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BOBBY WAS ALREADY HOME when I dropped off my daughter.
“Stay for dinner?” he offered as he and Chelsea embraced. They both looked exhausted; I knew I was.
“Thanks, but I better get going.” I lusted for a mushroom omelet, some junk TV, and an early bedtime.
The languid pace of the early evening traffic forced me to relax, and by the time I turned onto Beech Tree Lane a pastel twilight softened the Eastern seaboard. Nestled in among summer-fat bushes, the modest red rancher Rip and I had loved at first sight looked more beautiful to me than the Taj Mahal.
Yet after I parked by the front walk and switched off the engine, the events of the day conspired to make me uneasy. I scoured my surroundings as best I could yet noticed nothing amiss. Still I was loathe to leave the car.
"Chicken," I scolded myself as I climbed out. I was a woman living alone; I’d had moments like this before and would surely experience more.
I locked the car with the clicker on my key chain, but, to mollify my jangled nerves, threaded the keys between my fingers like pointy brass knuckles. If I was being silly, nobody would ever know.
"Hey!" yelled an angry voice that shot my pulse into the stratosphere. "Stop right there!"
Still wearing the dirt-crusted jeans and heavy boots from work, Ronald Voight had emerged from the pickup truck in front of my next-door neighbor’s. Slamming the door behind him, he overtook me before I'd run five paces. Grabbed my arm. Blocked my way.
"Where is my wife?" Nostrils flaring, he crowded so close I smelled his sweat, saw the veins pounding in his temples.
“I...I don’t know.”
“Liar! Where...is...my...wife?"
Stepping even closer, he grabbed my shoulders and shook.
Inside the house Fideaux frantically growled and barked. A shame I couldn’t open the door to let him vent his fury—and mine.
"Tell the truth, bitch, or so help me..." He raised his fist.
"Let her go," a male voice commanded. "The police are on their way."
Voight spun to direct fresh rage at the newcomer. "Why you..."
I tried to run.
Voight grabbed my hair.
I raked his arm with my keys. He let go, but I was off-balance and landed on my butt.
With a last piercing glare Ronald turned toward the balding, older man, whom I now recognized as the census-taker. Backing up, he raised his clipboard as if to protect his head, but Ronald plowed him down and kept going. Climbed into his pickup. Roared away.
Pen poised for action, my rescuer scurried into the street, but just as quickly returned.
"Didn't get the license."
"Doesn't matter," I assured him as I dusted myself off. "The guy lives next door to my daughter."
"He does?"
"Yes."
Both still jacked on adrenaline, we gravitated toward the house, where Fideaux was still sounding off.
Inserting the proper key, I warned my rescuer to brace himself. "...uh, what’s your name again?"
"John. John Butler."
"Ginger Barnes." Shaking his pillowy hand, I clasped my left over his right for emphasis. "Thank you for saving me, John Butler. You couldn't have come at a better time."
When we stepped inside, Fideaux twirled and leapt with joy. The man who scared his person was gone. He was free to rudely sniff the stranger and step on his shoes.
I asked whether the police were actually coming.
"I'm afraid there wasn't time,” Butler admitted. “Shall we call them now?"
I gestured us into the living room. "That's up to you. I just fell down trying to scratch the bastard. You're the one who got shoved."
"Assault. I see it on my list every day, but I never thought it would happen to me."
"What list is that?"
"I'm conducting a crime survey. We follow up every six months for two years by phone, but the initial interview has to be in person. That's why I'm here. You're one of my random subjects."
"And I've been a pain in the ass, haven't I? Sorry. I thought you were a regular census-taker, and I didn't think it was time for that."
"We wrote you a letter.”
My eyes strayed to a large basket of unopened mail, mostly junk, but apparently not all.
John Butler strolled over, rummaged through the heap, selected an envelope, and presented it to me.
"Sorry," I apologized again. "It looked a little like it was from Publishers Clearinghouse."
"Under the circumstances, I'm glad you were so cautious about a man on your doorstep. Does this sort of thing happen to you often?" He tilted his chin toward the front yard.
"No. Is that a question from your survey, or are you just asking?"
"Just me," he answered. "For now."
I settled onto the chair at the right of the empty fireplace. My guest took the other. He was cute when he smiled, even had a dimple in his left cheek. I was relieved to notice he wore a wedding band.
"You said you knew the man?"
I described my recent acquaintance with Voight's wife and how Chelsea and I had helped get her to the shelter.
Chelsea!
"Mind if I take a minute to call my daughter?”
“Of course not.”
Bobby answered, which was probably best. He could warn Chelsea about their hot-headed neighbor without sounding like a mother.
I sketched in the details.
"Omigod, are you alright?" Bobby exclaimed, then peppered me with questions like, "How did Ronald even know where you live?"
It took me a moment to think. "I may have told him myself the day we met."
"Your address?"
"No, the town. But I'm in the phone book." I would be correcting that ASAP.
"Did you report the incident? You should, you know."
That I had thought about already. Since I wasn’t hurt, and since Ronald believed the census man had already called it in, I worried that making a formal complaint might provoke Cissie’s husband even more. “...Of course, if Mr. Butler wants to report his assault, I'll back him up."
He waved his head no.
"Please be really careful, okay?" I urged my son-in-law. “Both of you, please.”
"You, too, uh, Gin," he responded, cementing both my mother-in-law name and our mutual bond.
When I returned to my seat, John Butler wore a cat-ate-the-canary smile.
"What?" I asked bluntly. This was the end of a very long day.
Pen in hand, clipboard resting on his lap, the census-taker got down to business. “Mrs. Barnes,” he opened with a bemused tilt to his chin. “During the past six months, have you been the victim of a crime?"