Neighborhood Watch (32 page)

“All right, Ted. Don’t give me a lecture.”

“I just can’t believe this. Going to see Elaine Feinberg. They’re all going to think you’re crazy.”

“Oh, that’s it. It’s not my health that worries you; it’s still what the people in the development will think. You afraid I’ll make headlines in the Neighborhood Watch

report?”

“Kristin.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore on the phone, Ted. For all I know, the phone’s tapped anyway. It’s connected to the security booth, isn’t it?”

“Jesus.”

“I’ll talk to you when you come home.”

“Maybe the house is bugged,” he said angrily.

“Maybe it is. We’ll go on the rear patio and talk,” she replied with deliberate seriousness.

“Okay. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“Good.”

She hung up without saying good-bye. Her heart was thumping and her face felt as if she had drawn too close to a raging fire. She thought for a moment and then, fully aware of the irony, turned to the Emerald Lakes directory, flipping the pages to the emergency numbers. When she found what she wanted, she dialed the sheriff’s department and asked for Lieutenant Kurosaka. She caught him just as he was leaving.

“Now you know what kind of hours we keep,” he jested. “What can I do for you, Mrs.

Morris?”

“Did you tell anyone about our conversation today?”

“What?”

“Philip Slater called my husband to complain about my visiting Elaine Feinberg,” she said quickly. Kurosaka was quiet. “Elaine Feinberg wouldn’t have told him.”

“Perhaps you spoke to someone about it or referred to it or—”

“I didn’t. I went directly to see you and then I came directly home and I’ve been here ever since. I haven’t spoken to anyone but my husband on the telephone. Was I being followed? Was that it?”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know.” She thought a moment, recalling the streets, her driving. “No. There was no one around when I came out of the house and I never saw a car behind me all the time.

But I don’t know. Does Philip Slater have eyes and ears everywhere?”

“Why did he call your husband?”

“To complain that I might be stirring up bad publicity for the development.”

“He does worry about that,” Kurosaka said. “Let me check something,” he added. “For the time being, just remain calm. A woman in your condition shouldn’t be involved in something like this,” he said softly.

“I want to know how Mr. Slater knew I was at that house,” she reiterated firmly.

“I’ll be in touch,” he promised.

After she hung up, she folded her arms under her breasts and opened the front door to take in some clear, cool air. She stood there taking in deep breaths so fast she nearly hyperventilated. Suddenly Philip Slater drove by, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

Instinctively she pulled back into her doorway and watched him disappear around the turn toward the front gate. Then she stepped out again and looked up the street at his house.

Just seeing Philip Slater at that moment made her furious. She spun around and marched back into the house to get Jennifer.

“Where are we going, Mommy?”

“I want to visit Mrs. Slater, the nice lady who gave you all the dolls,” she said.

“Can I look at the other dolls?”

“I’m sure you can, honey. Here, put on your Bugs Bunny jacket,” she said.

As soon as she had slipped her into it, Kristin took her hand and led her out of the house and onto the street, marching with a determination that impressed Jennifer and kept her thousand and one questions in storage for the time being.

* * *

even from this distance, she could sense the steadfastness in Kristin Morris’s gait and intentions. She didn’t know exactly what it was about, but she had suspicions because of the things Philip had said earlier.

Shortly after dinner, Philip had received a troubling phone call. She thought of it as troubling because Philip was rarely at a loss for words. But there he was stammering and cajoling someone, his face becoming more and more crimson until he was positively

glowing with frustration and anger. She tried to ignore him, completing her after-dinner chores as silently as she could; but when she turned and saw him standing there fuming, she was overcome with dread.

“What is it?” she asked softly. He didn’t turn; he didn’t reply. After a moment he left the kitchen and went to his office, closing the door behind him. He was in there for nearly an hour. She sat in the living room looking through the television set, not hearing anything, not seeing anything. For weeks after Bradley’s death, Philip would lock himself in his office for hours and when he finally emerged, he always looked as if he had been running miles.

If they would only comfort each other, she thought, it would ease the pain for both of them, but revealing his sadness and his despair was something Philip despised. Philip was far more comfortable with anger, and after he had directed his anger at an unreasonable God, a medical community that had failed them, and any other social agency he could think of, he focused on her.

Her weakness after the tragedy underlined the hereditary flaw that had brought about the medical crisis in the first place. After Bradley died, Philip’s world simply became two places: Emerald Lakes and the outside. He built his walls; he constructed his chain fences; he installed his lights and employed his security guards to keep everything undesirable away.

Then he hardened even more and built another wall: a wall between them. She had tried to scale it, to penetrate it, to tear it down, but it was too thick and too high and he was too comfortable behind it. But in walling her out, he had walled her into her own prison and one way or another, she had to escape.

There were enough lights on in the Slater house for Kristin to assume Marilyn was home.

She had the feeling that Marilyn might have been watching the street from the vantage point of that chair in the tinted window and had seen her coming anyway. Even so, it took three tries on the doorbell to get her to come to the door.

Marilyn Slater stood there with a look of exhaustion on her face. Her mascara had run, creating black teardrops under her eyes, and her normally perfect hair was tousled and ruffled as if someone had just given her a scalp massage.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Kristin began. She debated turning and fleeing the sight of this distraught woman. The dazed look in her eyes was a bit frightening. She gazed out at Kristin and Jennifer as if she had no idea who they were. “Are you all right?” Kristin followed.

Marilyn’s lips quivered. Her gaze dropped to Jennifer, who was looking up at her with a mixture of fear and confusion, too. She clung tightly to Kristin’s hand.

“What? Oh.” Marilyn smiled and then she laughed. It was a chilling, maddening laugh as if Kristin had asked the most ridiculous question. “Come in. Please,” she said. She stepped back. Kristin hesitated. She gazed down the street behind her, again considering a quick retreat. “It’s all right,” Marilyn added. “I’m okay.”

“I just thought we could talk for a few moments,” Kristin said. “But if it’s a bad

time . . .”

“No. I no longer distinguish between good and bad times anyway. All time is the same to me,” she said and smiled at Jennifer again. “I bet you want to go look at my dolls, don’t you? Come on,” she said, reaching for her hand. Jennifer pressed herself back against Kristin.

“It’s all right, honey,” Kristin concluded. “Let’s go look at the dolls.”

They entered the house and Marilyn closed the door.

“I just cleaned up, but I could make us some coffee, if you’d like.”

“No, thank you. I’m fine,” Kristin said. Marilyn nodded, looked at Jennifer and smiled.

“Yes, you are. You’re fine and that’s wonderful. Let’s go look at the dolls,” she said and led them through the living room.

“You know what I have, Jennifer?” Marilyn said when they entered the doll room. “I

have some clothes for my Chinese girl. How would you like to change her?” she said, showing Jennifer the doll and the clothes. Jennifer’s eyes widened and her face lightened.

She looked up at Kristin who smiled and nodded.

“Go on, honey. It’s all right,” she said. Jennifer finally released Kristin’s hand and went to Marilyn who set the doll and the clothes down on the small table.

“Can you do it?” she asked. Jennifer nodded. “Go on then,” she said guiding her to the chair. Then she straightened up and turned to Kristin.

“You want to talk about what happened to Mrs. Del Marco, don’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, and Mr. Feinberg, too.”

Marilyn nodded and relaxed her shoulders like someone who had been caught and

trapped and finally had to confess.

“Let’s go into the living room.”

“We’ll be right in here, honey,” Kristin said, but Jennifer was already engrossed in her activity.

“You know,” Marilyn began after they sat down, she in an oversize armchair and Kristin on the sofa, “I did what you wanted. I called the police after you figured out I had seen something. I told them about the two shadows.”

“You definitely saw two shadows, not one?”

“First, one stepped out in front of Mrs. Del Marco. She stopped and then one came up behind her and the two closed in, clamped around her and pulled her into the darkness. I went to tell my husband, but I couldn’t find him.”

“What do you mean, couldn’t find him?”

“He wasn’t in the office and he wasn’t in the bathroom. Later, he accused me of drinking too much.”

“Drinking?” Kristin asked, her hopes dipping.

“Vodka,” Marilyn said with some fanfare. She smiled. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“It sort of my embalming fluid,” Marilyn said and laughed. “So I don’t look as dead outside as I am inside,” she added softly.

“Were you drinking the night Angela was attacked?”

“I had one drink, but I still saw them,” she added firmly. “And then later, I looked in the garage and saw Philip’s boots were soaked. He had been outside. I wasn’t soused. He hadn’t been in the house when I looked after all.”

“Why did he lie?” Kristin asked quickly.

“Philip doesn’t lie. He doesn’t think I’m worthy of knowing the details about the things he does. There are, shall we say, gaps between us, long, wide gaps. You look like you don’t understand. I understand why. I’m sure you and your husband are quite different.”

Kristin smiled, uncomfortable with these intimate revelations.

“Sure you don’t want a drink?” Marilyn asked.

“No, thank you.”

Marilyn nodded, disappointed.

“I went to see Mrs. Feinberg earlier today,” Kristin said. “And she told me she didn’t believe her husband had committed suicide.”

“Oh, he did. I saw the ambulance and I remember when Philip got the phone call.”

“No. I don’t mean that. I mean, she thinks he might have been murdered.”

Marilyn Slater stared as if she were waiting for the punch line.

“The shadows again,” she finally said.

“Did you see them that night, too?”

“No, but I have seen them before. You absolutely sure you wouldn’t like a drink? It helps sometimes when you’re talking about these things.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Thank you. Anyway,” Kristin continued, “someone told your husband I went to see Mrs. Feinberg and he was upset enough about it to call my husband and

complain.”

Marilyn nodded.

“Do you know who called him?”

“No, but I know someone called and got him very angry. He locked himself in his office.

He used to do that a lot after Bradley died,” she added, and then she pressed her lips together quickly as if she had just uttered a blasphemy. “Philip doesn’t like me talking about Bradley.”

“Why can’t you talk about him?” Kristin asked.

“It keeps the tragedy alive.”

“But he was your child. You want to keep his memory alive, don’t you?”

Marilyn’s lips quivered.

“I do it secretly,” she whispered. “I go down into the basement where all Bradley’s things are kept and I look at his pictures.”

“You shouldn’t have to do that in secret. I don’t mean to poke my nose in where it

doesn’t belong, but I think that’s wrong.”

Marilyn nodded.

“Can you think harder about what you saw the night Angela was killed? Maybe there

was something about the shadows. Were they tall? Did you see uniforms?”

Marilyn shook her head.

“Did they just pop out of the darkness or did they come up the street?”

“Out of the darkness.”

“But there were two? There were definitely two?”

“Yes, there were two.”

“Look, Mommy,” Jennifer said, stepping into the doorway between the living room and doll room. She held up the doll.

“That’s very good, honey. She looks beautiful.”

“She does,” Marilyn said.

“Can I dress this doll, too?” Jennifer said, and held up the doll that reminded Marilyn of Bradley.

“Oh, you found him,” she said. “It’s time to change his clothes, too.” Marilyn rose. “Let me show you where I keep them,” she said. Kristin watched her return to the doll room with Jennifer. Then she turned and looked toward the rear of the house, thinking.

I shouldn’t be doing this, she thought as she rose from her seat, especially in my

condition. But she continued anyway and walked out the living room and down the hall toward what she knew was Philip Slater’s office.

She didn’t know what she hoped to find, but she felt compelled to explore. Perhaps there would be something to indicate who had called Philip earlier to reveal her visit with Elaine Feinberg.

The office door was slightly ajar and there was a small lamp lit on the desk. The shutters were drawn tightly closed and the small, weak layer of illumination deepened shadows and thickened the darkness in the corners. Kristin paused, listened for Marilyn Slater, and then pushed the door open enough for her to enter the office.

Once inside, she felt her heart begin to pound. Despite his absence, Philip Slater’s intimidating presence somehow lingered. It was clear that he spent most of his time in this room. The air still carried the sweet yet manly scent of his cologne. Everything on his desk was precisely and neatly arranged with practically geometric correctness.