The Good Neighbor (22 page)

I wondered then if Jill and I would ever be
able to have a child of our own. We’d been trying for so long that
I was starting to think it would never happen. I wouldn’t tell Jill
that’s how I felt. She remained hopeful about the whole thing. I
didn’t want to dash her dreams of being a mother.

Besides, I had dreams of being a father. I
wanted a baby just as much as she did, but it was just starting to
seem hopeless. I hadn’t given up on the idea yet, but I could feel
it coming.

As I knitted with Hazel, I was content.
Probably more so than I’d ever been. It was amazing just how
comfortable it was to be in her company. Maybe the knitting added
to the level of comfort I was experiencing. It was a relaxing
hobby. I couldn’t wait to show Owen what I’d learned.

Eventually, the conversation took a turn
toward Owen. I told Hazel he had a cold. Hazel, the kind soul that
she is, promised to fix that.

She led me into the kitchen where we began
preparing some chicken soup. Watching her cook, I believed it
wasn’t so much the homemade aspect that would make Owen better, but
the amount of love she put into it. After all, it wasn’t soup from
a can. This was the real deal. Guaranteed to make someone well.

I enjoyed cooking with her. She was funny,
kind, and so sincere. I felt bad now that I’d lived across the
street for two weeks without spending time with her. That was two
weeks that I’d missed out on. Our relationship, however long it
would turn out to be, was now going to be two weeks less.

I pushed that aside and promised myself to
not worry about it. The important thing was that I was visiting
now, and I was enjoying her company. And I believed she was
enjoying mine.

“I could make you some home remedies to take
to him, if you like,” she offered.

“This ought to do the trick. If it doesn’t,
then we’ll turn to the home remedies.”

She laughed and nodded. I was sure in her
day, people didn’t scoff at the home healing like they did now.
Back then, your options were limited. You had an ailment, you made
the cure.

Hazel’s house soon filled with the aroma of
chicken soup. I remained by her side, helping when possible, and
memorizing this wonderful chapter in my life.

I turned onto Hewitt Street, feeling as
drained as I possibly could. My eyes were still burning, but I
think the burn came more from weariness now than from crying.

I was longing to sleep. I wanted nothing more
than to curl up in bed and hold Jill and sleep for days. I knew
this wasn’t going to happen, though. Jill was at work, and I had no
doubt that sleep would fail to find me again, just as it had the
last couple of days.

I slowly drove past Carla’s house, looking
for anything out of the ordinary and admiring the fence that surely
Owen had something to do with. He sure was looking out for her.
Jill and I had been waiting for a woman to come along and erase the
memories of Holly. It was more than time for Owen to move on. We
were so thankful that Carla had moved in.

I pulled into my driveway and parked the car.
I didn’t get out yet. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and
called Jill’s cell. The call went straight to voice mail, so I left
a message telling her how much I loved her. I told her I was
finally home, and would no doubt be asleep by the time she came
home. I begged her to lay with me when she returned. I ended the
call telling her I loved her.

I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat
and rubbed my face roughly with my hands. I yawned. I opened the
door and stepped out of the car. As I did, I glanced across the
street and saw Jenson dragging one of those heavy bags to his
car.

I closed the door on the car and jogged
across the street to where Jenson had just pulled the trash bag off
the steps.

“Let me get that for you,” I said. Without
protesting, the old man let go of the bag.

“Thank you,” he said. I hadn’t talked to him
much, but even I could detect a strange tone in his voice.

As I carried the bag to the trunk of his car,
I asked, “Is something wrong?”

He hesitated. After looking up and down both
sides of the street, he replied, “I’m not sure. Something just
feels wrong about the day. Do you feel it?” he asked, searching my
eyes.

I stood there, concentrating hard to see if I
could feel what Jenson was feeling. I didn’t feel anything. Maybe
it was because my emotional well had run dry. My senses were numb.
Maybe it was because there was nothing to feel. Maybe I did feel
it, but was so exhausted, it wasn’t registering with me. Either
way, after several long seconds, I told him I didn’t feel
anything.

“Huh. Maybe it’s just me. I better get these
quilts over to Am Vets. Thanks for loading them for me. These bags
seem to get heavier and heavier.”

I told him I was happy to help and I headed
to Owen’s. I turned at the top of the steps and waved to Jenson as
he drove away. I shook my head as I recalled how we’d thought he
was capable of murder.

But it wasn’t such a far-fetched notion.
There were a lot of motives for murder. Greed was the biggest.
Also, there was love. After love was revenge. And who could forget
plain old crazy. Sometimes, people just wanted to kill, with or
without a reason. There were so many cases of murder involving
people from such a wide variety of backgrounds who killed for so
many reasons that it was absolutely impossible to gauge who could
or couldn’t be apt to snap. One day, you’re delivering pizzas; the
next day, you’re delivering pizzas, shooting whoever answers the
door. It happens. Every single day.

What I’d learned studying serial killers was
that anyone was capable of anything at anytime.

I drove away, watching the young man at the
top of the steps in the rearview mirror. He seemed like such a nice
boy. Heck, it was silly to call him a boy, but that’s what he was
to me. A boy. Both he and the other guy were both such nice young
men.

As I watched him standing there waving to me,
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Not
just regular wrong, but really wrong. My hackles had been up all
morning. It could’ve been the low clouds. It could’ve been the
unsettling quiet. Heck, it could’ve been all in my head. But I
didn’t think it was.

As I turned left at the end of the street, I
thought back to the one other time that I’d had the feeling that
something was wrong.

It had started out a beautiful day. There was
a cloudless blue sky, a gentle breeze, and the air was thick with
the smell of grease and gasoline.

I was a newlywed young man, working at a
roadside gas station located smack dab in the middle of nowhere. I
was working on the engine of an old car, doing whatever I could to
push aside that awful feeling of wrongness. I’d skipped breakfast
because it was impossible to put food into the twisted knot that
was once my stomach. I was later thankful for missing the meal.

With my head under the hood, I hadn’t seen it
coming. I’d counted my blessings many times throughout the years,
and missing this occurrence was always on the list.

The feeling of something being wrong swelled
up in me until it was all I could do to breathe around it. I
remember dropping the tool I’d held in my hand, and at the same
time, hearing the screeching of tires and the sound of a woman
screaming. Immediately following the scream was a solid and
heart-wrenching thud. After the thud, came the sound of glass
shattering and metal bending and breaking.

I jerked my head out from under the hood of
the car and without even thinking, began running. I ran toward the
source of the sound even before my eyes had found it. I took in the
situation as my legs carried me toward it.

The van had hit the woman, who was presumably
hitchhiking, and veered off the road and flipped. It landed on its
roof. The woman was lying on the highway. I went to her first. She
was dead. I’d considered trying to save her, but I knew that there
would be no way I could help her. Blood poured from her mouth and
nose, her legs and arms all lay in the most awkward angles,
undoubtedly broken, and her head was gushing dark red blood,
creating a sickening pool on the blacktop highway.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t save her.
She was gone.

Suddenly aware of the sound of someone
crying, I hurried to the van.

I wished I’d kept my head under the hood of
the car. Had I done so, I could’ve spent the rest of my life only
imagining the horrors I might’ve seen, and even then, I couldn’t
have imagined anything anywhere near as horrible as what I actually
saw. This was the foundation of all future nightmares for me. I’d
seen this scene many nights since, while I slept. It was always the
same, and I always woke up crying.

As I approached the wreckage, I saw the small
legs of a child poking out from under the van. Knowing it was
futile, I struggled to lift the van from the child. Many times I
tried, and many times I failed. I couldn’t budge the heavy vehicle.
The crying was turning to shrieks, reminding me to move forward.
Even if I could remove the van, the child was surely no longer of
this world.

I had to get on the ground and crawl through
a window to get inside. I crawled through broken glass and rocks
and blood to get to the crying woman. She was lying on the roof,
looking toward the back of the van. I followed her gaze and saw
what held her attention.

A baby lay on the roof, still wrapped in a
blanket, drenched in blood. The baby didn’t move.

I turned my attention back to the woman. Her
wounds didn’t seem too severe, but upon further inspection, I
noticed they were worse than I’d thought.

She didn’t move. Not one muscle moved. I
asked her if she could move anything. She said no. I asked her if
she could feel anything. She said no. I knew then that something
was very wrong, most likely a broken neck. Her breathing was raspy,
making it sound as though her lungs were filling with fluid. Most
likely blood.

I felt sick. It wasn’t the sight of all the
blood. It wasn’t even the smell of the blood. It was the
helplessness. There was nothing I could do to help any of these
people.

I stayed with her until she took her final,
raspy breath. Then, I crawled out of the van. Once free from the
wreckage, I found I didn’t have the strength to stand. I just lay
there, face down in the dirt, and cried. I cried until my ribs
ached and my throat burned.

In the years since, I’d often wondered if I’d
paid more attention to that feeling, would I have been able to save
any of those people. I knew that there was no way I could’ve done
anything any differently. I hadn’t known what the feeling meant. I
hadn’t known what was going to happen. But the guilt was there just
the same.

I looked at my hands as they clenched the
steering wheel. The scars weren’t as prominent as they once were,
but they were still there. Reminders of a horrible day so long ago
when I’d been plagued by the very same feeling I carried with me
today.

My mind raced. I knew the feeling this time.
I understood what it meant. But where was the danger? What was the
danger? Maybe I should’ve stayed home. However, if the danger was
at my house, it was wise to have left. Or if the danger was
somewhere along my path, maybe I could be of some use this
time.

I didn’t know what to do, so I went on with
my day as usual. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. I wasn’t even
going to try. I was going to pay more attention than usual to
everything around me. I was going to do my best to be ready this
time for whatever came my way.

I was ashamed of myself for being such a
coward. Sure, I had the guts to sit in the parking lot for over an
hour, but I didn’t have the guts to go inside the police station
and tell them about the flowers and the threatening card Bernie had
left for me.

The truth was I wasn’t sure what I should do.
I knew Carla hadn’t wanted any cops involved, but this wasn’t about
her. This was about me. If I went to the cops, they would know
about Carla. They had to be told in order for them to know the
severity of the situation. Besides that, what if what happened to
Carla’s mother happened to me? I knew the chances of that happening
were slim, but it was still possible. I couldn’t take the
chance.

I decided to talk to Andy before doing
anything. I drove home. I couldn’t ignore the shaking of my hands
on the wheel. I took deep breaths to keep calm, which somewhat
managed to work. I had no remedy for the knot in my stomach.

I pulled into the driveway and turned off the
car. My heart was racing. Andy was home! I couldn’t wait to talk to
him.

I jumped out of the car, leaving the flowers
and the note behind, and ran into the house, yelling his name as I
went.

He didn’t answer.

I went room to room searching for him,
continuing to call out to him, but he still didn’t answer.

He must be at Owen’s.

I grabbed my surprise for him from my purse
and bolted out the door, gave Bernie’s house a quick glance as I
flew down the steps, and ran next door.

I didn’t knock. I didn’t ring the doorbell. I
just went inside. This was unlike me, but I couldn’t help it. I was
dying to tell Andy my news. Our news. The news I’d been trying to
tell him, but never having the appropriate time.

I wouldn’t be stopped this time. I couldn’t
wait any longer. And now I also had to tell him about the threat
from Bernie.

He wouldn’t be happy about that.

I hesitated for a moment just outside the
front door of Owen’s house. I didn’t want him to be so upset after
finding out something so wonderful. Maybe this wasn’t the time to
tell him, either. Maybe I should save the news for another time.
But damn it, I swore I would tell him the minute he returned – no
matter what.