I thought maybe if I looked up accountants in the yellow pages, when I came across Trixie’s last name it would jump out at me. There were three full pages of them, and I ran my finger down one column after another, scanning, looking for a name that would make me go “Yes!”
Nothing.
I repeated the exercise, this time looking for an accountant whose office was on our street. No luck there, either.
So maybe Trixie didn’t list herself in the yellow pages. Maybe it was a word-of-mouth thing. Or maybe clients were referred to her. The bottom line was, I wasn’t going to be able to phone her at the moment.
I stepped out the front door and far enough into the yard to see Trixie’s place. Her Acura was in the driveway, plus a new, small Lexus, in black. So she had a client. I didn’t want to bother her when she was in the middle of doing somebody else’s books. I could wait until they left.
Down the other way, the housecoat lady was out watering her driveway again. I hadn’t forgotten her first or last name, because we’d never been formally introduced. I would nod hello as I walked by, and that was good enough for me. I’m not sure what kind of conversation you can expect to have with someone whose only goal in life is owning a driveway clear of microscopic debris.
Nothing doing across the street at Earl’s house, although even from here I could see that he was probably adding his name to the list of those who were unhappy with the work done by Valley Forest Estates. His windows remained cloudy, no doubt condensation trapped within the center of the glass. In our old house, we had windows that had been put in about twenty years ago, and peering outside was akin to looking through a pair of dirty eyeglasses. You might expect that sort of thing with an older place, but it was a real surprise to see it in a house as new as Earl’s. I looked back at our own home, scanning my eye across the first- and second-story windows, wondering when I could expect the same thing might happen to them.
I couldn’t get a very good view, standing as close to the house as I was, so I went out to the curb to take in the whole picture, and while I couldn’t see anything wrong with the windows, I noticed for the first time that the framing around the front bay window was slightly crooked, and that the house numbers over the double garage were not centered properly. Honestly.
The front door of Trixie’s house opened and a well-dressed man, mid-fifties I’d guess, came out. He was a bit tentative about it, glancing out to the street as he did so. He reached into his pocket for his keys, unlocked the Lexus with his remote, then strode quickly from the front door to the car. As he did so, his eyes happened to lock on mine.
“Hi!” I said. I may have my faults, but I’ll always say hello to people.
He looked as though I’d just shot him with a dart. He quickly got into the car, where he was obscured by heavily tinted windows, backed out onto Greenway, then headed down the street, the Lexus making a deep, throaty roar the whole way.
The guy looked rattled, no doubt about it. Maybe Trixie’d told him he was going to have to pay a lot more in taxes than he’d budgeted for. Maybe he’d have to turn in the Lexus.
If he was rattled, maybe Trixie was, too. Maybe this was a bad time. I went back into the house.
I WAS ACTUALLY WORKING WHEN Sarah got home. Not building a kit. Not flying a model of the starship Enterprise around my study, humming the theme from Star Trek. Not playing Star Wars computer games. I was working on the last chapter when I heard Sarah unlock the front door and come in.
I didn’t call out. I didn’t know whether she was still angry with me about the keys thing. But I started hitting the computer keyboard with more intensity, so she’d know I was home, hear where I was, and possibly think I didn’t hear her come in because I was consumed with work. Soon, there was some racket coming from the kitchen, where it sounded as though she was putting away some food, and then it was very quiet, save for the sound of my typing. Although shortly before her arrival I’d actually been writing, I wasn’t, at that moment, being overly creative. What I’d typed since I’d heard Sarah’s key in the door was “Sarah’s home so I better sound busy and it sounds like she’s inside the house now and she’s going into the kitchen and she must have bought something for dinner and I hope it’s something good because it’s just occurred to me that I’ve eaten nothing this afternoon what with finding a dead guy which can have something of a negative effect on your appetite and”
And then I could sense her presence behind me. I work with my back to the door, which means the screen is visible to anyone walking in, but fortunately, Sarah doesn’t have telescopic vision like the Superman statuette up on my shelf.
“Hey,” she said, standing in the doorway.
I whirled around in my computer chair. “Hi.”
“Sounds like it’s going really well,” Sarah said. “I didn’t know, after what happened to you today, whether you’d feel like working.”
I shrugged, clicked the mouse in the upper right corner and made the text vanish from the screen. “I only got back to it in the last hour or so. Got an e-mail from Tom that kind of encouraged me to get going.”
I turned back to the computer and heard Sarah come up behind me. She rested her hands on my shoulders.
“I was wondering if we could be friends,” she said.
I didn’t say anything.
“I picked up some fettuccine and some chicken, thought I’d make us something nice for dinner.”
I hesitated. “Sounds nice,” I said.
“And just so you know, not only did I take the keys out of the door, I set them on the table, and locked the door behind me.”
I definitely said nothing.
“You know what that means?” she asked. She slid her hands down more so that they were rubbing across my chest.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’re locked in the house, and I think we’re all alone.”
“The kids will be home any time now, I think.”
“Why don’t we give them twenty bucks for pizza, tell them to get out of the house, and after I’ve made you some dinner, maybe we could mess around.”
I spun around slowly, nuzzling my head between Sarah’s breasts. They were very nice breasts. “That might be nice,” I said. “That might be very nice.”
Sarah slipped her arms around my head, drawing me in even closer, if that was possible. “I don’t know how much work you’ve got left here, but I’ll have dinner ready in about twenty minutes. Okay? And then you can tell me more about finding that man’s body. That must have been awful.”
I came up for air and looked into her face. “I’m sorry for being such a jerk. With the keys, and the car, and everything.”
Sarah smiled. “You can’t help yourself.”
“Possibly.”
And she bent down and kissed me, a quick peck at first, then a longer, more exploratory kiss, with her long dark hair spilling across my face, that hinted of much better things to come. She untangled herself from me, smiled, and left for the kitchen while I swiveled back around, made an adjustment in my jeans, and brought my chapter back onto the screen. I deleted the parts I’d written since Sarah’s arrival, then reread the last few paragraphs before that to reacquaint myself with where I was in the story.
A few moments later, from the kitchen, Sarah said, “Shit!”
I jumped up and ran in to see what was wrong. A chunk of drywall, about the size of a paperback, had fallen from between the pot lights, in that spot where the shower water leaked down. It had landed on the just-opened package of fresh pasta.
7
MY FIRST INSTINCT, IN THE HOURS following the discovery of Spender’s body, even without knowing exactly how he’d died, was to give everyone a security lecture. Don’t talk to strangers or pick up hitchhikers, make sure you haven’t left the keys in the door, make sure you throw the deadbolt, obey your “walk” and “don’t walk” signals, don’t use the electric hair dryer while you’re sitting in the bathtub, wait an hour after eating before swimming, never run with scissors.