The Walker in Shadows (3 page)

"So maybe he's divorced. It's common enough."

"Or maybe he's a widower." Nancy gave Pat a candidly speculative look. That was one of the things Pat liked about her. Paradoxical as it might seem, widowhood was easier to endure if people took it for granted, without apologies or excessive delicacy. But this time Pat shook her head, smiling.

"Don't matchmake, Nancy. It's a repulsive habit."

"You don't need anyone to make matches for you. Once you make up your own mind…" Nancy left it at that. She turned her attention back to the window. "That chest of drawers looks like Sheraton. Handsome piece of furniture."

"Could be a good reproduction." Pat pressed her forehead against the glass, squinting, but details were hard to make out. They were all more or less interested in antiques. The whole neighborhood was history-conscious, especially since the Bicentennial.

The movers began carrying in carton after carton, anonymous in their brown cardboard concealment. But Nancy could speculate even about cardboard boxes.

" China and glassware? No, the boxes are too small. Books, maybe. He's got a lot of them, hasn't he? Anyhow, Norma figured something nasty had gone wrong with the marriage, and fairly recently, or he wouldn't have looked so angry. After Norma told me he was a lawyer I asked Sol Jacobs if he'd ever heard of him, and he had. He's from Chicago. Friedrichs, I mean, not Sol. Had his own practice there, Sol said, quite a good one. Now he's come to work for the Justice Department."

"A political appointment?"

"I guess so." Nancy dismissed this with a shrug of her plump shoulders. Her husband was a contractor, and she shared the nonpoliticals' mild contempt for those who ate from the government trough, as she put it. "He must have money, don't you think? I mean, a grand piano, and the house wasn't cheap… And look at that!"

It was a massive sideboard, black with age and covered with ornate carving, so heavy that the whole crew had to lend a hand to transport it.

"Jacobean," Pat guessed, her nose flat against the glass. "If that's genuine, it is a magnificent piece of furniture."

Carved chairs and a trestle table followed the sideboard. The two women were so engrossed they failed to hear Jud's whine of welcome, or the footsteps ascending the stairs. Mark had been tiptoeing-purposely.

"Aha," he shouted, in the bass tones of a villain in a melodrama. "Caught you!"

Both women jumped. Nancy banged her head on the paneling and swore.

"Damn you, Mark, what's the idea of sneaking up on us like that? You scared me out of a year's growth."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," Mark said. "The Snoop Sisters! Haven't you anything better to do with your time?"

He flung himself onto the chaise longue and swung his leg over the end.

"Take your feet off the couch," Pat said automatically.

Mark frowned at her, but obeyed. When his black brows drew together he looked unnervingly like his father, which was odd, because all his features were his mother's, from his curly brown hair and pointed nose to his full-lipped mouth. Only recently had Pat realized that she had let him get away with too much this past year because it was easier for her to cope with Mark's smile than with Jerry's frown, on Mark's face.

"It's almost noon," he went on. "Here's the starving student, back from class, no lunch ready, not even a piece of bread defrosting. And here's his doting mum with her nose glued to the window, spying on the next-door neighbors. Helluva note."

"You cook your own lunch most days anyway," Nancy said unsympathetically. "And when your poor mother is home sick in bed-"

Mark let out a wordless hoot of derision.

"She's a malingerer," he said, dwelling pleasurably on the syllables. "She conned me into getting her a magnifi-cent gourmet breakfast, and now look at her. Blooming with health. It was a trick, wasn't it? Just so you could stay home and snoop on the new neighbors. I mean, women are really-"

"Spare me the analysis," Nancy interrupted. "I get enough of that kind of juvenile impertinence at home. Isn't there something you should be doing, Mark? Homework, or baseball practice, or-"

Mark rose to his full height, which was considerably over six feet.

"I see through your machinations, Mrs. Groft," he said crushingly. "You know full well that basketball is my game, not baseball. You ought to know, since your own son is on the team. But I can take a hint. I do not need to have a brick wall fall on me. As a matter of fact, I have many worthwhile things to do. I am meeting a friend for a spot of lunch. Are you sure, dearest mother, that I cannot do anything for your hypochondria before I leave?"

"No," Pat said. "I mean, yes, I'm sure. Don't be late for dinner."

"When am I ever late?" Mark ambled out before she had time to deliver the crushing reply his question deserved. Jud trailed hopefully after him. Sometimes Mark took him for rides. He liked going in the car with Mark. They went nice and fast, with loud music playing and the windows down, so that the wind blew delightfully through his ears.

But this time Mark abandoned him. The women upstairs heard the door slam, and a mournful howl from Jud. Then they saw Mark saunter down the walk.

He had parked his car, a cherished antique Studebaker, on the street, instead of going to the bother of opening the gate. The whole lot, something over two acres, was fenced. It had cost a small fortune, but Jerry had insisted on doing it when they bought the dog. The county leash law was seldom observed in that semirural area, but Jerry had had strong views on letting animals run loose, to annoy neighbors and endanger themselves on the highways.

The boxwood hedge along the front fence had been trimmed in the fall and had not yet gained its spring growth. Pat and Nancy had a clear view of Mark's head and shoulders as he strolled toward his car, rather more slowly than was his wont. Then they caught a glimpse of something else, something as bright gold as sunshine on a summer day, moving along on a level considerably below Mark's gangling height. Nancy nudged Pat.

"That must be the daughter."

She was blond-that much was apparent. Something else became equally apparent as the two women watched, although they saw no more of the girl than the top of her shining hair. Mark saw her at the same time the overhead watchers did. He came to a stop, so suddenly that he rocked back on his heels. The shining fair head stopped too, facing Mark. It was on a level with his shoulders.

Mark turned slightly and leaned against the fence, folding his arms in what he probably hoped was a pose of sophisticated nonchalance. Tilting his head attentively, he seemed to listen as the invisible girl spoke. Then he burst into laughter, his shoulders shaking, his mouth opening wide.

"It's as good as an old Laurel and Hardy silent film," said Nancy, enthralled. "Pretty soon another suitor will come along with the custard pie."

"She must be very pretty," Pat said, trying to raise herself high enough to see over the hedge, but failing. "Mark wouldn't react that way unless she was-"

"I knew it!" Nancy hooted with laughter. "Here comes the third angle of the triangle."

"He's too old to be a suitor," Pat said. "He's wearing a hat. Have you ever known a nineteen-year-old boy to wear a hat? Or a raincoat?"

The newcomer's height almost matched Mark's, but he was heavier and broader of shoulder. Rain had begun to streak the window, so the snoopers were unable to see his face clearly, shadowed as it was by the hat brim. Pat got an impression of strongly marked features, heavy eyebrows, and a general air of disapproval-though she could not have specified the precise reasons for that impression.

"It's Friedrichs," Nancy said, swiping vainly at the wet pane. "I think… Damn this rain."

"Whoever he is, he's the winner," Pat said, as the blond head turned and retreated, side by side with the raincoat and the hat. Mark stood staring after them, oblivious of the rain that was falling more heavily, streaking his face and flattening his hair.

"He hasn't got an umbrella," Pat said, swinging her feet down to the floor.

Nancy caught her arm.

"Does he own an umbrella? Mine wouldn't be caught dead carrying one. He won't take cold, they never do-at least not from getting wet. Doesn't he look ridiculous?" Nancy chuckled. "That's why he came home, the little hypocrite. One of the boys must have told him about the girl. Lecturing us on snooping, and then-"

"You're mean," Pat said, watching her son slouch slowly toward his car. His head was still turned in the direction of the house into which the fair head had disappeared. He stumbled over an obstruction of some kind and kept his feet only by a comic series of contortions.

Nancy 's laughter increased in volume.

"Serves him right," she said heartlessly. "I hope he's thoroughly smitten. He's broken enough hearts in his time. He's ripe for a painful love affair."

"Maybe you're right," Pat said, smiling.

Later she was to remember Nancy 's comment, and wonder whether she would have agreed with it if she had had any premonition of how peculiarly painful this affair would be, not only for Mark, but for the others who were about to be drawn into its perilous course.

As Pat suffered through the first months of widowhood she realized that the greatest thing Jerry had done for her was to help her cultivate independence. Bad as those months were, they would have been worse if she had not learned to think of herself as a complete person in her own right. In losing Jerry she had lost the most joyful part of her life, but she had not lost part of herself. She was not maimed.

Not that it came that easily, or was that consciously acknowledged. It had never been conscious, on either part. Jerry had been that rare creature, an adult human being. He gave freely and accepted only willing gifts. They fought, of course. Like his son, Jerry had a quick, indignant temper and a loud voice. He was as impatient of cruelty as he was of deliberate stupidity. But their arguments were always about acts or ideas, never about personalities, and some of the loudest concerned Pat's tendency-as her husband viewed it-to let other people take advantage of her.

Mark was the most consistent offender. Jerry admitted that it was natural for a child, the most egocentric of all creatures, to demand unreasonable concessions from parents; but he maintained that the only way to teach people consideration for others was to force them to be considerate. One of his pet hates was what he called the guilty-parent syndrome.

"You've been reading that damned child-behavior column again," he would roar at Pat, when she agonized over some imagined failure in dealing with their son. "Damn it, you're a good mother! You know a lot more about how to raise a child than some fool psychologist who sits in his office all day writing columns. You're not guilty! Stop feeling guilty or I'll rap you!"

At four o'clock on that rainy day when the new neighbors moved in, Pat went down to the kitchen and began cooking a large, elaborate dinner. Maybe Mark had not meant his criticism to make her feel guilty. On the other hand, he probably had.

Pat shook her head, smiling ruefully, as she gathered the ingredients for Mark's favorite, made-from-scratch muffins. At least she knew why she was going to so much trouble, on a day when she really didn't feel too great.

Her guilt feelings had not been severe enough to remove her from her post at the upstairs window until after the moving vans left. Nancy had departed several hours earlier, cursing the dental appointment that took her from the scene of the action. They had seen no more of the Friedrichs, who were undoubtedly inside trying to sort out their belongings-a horrible, tiring job, that one. And no woman in the house…

The ensuing developments were really Pat's own fault-or, as Jerry might have said, "You asked for it, kid." She would have done the same thing, though, even if there had been a Mrs. Friedrichs. It was only neighborly. She had been through the moving routine herself, and knew only too well what it was like. She was preparing her own dinner; it was not much more trouble to make a double batch of muffins, and two casseroles.

At five she had the casseroles ready for the oven, and the muffins were done. Mark had not appeared. Snuffling, for her cold had reached the drippy stage, Pat got into boots and raincoat and scarf, piled the extra food into a canvas carry-all, and went out.

There was no gate between the two properties, so she had to go along her front walk and out the gate onto the street. With an umbrella in one hand and the carry-all in the other, opening and closing gates became a major chore, especially since the Friedrichs' gate stuck, rusted from disuse, no doubt. Rejoicing in her noble motives, Pat was not too saintly to observe, with considerble interest, that the armies of workmen who had come and gone in the past weeks had done wonders for the appearance of the old house. The carved porch pillars had been repaired and painted, the front door had new hinges and a fancy brass knocker, the broken windowpanes, boarded over by old Hiram, had been replaced. There was even a doormat. It did not say "Welcome."

Pat put down her dripping umbrella and used the brass knocker. Virtuously she refrained from looking through the glass panels on either side of the door. The panels on her door were of stained glass, old fragments acquired by Jerry at an antique auction. They gave more privacy than clear glass, and suited the period-or so Jerry claimed.

Lost in the mental fog that still tended to cloud her mind when she thought of Jerry, she did not hear the approaching footsteps. When the door swung open she jumped.

The expression on the face of the man who stood looking down at her did nothing to make her feel at ease. Pat was suddenly conscious of the brilliant red of her nose, and of the lock of hair that had escaped from under her scarf to drip on her cheek. She had meant to buy a new raincoat, only the prices were so awful…