Curtains (9 page)

“Don’t worry, the dogwood’s bark is worse
than its bite.”

Herman eased backward a step, and the scrub
vegetation that had minutes earlier afforded protection and cover
now seemed like a prison wall, cutting off his escape. He thought
about yelling, but his throat was tight and he was afraid he would
sound like a sissy girl.

“I have some blueberry bushes along the rear
of the property,” the hippie said. “Do you think it’s fair that the
brats can just come on over anytime they please and stuff their
faces? I pay my taxes and I send my mortgage payment to the bank on
time. I’ve got rights.”

“That why you planted the razors?”

“Yeah. Of course, they can come down the
driveway, but I figure that’s not sneaky enough for them. You know
how kids are, they like to think they’re outsmarting the
grown-ups.”

“Snagged any of them yet?”

“Just the cat. But it only takes once and I
don’t have to worry about them anymore.”

“What about their parents? What if they call
the cops, or Social Services?”

“I’ll just say the blades came with the
property. How was I to know the previous owner was insane?”

“Now you just hold on a second,” Herman said.
“That house belonged to Ned Loggerfeld, and not once did he let a
post sag. He cleaned his gutters twice a year and snow never had a
chance to melt in his driveway so long as he owned a shovel.”

“I heard he died of a heart attack,” the
hippie said. “In the cold, your arteries narrow. Shoveling snow is
about the worst thing you can do if your heart is bad.”

Herman recalled the February day when Ned had
flopped on his back near the mailbox, arms spread like he was
making a snow angel. Turned out he was making a real angel. Herman
had dialed 9-1-1 while Mrs. Breedlove performed some
pervert-looking maneuvers she said was CPR. If old Ned could have
seen the woman sucking and blowing on his mouth, he might have come
back down from heaven for a chance to smooch back.

“Okay,” Herman said. “Looks like a standoff.
I got no gripe with a fellow doing what he wants on his own
property, as long as he keeps up appearances.”

“Oh, I’m pretty good at keeping up
appearances, Mr. Weeks.” The hippie grinned like he was in an
organic produce market and the tofu was half price.

“How’d you know my name?”

“Deeds Office down at the courthouse. Like I
said, I like to get to know the neighbors. Before I buy.”

“Don’t blame you none,” Herman said. He
wished the ugly redheaded family had left on their porch lights
like they usually did. The moon wasn’t bright enough to dull the
shine in the hippie’s eyes.

“You’re a registered Republican.”

“So? What are you?”

“Libertarian.”

“That mean you don’t eat eggs or cheese?”

“Only in a free market economy,” the hippie
said. “I also know you bought your two acres back in 1956. You were
probably married once, judging from the Elvis decanter on the
sewing machine in your living room. While you might have been an
Elvis fan, I doubt you idolize him enough to collect. And being a
product of the Eisenhower administration, you never saw fit to have
your wife listed as co-owner of the property.”

“You been peeking in my windows?”

“No. Not on purpose. You can see it when you
drive by. Your house sits a little below the road and Elvis is
right there between the curtains. You ought to look at your
surroundings with new eyes now and then. You might be surprised at
what you see.”

Herman wished he had the hammer. He would fix
the hippie, and then fix that damned fence post. Then he’d do what
he should have done right after Verna’s passing, take the Elvis
decanter out back and pound it into dust. But he couldn’t help
himself, his head turned and he scanned the neighborhood, from 101
to 108 and back again.

All of the houses had gone through several
families in his time. Widow Hampton’s kids, who used to stub around
in diapers, were now grown and gone, he didn’t know the names of
the couple in 107 or if they were even married, half of the houses
now had vinyl siding, and, when you got right down to it, even with
all the care and tending, his own house looked a little shabby and
shopworn under the street lights. Like him, it had seen its best
days, and an invisible earth digger was waiting in the wings to
claim both of them.

“This is a nice neighborhood,” Herman said.
“Why, look at the pride Mrs. Breedlove takes in her flowers.”

“Appearances are important, but they can also
be deceiving. Order on the outside can often hide disorder
inside.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Herman said. “Maybe
your fence ain’t none of my business.”

The hippie’s dog skirted under the fence and
pushed its nose to the ground, following the curb down to 103,
where the Pilkingtons had left the trash out.

“Doggie bags,” the hippie said. “They’ll
learn sooner or later.”

“Reckon so,” Herman said. “What’s your
name?”

“Reynolds. Peter Reynolds.”

Herman was afraid that the hippie was going
to stick his hand out in some jive shake or other, but he just
stood there with that educated smile. Peter Reynolds had the
home-field advantage, and he knew it. Herman had been caught where
he didn’t belong. He looked over at the Pilkington house, where the
mutt was gnawing through a plastic trash bag, scattering cellophane
and rumpled paper towels.

“I’d best be going,” Herman said.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Herman thought of the razor blades, and
wondered for the first time if Peter Reynolds maybe had a knife in
his pocket. “What?”

The hippie pointed to the leaning fence post.
“I don’t know about you, but my mom taught me to leave things just
the way I found them.”

Herman started to argue, then thought of the
maybe-knife and swallowed hard. He eased the post perpendicular to
the ground and stomped his foot to tamp the dirt tight. “Good
night, now,” he said.

“Watch your step,” the hippie, Peter
Reynolds, said.

“Sounds like good advice.” Herman didn’t look
back until he was inside his own home. He closed the curtains and
hid the Elvis decanter in the closet with the rest of Verna’s
things.

The next day, he called the Sheriff’s Office.
The hippie wasn’t the only one who knew how to work the system.
Herman had to sit on hold for a couple of minutes, but he finally
reached Bud Millwood, a deputy who had made an unsuccessful run for
sheriff a decade back. Herman had supported his campaign with cash
and two signs in the yard, and though Millwood had lost the race,
rural politics required his repaying of such a favor.

“I need you to check something for me, Bud,”
Herman said.

“The city council trying to zone you
again?”

“No, nothing like that. We voted that bunch
out five years ago. The ‘Z’ word is a one-way ticket to hell around
these parts.”

Millwood laughed. “You can set that in stone.
A fellow’s got a right to do what he wants with his land.”

“Sometimes. Maybe sometimes.”

“What’s your problem?”

“I wondered if you could run a check on a
fellow. Name of Peter Reynolds. He might not be from around here,
but he ain’t Yankee, judging by his accent. Has Tennessee plates on
his car.” Herman read off the license numbers he’d written on a
scrap of paper.

“He do something wrong?”

“No, not yet. He just moved into the
neighborhood, and you know how it is.”

“A fellow likes to know who his neighbors
are.”

“Yep. So if you can dig anything up, I’d
appreciate it.”

“Well, normally I got to have a reason to run
a check. But maybe if you think he was growing dope or
something.”

“He’s the type who might.”

“Good enough for me. I’ll call you when I
learn something. If there’s so much as a counterfeit aspirin on his
record, I’ll drive out and pay a personal visit.”

“No, I can handle him. Just let me know.”

“Sure, Herman, whatever. If you smell
something funny, though, give me a holler. The way they’re cutting
into our DARE programs, it’s a wonder the whole blessed county
ain’t going up in smoke.”

Herman was midway through his oatmeal and
eyeing a grapefruit half when Bud Millwood called back.

“I ain’t for certain, but if your Peter
Reynolds is the same as the one from Trade River, just over the
state line, then you might want to lock your doors of a night,” the
deputy said. “Got into a quarrel with his neighbor over there.
Deputies got called out three times for a domestic dispute.”

“I thought a domestic dispute was when a man
was beating up his wife.”

“Yeah, that’s what they thought this was, but
turns out Mr. Peter James Reynolds was whopping up on a
forty-year-old woman. He claimed she snuck out in the middle of the
night and moved the surveying stake that marked the corner of his
property. Eased it over a good three feet and then dug up the
ground and planted gladiolas.”

“He beat a woman for something like
that?”

“Might not be the worst of it. This woman up
and disappeared one night. That was a few months after the
complaints. A thing like that, you figure people need to talk it
out for themselves, maybe take it to small claims court instead of
declaring war.”

“Do they think this Reynolds fellow done her
in?”

“At first. They had the bloodhounds out and
shoveled up some of her yard, thinking he might have buried her
there out of spite. They checked out his crawl space, took him in
for questioning, but he said he didn’t know nothing, sat there as
cool as a ladybug in a cucumber patch. Six months later, when no
body turned up, the detectives over there let the case slide.
Apparently the family was happy to see her go, sold the property
and split up the money. Wasn’t long after that old Peter Reynolds
put his own house up for sale.”

“Along about April?”

“Yeah.”

Herman wiped a gummy speck of oatmeal from
his lip. “Probably ain’t the same Peter Reynolds. Even a cornshuck
place like Tennessee probably got dozens by that name. And license
plates have been known to get stolen.”

“Funny, though. The detective I talked to
remembered something Peter Reynolds repeated over and over while
they questioned him.”

“What’s that?”

“Said, ‘She had no respect for another man’s
property.’ Just like that. Said ‘had’ instead of ‘has,’ like he
knew she was dead.”

“Yeah. Funny, ain’t it? I appreciate it, Bud.
Send along my blessings to your folks.”

“Sure will. Take care, now.”

Herman hung up the phone and looked out the
window at the hippie’s house. All the hippies he’d ever heard of
were into that peace and love business. Somehow that didn’t square
with murdering your neighbor. But neither did razor blades in your
fence posts. Or a cat nabbed on a fishhook and buried at the foot
of a tree.

Herman didn’t mess around with stalking the
bushes that night. He went straight down Oakdale, into the hippie’s
driveway, and up on the porch. He knocked hard enough for his
knuckles to ache. The mutt started yapping behind the closed
door.

The door opened a crack. Peter Reynolds gave
a smile as if Herman were delivering a bouquet of flowers. “I’ve
been expecting you, Mr. Weeks. Please come in.”

Herman’s anger took a left turn toward
confusion. “Look here, I just come to talk about your fence.”

“I know. We’re neighbors. We need to talk
these things out or else we’ll end up enemies. You know what the
Good Book says.”

“You mean the Bible?” The mutt leaped forward
and licked at Herman’s shoes. He looked down and saw dried oatmeal
had formed white scabs on his trousers.

“It says to love thy neighbor.”

“It also says live and let live.”

“I hate to disagree since we’re trying to be
friends, but that’s not written anywhere in the Bible. There’s an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but not a thing about live
and let live.” Peter Reynolds opened the door wider. “Please come
in. The neighbors might be watching.”

Herman took a long look behind him at the row
of houses. They seemed too quiet, still, and dark. What if Peter
Reynolds had been busy over the last day or two, and there were now
a dozen mounds of raw earth at the foot of the backyard dogwood?
Mrs. Breedlove’s legs tangled in the roots, the Pilkingtons with
dirt in their lungs?

He stepped inside, surprised at how bright
and neat the room was. He’d expected it to be dank and furnished
with heavy vinyl pieces, the way it had been when Ned and Eileen
lived here. But the hippie must have watched a few home improvement
shows. The carpet was plush and the color of gunsmoke, the window
treatments were light gray, and the trim was painted in white
semi-gloss, giving the room the sort of forced order you’d expect
in an FBI office or a doctor’s waiting room. A computer sat on a
bleached oak desk, and the rest of the furniture was arranged
around it. Herman peeked into the kitchen and didn’t see a single
dirty dish.

“Have a seat,” Peter Reynolds said, motioning
toward the couch. It looked like a regular-guy sort of couch, the
kind where you could prop your feet on the arm rest and balance a
bowl of chips on the back cushions, scratch your balls if you felt
like it. Watch the Panthers whoop up on the 49ers. Except the
hippie didn’t have a TV. All he had was the computer.

Herman sat, uncomfortable, wondering if dried
mud filled the cracks on the bottoms of his shoes.

“You heard about Tennessee,” Peter Reynolds
said.

“Did you kill her?”

“I’m surprised you’d ask something like that.
I would have taken you for a man who minded his own business.”

“Did you bury her like you did the cat?”

“You should worry about your own problems
instead of going around being suspicious of everybody.”