Chapters 16, 17 and 18 Summary

As Qwilleran plans his day, narration describes how the night before Qwilleran avoided telling Mary he would not write about the murder, but did promise that he "wouldn't do anything to hurt" her. He makes arrangements to go "scrounging" or searching abandoned buildings for potential antiques with Ben Nicholas and to visit Russell Patch to listen to his expensive sound system. He then drops in on Hollis Prantz, where he gets a sense that the fellow isn't all he seems, and has an innuendo-filled conversation with Ivy, which includes the suggestion that Iris Cobb murdered her first husband. Later that afternoon, Qwilleran visits the Fluxion offices where he is told by Riker that he has a good chance of winning the writing prize and that his investigations of the deaths in Junktown are to be on his own time. Finally, he...