his red MG. Eight-fourteen, the writer goes out the
French doors and disappears around the west side of the
house. Nine-oh-six, the red-headed youngish man leans
out the second-story window by the stairs and looks
every which way through something like a small camera. Nine-twenty-two, Joe returns with two white bakery
bags, two pink boxes, and a Moonbeam’s bag, probably
filled with hot coffee. Nine-thirty-one, writer comes
back and sits in lawn swing on front porch. Nine-forty,
black Lincoln Town Car pulls into cul-de-sac. Writer
jumps over porch rail and runs down driveway toward
garage. Nine-forty-one, well-dressed man wearing sunglasses goes to front door and is let in.” Arlene, wearing
a bright smile, looked up. “How am I doing?”
“Wow!” Judith gasped in admiration. “So that’s how
you do it?”
Arlene looked blank. “Do what?”
“You know . . .” Judith faltered, never one to accuse
Arlene of snooping. “Keep track of things. Help Carl
run the Neighborhood Watch. Stay on top of events on
the block. You must file everything like a computer.”
“No,” Arlene asserted. “Not at all. Now that I’ve
said it out loud, I can barely remember anything.”
Judith didn’t quite believe her, but wouldn’t argue.
Any dispute with her neighbor brought grief in the
form of Arlene’s reversals and self-contradictions.
“That’s very helpful,” she said. “After Vito—the man
with the sunglasses—arrived, what happened next?”
Arlene’s smile faded. “There is no next. Carl and I
left for ten o’clock Mass at SOTS, went to coffee and
doughnuts in the school hall, and stopped at Falstaff’s
on the way back. We didn’t get home until almost one.
I didn’t notice anything or anybody until you showed
up shortly before one-thirty.”
“What about,” Renie inquired, “since Judith got
back?”
But Arlene shook her head in a regretful manner. “I
got caught up in dinner preparations. Most of our darling children are coming over tonight. Except for seeing you and Bill arrive, I didn’t notice anyone else until
the medics arrived.”
“Nothing in the backyard?” Judith asked.
Arlene’s eyes narrowed. “The backyard?” She automatically swerved around to look in that direction,
though she couldn’t see anything from her position at
the table. “No. What on earth did I miss?” She seemed
genuinely aggrieved.
“It may have happened while you were on the sidewalk with the other neighbors,” Judith said in a comforting voice. Quickly, she explained about finding the
