I don’t see any cars or trucks outside. Maybe on Monday I could go to the town hall and look up the property tax records or something. There has to be a simple way to find out if Mr. Such-and-such is still alive and kicking.
“Or I could knock on the door,” I whisper to myself.
Of course, that could lead to an actual conversation with a human. Wouldn’t want to risk that.
This is all the Good Samaritan’s fault. If that guy hand’t stopped to help me change my tire, I wouldn’t be out here looking at Mr. Such-and-such’s house. I would be back at Uncle Walt’s, separating junk from keepsakes.
The other day, I was listening to the radio. It was a station that calls itself, “The Mountain of Pure Rock.” Apparently, “Rock” consists mostly of deposits of Molly Hatchet, sediments of Black Sabbath, and the occasional lode of Led Zeppelin. It’s roughly the only radio station that I can receive during the day. During a “Solid Block” of George Thorogood, a public service announcement came on between songs. The announcer reminded me that, “Every heat-related illness and death is one-hundred percent preventable. Do your part. WTOS encourages you to check on people in your community today.”
It is a really hot day. It isn’t South Carolina hot, but for Maine, it’s hot. And Mr. Such-and-such has all his windows closed. He has a pair of big trees flanking the house, but they’re not doing anything to prevent the sun from streaming in his front windows.
I take a step through the tall grass. I’m sure legions of ticks are hitching a ride. I’ll have to check myself carefully later.
Sweat is dripping down my back and rolling off my forehead again.
Six windows are looking at me: one from the attic, three on the second floor, and one on either side of the front door. My eyes keep going to the attic window. It’s small compared to the others—just four panes over four panes. It has to be a thousand degrees up there, easy.
“I’ll just knock, wait two-seconds, and then go home,” I whisper to myself.
It’s weird to talk oneself into something, you know? Who is speaking and who is listening? I guess it’s my heart telling my head what to do.
My heart says, “Have some compassion. There could be an old guy in there, cooking from the heat. He used to be Uncle Walt’s friend.”
My head says, “If someone is in there, they’ve probably been dead for months, probably years. Do you really want to be the guy who finds the body? You just moved to town. Nobody knows you. Is this how you want to meet the local police?”
I actually don’t have any idea if Uncle Walt was friends with Mr. Such-and-such. Aside from making us wave, Uncle Walt never talked about the guy. But they were the only two houses on this unnamed road. How could they not be friendly?
Sometimes if I take things in small steps, I can overcome my anxiety.
Step one—get to the door.
I walked through the most-likely-tick-infested grass and climbed the splintered steps.
In the shade of the porch, it was even hotter. It felt like the house itself had a fever.
Step two—knock.
(What qualifies as probable cause?)
What qualifies as probable cause?
Before I can get to step two, the knocking part, I notice that the door isn’t latched. It’s not technically open by any stretch. I can’t see through a gap into the inside of the house. But there’s too much space between the door and the frame, you know?
Back when I lived in New Jersey, I had this friend who would drop by all the time. Erin was my upstairs neighbor. I had a dog then. Or, maybe I should say that I lived with a dog. The dog came with the apartment and Erin came with the dog, so to speak. She had been friends with the previous tenant and she used to walk the dog for him. Anyway, Erin was sweet, but every time she let herself out of my apartment, she closed the door in the worst way. She would turn the handle as she pulled the door shut. When she let go of the handle, it was an absolute crapshoot if the latch would actually catch or not. So, sometimes I would come home and find my front door wide open.
Over the course of years, I found no way to train Erin to shut the door without turning the handle. She admitted that she was doing it. Even she had no explanation for the behavior. The closest we found to an explanation was that she, “Thought it was rude to slam the door shut.” There’s a huge gulf between pulling a door shut and letting the latch do its work and slamming it shut. It was weird.
I’m looking at this door, clearly not properly shut, and all I can think is that Erin must have visited. If there was even a breath of wind, it would blow the door open. Probably, I’m going to accidentally push it open when I knock.
To avoid that intrusion, I knock on the doorframe as loud as I can. The house looks like hell, but the doorframe is certainly solid. It absorbs my knock easily and barely conveys any sound into the house from what I can hear.
With a sigh and a deep breath, I prepare myself.
“Hello?”
The name comes back to me, echoing up from the back of my head.
“Mr. Engel?” I shout.
Wait, is that really his name, or some kind of weird joke that Uncle Walt was playing on me? Uncle Walt had a very dry sense of humor. Sometimes he would make up names for things and keep up the ruse for years and years. There’s a sandwich
