He shot her no less than three separate looks, while she shamelessly studied him, before asking, “What got you out walking?”
“The sun.”
He shot her another look, this one was uncertain.
“Really,” she assured him, touched by his concern. “It wasn’t like the nights. I finished everything at home. It was nice out. I wanted to move.”
They were circling behind the college, through the section of town known as the kitchen, for the support staff it gave the school. It was an area of aged two- and three-family houses, of skewed porches, packed clotheslines, and rusted pickups. Its shabbiness was heightened when the sun moved behind a cloud.
“I don’t like doing nothing,” she said.
“What about the Sun?”
“Two more articles, done. I write them faster than Rod can assign them. I need more to do. If Doug is going to be away as much as Jill is, I’m in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Oh, God. Where to begin. “Boredom—loneliness—frustration—impatience—envy—hunger.” The last tumbled out quite spontaneously, rather like her thoughts on being feminine the other day. The two weren’t unrelated.
“What kind of hunger?” Brian asked.
The kind that isn’t allowed, she thought but was mercifully saved from having to say it aloud or lie, when the two-way radio made a staticky sound.
Brian listened in. “There’s a problem three streets over,” he said and picked up the handset. After logging in his position, he conversed with the dispatcher. Then he put the car into gear. “A woman just reported a peeping Tom. Feel like taking a ride?”
What to do? Who to be? Riding shotgun with Brian was right down her alley. “Definitely.”
“Her name’s Leila Jones.”
“I know Leila. She was several years ahead of Jill in school, but they played town soccer together.”
“Were they friends?”
“No. There wasn’t time. Leila moved up to the next division. Then she got pregnant and dropped out of school, out of soccer, the whole thing.”
“How old was she?”
“Fourteen when the first was born. She’s had others since.”
He made a frustrated sound as he turned onto Leila’s street, and moments later pulled up before the shabbiest house there. It was a three-decker, with peeling paint, windows covered with graffitied wood planks, and broken toys strewn on the lawn.
Brian released his seat belt. “Want to wait in the car?”
“Not particularly.” She was tired of being spectator to other people’s sport.
“I can’t talk you into it?” His eyes tried.
She slipped out of the car and started up the front walk.
Easily catching up, he reached ahead of her to ring the bell. “Let me do the talking, at least.”
“I think the bell may not work.”
He knocked. Child sounds, mixed with television sounds, came from inside the house. He knocked more loudly.
“Is this her? First floor?” Emily asked.
“That’s what they said.”
The door opened. Emily recognized Leila instantly, even with one child in her arms and another clinging to her leg, though she was dismayed at the girl’s state. Her hair was uncombed, her clothes worn, her eyes large and tired. She looked nearly as old and rundown as the house—which put things in perspective for Emily. For all her own concerns, her life was far safer, saner, more secure than this girl’s.
Brian showed his badge. “I’m Detective Stasek. I understand you’re having some trouble.”
Leila looked unsurely at Emily, until he said, “Mrs. Arkin is my sidekick for the afternoon,” when she stood back to let them come in.
The inside of the house was as depressing as the outside, with most everything worn, broken, or patched. In addition to the two children clinging to Leila, two others were fighting over a toy, while a third one sat crying in a wooden crate.
“Shut up, Joey,” Leila snapped at the crying one, who only cried louder. “You can’t play with the others ’cause you bite.”
“Momma, it’s my turn,” screamed one of the squabblers. “Gimme it, Lissie! Gimme it!”
“But I’m not done,” Lissie cried.
“You had it too long!”
“Lissie, let Davis have it!”
Lissie clutched the toy to her stomach and bent over, at which point Davis began pummeling her.
Leila rushed over, leaving the child who had been attached to her leg staggering on its own. “Davis Jones, don’t you hit your sister that way.” She hauled the child off by the arm. Behind her, the abandoned child sat down hard and started to wail.
Emily lifted the child. “Hey, hey,” she said softly.
“This is all I hear,” Leila complained over the ongoing noise. “All they do is scream and fight.”
“How old are they?” Brian asked.
Leila pointed. “Seven, five, four, two, and ten months.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Is there a father around?”
“There should’a been, for the two littlest ones, but he couldn’t stand the noise, either, so he left. They all do. They just leave the babies with me, but how am I s’posed to take care of them? How am I s’posed to do everything they can’t?”
“Shouldn’t the oldest be in school?”
“They sent her home for lice, so I gotta treat that and make sure none of the others get it, and they will, they always do.”
“I thought your mother was helping you out,” Emily said.
“She did until the last baby came along, then she said that if I was so stupid as to have another one, I could just take care of it myself, but I’m having trouble getting everything done, and all they do is scream.” She turned on the one in the crate, who continued to cry. “Shut up, Joey!” She pointed a shaky finger at Brian and encompassed the other children in her gaze. “Do you know who this man is? He’s a policeman, and he’s gonna lock you up in jail and leave you there, if you don’t all shut up this minute!”
Emily pressed the head of the child she held to her breast. If the shrillness of Leila’s voice upset her, she could imagine what it did to the children. Leila broadcast panic. The children were catching it.
Speaking in a voice that was starkly calm by contrast, Brian said, “Tell me about the man who was looking in your windows. Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Has he ever been here before?”
“I don’t know.”
“What, exactly, was he doing?”
“I’m hungry, Mama!”
“I wanna go out!”
Leila tried to free herself from the older two, who, having forgotten about the toy they had been fighting over moments before, were tugging at her shirt. “You can’t go out,” she told the little girl. “It’s gonna rain.” To Brian, she said, “He was walking around the house, looking in the windows. Don’t pull at me, Davis! Lissie, get Davis a cookie.”
“I don’t want a cookie. I want cheese.”
“I don’t have cheese. Lissie, get him a cookie.”
“The windows are raised off the ground,” Brian said. “Do you mean that he was looking up at them?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe him for me?”
“He was dark—dark clothes, dark hair.”
Brian made notes in a small notebook. “Caucasian?”
“Yes.”
“I wanna go out, Mama,” Lissie whined.
“I told you to get Davis a cookie!”
“How old was he?” Brian asked.
“I don’t know. He was wearing a hat.”
“What kind of hat?”
“I guess it was a baseball hat.”
“Did it have anything on it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Writing? A picture?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“Mama, I wanna watch television.�
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“No, Davis! It’s broken!” Davis ran into the other room. “Joey, stop crying.”
“Can you tell me how tall he was?” Brian asked.
She raised a hand as high as it would go.
“Was he heavy?”
She frowned, then shrugged.
“Was there anything unusual about him? Any distinctive feature?”
“I didn’t see any, I was so nervous. He just kept wandering around the house, looking in at us. It was making the kids scared. He didn’t look like he was passing by, I mean, he was looking for something.”
Emily was wondering if he was trying to decide what to repair first, when Brian asked, “Do you think he might have been hired to paint the house?”
“He didn’t have any stuff with him. He was just looking in at us, walking around and looking in.”
“Who owns this house?”
“Ray Telly. He lives on the third floor.”
Brian noted that. “This man who was walking around looking in—did he see you looking back at him?”
“He must have, because the kids were looking out at him, and I kept yelling at them to get away, but they wouldn’t. He’s going to come back. I know he is. Maybe he wants to do somethin’ to one of the kids.”
Emily felt a shudder of remembrance.
Gently, Brian asked, “Why would he want to do that?”
“I don’t know, but something awful might happen if he comes back. I can’t watch these kids every minute.” A crash came from the back of the house. She raced in that direction with Brian on her heels.
Emily followed.
Leila was shrieking even before she reached the kitchen. “Davis, what did you do? I was heatin’ that water to give the baby a bath, and now you got it spilled all over the floor. Why’d you go and do that?”
Brian put a hand on her arm. “Yelling at him like that won’t help.”
“What will?” she yelled at Brian. “I’ve tried everything, but whatever I say, they don’t do.” Her thin body was shaking. She was on the verge of hysteria.
Emily’s heart went out to her. “Isn’t there someone who can give you a hand?”
She shifted the baby, took a dirty cloth from the counter and dropped it on the puddle on the floor. “No one’ll come. But if I’m all alone here, that man will come in and do something awful.”
“You have no idea who he was?” Brian asked.
“No. I told you. I never saw him before.”
Brian slipped the notebook back into his pocket. “Tell you what. I’m going to take a look around outside. Then I’ll talk with your neighbors about what they’ve seen.” He turned to Emily, but she spoke before he could.
“I’ll help Leila out until you’re done outside.”
She did what she could. By the time he returned, the two youngest children had been bathed and changed, the three others were playing in a fort under a blanket-draped table, and in the marginally cleaned kitchen, Leila was cooking a pot of spaghetti.
She faced Brian apprehensively.
“I didn’t learn much,” he confessed, “but I’ll take what I have back to the station and pass it around. We’ll keep an eye on the house for a couple of days. Sound fair?”
Leila swallowed. She looked at Emily, then at Brian, and nodded.
“What did you find?” Emily asked when they reached the car.
“Footprints, lots of different ones in the dirt around the house, and cigarette butts, same thing, different brands. I checked the neighbors on both sides, plus the two living above. No one saw any strange man walking around.”
“So what do we do?”
“We?” he asked, sliding her the corner of a smile. “We do nothing. I file my report and keep an eye on her.”
“She needs help.”
“She needs birth control. Why do these kids keep doing it, over and over again? She can’t handle four, so she has another? It doesn’t makes sense.”
“Maybe sex is her only pleasure,” Emily suggested. “Maybe that’s the only time she feels loved.”
“Okay. Have sex. But use something, for God’s sake.” He leaned toward the wheel and peered up. “It’s getting darker out there. Think it’ll rain?”
“Lord, I hope not. Myra will be distraught.”
“When are we due there?”
“Six.”
“I’ll drop you home, then go back to the station to file my report before I pick up Julia. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Julia was quiet when Brian arrived. She toddled straight to him and, when he swung her up, put her head down on his shoulder. He sensed something was wrong, even before Janice said, “I don’t think she’s feeling well. She may be coming down with a cold.”
He felt a wave of panic. She hadn’t been sick since they’d been alone. In fact, she hadn’t been sick at all. “What do I do for a cold?”
“Start with baby aspirin. She feels warm. If she needs a decongestant, your pediatrician will suggest one.”
Brian wasn’t taking the chance of needing one and being without. On the way home, he stopped at the drugstore for aspirin and the decongestant that Harold said Julia’s pediatrician liked. He bought cough syrup and an antacid for good measure.
Julia lay quietly against Brian while he paid for the medicine, and then, because she felt warm, cuddly, and unusually docile, he strolled toward the back of the store.
He dug quarters out of his pocket and slid into the photo booth. “Grammie will never know that you weren’t feeling well. I don’t think she believes me when I tell her we’re doing fine, so we’ll take this picture and send it along. Here we go. Real quick and easy. One quarter, two, three, four. There.” He settled himself in and gave Julia a nudge. When she didn’t move, he checked her face. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open and moist. She was sound asleep.
He grunted just as the first flash went off, and gave her another nudge. “Wake up, toots. Time to smile for Grammie.” He shifted her, but she was like a limp scarf, molding to his shoulder regardless of how he tried to arrange her. The second flash came and went with her breathing heavy against his neck. Her cheek was flushed. He touched it, disconcerted by its warmth. Sighing, he asked, “No picture yet?” as the third flash went off, then said, “What the hell,” and produced a broad smile for the fourth.
She didn’t wake up when he put her back in the car and slept all the way home, but when he tried to put her into her crib, she began to cry. That made giving her the aspirin easy. Once that was done, he picked her up and sank into the chair. She settled against him, content once more.
Myra scowled at the sky. She didn’t understand. It had been so beautiful—bright sun, blue skies, crisp air—all day. Now that the time of her cookout was approaching, clouds had moved in.
Her guests were due at six. The rain might hold off. Maybe there wouldn’t be rain at all, just clouds, in which case they could stay out in the yard. She had candles for when it grew dark, white candles in lovely little glass cups that reminded her of the ones in church.
She turned on the radio in the kitchen and moved the tuner up and down the dial, skipping over music, stopping at words until she heard the ones she wanted. “…Southbound is clear to the Pike. The weather forecast isn’t as promising. Clouds will be moving in—”
“They’re already here!” she shouted.
“With rain likely by dusk and continuing on through the night.”
She turned off the radio and shot a worried look at the clock. It was five-thirty. Dusk wasn’t until six-fifteen. They had a chance.
But if the clouds were already in, Grannick was ahead of the rest of the world, which meant that the rain could come any time.
She tried to call Emily, but reached the machine instead and hung up. She hated machines. A machine couldn’t tell her that Emily was in the bath, which was where, no doubt, she was. She had been out walking earlier. Myra had seen her leave. Brian had driven her home, then left. He had just returned with Julia.
&n
bsp; She dialed Emily’s number again, hung up on the machine, and counted to ten before dialing again, hanging up again, counting again. She repeated the sequence three more times before Emily answered.
“Emily, I know you were in the tub, and I’m very sorry to get you out, but you said you would help me with the coals for the cookout, and it’s time.”
“Myra! Good Lord, I was frightened. I didn’t know who it would be, calling over and over again.”
“The clouds are already in, which means that the rain may come sooner than they say. I can’t let that happen.”
“It’s no problem, Myra. We can always eat inside.”
“But this is a cook out. Eating in defeats the purpose. I thought that if you could come right over, we might get started. We’ll call Brian as soon as the coals are done. Come now, Emily.”
“You’ll have to give me ten minutes to dress.”
“Ten minutes. Oh, dear. I suppose I can start taking things from the refrigerator. You won’t be any longer, though, will you?”
She hung up the phone and glanced outside. Beneath the willow, on the grass by the bench, was the beautiful green blanket she had spread, and, on top, the brightly colored paper plates and napkins that she had bought in town. The colors looked brighter beneath the backyard lamps. The sky looked all the darker by contrast.
Hurriedly, she began taking the results of two days’ work from the refrigerator. She had made three different salads—potato, carrot-raisin, and the five-bean salad Frank loved. She had baked corn bread and had stuffed mushrooms. She had sliced tomatoes and red onions, had made a fruit compote and mixed up punch. Not knowing Brian’s preference, she had bought regular chips, ripple chips, and barbecued chips, not to mention ketchup, green and red relish, brown and yellow mustard, and green and black olives.
She rushed back and forth from the kitchen to the yard, setting bowl after bowl on the blanket. She was just carrying out the platter of meat when Emily arrived.
“And none too soon. Hurry, Emily. Light the grill. There’s not a moment to spare.”
“Hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken? Myra, you have enough food here to feed an army!”
Myra saw the willow sway. “Oh, dear. The wind is picking up. Hurry, Emily, hurry.” But even as she spoke, she felt the first drops of rain. “Oh, no,” she wailed. “I’ve waited so long for this. It can’t rain now! My plans will be ruined.”
Together Alone Page 20