She was, Jake thought, the least attractive human being he’d ever met.
Since she was looking around, presumably assessing the house, he had a moment to look at her through the window, and he used it to question himself about that initial impression. He’d known people who didn’t, physically, have much going for them, and hadn’t reacted to any of them this way. He wondered why his reaction was different for her, why she repulsed him so. She was tall and broad shouldered, but no more so than Nancy, and he thought Nancy was the most attractive person he knew. 
It was the total lack of joy, he finally decided. This woman had no light in her eyes, not even a hint of twitch to her lips. She didn’t just look unhappy, she looked determined to stay that way.
When she began impatiently eying his doorbell he decided it was time to open the door.
“Hello,” he said, trying to sound pleasant.
“I’m Dr. Kessler,” she snapped. “Dr. Hilda Kessler. I’m currently an adjunct professor in computational sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and my sister and I have taken the house across the street. I presume I’m speaking to Mr. Jake Deaver?”
“Yes, you are.” Jake chuckled. “Technically Dr. Jake Deaver, but as my mother used to say, my PhD didn’t seem to take. Call me Jake. Please come in?” Holding the door, he stepped to one side.
She didn’t move. “Nobody told me you had a doctorate.” Explanation was demanded.
Again he chuckled, though it sounded a bit forced in his own ears. “I’m not surprised. In a small town people think the only real doctors are the medical ones. Of course it’s different for you in academia.” He gestured, trying to look gracious. “Won’t you please come in?”
“Where’d you get it? Your degree?”
“Carnegie Mellon,” he said. “In physics, if you can believe it. Not exactly applicable to my present life.”
“Hmph,” she said. He had a prestigious degree from a prestigious school. Her degree, the private detective’s report said, was from a tiny school in central Indiana that had since lost its accreditation. One step above clipping a mail order coupon from the back of a magazine, the report said, but a small step.
Since he wanted her to be friendly — if that was even possible — Jake didn’t pursue discussion of any of this. He simply waiting, holding the door with his left hand out to invite her in, and started to feel foolish.
Finally, still glaring at him as if he’d deceived her, she stepped inside. “I have questions for you,” she snapped.
“About my education?” Jake was now sincerely confused. 
“No, of course not,” she said, waving her clipboard. “Why would I care about that when nobody else does? About the community behind your house. The little people, as the locals call them.”
“May I get you something to drink? Ice water, or tea?”
“No, no,” she said. “This isn’t a social call. It’s academic research.” 
Although the report said she was forty-eight years old, Jake would have guessed she was much older. His grandmother had acted more youthful at ninety.
He steered her to the dining room table and held a chair for her until she sat. Sitting across from her, he said, “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help to you.”
“Why not?,” she wasped. “People say you’re the one who knows. Somebody said you make your money off this community. You and” — she looked at her clipboard — “a Miller family. They’ve been prolific.”
He imagined the matriarch of that family listening at the kitchen door. At least he hoped she was, because he’d want to discuss the visit with her.
“If you’ve been asking questions,” he said while trying to look pleasant, “I imagine you’ve learned that folks around here like their privacy. Myself included. It’s one of the privileges of living in a rural community.”
“Humph,” she said. Without asking permission, she stood and crossed into his parlor, to a back window. “You’ve got a big playground out here. I see people in and out all the time. What’s the deal with that? Some kind of public park?”
He stood and walked to stand beside her. “It’s not technically public, but it’s open to anyone from around here to use. My family has a lot of land” — 
“Over a thousand acres!” she said. “That’s unheard of in this part of Pennsylvania. Farms are seventy acres, eighty at most.”
He paused until he was sure she was done, and then continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “And we share these facilities with the community. It was a priority for my grandmother and my mother.”
She peered. “Tennis court, swimming pool — what all is out there?”
He smiled. She found a way to make the most reasonable question into a rude demand. Pointing, he said, “The swimming people is by arrangement only, for safety. We provide a lifeguard for groups. There’s a trap shooting range up behind that barn for which we also require arrangements in advance. The rest of it is open all the time. The court you’re seeing used to be tennis, now it’s pickleball. There’s a children’s playground, and badminton. Horseshoes and corn hole over there. Inside that barn there’s a ten meter range for air guns, no firearms. And over there” — he pointed — “are two trail heads. One is gentle, about a mile without serious hills. It’s very pretty, with flowering shrubs and streams. Some beavers have been flirting with it, and we’re hopeful. The other is five miles and somewhat demanding. Then there are several acres for general use. Picnics, things like that.”
He stepped away, back toward the dining room, but she wasn’t finished. “You pay to maintain all this just because you’re a” — even hampered by the clipboard she made air quotes — “‘nice guy’?”