Neighborhood Watch (14 page)

“Yes, you can submit a request and attend the next meeting which happens to be

tomorrow night, but I can’t guarantee anything. I have only one vote myself,” Philip said.

“Right. Well, we’d like to do just that.”

“Fine. Why don’t you give your written request to Nikki Stanley before eight tomorrow.

The board will meet in closed session at seven and then you can appear at eight.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. How do you like working with Hank Porter and his medical group?”

“Oh, that’s been great.”

“I’ve already heard good things about you, Teddy. Matter of fact, Ben Stuart over at the laundry told me he’s asked his medical insurance company to consider including you as a participating physician.”

“Really? That’s very nice.”

“If your group picks up a half dozen or so of these small companies, it will be very, very nice,” Philip emphasized. “I’m sure you will. Anyway, sorry about your problem, but we’re proud of our homeowners association and the way it handles every possible issue.”

“Right. Okay. Thanks,” Teddy said and hung up. He stared ahead for a moment.

“Well?” Kristin asked.

“We have to submit our request in writing to Nikki Stanley and then attend the board meeting at eight tomorrow night in Slater’s house.”

“Do we need a lawyer to attend with us?”

“Very funny. I’m sure they’ll see how innocuous this is and grant us a variance,” Teddy said. “I feel like such a jerk for not reading the rules closely. This is all my fault. I created the situation.”

“By wanting to buy your daughter a puppy?”

He gazed at her a moment and then shook his head.

“I’ll go into the office and jot down a quick letter. We’ll give it to Nikki Stanley on the way out to the restaurant. We’re still going out for dinner, aren’t we?”

“Yes. I was too upset to cook.”

“What about the baby-sitter?”

“I was too upset to deal with it. We’ll take Jennifer along this time,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll just work up a quick letter and change.”

He hurried down the hallway, pausing at the doorway to Jennifer’s room. The scene

brought a wide smile to his face. His daughter was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, with one of her popup books in her lap, pretending to read. Beside her, sitting on its small haunches, was the puppy listening and staring as if he could actually understand.

His little tail wagged when he turned to notice Teddy. Jennifer looked up.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, Jen. What are you doing?”

“Reading to Mr. Sniffles. He likes this one the best. It’s about Snooker the dog.”

“Oh. I see. Great. Well, we’re going out to eat soon.”

“I know. Mommy told me.”

“All right, honey.” He hurried on, filled with determination to write a simple, sensible letter of request no one could reasonably deny.

A little over half an hour later, they left the house and drove toward the front gate. He slowed and stopped in front of the Stanley residence.

“I’ll just be a minute,” he said. He hopped out and jogged up the walk to the front door where he pushed the door button and then turned and smiled back at Kristin and Jennifer, who had her face up against the rear window.

The door was opened by Graham Stanley. The eight-year-old wore a shirt and tie and had his hair slicked back, with a perfect part on the left side. He was a light brown-haired boy with dull hazel eyes and a somewhat chubby, soft face.

“Is your mother here?” Teddy asked.

“We’re eating dinner now,” Graham said sharply.

“Oh. I don’t want to bother anyone. Could you give her this letter?” Teddy said. He handed the envelope to Graham who looked like he wouldn’t take it at first. Then he snatched it quickly and closed the door. Teddy felt a cold stream of anger slide up his spine and stiffen his neck.

“Little bastard,” he muttered, but when he turned to walk back to the car, he forced a smile.

“What happened?” Kristin asked when he got in.

“Nothing. Their son answered the door. I gave him the letter.” He shrugged.

“She knew you were coming,” Kristin said as they approached the gate. “She could have greeted you.”

Teddy pressed his lips together. He was angry, too, but it seemed Kristin was jumping at every opportunity to be upset with Emerald Lakes and the residents. At the gate the security guard scrutinized them for a moment and then stepped out of the booth without opening the gate. He carried his clipboard.

“What’s up?” Teddy asked.

“Just wanted to know if you would be gone long.”

“Why?” Kristin demanded before Teddy could respond.

“Just a precaution, ma’am. If you’re going to be gone long, we’ll sweep by your house more often.”

“Jesus. You people make me feel like I’m living in the middle of a war zone,” she

snapped. The guard didn’t change his expression. He held his clipboard and his pen

steady.

“I’m only doing my job, ma’am. It’s what the residents of Emerald Lakes pay us to do,”

he said.

“We’re just going to dinner,” Teddy said. “A few hours at the most.”

“Thank you, sir.” He made a note, returned to the booth and opened the gate. Teddy

drove out without comment, but the silence was too thick and heavy to keep long.

“There’s no sense in our taking it out on the employees. If we don’t like a procedure, we should attend a homeowners meeting and bring up the problem,” he said.

“You like all this Big Brother stuff, Teddy?”

“I didn’t say I like it exactly. Unfortunately, because of the world we live in, it’s necessary.”

“So’s roughage in your diet.”

“What?”

“Nothing. What’s the difference? Let’s just have a good dinner,” she said and closed her eyes. Was it her condition? Was she being unreasonable? Ungrateful? Why wasn’t Teddy as annoyed? A thought came to her. “I think we should ask a few more questions, Teddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“All this security. Something terrible must have happened here to make it necessary.

Something no one is telling us.”

He was quiet. If he disagreed, she would say he was accusing her of the paranoia again.

They drove on, the thick silence enveloping them once more.

Their dinner turned out to be spectacular. The atmosphere in the small, homey Italian restaurant was authentic. Everything was homemade, even the wine, which Kristin drank like water. By the time they arrived at dessert, she was giggling like a teenager. Teddy, relieved the tension had lifted, drank a little too much himself, and every time Jennifer asked them why they were laughing, they laughed again.

The good food, the nice time with the owners and the waitress, and especially the wine, made the ride back to Emerald Lakes different. The two of them sang old fifties songs.

They no sooner finished one line when the other would think of some other melody and they would sing a chorus to Jennifer who sat back amused by the way her parents were acting. When they pulled up to the security booth, they both clammed up and tried to appear sober and respectable.

“Good evening,” Teddy said to the guard, but Kristin couldn’t subdue her giggle any longer.

“Remember us?” she called. “We didn’t lie. We only went to dinner.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said and hit the button to open the gate.

“Did you sweep by our house?” she demanded.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is it still there?”

“Ma’am?”

She sat back and laughed. Teddy winked at the guard, but he didn’t smile. Teddy drove into the complex. When he looked into his rearview mirror, he saw the guard was on the telephone. Kristin continued to sing and giggle, even as they pulled up to their driveway.

As they did so, Teddy noticed the Emerald Lakes patrol car come around the opposite turn and slow down. The guard watched them drive into the garage. Teddy didn’t say

anything about it and hit the button to close the garage door as quickly as he could.

“Let’s go see the stowaway!” Kristin cried when they entered the house.

Kristin took Jennifer’s hand and they went into Jennifer’s room where Kristin hugged and cuddled the puppy, who couldn’t stop licking her face. Jennifer’s melodic laughter filled Teddy with a cold ache that wrapped itself around his heart. How could something like this be undesirable? he wondered and vowed to convince the board to grant them their variance.

Neither he nor Kristin talked about the appeal in the morning, but when Jennifer kissed Mr. Sniffles good-bye before heading off to catch the school bus, they looked at each other nervously.

“Teddy, it’s going to break her heart if we have to give up that puppy.”

“I know,” he said. “We won’t have to. I’m sure.”

She shook her head skeptically and kissed him good-bye. As she moved through her day, Kristin’s exasperation with the situation grew into a small rage. By the time she was ready to go to her doctor’s appointment, she was tense and irritable. She backed out of their driveway in her Ford Escort, and then shot off. She forgot about the speed bump and the jolt nearly drove her head into the car roof. It slowed her down, but it didn’t calm her down. Before the security guard at the gate could ask a question, she fired her answer at him.

“I’m going to see my doctor. I’ll be gone about an hour or so.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. She recognized him as one of the security men who had gone to the Del Marcos’ house the day before.

“Wait a minute.”

“Ma’am?”

“You were one of the guards who checked on the Del Marco false alarm yesterday,

weren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, why did you have to break in through a window?”

“A full report is being given to the board of trustees, ma’am. You can make your

inquiries to them,” he said firmly.

“Thanks,” she said and drove out. They treated everything around here like a world

crisis. What would happen if something really serious occurred, like a murder or a

suicide? She thought about Elaine Feinberg. It gave her the chills.

There were no patients before her at Doctor Hoffman’s office. His wife, Arlene, looked up from her paperwork and smiled.

“Perfect timing,” she said. “The doctor can see you right away.” She opened the door.

“Good,” Kristin said and followed her through the corridor. Arlene showed her into the examination room.

“I’ll tell him you’ve arrived,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Physically, fine, but I have other problems,” she said sharply, her eyes narrowed and her implications clear.

“Oh. Oh,” Arlene added and bit down on her lower lip. She was a stout woman who had lost her good looks to a weight problem. Her attractive dark eyes looked misplaced in the chubby face, and her bleached blond hair was cut too sharply under her ears, the trim emphasizing her plumpness. She shifted her eyes away quickly. “I’ll get the doctor.”

Kristin remained standing. A moment later Doctor Hoffman appeared. Only an inch or so taller than his wife, he was slim to the point of being thin. His face was lean, but not hard, and a bit bony in the nose and cheeks. Kristin had been satisfied with him during her first visit. He had kind, considerate eyes, a gentle touch and a soft, friendly manner of speaking. He projected a professional, experienced demeanor, one that would win over his patient’s confidence.

“How are you doing?” he asked as soon as he entered. Kristin turned on him sharply, her face all business.

“I’m feeling fine, but I’m a little upset.”

“Oh. Please, have a seat,” Doctor Hoffman said indicating the chair by the examination table. He remained standing by the door, his arms folded under his chest. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is information I gave you is all over the housing development,” Kristin said. Hoffman’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened.

“What do you mean, Mrs. Morris? What sort of information?”

“My miscarriage. It appeared in that . . . that directory of residents. You must have seen it,” she said.

“I didn’t read it, although I recall a new issue being delivered. Who told you the

information came out of this office?”

“No one told me specifically. I figured it out,” she said. “We’re new here, Doctor, as you know. We haven’t told anyone about our intimate problems in the past. This is the only place where it was mentioned and only because it’s part of my medical history. Next thing I know, it’s part of ‘Introduction to Our Newest Residents, the Morrises.’ I

complained, of course, and they’ve already retracted it, printed new pages, but I can’t tell you how terrible I felt reading it.”

He stared at her for a few seconds and then nodded.

“Excuse me a moment,” he said.

She sat back. After a good five minutes, Doctor Hoffman returned with his wife at his side. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face a bit white. Her lips trembled.

“I think we owe you an apology, Mrs. Morris,” Doctor Hoffman began. He looked at his wife.

“I’m so sorry. I might have said something to Nikki Stanley the other day. She has a way of asking questions and picking up on every word. I’m not making any excuses, but I might very well have made a comment and she remembered it. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not something that’s happened often, but that doesn’t excuse it,” Doctor Hoffman said. “We’re a small community. People talk about each other, and my wife”—he gazed down at her with a look of reproach—“ unfortunately forgets our professional

responsibilities.” She cowered and he looked at Kristin again. “You have every right to be upset.”

Arlene Hoffman dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and pressed her upper lip over her lower. Kristin felt sorry for her. She realized she was no match for the likes of a Nikki Stanley.

“Mrs. Stanley had no right to include it, even if she did hear about it,” Kristin said.

“I agree,” Doctor Hoffman said. “But that doesn’t mitigate our guilt in the matter. All I can say is I’m sorry and I will personally see that nothing like that happens again. Of course, if you want to see another physician, I understand and will recommend someone nearby.”