The Merchant of Menace

he’s mad at me,“ Jane said. “Are you sure?“ Julie asked.
    “What can I do?“ Jane asked Shelley half an hour later. Shelley had responded instantly to Jane’s frantic call for advice and sprinted across their driveways to chew the situation over. “Even if it hadn’t been somebody obnoxious, Julie had no business inviting an outsider to my house.“
    “No, she didn’t, but the problem now is to get rid of him,“ Shelley said.
    “If I refuse to let him come, he’ll be insulted and angry and he’s the last person in the world I want to make enemies with,“ Jane said. “On the other hand, it makes my stomach hurt to think about having him in my house. People will think I’m expressing some sort of approval of his appalling behavior.“
    “You could come down with a sudden, violent, and highly contagious disease,“ Shelley suggested.
    Jane shook her head. “No, nobody’d believe it. And I’d just end up sticking someone else in the neighborhood with the same problem. And I wouldn’t even be able to help them out because of my smallpox or cholera or whatever.”
    Shelley took a sip of her coffee. “Much as I like to be the neighborhood wise woman, always ready with a solution, I’m coming up empty on this one,“ she admitted. “How did you leave it with Julie?“
    “You mean after I beat the stuffing out of her? I’ve never been so tempted to smack somebody upside the head. I told her I wanted an hour to think about it.”
    The doorbell rang and Jane found Bruce Pargeter standing on the front steps, looking very upset.
    He introduced himself and Jane said, “I know you, Bruce. Remember, you put in new pantry shelves. Come in out of the cold.“
    “I remember. I wasn’t sure you did.”
    Bruce was a chunky, florid-faced young man, probably about thirty years old, Jane would have guessed, who lived with his widowed mother at the other end of the block. He was a wizard at fixing, repairing, or renovating almost anything. Almost everyone in the neighborhood had benefitted from his skills at one time or another. One of the advantages to having him around was that he was unfailingly cheerful and polite and had excellent taste. He could suggest to homeowners that their own ideas were dreadful without being the tiniest bit rude about it.
    But today he didn’t look the least bit cheerful. In fact, he looked extremely upset.
    “Hi, Bruce,“ Shelley said when they entered the living room. “I’ve been meaning to tell you how happy I am with that flooring in the family room. I’m so glad you convinced me to get the planking rather than the squares.“
    “Too bad you don’t have a tape recorder running, Bruce,“ Jane said with a laugh. “Not very many people have ever heard Shelley admit that someone else was right and she was wrong.”
    But Bruce Pargeter only gave her a thin smile. “Jane, I want to warn you about something and ask a favor. I’m doing Julie Newton’s kitchen and I couldn’t help but hear her on the phone this morning. Do you know she’s invited Lance King to the neighborhood caroling party?“
    “I’m afraid I do know. Shelley and I were just trying to figure out what to do about it.”
    Bruce gave her a grim look. “Jane, if you value the quality of your life, you won’t let that—that person in your house. Believe me, you’ll regret it the rest of your life. He’s the most evil person in the world.”

Four

    It turned out that Bruce’s experience with ace King went way back to years ago in Kentucky, where they both lived at the time.
    “Ever heard of karst topography?“ he asked.
    “Something to do with caves, isn’t it?“ Jane said.
    Shelley looked surprised. “I never cease to marvel at the weird snippets of things you know about, Jane.“
    “College geology,“ Jane said. “I liked geology.”
    Bruce took up the explanation. “In the simplest terms, karst topography is where you have limestone bedrock below the soil. When there’s a lot of groundwater, it erodes the limestone over time and that forms caves. If it erodes far enough, sometimes the top of the cave falls in and you get a sinkhole. Most of the middle part of the country is limestone bedrock, but only some areas get sinkholes. Kentucky is one of them.“
    “This has something to do with Lance King?“ Shelley asked.
    “Quite a lot,“ Bruce said. “My dad was a contractor outside Louisville. He built a little subdivision, eight or ten houses, and just as the last one was being