“This is going to be grrrreat,” she said, pulling the last word through time like taffy.
“Mama,” he said. “Know what?”
“No, what?”
“Why do people follow me around?”
“Because you’re cute. You having young female admirer trouble?”
“There was this plumber van out there across the street when I got on the bus Monday, and when I got out of school, he followed the bus home.” Reb reached up, and the cockatiel stepped onto his finger. He brought the bird to his face, and the small beak nibbled at his lip. “Kiss the bird,” he said.
“That’s nice,” she said absently as she worked.
“And he stayed outside in front of Mrs. Walters’s house for a long time.”
“Who?”
“The plumber in the van with pipes on top.”
“It was probably a different van, Reb. Some companies have lots of trucks. Erin, get off the phone and set the table.”
“Yesterday it was a plumber van in the morning on the way, and in the afternoon all the way back, but then today it was a plumber van on the way and a red car back home. Do plumbers drive red cars sometimes?”
What Reb had said finally began to filter through her thoughts. “What are you talking about?” She stopped and looked at him.
“A car with two men in it at the school. And when I got off the bus, it stopped in front of Alice’s house. Isn’t that weird?”
Weird? “What did the men look like?”
“I dunno. Just one was kinda white-headed. Sunglasses and a cap. The other was older, I think.”
“Was it the same man? The plumber and the man in the red car?”
“I don’t know. Couldn’t see inside the van on account of the dark windows.”
“Would you know the man if you saw him again?”
“If he was in that car. I didn’t really see him face-to-face.”
Laura stared at Reb. Reb stared back. It had been years since she had considered her family vulnerable to danger from the sort of people… What sort of people? “Erin, watch the spaghetti for a minute,” Laura said. “Off the phone. Now.” The sudden authority in her mother’s voice shocked Erin and she sat up.
Erin said good-bye to the person on the line and crossed to the counter. “What?” she said, obviously irritated.
“When Reb’s watch goes off, remove the pasta from the heat and pour it into the colander. Then turn the stove off and serve your plates, okay?”
“Sure, why?”
“Because I have to take Wolf out for a few minutes.”
Erin frowned and tilted her head. “How about I do that and you drain the noodles and stuff?” Erin leaned on the counter beside Reb. “I mean, it’s just so Little Betty Homemaker, I could hurl.”
“Women have to know how to cook, Erin,” Reb said. He stepped to the cage in the corner of the nook and put the bird inside. Then he washed his hands in the sink.
“Women lawyers don’t. I’m going to eat every meal at really fine restaurants. Except when I’m in court dazzling the jury.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Laura said. She picked up Wolf’s red nylon lead from the sideboard. Seeing his leash, Wolf started spinning in place and stopped only so she could clip it onto his collar. “Erin, have you noticed any strange men around lately?”
“What man isn’t strange?”
“No, like strangers. Hanging around. Following you.” Laura tried to seem casual, but the question registered some concern in Erin’s eyes.
“You mean like winos? Sure, they’re everywhere.”
“She means like plumbers,” Reb said. “And men in cars watching buses.”
“Plumbers!” Erin said, laughing away the seriousness that had existed a split second before. “Oh, like I run around watching for plumbers.”
Laura went out the front door, followed the dog down the walkway, and paused at the front gate. She looked through the wrought-iron bars toward Alice Walters’s house, which was across the street at an angle. Alice was in the Bahamas for two months. There was no red car on the street and no plumbing van. Not that she had expected there would be. But, still, Reb wasn’t given to an overactive imagination. Laura opened the gate and followed Wolf down the street. As she passed the house, she cut her eyes toward the bedroom on the second floor and thought she saw-no, “saw” was the wrong word, for she didn’t see anything-she felt as though eyes were following her. She stopped and looked up. Then she stared at Alice’s front door where the blinking red light showed that the alarm system was armed. While she watched the house, Wolf saluted the wisteria bush at the edge of Laura’s wall.
Alice Walters, although she was sixty, was a friend of Laura’s and visited once a week or so. She was the possessor of strong opinions on everything, but these opinions were carefully thought out and then mixed with emotion and served piping hot. Laura got a kick out of her. She hadn’t asked Laura to keep an eye on her house, but Laura was afraid that Alice’s art, furniture, and other valuables might draw burglars. Alice had never married and was fond of Reb and Erin, giving them presents on Christmas and allowing them to stay at her house when Laura had to go out of town.
Laura stared up at the second-floor windows and then followed Wolf back to the house. As she was about to open her gate, a red Volvo sedan with two men in the front seat turned the corner and slowed as if they planned to pull over. But the driver didn’t stop. In fact, the car gathered speed, and as it passed Laura, she thought the passenger turned his head to avoid her stare. The car kept going and turned a few blocks away without using the blinker.
Laura thought about Allen White, a police homicide detective, who lived down the street. He was Reb’s little- league baseball coach. He had said, “If there’s ever anything I can do, call me.” Maybe there was and maybe she would.
12
Eve Fletcher stood like a warden at her front door watching the spot of a dog on her lawn through the storm door’s dingy safety glass. The animal, which was being bathed in the early-morning North Carolina sunshine, was an ancient, gray-faced Chihuahua, hardly larger than a hood ornament. He was possessed of a forehead shaped like a tennis ball, batlike ears, and bulging eyes filled with the milk of blindness. The animal was arching its backbone and trembling like a cheap vibrator. She cracked the door so he could hear her.
“Hurry, Mr. Puzzle,” Eve said. “Toodatoo for Mommy. Yessireesir, it’s a good boy that does his little toodatoo.” Her voice had the quality of a hacksaw against mutton bone.
The dog turned its head toward the door, and as if by his mistress’s command something that resembled a burned-up chili pepper issued forth, swung as if at the end of a string, and then fell into the tall grass. This accomplished, Mr. Puzzle shook himself, took a feeble shot at kicking grass over the refuse, and headed for the door, following his earlier scent or his mistress’s voice. As he reached the stoop, Eve opened the door, waltzed down the three steps, and scooped him to her bosom, kissing him on the domed head. She was rewarded with a wet sneeze and a weakly wagging twig of a tail that might have been sectioned from a rat.
Eve shuffled toward the den on her stovepipe legs with the animal clutched to her chest like a treasure. Eve was almost six feet tall, a wide-shouldered woman of sixty-eight. She had large hands with thick wrists and huge breasts that hung from her chest like water balloons tied together and draped over a clothesline. Heavy prescription reading glasses balanced precariously on the tip of her wide nose.
The entire den was hardly more than a nest. It was littered with a confusion of accumulated clutter, including boxes in a wide range of sizes and states of disgorgement. There was an open sewing basket, a pink Easter basket filled with balls of yarn, stacks upon stacks of National Geographic, paperbacks, Soap Opera Digest, and other magazines. There were bundles of mail tied with string, paper grocery bags with newspapers tightly packed inside.
