On Bainbridge Island, across the Puget Sound from Seattle, there are two modes of living: downtown and inland. The downtown way of life centres near the ferry that brings tourists and residents over from the mainland. Here you’ll find a lively strip of art galleries, bookstores, boutiques and restaurants, and in the summer you can sit outside at the pub and look on the sailboats anchored in the marina while eating the fresh fish of the Pacific Northwest. Wing Point Country Club is nearby, as is a complex of high-end condos and culs-de-sac of quaint clapboard houses. Lucinda Wagner lived in one such house with her husband Paul. They had commissioned a man-made pond in the backyard where wild frogs pounded out throaty calls during the mating season so loudly it sometimes woke her from a dead sleep. But this was to be expected on an island that offered in high contrast a second way of life.