Criminals by Valerie Trueblood Page B

cheap. Her blond ponytail.
    DuÅ¡ka laughed at her apology. “It is you, my child, who will sell the houses for them. Before our eyes, you prepare the home. To Ivan—ah, what a good thing you don’t cook for him, he would be lost. I see you understand this. You understand men.”
    â€œI do,” said Shannon without surprise. “Some of them.”
    House, barn, silos were gone. You crossed a bridge over a wide stream where the cows would have drunk, and arrived at the farm’s original driveway, where a cow-sized boulder had been set, engraved with the name of the place, “Greenholm.” The stream was waist deep in places, with currents tugging at the willow roots. Here the trees had all been left standing, their limbs brushing the water and already, to the photographers’ satisfaction, littering it with yellow leaves. Sometimes Shannon took her sandwich and sat on the bank with the dog. The first week Garth was back from Afghanistan she had waded in with her shoes on and stood where it was deep and cold, to wash her eyes, but that had disturbed the dog, who splashed in and swam to her and back, and in and back again, and then ran in circles on the bank until she came out.
    Eventually a pool and fitness center would go in, along with an assisted-living compound and a low cedar building devoted to continuing care, with wheelchair paths through the vegetable gardens, but for now the people moving in would be retirees roughly like the Kralls, still active and driving, the founders said.
    Everybody working on the site met regularly with Mark and Dane—guys had to come down off the backhoes and sit with investors—to have their say about the village, or the first two paved circles of what would be a village in a year or two. Only three houses were occupied while the heavy construction was going on: the Kralls, a younger couple who had already driven away in their camper—the guy so frail Shannon didn’t see how he would get the gas cap off—and now two old sisters, the Newells. But if one of them asked a question, or a visitor did, anybody working on the site was expected to know the brochure and answer.
    Green Retirement, the website said. “A way to keep your footprint small when you’re packing it in.” That was Dane, at one of the early meetings. Mark said, “And for saying ‘packing it in,’ there will be a fine.” They were two nice guys who had made a lot of money in software. More than a lot. They rode to work on the bike trail, and one or both of them would make a face when a backhoe fired up, even though Garth said it was all hybrid machinery they had out there, the new diesel electrics.
    While they talked, sitting down, tipping back in their chairs, Shannon thought, the whole thing was going right past them on its own. Mark said, “We’re offering our residents a way they can stay in the fight. They’ve been progressive people.”
    Dane raised his hand. “‘Have been?’”
    He and Mark would admit it was themselves they were thinking of, down the road. They had that quirk of rich people, agreeing ahead of time with whatever you might accuse them of. Shannon knew this from working in a good restaurant, where a woman would say, “I just take forever to make up my mind,” and her husband would say with some pride, “I can attest to that.”
    When Garth first got home she showed him the brochure. “So these guys have no clue. They’re like, ‘Knees bad? Widowed? Here, have an ice cream sandwich!’” His squint made her add, “But they’re OK guys. You’ll like them, I bet.”
    A minute later he jumped up. “My jacket,” he said, because he couldn’t think of where anything was.
    â€œOn the hook,” she said. “Pretty hot out, though.”
    â€œIce cream. I’ll go get some.” He was back in fifteen minutes with beer. She didn’t