by Wally Duff
I held the phone like I was pretending to change tunes but, instead, rotated it toward the truck and began snapping pictures. To avoid appearing like I was a snoop, I didn’t stare into the vehicle.
Sounds of footsteps came toward me from the house.
Get outta here!
7
I sprinted toward our house, keeping the truck between the workers and me. Glancing up at the house next to our home, I saw our elderly neighbor, Lyndell Newens, staring down at me from her front window. She beckoned for me to join her. Turning to my right, I took a breath and hustled up her front stairs.
Lyndell has advanced arthritis in her knees making her mobility painful and limited. To keep her from struggling to get out of her chair and let me in, I punched in her security code and used her front door key, both of which she’d given me for emergencies.
She is a longtime widow who lost her husband to the evils of smoking, a vice he picked up in the Second World War. She delights in keeping me informed about the ebb and flow of the activity in our neighborhood, spending most of her days sitting in a motorized recliner chair that not only tilts backward but also has enough power to push her forward and upright into a semi-standing position. Her computer sits on a table next to her.
Lyndell’s daily uniform is a mid-calf-length dress with a floral pattern. Because of her joint problems she wears white support hose and sensible shoes. Her hair is completely white and tightly curled. Her large black glasses magnify her ice-blue eyes.
And she doesn’t spray on clouds of cloying perfume like Mrs. Wickstrom.
I sat down next to her.
“I see we have new neighbors,” she said.
“We do. But why did they take down the ‘Sold’ sign after only one day, and why are they renting furnishings when they just bought an expensive house?”
“A good question. Let’s have a look at the pictures you just took.”
You caught me spying.
I hoped the new home owners hadn’t been as observant. I opened the pictures on my phone. A chrome kitchen table and four metal chairs, one table, two stuffed chairs, three floor lamps, four mattresses, four dressers, and several boxes marked “kitchen” sat in the van.
“Basic,” I said.
She nodded toward her computer. “Would you like me to record everything that’s delivered?” She fancies herself as Chicago’s version of Miss Jane Marple, spying on the world through her front window.
“Absolutely. It’ll save me time and help me decide if there’s a story here. Have you seen the owners?”
“No, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that in this neighborhood before. It certainly didn’t happen with you and Carter.”
“No kidding. When we first moved to our new home from D.C., I supervised the movers and all the installers day and night.”
“It certainly made it easier for me to meet you.”
Lyndell’s arthritis wasn’t as severe then, and she’d walked up our steps to welcome Carter and me to the neighborhood with fresh chocolate chip cookies.
“Why don’t you bake a batch of cookies and take them over from both of us to see if the neighbors have an interesting story you can write?” she asked.
8
An hour later, Carter had left for work. I was in the kitchen with Kerry and slid the dough for her favorite M&M sugar cookies into the oven. At the same time, I helped her make “cookies” with her Play-Doh baking set.
“Kerry, while the cookies are baking, let’s try to use the potty and then get out of your jammies and pick a nice dress for you to wear to meet our new neighbors. We’ll take the cookies to them and see if they have any kids for you to play with.”
“Okay, Momma.”
After five minutes, we gave up on the potty training, and I helped Kerry get dressed. I smelled the aroma of freshly baked cookies and rushed down to the kitchen — with her in my arms — to remove them from the oven before they were carbonized into hockey pucks.
Once we were back in the kitchen, she helped me put the lid on the three Play-Doh cans we had used while making her “cookies.” I piled my cookie-making mess in the sink and wrapped up a dozen of the still-warm treats and stashed them in my backpack.
Slipping it over my shoulders, I held the front door for Kerry, and we walked out onto the porch. I reached back into the hallway, pulled out her stroller, and shut the door. I hauled her and the stroller down the steps and strapped her in.
“Let’s go meet our new neighbors.”
“Okay, Momma. Elmo and ‘Walph’ go?”
She has a tiny problem with her “R’s.” I grabbed her two companions out of the backpack and handed them to her.
“Meet new friends, Elmo!” Kerry said to the red guy.
I hesitated when another blast of fireworks in the neighborhood bombarded my ears.
Relax. Breathe.
After slowly sucking in a deep breath, I pushed the stroller across Melrose and turned left to approach the house. We entered the front gate.
“Kerry, let’s see if the new owners are home.”
Setting the brake, I stopped at the foot of the stairs leading up to the main level of the house. The front door was open. I set my backpack on the sidewalk and shifted the cookies to my left hand.
“Hello?”
There was no response.
“Hello?” I called louder.
A man stepped from the shadows into the sunlit foyer. I was startled by his unexpected appearance, and my heart rate accelerated. He glared down at me. I stared back.
He had brown skin, short black hair, and a receding hairline. His closely trimmed black beard had a sprinkling of gray. He wore a black T-shirt, black jeans, and well-worn, brown leather sandals. Even from ten feet away, I could detect the stink of cigarette smoke drifting toward us.
“Hi,” I said, holding out my cookies. “I’m Tina Thomas, your neighbor, and I wanted to wel-”
Without a word, he stepped back into the foyer and slammed the door. The unexpected loud noise startled me. My head began to pound.
No!
9
My brain had been sensitized by the neighborhood kids blowing off their fireworks. Until this moment, I’d been able to ignore those explosions. But not this unexpected loud sound so close to my ears.
I dropped the cookies on the sidewalk and shut my eyes. A full-blown PTSD attack slammed into my head. Behind my eyelids I saw a brilliant flash of light, followed by the sound of an exploding bomb.
Breathe slowly. It’ll pass.
Within thirty seconds, it did. Kerry stared up at the terrified look on my face that she’d never seen before. She began to whimper.
“Don’t cry, Honey. Mommy’s okay.”
Heat rose in my neck. I stepped forward to tell the man what I thought about his rude behavior, but bumping into Kerry’s stroller made me stop. A confrontation with a man I didn’t know didn’t meet Carter’s definition of avoiding potentially risky situations, especially with Kerry at my side.
My eyes are always blurry after a PTSD attack. I blinked several times to clear my vision. Unlocking the brake, I grabbed my backpack, turned the stroller around, and stomped away, leaving the cookie mess on the sidewalk.
You’re right, Carter. It’s not about me anymore.
I pushed the stroller through our front gate and glanced back at the house. As I unbuckled Kerry, I heard a voice in my head:
Who are you? Why did you come to the door if you didn’t want to talk to me? Or eat my cookies? Is there more here than you being, for whatever reason, a first-class, antisocial dickhead?
Without realizing it, my reporter’s instincts had kicked in.
Maybe I finally have a story.
Or was I still trying too hard?
I knew how to answer this.
“Kerry, let’s go inside and have a snack, and then you can take your nap.”
While she slept, I would employ the best weapon available to me: I would go online and research his background.
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br /> And he would never know I was doing it.
10
Kerry and I went back into the kitchen. While I cleaned up the cookie-making mess I’d left in the sink, I continued to watch the man’s house. Kerry played on the kitchen floor with wooden blocks, a birthday gift from Carter’s parents.
“Kerry, what would you like for a snack?” I asked.
“Dinkel’s donuts!” Kerry exclaimed.
Figures.
“How about sliced apples with peanut butter instead?”
The corners of her mouth turned down. “Okay, Momma.”
After she finished eating, I walked upstairs with her to her room on the third floor. We read a book before she went down for her morning nap.
I rushed down to our first floor office to check out the rude neighbor online. Sitting down at my computer, I turned on the baby monitor. A call on my landline interrupted me.
“Tina, what happened?” Lyndell asked.
I sat down and related my dismal experience with the man.
“And he didn’t say a word?” she asked, after I finished.
“Nada.”
“What now?”
“I’m about to go online and research him.”
“Good plan.”
“And I really need your help to watch the house.”
“I’ll be happy to.” She paused. “I noticed you didn’t set your security system when you left with Kerry.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
Again. For God’s sake, we just went across the street.
She’d first noticed my security system whoopsie when I began toting Kerry and all of her gear out our front door and down the stairs to the sidewalk. Our neighborhood was safe and Lyndell constantly watched our house. I saw no need to climb back up the stairs with Kerry in my arms while I activated the system.
What can happen?
I hung up and turned on my computer to begin a background check on the man. The Washington Post had paid a computer jock a bushel-basket load of money to teach me online sleuthing skills, which I had used on all the investigative stories I’d written.
Entering the information from the “Sold” sign, I logged onto the realtor’s website and backtracked into the Chicago bank involved with the financing of the man’s house. What came up grabbed my attention: the Arun Corporation, an import/export business registered in Delaware, but with a Singapore mailing address, owned the home.
Strange.
My new neighbor might work for the Arun Corporation and the house might be an expensive perk of his employment contract. But there are other possibilities, which is always what makes doing research on compelling stories challenging.
I began a file on him: Rude Neighbor. I would add to it, but I needed to uncover the missing financial links to flesh out his story. Except for Carter at the Tribune, I no longer had access to any high-level journalistic help. And I couldn’t ask Carter for assistance without admitting why I needed him. Lacking that expert help, I might not be able to proceed with my story.
11
Monday afternoon, Lyndell called again.
“At noon, a black Mercedes with tinted windows turned into the alley behind the man’s house,” she said. “I haven’t seen that car before.”
“Could you read the license plate number?”
“No. Even with my binoculars, my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”
She sounded frustrated.
“That’s okay. Keep watching.”
“That’s why I called. Five minutes ago, an unmarked white van pulled into the alley. I couldn’t read that plate either.”
“Thanks. I’m on it.”
I disconnected and woke up Kerry from her afternoon nap. While she tried to use the potty, I dug out my old camera, a Canon 5D Mark II. It has a 24-105mm lens. I needed the zoom lens to spy on, and then photograph, any happenings in the alley. I shoved the camera into my backpack.
Our detached garage sits at a right angle to our home and faces North Paulina instead of our alley. I strapped Kerry into the car seat of our mommy van — a two-year-old, blue Honda Odyssey. Backing out onto Paulina, I drove north, moving slowly past the neighbor’s alley on the west side of the street.
All of the houses on each side of the alley have small, fenced-in yards and detached garages opening into the alley. To my left, I saw a white van parked next to the open garage door of the fourth house on the south side of the alley.
It’s his house.
Two men unloaded boxes from the back of the van. When I saw one of the men begin to turn toward me, I sped up and drove to the next street, West School. I circled around back to our garage, dialing our regular babysitter, Mrs. Alicia Sanchez, as I drove.
“Alicia, hi, this is Tina. Can you watch Kerry for just a few minutes?”
“Sure. I’m in the back yard.”
“Perfect. See you in two minutes.”
12
I pulled back into our garage and took Kerry out of her car seat. I shouldered my backpack and ran with her in my arms across Melrose to Alicia’s house located on the opposite corner from our home.
“Kerry, Mrs. Sanchez is going to play with you for a few minutes,” I said, as I ran.
Rushing through Alicia’s side gate into her back yard, I handed Kerry and her two friends to her.
“Thanks so much,” I said.
“No problem,” Alicia said. “Kerry, would you and Elmo and Ralph like apple juice?”
“Yes, pweaze.”
Running out the same gate, I crossed Paulina, walked north, and then turned to my right, entering the east side of the alley. I slipped behind two trash cans on the north side to have a better angle to see the truck.
I sniffed.
Yuck.
The stench of the garbage in the trash cans began to nauseate me. I breathed through my mouth and glanced around the side of the can closest to the alley. When I saw the two men face the white truck, I pulled out my camera and rested it on top of the can.
Through the camera’s viewfinder, I spied the rear end of a black car on the side of the garage closest to me. I refocused the lens: a Mercedes.
Bingo.
The men stacked boxes from the floor to the ceiling on the other side of the garage. As they worked, they scanned the alley, which forced me to pop up and down to avoid being spotted.
A layer of clouds hid the sun, providing uniform light for the photos. I snapped several pictures of their faces and the boxes in the garage and in the truck. The sun broke through the clouds just as the second man turned toward me. The unexpected bright light reflected off the camera’s lens directly into his eyes.
Damn!
I squatted down with the camera in my hands. I took two deep breaths and peeked around the side of the can. The man walked toward me. He had his hand in his warm-up jacket pocket.
A gun?
Sweat poured off my forehead. I needed a car or truck to drive past me on North Paulina and shield my escape through the gate behind me and into that backyard.
Glancing around the side of the can, I saw the man was two strides from the street.
I need cover now! Where’s Chicago traffic when I need it?
There was the rumble of an engine from my left. A truck appeared. I would have only one chance. As the hood of the truck blocked the man’s vision, I opened the latch into the home’s back yard. In less than ten seconds, I ran through the gate and into the yard.
But did the man see me?
13
Fifteen minutes later, Kerry and I were in the lower level office of our home. She played on the floor with a puzzle. I downloaded the photos of the truck onto my computer and put them up on the screen.
The two men were young and fit with short black hair, beards, and dark skin. They were dressed like the man who had slammed the door on me. I needed facial recognition software, but I didn’t have it.
There were ten boxes labeled “computer screens” stacked in the empty side of the garage. There were
ten more boxes with electronic labels, likely the hard drives and other gear to run the computers. Several boxes had letters printed on them. I saw the letters “S.A.” on one box, but the rest of the letters were obscured.
I emailed the pictures to Lyndell because I knew she’d seen me drive around the block, come home, go to Alicia’s house, and return.
Two minutes later, she called me. “Do you think the two men live there?” she asked.
“Four mattresses were delivered, but until one of us sees them going in and out of the house on a regular basis, the number of people living there would only be a guess, and I don’t write stories based on that.”
“They’re young and look a little like the man I saw confront you. They could be his sons.”
“But if three or four people live there, why do they need ten computer screens?”
“How are you going to proceed?”
I told her about the Arun Corporation.
“Is this a perk of his employment?”
“It could be. I tried to hack into the Arun Corporation’s hard drive, but I don’t have the computer savvy to do it.”
“How about your friend Linda Misle? She’s a computer whiz who helps me when I have technical difficulties.”
“I know, but except for you, I always work alone.”
“Young lady, I strongly suggest you expand your team. Linda is the solution.”
If she has the time and wants to help me.
14
The next morning, after Carter left and I’d cleaned up the kitchen, I called Linda Misle, my best friend in Chicago.
“I need legal advice,” I said. “How about you and Sandra meeting us at Dinkel’s for a snack?”
“In my state, I never pass up Dinkel’s. See you there in fifteen minutes.”
Dinkel’s Bakery is three blocks from our front door. The mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip butter cookies, powdered sugar stollen, strudels, muffins, and a variety of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes slathered with multiple flavors of frosting bombarded us when we entered. All beckoned to us from glass cases. To the right of the front door in similar cases were bear claws, long johns, and multiple varieties of their famous donuts.