Together Alone (19 page)

In her own room, nude under the covers, since she hadn’t packed for the night, Emily lay awake enjoying her body’s warm buzz. She hadn’t felt it in a very long time, wasn’t sure she had ever felt it before.

She didn’t analyze it deeply, simply, took it for the pleasure it gave, and the pleasure went on the next day, through breakfast, a morning walk on the beach, and the leisurely drive back home. She was feeling mellow when they passed the town limits and entered Grannick, and when they turned onto China Pond Road, she was wishing the day wouldn’t end.

Then she saw two cruisers in front of Myra’s house and her serenity took a jolt. She sat straighter. “Something’s wrong.”

Brian pulled into the driveway. Emily was out in a flash, running across the cul-de-sac and up to Myra’s front door. It was pulled open before she could do it herself.

“There you are!” Myra cried, looking shaky and pale. “I’ve been so frightened. First the lights didn’t go on in your house, and then they didn’t go on over the garage, and when the Jeep didn’t come back, I figured you’d gone somewhere with him. I kept waiting and watching, but when you didn’t come back
today,
I thought something terrible had happened.”

“I’m fine,” Emily assured her. Her eyes darted past those of three patrolmen to John’s.

But Myra wasn’t done. “It’s so unlike you to leave without a word. I thought for sure he had done something to you.”

“Brian?” Emily asked, puzzled. “He wouldn’t do anything to me.”

“Well, of course,
Brian
wouldn’t. I’m not talking about Brian.”

“Then who?” John asked.

Myra looked startled by the question. “Why, well,
any
man might have come, any man,” she stammered. “
Doug
might have come. He’s her husband. Husbands hurt their wives all the time.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily apologized softly to John. “We started driving yesterday and just kept going.”

John raised a hand that said she owed him neither apology nor explanation. He looked less forgiving when Brian came through the door, but before Emily could speak up in his defense, Myra said, “I didn’t mean to suggest that the detective had done anything wrong. Thank goodness, you’re all right,” she said to Brian, then to Emily, “I was so afraid. You
are
coming to my cookout on Wednesday night, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Emily assured her. “I’m bringing the grill.”

“Ahhh,” Myra said with a great sigh of relief. She put her hands together and smiled. “That’s good. Very good. Maybe things will be all right after all.”

E
MILY PREPARED EAGERLY FOR JILL’S HOME
-coming. Since she didn’t have Doug’s input—he neither asked about her plans, nor offered any suggestions when she asked him—she decided to simply stock the kitchen with enough food to handle most any situation that might arise. She baked all of Jill’s favorites, packed the freezer with goodies, stocked the cupboards. Upstairs, she opened the windows and aired out Jill’s room, then dusted, item by item, careful to put each back exactly where it had been. She didn’t open a drawer or the closet. Those were sacrosanct for this little while more.

Tuesday night, bored and itchy, she repapered the upstairs bathroom with the wallpaper that Doug had liked.

Midday Wednesday found her looking for something to do, but Kay was working, Celeste was at the hair shop getting streaked, and Myra refused to let her bake for the cookout.

So, Emily set off on foot down the street to enjoy Grannick at its brilliant autumn best. The air was cool, the day clear. Between the sun, and her sweatshirt and leggings, she was pleasantly warm and calmer than usual, but only until she started thinking. Then, like shadows under the sun, the old questions returned.

Who am I? Where am I going?

She took her usual route into town, counting the Victorians on LaGrange until she forced herself to stop. But without counting, what?
What to do? Who to be?

She stopped at the drugstore to chat with Mary Elizabeth, and at the bookstore to say hello to Connie Yeo. Since the day was so lovely, she walked on into Grannick’s college half, passing stores that the students frequented, heading for the college itself.

There was work to do here, even beyond Petra. If Emily was desperate, she could teach writing. She had been offered the job once, but had refused, preferring to work at her own pace, in her own time.

It wouldn’t hurt to do another book, if Doug could accept it, but she doubted he would. She wondered if Kay and Celeste were right, that he was threatened by the thought of her success.

Troubled, she turned around at the stone pillars that marked the college’s entrance and headed back along the less scenic route, past the auto body shop, the plumbing parts store, and the bus station. As she approached the last, a large bus pulled up and opened its doors to a cluster of back-packed students waiting at the curb. As they climbed aboard, Emily swore she saw Dawn.

She raised a hand to wave, but the girl was already inside. The bus closed its door, shifted into gear with a groan and a noxious expulsion from its tail, and pulled away from the curb. Emily was wondering if it had truly been Dawn, when a horn sounded. Looking around, she saw Brian’s Jeep. She broke into an easy smile, went to the lowering passenger’s window, and set her elbows on the rim.

“Are you lost?” he asked, smiling back at her.

The eyes, ahhhh, the eyes. They cleared the mind of all else. “Nope. Just walking. It’s a nice day. Hey, neat tie.” It was covered with little pink pigs.

“I thought it made a statement.”

“Definitely. Are you on patrol?”

“Vaguely.” He reached across and opened the passenger’s door.

“Is this allowed?”

“If I say it is.”

Unable to argue with such sound logic, she slid in. Being with Brian was as uplifting as any fine autumn afternoon.

“I’m getting to know streets and faces,” he said, starting off. “See those old guys?” There were three, sitting under a worn awning in front of a cement box of a building. “They’re always there. Nine in the morning, noon, three—rain or shine—weekday, weekend. That’s their life, watching the street.” He waved as he cruised by. They waved back. “They know my car now. That’s good. Guys like that come in handy. They see everything.”

Emily gave the men a token glance before returning to Brian. He was a study in contrasts—New York—knowing, Grannick-feeling; cop-tough, daddy-soft; hard of body, gentle of voice. In his jeans, shirt and tie, and jacket, he was easy on the eye. And then there was his scent. The car held it. It was clean and male.

He shot her no less than three separate looks, while she shamelessly studied him, before asking, “What got you out walking?”

“The sun.”

He shot her another look, this one was uncertain.

“Really,” she assured him, touched by his concern. “It wasn’t like the nights. I finished everything at home. It was nice out. I wanted to move.”

They were circling behind the college, through the section of town known as the kitchen, for the support staff it gave the school. It was an area of aged two- and three-family houses, of skewed porches, packed clotheslines, and rusted pickups. Its shabbiness was heightened when the sun moved behind a cloud.

“I don’t like doing nothing,” she said.

“What about the
Sun
?”

“Two more articles, done. I write them faster than Rod can assign them. I need more to do. If Doug is going to be away as much as Jill is, I’m in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Oh, God. Where to begin. “Boredom—loneliness—frustration—impatience—envy—hunger.” The last tumbled out quite spontaneously, rather like her thoughts on being feminine the other day. The two weren’t unrelated.

“What kind of hunger?” Brian asked.

The kind that isn’t allowed,
she thought but was mercifully saved from having to say it aloud or lie, when the two-way radio made a staticky sound.

Brian listened in. “There’s a problem three streets over,” he said and picked up the handset. After logging in his position, he conversed with the dispatcher. Then he put the car into gear. “A woman just reported a peeping Tom. Feel like taking a ride?”

What to do? Who to be?
Riding shotgun with Brian was right down her alley. “Definitely.”

“Her name’s Leila Jones.”

“I know Leila. She was several years ahead of Jill in school, but they played town soccer together.”

“Were they friends?”

“No. There wasn’t time. Leila moved up to the next division. Then she got pregnant and dropped out of school, out of soccer, the whole thing.”

“How old was she?”

“Fourteen when the first was born. She’s had others since.”

He made a frustrated sound as he turned onto Leila’s street, and moments later pulled up before the shabbiest house there. It was a three-decker, with peeling paint, windows covered with graffitied wood planks, and broken toys strewn on the lawn.

Brian released his seat belt. “Want to wait in the car?”

“Not particularly.” She was tired of being spectator to other people’s sport.

“I can’t talk you into it?” His eyes tried.

She slipped out of the car and started up the front walk.

Easily catching up, he reached ahead of her to ring the bell. “Let me do the talking, at least.”

“I think the bell may not work.”

He knocked. Child sounds, mixed with television sounds, came from inside the house. He knocked more loudly.

“Is this her? First floor?” Emily asked.

“That’s what they said.”

The door opened. Emily recognized Leila instantly, even with one child in her arms and another clinging to her leg, though she was dismayed at the girl’s state. Her hair was uncombed, her clothes worn, her eyes large and tired. She looked nearly as old and rundown as the house—which put things in perspective for Emily. For all her own concerns, her life was far safer, saner, more secure than this girl’s.

Brian showed his badge. “I’m Detective Stasek. I understand you’re having some trouble.”

Leila looked unsurely at Emily, until he said, “Mrs. Arkin is my sidekick for the afternoon,” when she stood back to let them come in.

The inside of the house was as depressing as the outside, with most everything worn, broken, or patched. In addition to the two children clinging to Leila, two others were fighting over a toy, while a third one sat crying in a wooden crate.

“Shut up, Joey,” Leila snapped at the crying one, who only cried louder. “You can’t play with the others ’cause you bite.”

“Momma, it’s
my
turn,” screamed one of the squabblers. “Gimme it, Lissie!
Gim
me it!”

“But I’m not done,” Lissie cried.

“You had it too long!”

“Lissie, let Davis have it!”

Lissie clutched the toy to her stomach and bent over, at which point Davis began pummeling her.

Leila rushed over, leaving the child who had been attached to her leg staggering on its own. “Davis Jones, don’t you hit your sister that way.” She hauled the child off by the arm. Behind her, the abandoned child sat down hard and started to wail.

Emily lifted the child. “Hey, hey,” she said softly.

“This is all I hear,” Leila complained over the ongoing noise. “All they do is scream and fight.”

“How old are they?” Brian asked.

Leila pointed. “Seven, five, four, two, and ten months.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Is there a father around?”

“There should’a been, for the two littlest ones, but he couldn’t stand the noise, either, so he left. They all do. They just leave the babies with me, but how am I s’posed to take care of them? How am I s’posed to do everything they can’t?”

“Shouldn’t the oldest be in school?”

“They sent her home for lice, so I gotta treat that and make sure none of the others get it, and they will, they always do.”

“I thought your mother was helping you out,” Emily said.

“She did until the last baby came along, then she said that if I was so stupid as to have another one, I could just take care of it myself, but I’m having trouble getting everything done, and all they do is scream.” She turned on the one in the crate, who continued to cry. “
Shut up, Joey!”
She pointed a shaky finger at Brian and encompassed the other children in her gaze. “Do you know who this man is? He’s a policeman, and he’s gonna lock you up in jail and leave you there, if you don’t all
shut up
this minute!”

Emily pressed the head of the child she held to her breast. If the shrillness of Leila’s voice upset
her
, she could imagine what it did to the children. Leila broadcast panic. The children were catching it.

Speaking in a voice that was starkly calm by contrast, Brian said, “Tell me about the man who was looking in your windows. Do you know him?”

“No.”

“Has he ever been here before?”

“I don’t know.”

“What, exactly, was he doing?”

“I’m
hungry
, Mama!”

“I wanna go out!”

Leila tried to free herself from the older two, who, having forgotten about the toy they had been fighting over moments before, were tugging at her shirt. “You can’t go out,” she told the little girl. “It’s gonna rain.” To Brian, she said, “He was walking around the house, looking in the windows. Don’t pull at me, Davis! Lissie, get Davis a cookie.”

“I don’t want a cookie. I want cheese.”

“I don’t have cheese. Lissie, get him a cookie.”

“The windows are raised off the ground,” Brian said. “Do you mean that he was looking up at them?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe him for me?”

“He was dark—dark clothes, dark hair.”

Brian made notes in a small notebook. “Caucasian?”

“Yes.”

“I wanna go out, Mama,” Lissie whined.

“I told you to get Davis a cookie!”

“How old was he?” Brian asked.

“I don’t know. He was wearing a hat.”

“What kind of hat?”

“I guess it was a baseball hat.”

“Did it have anything on it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Writing? A picture?”

“I couldn’t see.”

“Mama, I wanna watch television.”

“No, Davis! It’s broken!” Davis ran into the other room. “Joey, stop
crying.”

“Can you tell me how tall he was?” Brian asked.

She raised a hand as high as it would go.

“Was he heavy?”

She frowned, then shrugged.

“Was there anything unusual about him? Any distinctive feature?”

“I didn’t see any, I was so nervous. He just kept wandering around the house, looking in at us. It was making the kids scared. He didn’t look like he was passing by, I mean, he was looking for something.”

Emily was wondering if he was trying to decide what to repair first, when Brian asked, “Do you think he might have been hired to paint the house?”

“He didn’t have any stuff with him. He was just looking in at us, walking around and looking in.”

“Who owns this house?”

“Ray Telly. He lives on the third floor.”

Brian noted that. “This man who was walking around looking in—did he see you looking back at him?”

“He must have, because the kids were looking out at him, and I kept yelling at them to get away, but they wouldn’t. He’s going to come back. I know he is. Maybe he wants to do somethin’ to one of the kids.”

Emily felt a shudder of remembrance.

Gently, Brian asked, “Why would he want to do that?”

“
I
don’t know, but something awful might happen if he comes back. I can’t watch these kids every minute.” A crash came from the back of the house. She raced in that direction with Brian on her heels.

Emily followed.

Leila was shrieking even before she reached the kitchen.
“Davis, what did you do? I was heatin’ that water to give the baby a bath, and now you got it spilled all over the floor. Why’d you go and do that?”

Brian put a hand on her arm. “Yelling at him like that won’t help.”

“What will?” she yelled at Brian. “I’ve tried everything, but whatever I say, they don’t do.” Her thin body was shaking. She was on the verge of hysteria.

Emily’s heart went out to her. “Isn’t there someone who can give you a hand?”

She shifted the baby, took a dirty cloth from the counter and dropped it on the puddle on the floor. “No one’ll come. But if I’m all alone here, that man will come in and do something awful.”

“You have no idea who he was?” Brian asked.

“No. I told you. I never saw him before.”

Brian slipped the notebook back into his pocket. “Tell you what. I’m going to take a look around outside. Then I’ll talk with your neighbors about what they’ve seen.” He turned to Emily, but she spoke before he could.