Neighborhood Watch (21 page)

“Now, Teddy,” she said with her hands on her hips, “you’re on the board. You have to be objective. I can’t tell you that beforehand.”

“Stop it, Kristin. It isn’t funny.”

“You’re not kidding. It isn’t funny.”

“So? What are you going to say?”

“Just what I told you I saw.”

“Nothing more?”

“What else can I say?”

“I know how you feel about some of the security people. I just thought—”

The doorbell chimed.

“That’s Angela,” Kristin said.

“Jesus, we didn’t even have our coffee yet and you two are back at it?”

“I invited her to join us for coffee, Ted. You can associate with a known complainant, can’t you?”

“Known complainant? I don’t think you two are going overboard. You are overboard,

Kristin,” he said.

“So? You’ll rescue us.”

“I only hope I can,” he muttered as she went to thedoor.

“Hi. Am I too early?” Angela asked.

“No. Perfect timing actually. I was just putting up the coffee.”

Angela, carrying a leather bound file under her arm, followed Kristin to the kitchen.

“Hi, Ted.”

“Angela. How is it out? Did it start raining?”

“No, but you can feel the drops forming. It’s that humid. Did you ever notice how dark it is out here when it’s overcast, even with our state-of-the-art streetlights?”

“That’s a tradeoff we make for rural living,” Ted said.

“The lake always looks so inky and foreboding on nights like this,” Angela said. “I keep expecting the creature from the dark lagoon or something to appear.”

Kristin laughed.

“What creature?” Jennifer said, coming in from the den.

“Oh, no. Little pitchers have big ears. No creature, honey. I was just joking. Who’s that?”

Angela asked indicating Jennifer’s doll.

“Baby Walk-Along,” she said. “We’re watching Mickey Mouse.” She turned and ran

back to the den.

Angela smiled.

“Isn’t that doll too big? I thought I read something in the CC and R’s . . .” She pretended to thumb through some papers. Kristin laughed, but Teddy shook his head.

“You two are too much. How’s Steve handling all this?” he asked, which put a kink in the humor. Angela grew dark and serious quickly.

“Not too well. We’re just grunting at each other these days.”

“Are you sure it’s worth it, Angela?” Teddy asked.

“Only if we want to stay here,” she said. “To tell you the truth, Ted,” she said, smiling at Kristin, “I was ready to give up until Kristin came over and we had a good talk.”

“Really?” He looked at Kristin, but she wasn’t sure if it was a look of admiration or a look of disappointment.

“Yes. It was refreshing to meet someone who had a mind of her own, and some intestinal fortitude, as my father used to say. You can be very proud of your wife.” When Teddy didn’t respond, she added, “I hope you are.”

“Oh, I am. I just worry about the two of you getting into cat fights with some of the diehards, that’s all.”

“We can scratch and kick as well as the best of them, can’t we, Kristin?”

“Better. Come on, spread the papers out on the table and I’ll get us some coffee. You want to sit in, Ted?”

He shrugged.

“I’ll sit in if you’ll consider suggestions.”

“Of course we will,” Angela said and they all sat together, reviewing some of the

research and analysis Angela and Kristin had already completed. Nearly an hour later, Teddy rose from his seat to go watch television with Jennifer.

“We’ve got to relax,” he said. “If we get too intense about all this, we’ll lose our perspective.”

Angela waited for him to leave and then leaned over to ask in a low voice, “He’s not too happy about our efforts, is he?”

“He is and he isn’t. Teddy’s a bit confused these days,” Kristin said. “But,” she said smiling, “he wants to make changes. He just worries about me.”

“I wish that was the reason Steven is so cantankerous. He’s worried about offending the wrong people.” She thought a moment. “Maybe I oughta go home and try to talk things out with him.”

“Sure. Once he understands we’re only out to improve what we have . . .”

“I just resent the way he behaved after the incident with the security people, blaming it on me. He insists I must have screwed up the alarm in the house. I never touched the damn thing.”

Kristin nodded. Angela folded the file and stood up.

“All right. I’ll call you in the morning and let you know how things go on the home turf.”

“Good luck.”

Kristin walked her to the door. When she opened it, she saw the rain had begun, but it was only drizzling.

“I’ll lend you an umbrella.”

“Nonsense. I’ll just put these papers under my jacket and trot home,” Angela said. “See you at the Okay Corral, partner.”

“Night.”

Kristin watched her run down the walk and then wave and start for home. She closed the door, took a deep breath and went to join Teddy and Jennifer. For a while the three of them just sat together, watching a sitcom. Then Teddy turned to her and smiled.

“I’ll call Steve Del Marco tomorrow and see what I can do,” he offered.

“Thank you, Teddy. That will help.”

“I hope so,” he said.

About a half an hour after they put Jennifer to bed and started to watch a movie on one of the cable networks, the phone rang. They looked at each other. Neither anticipated a call this late.

“I’ll get it,” Kristin said, thinking it might be Angela reporting either some success with her husband or terrible failure. But it was Steve Del Marco himself.

“Hello, Kristin,” he said. “I don’t like to call anyone this late,” he said emphasizing the word late, “but it is late. She could have at least come home to say good night to the boys.

She promised them she would, and I’m—”

“What are you talking about, Steven?”

“I’m talking about my wife,” he said disdainfully. “Can you please put her on the line.”

“But Steven . . . Angela left hours ago.”

Teddy turned sharply from the television set. Kristin checked her watch. “We’re talking two hours at least.”

“You’re kidding,” Steven said.

“Is there someone else she said she was going to see?” Kristin asked.

“As far as I know, you two are the only ones doing this,” Steve replied bitterly.

“Steven, you’re worrying me.”

“How do you think I feel?” he snapped. “Jesus. What is she doing, trying to punish me?”

“Well, where could she be?”

“I don’t know. I’ll see if her car’s here. She left it in the driveway today. I had the television up loud and maybe didn’t hear her go.”

“I’m coming right over,” Kristin said. She hung up quickly.

“What?” Teddy asked.

“Angela’s not home. Steven thought she was still here.”

“Really? Where would she go?”

“Nowhere I know. When she left, she was heading home. I watched her jog away.”

“So where are you going?”

“I’m just going to go up there and see if she took the car.”

“Why don’t you wait for him to call, Kristin? It’s pouring out there,” Teddy said, but she no longer heard him. She went to the hall closet and got out her raincoat and an umbrella.

It was coming down pretty hard, the drops pelting the macadam and thumping her

umbrella as she started down the walk. The wind forced her to grip the umbrella handle very tightly and swept the raindrops in and under the protection of her umbrella. It slowed her gait. Looking up the street, she saw Steven Del Marco standing in his

doorway. She saw Angela’s car in the driveway and shouted to him as she hurried her pace. He had no umbrella, but he stepped out into the rain anyway when she approached.

He looked angry enough to strike her.

“The car’s obviously here,” he said. “I called the security gate. They haven’t seen her.

They’re on the way.”

“Well, where can she be?” Kristin cried, spinning around. “She must be visiting

someone.”

The raindrops soaked him, but he didn’t move to protect himself. He was that enraged.

She raised the umbrella to give him as well as herself some protection. The water

streaked down the sides of his face. His dark eyes looked like two pieces of gray slate, catching a little of the diffused light from the street lamps and the lamps on his front lawn and driveway.

“Visiting someone?” He raised his arms. “What am I supposed to do, call every resident of Emerald Lakes at this hour and ask if my wife is there? See what she’s doing to me?

You had to encourage her,” he said accusingly.

“I didn’t encourage her, Steven. I agreed with her. She went through a very traumatic experience and—”

They both turned as the security guards pulled up in their car. Spier and Stark stepped out slowly as if they were immune to the rain. They swaggered arrogantly through the downpour, both draped in black rain capes, the water streaming over the brims of their caps. Both carried long flashlights.

“What’s going on, Mr. Del Marco?” Spier asked.

“My wife’s missing, I’m ashamed to say,” Steven replied.

“Missing?” Stark said, a wry smile on his lips.

“Let’s step under the roof here and talk,” Spier said pointing to the portico with his flashlight. They all walked up to the patio.

“My wife went to visit with Mrs. Morris here about three, three and a half hours ago.

Mrs. Morris claims she left about two and a half hours ago, only she didn’t come home.”

“Well, she’s probably visiting someone else, don’t you think, Mr. Del Marco?” Spier said. “I know she’s been going around the development a great deal lately,” he added and shifted his eyes to Kristin.

“I doubt it. She had no umbrella. When she left my house, she put her papers under her coat and ran toward home,” Kristin said.

“Papers?” Stark said.

“Yes, papers. So she wouldn’t be traipsing all over the development knocking on doors, Mr. Spier,” Kristin snapped. Spier and Stark just stared at her.

“Did she have anything to drink?” Spier asked.

“Anything to drink? What do you mean?”

“Alcoholic?”

“Of course not. What are you suggesting? Angela got drunk and wandered off into the night?”

“Just asking. She didn’t come home and your house is not that far away,” Spier said gazing down the street.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” Kristin demanded impatiently.

“She didn’t come through any of the gates,” Stark said to Spier. He nodded.

“Yeah. She should still be around here somewhere. Sure she didn’t go visit anyone else, now?”

“I told you. When she left my house, she was going straight home. I watched her walk away!”

Spier nodded calmly.

“I guess we’ll have to sweep the area. You go right and I’ll go left, Carl.”

“Sweep the area?” Kristin asked, the reality of what was happening finally settling in and making her heart pound.

“Maybe she fainted or something. We’ve got to check around, Mrs. Morris. You just

asked us what we were going to do and there isn’t much else to do except go house to house and knock on doors.”

“Sorry,” Steven Del Marco said when the two security guards stepped back into the

downpour.

“This is what we’re paying them to do for us, Steven. You don’t have to apologize,”

Kristin said firmly. Their tight-ass attitudes and innuendos annoyed her. Steven didn’t reply. “Are the boys still awake?”

“Yes,” he said. “They know something’s up.”

“You want me to go inside and talk to them?”

“It’s all right,” he said and glared at her as if to say,

“You’ve talked enough to members of my family.”

She looked down the street and saw Teddy walking up quickly, holding an umbrella.

“What’s happening?” he shouted

“We don’t know. They’re looking over the area,” Kristin said.

“She didn’t say she was going to see anyone else?”

“No, Teddy. I saw her to the door and she started to run home in the drizzle,” Kristin said, feeling like she had turned into a broken record.

“Jesus, this is weird,” he said, walking up the drive.

“Tell me about it,” Steven Del Marco said. “She’s probably sitting under someone’s back porch, just letting me stew.”

“Oh, Steven, she wouldn’t do that. She was going home to talk things over with you and

—”

“You don’t know her,” Steven insisted. “She could do something like that.”

They heard Spier shouting.

“What’s that?” Teddy said turning. The beam of Spier’s flashlight whipped through the raindrops as he waved at them.

“He’s found something,” Steven Del Marco muttered fearfully.

The three of them charged off the portico toward the security guard who waved them

back toward the lake. He walked ahead and then turned to wait for them.

“What?” Steven asked as they approached.

“It ain’t pretty,” Spier said and turned.

Kristin’s heart seemed to bob in her chest. Her legs felt light and wobbly.

“I would stay back,” Spier said when Kristin stepped forward.

“No,” Kristin insisted. She took a deep breath.

“Show us what you’ve found.”

She took Teddy’s arm and the three of them followed the security guard back to a row of wild bushes. Stark was standing behind one, his flashlight directed down. They turned around the bushes and saw her.

Angela was face down on the grass, her skirt raised over her waist, her panties gone, her rear end sopping wet and gleaming. Her head was twisted to the left, her right cheek soaking in the mud. Behind her head, just under her scalp was a clear, red gash. The raindrops made the blood gleam like rubies.

Kristin screamed.

“Christ Almighty,” Teddy said, going to his knees.

“Oh, my God,” Steven said. “Oh, my God,” he muttered. “What happened?”

Teddy checked her pulse.

“She’s still alive,” he reported. He took off his coat and put it over her. Then he looked up at Stark. “Call an ambulance, quick. And call the police!”

Stark turned to Spier who nodded and Stark shot off toward the car. Teddy held his

umbrella out for Steven to take. “Hold this over her, Steven,” he ordered.