I didn’t say anything.
“So, anyway, my friend got charged, of course. But he saved that asshole’s life. All I’m saying is, there’s good in everybody.”
I stood up to leave. “I hear you, Earl. Thanks for the beer.”
I WENT BACK ACROSS THE street, passing Trixie’s driveway, where a low-slung blue BMW was parked next to her Acura. I unlocked my front door and went inside, flipping the deadbolt behind me. I went into the kitchen and reached into the fridge for another beer.
The phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“What’s new?” Sarah asked. I could hear her typing in the background, sending memos or editing stories while she chatted.
“Oh,” I said, “not too much.”
Except that the police dropped by, confirmed that the man I found in the creek definitely was murdered, so there’s a killer roaming around the neighborhood, and Earl, our neighbor across the street, has a gun in case his Asian employers start shooting it up with the Russian mob in a turf war over the massive pot-growing operation he has in his basement. Other than that, things were pretty quiet.
“Okay,” said Sarah. “I just thought I’d say hi. That was fun, what we did last night.”
“Huh?”
“Oh great. You’ve forgotten. I got the kids out of the house? With pizza money? Remember?”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, that was good.”
“I’m so glad I made an impression.”
“No, sorry. You did. Really. We should do that again soon.”
“You sure you’re okay? You sound kind of funny.”
“No, really, I’m fine. Just working.”
“Whoa,” said Sarah. “Meeting time. Gotta go. See ya tonight.” And she hung up.
Even though I was out of Earl’s humid house, I was still sweating. I should have told Sarah about him. I hadn’t promised Earl I wouldn’t tell her. But what if Sarah wanted to call the police? What then? I’d only promised Earl I wouldn’t call the police. I didn’t promise that I’d keep Sarah from calling the police.
Maybe that was my out. Tell her, let her do the dirty work, get me off the hook.
Right. Earl would understand. Earl, our neighbor who packs heat, would understand.
And then again, was it really that big a deal? Weren’t the pot laws twenty years behind the times? The place wasn’t a crackhouse, for cryin’ out loud. So a guy has a few plants in his basement. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a few. So maybe Earl had a fucking farm where most people have a pool table. But was it any of my business?
And there were risks in telling Sarah, or the kids, what I knew. Risks to my reputation and integrity. The first thing they’d do is remind me whose idea it was to move out here in the first place: “Way to go, Dad. Thanks for rescuing us from the evils of the city.”
I went into my study and tried to work, but couldn’t focus. I kept getting up, going to the living room window, looking through the blinds to Earl’s place. At any moment, I expected to see a fleet of Ladas with Russian mobsters pull into the driveway, guns a-blazin’. Or maybe the cops, driving up on the lawn, pouring out of their cars in riot gear, guns drawn, surrounding the house. Tear gas is lobbed in. Men in gas masks break down the door, and moments later, Earl is dragged out by an officer on either side of him, thrown facedown onto the driveway, his hands cuffed together behind his back. Men in spacesuits start hauling out hundreds of plants and packing them into the back of a specially sealed van.
But nothing like that happened. The housecoat lady watered her driveway. The BMW, driven by a man in khakis and a sports jacket, his eyes shielded by sunglasses, backed out of Trixie’s driveway. A kid, a rare sight in the day in this neighborhood, actually rode by on a bicycle. Earl came out, got in his pickup, and drove off.
And I stood in the window, peering through the blinds, spying on the neighbors, and wondered what kind of a person I was turning into.
9
SARAH’S PAPER NEVER DID RUN MUCH more than a digest item on the death of Samuel Spender. As she’d predicted, her editors didn’t much care about a death, even a murder, in the suburbs. To get attention out here, you had to be an actress or a former model. You could be eighty years old with a walker, die in a brutal purse snatching, and if, some six decades earlier, you’d posed before the cameras, the papers would run headlines along the lines of “Ex-Model Slain in Purse Grab!” And they would find a glamour shot from sixty years ago, and run it with a caption that said, “In happier times.”
The Suburban, to its credit, ran a respectable news-story-slash-obit on Spender in the edition that came out two days after his death. Under the headline “Outspoken Naturalist Found Slain in Creek,” the story read:
Samuel Spender, a naturalist and conservationist noted for his relentless defense of wilderness areas, as well as his spirited tangles with the Oakwood Town Council, died violently Wednesday in Willow Creek.
Police said Spender, 54, an Oakwood resident since 1965, was hiking through one of his favorite spots when he was confronted by his assailant.
His head was struck with a blunt object, and his body left in the shallow waters of the creek. A nearby resident who was out for a stroll found the body and phoned police from a cell phone.
Oakwood Police Detective Edward Flint said police are pursuing a variety of leads in the investigation, but would not say whether they were expecting to make an arrest shortly.
Ironically, Spender, president and founder of the Willow Creek Preservation Society, died in the very area he had fought for several years to protect. When Valley Forest Estates unveiled plans to build a subdivision in the former government lands near Willow Creek, Spender sought the help of environmental experts who found that houses encroaching on the creek could adversely affect the creek, a natural habitat for several species.
Experts working on behalf of the development were able to persuade the council, however, that a subdivision would have a negligible effect, and the subdivision’s initial phases were approved. Spender, who worked for an Oakwood engineering firm, was still fighting, however, to halt the development’s final stage, which would see houses erected right up to the edge of the creek.
Don Greenway, president of Valley Forest Estates, expressed shock and horror at Spender’s death.
“While we did have our tangles and disagreements, I think we both believed in the same thing, and that’s the preservation of the environment. I knew that could be done, and still allow for homes where people could raise their families, as they do here in Valley Forest Estates. Mr. Spender felt otherwise, but there’s no denying his commitment to making this a better planet. This is a terrible tragedy, and the police have our complete support in bringing his killer to justice.”
Greenway’s words were echoed by Ward 7 Councilman Roger Carpington, who told The Suburban: “Sam Spender was an inspiration to all of us who care about this community. His input on Willow Creek’s preservation was invaluable in helping the council formulate its land use policies.”