Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set Page 28

  “There,” the hippie said to the whimpering mutt. “That ought to give the geezer something to fix tomorrow. Or else a heart attack.”

  The hippie jumped as if electrocuted when Herman flipped on the flashlight. The longhair froze in the orange cone of light, pupils the size of BBs. Probably on meth heroin or whatever dope his kind cooked up these days.

  “They look better if you do them square,” Herman said.

  The hippie squinted against the flashlight’s beam. “Who’s there?”

  “A concerned neighbor,” Herman said.

  “You the one with the picket fence, up at 101?”

  “None other.” Herman stood and flicked off the light. They stared at each other’s silhouettes under the quarter moon.

  “Why have you been messing with my fence?” The hippie folded his arms across his chest. The shaggy mutt stopped whimpering and crouched at its master’s feet.

  “Why you been making me?” Herman snapped his shoulders back Marine-style, even though it was dark and the hippie couldn’t get a cheap lesson in proper posture. This was his neighborhood. He had a right to take an interest.

  “I like to know my neighbors,” the hippie said. “The faster you peg the weirdoes, the faster you can take steps to protect yourself.”

  Herman’s jaw loosened. “You mean you done this on purpose? Like some kind of trap?”

  The hippie’s high-dollar teeth caught the scant moonlight as he smiled. “One of them. The other traps are scattered around the perimeter.”

  A light came on upstairs in the Hampton house. From his dark vantage point, Herman could see the top half of the widow as she slipped off her robe and stepped into the shower. His pulse jumped a gear and he felt a flush of shame. Spying like trash, that’s what he was doing. But she’d left her curtains open, so it was her fault.

  “Ain’t seen Miss Hampton’s cat around lately,” Herman said. “You wouldn’t know nothing about that, would you?”

  “You might find it at the foot of the dogwood,” the hippie said, nodding to the corner of his lot.

  “Dogwood?”

  “I thought that was fitting punishment,” the hippie said. “Get it? A cat and a dogwood?”

  The mutt’s ears perked up at the sound of its master’s laughter.

  “You buried her cat on your property?” Herman’s thumb twitched against the flashlight, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh with the hippie or addle the fool’s brains with a sideswipe.

  “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 b
lades, 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 kil
l 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.”

  “I don’t have no problems.”

  “That you’ll admit, anyway.”

  “No worries nothing.”

  “You’re old and alone and it’s slipping away. The last thing you have left to fight for is that patch of grass up there”—Peter Reynolds waved at the dark window in the direction of Herman’s house—”and a picket fence. And it’s getting harder to keep that fence standing straight, isn’t it? The winds keep coming, a little stronger every year, the snow leans on it, the neighborhood kids get a little bigger and bolder, and a fence starts looking like a dare instead of a warning. Yes, Mr. Weeks, I understand fences. I’m territorial myself.”

  The hippie’s gray eyes, which were the same color as the carpet, seemed far too old. “All I want is a place to spread out, a yard for my dog to dig in, a roof over my head, and no barbarians at the gate.”

  “Barbarians at the gate,” Herman repeated, as if he had the slightest idea what the hippie was going on about. He had a fleeting image of one of those old chariot movies, where the Romans were always punished because of nailing Jesus to the cross. You never saw John Wayne in a toga, that was for sure. Charlton Heston, maybe, but that was a different nut altogether.

  “I’m a loner like you,” Peter Reynolds went on, standing across the room even though his guest was sitting. “I take care of what’s mine. That’s why I was so upset when I saw you had fixed my leaning fence post. It was an insult, you see.”