by Libby Howard
It looked pretty much like the outside of his house. I couldn’t see anything past that main parlor because it was stacked floor-to-ceiling with boxes, a narrow path winding its way toward what I thought might be the kitchen. To the right stood a broad staircase, made nearly impassable by stacks of books and old newspapers. To the left, the entrance to the enclosed porch was blocked by two large shelving units lined with little china vases and crystal plates. Across the top was a long decorative sword. I eyed it, hoping it didn’t fall and cut one of us.
“You sure you don’t want some tea? I just put the kettle on.”
The house was claustrophobic, overloaded with stuff, the boxes coated in dust, the ceiling cracked, the floor scuffed and gouged. Mr. Peter must have spent his little cleaning time on the contents of the shelving units because the pretty little china vases and plates were sparkling. It wasn’t quite as bad as I’d imagined, though. I’d expected horrible smells, dead animals sticking out from carelessly placed rags, a floor two feet under layers of stuff. Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Peter was a hoarder, and the house had to be violating all sorts of fire codes, but there was a narrow pathway around the boxes, and it actually smelled like someone’s attic—a sort of dust-and-mothballs-and old boxes smell.
“Honestly, I can’t stay. I just came to apologize for my cat’s trespass on your property and ask if you could please not feed him if he wanders over again. He’s getting so fat, and the diet I have him on isn’t working when he’s begging food off the neighbors.”
This was really my own darned fault. I needed to keep Taco inside and not let him wander the block like this. I hated the thought that he might be hit by my paper-man on his early morning delivery route, or one of the neighbors coming home late from work. And it really wasn’t fair that my cat was trotting across people’s lawns, annoying their dogs and possibly hunting down their songbirds.
“I’m going to try to keep him inside the house from now on,” I vowed. “It’s hard because he yowls his head off to go out, and I know he’ll probably sneak through the door on occasion. Can you call me if he comes over? And not feed him?”
“Oh, but I love the Taco-schmacko.” Mr. Peter reached out and took my fat-and-dirty cat from my arms. “There’s a good boy. He comes and visits me every day and shares my chicken sandwiches. I’ll miss my little buddy’s visits.”
Well, the chicken sandwiches were probably the reason why Taco visited every day, but the cat did seem very fond of Mr. Peter, rubbing his head across the man’s beard and purring loud enough that I was sure people two blocks away could hear him.
“Maybe you could get a cat of your own.” But then I looked around at the condition of the house and reconsidered the idea. Yes, it was cleaner and somewhat more organized than I’d thought, but I could just envision a cat jumping from stack of boxes to stack of boxes and getting stuck behind a bunch of them to slowly starve to death.
“I’ve considered it, but cats knock things over, and I’ve got a lot of precious stuff in this house.”
Precious cases of toilet paper and tissue? Although those vases on the shelves were pretty.
“Taco-schmacko doesn’t break stuff. Do you boy? Do you boy?” he cooed to my cat.
I wasn’t sure what bothered me more, his nickname for my cat or the fact that he was using baby talk and smooshing his face into Taco’s fur. He was right, though. Taco wasn’t the sort of cat who pushed china off tables, knocked over wine glasses, or pooped in the potted plants. I think some of that might have been that he was fat, and all that took effort—effort that was better spent begging for food.
“He’s gained a lot of weight the last three months,” I told him. Then I reached out and took my cat back. “Please just call me if he comes back? And please don’t feed him?”
Mr. Peter’s smile was more than a bit sad. “Okay. I’ll miss him.”
And now I felt like a horrible person. Yes, his house was cluttered to the point that I was on the edge of a panic attack, but he seemed to be a nice guy, and he clearly had a genuine regard for Taco. I’d lived here for thirty years and hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to him the whole time. I’d rarely seen visitors, only someone I thought might have been a nephew.
“I’m hoping to have a neighborhood cookout soon.” As in, I was thinking about it right now and hadn’t been planning it for more than the last two seconds. “I’ll send you an invitation. Or maybe you could come over for a glass of wine on the porch with Daisy and me Friday evening?”
“I don’t leave the house anymore. My knee. And the arthritis in my hip…” His eyes lit up. “Do you think you could bring something by sometime, though? There was a beautiful nineteenth-century Rorstrand pitcher you had in the front window a few years back that I always admired. I’d love to see it up close.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “The one with the gold lacy pattern and flowers? Or the leaves?”
“The gold and flowers. I’m a fan of Faience, French and Northern Italian mostly, although some of the Polish patterns are quite attractive. They’re far more readily available.”
No. Idea. “Is that what the vases are on the shelf up front?”
He beamed. “My newest pieces, although I have some of the rarer ones stored up in the bedroom including some fourteenth-century Majolica.” A wary expression crossed his face. “None of it is all that valuable. Junk really. Because everything here is junk.”
Two seconds ago, I would have believed that. But Mr. Peter had nothing to fear from me. I didn’t want his pretty pottery, and as cash-strapped as I was, I’d never stoop to stealing.
“Value is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “And in my eyes, every item in this house is priceless.”
“Even the cases of toilet paper?”
He grinned. “Even the cases of toilet paper.”
I picked my way back through the maze of a path, hoping none of the boxes, or that darned sword, fell down on my head. Then I wished Mr. Peter a good evening and headed across the street, a pudgy purring Taco in my arms. The light was dimming. Madison was typing on her laptop and taking notes. Henry had climbed out of the hot tub and wrapped a towel around himself. He tucked the end in at his waist and reached up to flip the lid over the spa, sliding his feet into a pair of sneakers. The golden lights came on in the garden area, bathing the backyard with ambient light. I heard the clank of pots and pans through the open kitchen window against a backdrop of insect song. My home. And it was so much more of a home now that I wasn’t here alone.
A shadow moved by the porch, approaching and falling in beside me. Taco squirmed in my arms and I reluctantly let him down, knowing he’d be meowing at the door in five minutes wanting his dinner. As the cat darted off into the bushes with an irritated growl, the shadow drew closer. It felt cool by my side, a dark blur just in the corner of my vision.
“Dinner!” Judge Beck called.
Henry hustled inside. “Give me five to put some clothes on.”
Madison grumbled under her breath and snapped the laptop lid closed, gathering up her notebooks and pencils. “Coming.”
I watched her trot up the stairs and in the back door. I listened to the quiet murmur of their voices, the clink of their dishes as they ate. Taco raced by, chasing a bug. I sat in the glider, and the shadow sat down beside me, leaning back into the cushions as I rocked us back and forth.
The shadow was rarely around during the day, and occasionally in the afternoon, but he had become my constant companion in the night hours. He was near as I watched movies on the basement entertainment center. He was by my side on evening walks, or as I sat in the backyard garden. Sometimes as I slept, I could feel him near, even though in the darkness I couldn’t see him. And if I ate dinner alone, as I often did to give Judge Beck and his children their private time, he sat to my right.
And the shadow was a he, of that I was sure.
“It’s a beautiful evening. I’m glad I got the hot tub fixed. The
kids are going to have such fun with it. And I do want to have that neighborhood barbeque. Maybe next Friday evening when the kids have their games. It will be an adult party with wine and cigars, like Eli and I used to host before the accident.” I thought for a moment. “No. That was the past. That isn’t something I can recapture. I’ll schedule it on an evening when the kids will be here and that way the neighbors can meet them. That way Judge Beck and his family can start to feel like they’re truly part of the neighborhood.”
The shadow didn’t reply. He never did. But I still got the impression that he approved.
Chapter 2
“Annnnnd, cut!”
The command would have been far more dramatic had J.T. himself not been manning the tiny camera that he’d unboxed just last week. And it would have been a whole lot more entertaining had he not been filming me.
My boss had given up on the dream of A&E knocking at his door with a contract for a reality show based on his private investigation company. Actually, he’d never truly given up that dream, he’d just decided that the road there included producing his own “wildly successful’” YouTube channel. This detour was being assisted by two Sony hand-held video cameras and a pair of tripods that J.T. had picked up from the local pawnshop.
My boss scooted the cameras around, positioning them and fussing over the settings. “The next scene is you taking the call that the perp has skipped town. Ready, Kay?”
I was ready. And I was thrilled that this was my last on-camera appearance for the day before J.T. downloaded the files and pieced everything together for his big internet debut. The perp had indeed skipped town—yesterday. And he’d been caught over in Milford, high as a kite. J.T. had already filmed the reenactment of that less-than-dramatic apprehension but felt that editing in some other scenes would help create the correct mood. Thus, he now had footage of me as his computer wiz assistant, and several shots of slamming jail cell doors and stern-looking police officers.
Our local PD were as thrilled with the venture and every one of them wanted their moment of fame. Once J.T. loaded the file, I was willing to bet nearly every cop in the county would be watching the video, enlarging frames to see if they’d made it to the big screen or wound up on the cutting room floor.
“Roll ‘em!”
I picked up the phone, trying for my best forties gumshoe detective expression, then I widened my eyes in shock and slammed the phone down, spinning my chair around to face the camera. “Gator! We got a problem! Our guy is in the wind!”
“Cut!”
J.T., aka Gator, beamed at me. “That was awesome, Kay. Although we need to think of a cool nickname for you, too. Kay is so…”
It was so 1950s. But I really didn’t want J.T. to saddle me with some ridiculous nickname like “Snap” or “Hawk”.. Gator kind of worked for him, although the nearest gator was a hundred miles away and that one was in a zoo.
“Am I good to get back to work now? I’ve got three Credicorp cases, and I need to get addresses for the filings by the end of the week.”
The drug addict who’d jumped bail for all of two hours was exciting, but my skip-tracing work was what really brought in steady income for the company. Unfortunately, finding people who’d run out on their credit card or hospital bills wasn’t exactly prime-time worthy.
“Yep. It’ll take me a while to edit all this and upload it. Ooh, do you think I need a soundtrack? Can you find me some copyright-free music? Open source stuff?”
“Can you pay me overtime?” I muttered under my breath. “Yeah, sure.” Those words were loud enough for my boss to hear.
I looked up a few sites and e-mailed J.T. the links, then got to work while listening to him grumble in the background over poor lighting and blurry shots.
It was an hour before quitting time when I finally heard him whoop with success. An e-mail with a link popped up on my screen. I sighed and put aside my work to watch it, ensuring that J.T. now had one view on his YouTube channel.
It actually wasn’t half bad. All those years of watching seventies and eighties detective shows plus his reality show fixation must have imprinted in J.T.’s mind because his “Gator, Private Eye” was a heck of a lot better than those knitting videos I’d been watching in the evenings.
“Nice job, J.T.,” I told him.
He beamed, rubbing a hand over his ultra-short, silver hair. He’d given up on the shaved, bald look, claiming that remembering to put sunscreen on his scalp at the golf course was problematic.
“Thanks.” His grin turned sly. “I hear you’ve got some drama of your own over in your neighborhood.”
J.T. was a gossip. In some ways, he was worse than my friend and neighbor, Daisy. And I had no idea what he was talking about. Drama to J.T. could be anything from a shocking domestic violence report to a trip-and-fall at the block yard sale.
“Which drama are you referring to?” I knew he’d tell me. J.T. always told me.
“Lars is trying to sic the city health inspector on Harry Peter.” He laughed. “It sounds like we’re about to have a venereal disease epidemic. I can never keep a straight face when I say that man’s name.”
I ignored J.T.’s little joke. “Will Lars is frustrated. I get it. He’s trying to open a bed and breakfast. Property taxes are up. He got laid off the end of last year and it’s tough making it on Kat’s income alone. Customers don’t want to pull up to a swank, restored Victorian house and see a junkyard next door.”
My boss shook his head, still chuckling over the VD joke. “Honestly, Lars just needs to wait a few years. Peter is what…ninety? He’ll probably drop dead before the summer is over.”
“He’s early eighties by my guess. And everyone has been waiting for him to drop dead for the last twenty years. Personally, I think the guy will outlive us all.”
J.T. stood and walked over to hover by my desk. “You live across the street from the guy. What do you think Lars’s chances are?”
I sniffed. “Slim to none. The Millers tried the same thing fifteen years ago when they were trying to sell and Peter’s place was driving down their property value. Say what you will about Peter’s eccentricities, but he does minimally maintain the house and property.”
Of course, it was pretty easy to minimally maintain the property when there were appliances covering every square inch of what used to be grass. No mowing or weed-eating necessary. And what happened on the inside was his business as the property owner. I doubted they’d condemn the place if it had a leaking roof and a non-working furnace since it was owner occupied.
“That was fifteen years ago. There’s got to be something that’s happened since then—black mold, dead rats, rotted bananas. Or maybe fire hazards? The city can do something if there are no clear paths for the fire department if the place goes up in flames, right?”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “It’s not that simple, J.T. The city can cite him for code infractions, but he’d have thirty, or sixty, or ninety days to correct them, and there are usually extensions upon extensions. If the building isn’t on the verge of collapse, if it’s not in a condition that endangers neighbors or pedestrians on the sidewalk, then they probably won’t push the issue.”
“Black mold?” J.T. repeated. “Dead rats?”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. “I was just in there yesterday. I didn’t smell any dead animals, or mold, or even rotted bananas.”
“He let you in?” J.T.’s eyes widened. “What was it like?”
I squirmed, reluctant to discuss the details of my neighbor’s obsessive collecting tendencies. “It was like a house—a house with a lot of stuff.”
I turned to get back to my work, noticing out of the corner of my eye that J.T. was still hovering.
“What about the lawn? All those appliances? All that junk?”
I rolled my eyes. “We don’t have an HOA. If he wants to have a front lawn full of old washing machines, there’s nothing stopping him. Daisy has dream catchers and an altar in her yard. The Sedgewicks have ha
lf a dozen plastic flamingos. Every Christmas, Bob Simmons puts every inflatable ornament known to mankind around his house. I can’t even see his house when they’re all blown up. It’s a slippery slope, J.T. You don’t want the government removing you from your house because the neighbors don’t like your shutters or basketball hoop or ornamental gazing sphere. You don’t want the government removing you from your house because someone thinks your comic collection or dozen cats or strict adherence to Feng Shui means you’re ready to be involuntarily committed. There’s always a risk that someone’s pink flamingos, or Wiccan altar or washing-machine covered front lawn is going to affect your house value. That doesn’t override their right to enjoy their property in any manner they see fit as long as it doesn’t affect public health.”
I should have gotten an Academy Award for that speech. Maybe posing for J.T.’s videos had turned me into an actress.
“Ah, well. Guess Lars will just have to wait for old man Peter to drop dead, then.” J.T. turned around and grabbed his briefcase off a chair. “It’s Friday, Kay. Take off early and go to happy hour or something. You can get back to those on Monday.”
Easy for him to say. He wouldn’t be the one with a pile of work on his desk first thing Monday morning. I hated leaving for the weekend with unfinished business, It followed me around, haunted me, loomed at the edge of my awareness just like that darned shadow in my vision. But at this rate I’d be here until sunset, and I’d been looking forward to wine-on-the-porch night with Daisy.
“Thanks.” I waved J.T. out the door and stuffed the folders into my bag, just in case I couldn’t take it and had to work on them over the weekend. Then I turned off the lights, locked the door, and headed home.
Chapter 3
“See? The purl stitch has the textured loop facing, where the knit stitch is smooth.”
“Just like on a sweater,” I commented, flipping the swatch back and forth in amazement. After struggling for months with the instructions that came with my knitting kit and online videos, I finally decided that I’d never progress beyond lumpy, glue-finished, polygon-shaped washcloths without some one-on-one help. I truly wanted to make hats for the hospital maternity ward and other donation-worthy items, but I hadn’t even perfected the washcloth. Actually, it was so far from perfect that I was ashamed to use them myself, let alone torture some poor unfortunate with my terrible handiwork.