Ashby,” I said. “I assume you know how to find the place?”
    â€œIt’s not that far from here,” she said. “I feel terribly guilty that I haven’t visited Charles more often since he’s been there. I mean, Ashby is only about an hour up the road from Acton. He’s been there four or five years now, and I can count the times I’ve visited him on one hand, mostly the first couple of years he was there, to bring him Christmas presents. Good dutiful Ellen came with me each time. Ellen still visits him once in a while. I’m ashamed to say, I don’t. Charles never did make me feel overly welcome, but that’s no excuse.”
    â€œHe’s not your father,” I said.
    â€œNo,” she said, “and he’s never been a very loving—or