Chapter 5

“The best advice I can give everyone here tonight is to lock your doors, don’t eat pork rinds, and report any suspicious behavior.” Harry stood at the podium on the stage of the aptly named Boring High School, and nodded repeatedly to the large turnout of concerned citizens seated in the hard wooden seats. Harry appeared to be trying to make eye contact with everyone at the association meeting to drive home his point. His over-the-top antics were enough to make me want to burst out laughing. I didn’t, of course, because death was no laughing matter.

But with safety tips like those, I could have stayed home and still been all the wiser. Organizing my sock drawer seemed more appealing than this waste of time.

Besides, I could very well be the next corpse found here in the ‘burbs. Someone wanted me either dead or quiet, and to keep me quiet I’d probably have to be dead. My odds weren’t looking good.

Awkward silence fell over the auditorium. Finally, Hillary stood from her seat at the side of the stage, made her way to the podium, and cleared her throat.

Come on, Hillary. Don’t do it. Don’t show your prickly side.

“Thank you, Harry, for that groundbreaking advice.” Her cheeks reddened.

The start of a smile tugged at my lips. On second thought, this was much more entertaining than organizing my sock drawer. These were the kind of uncomfortable moments that were usually reserved for reality TV.

Hillary tugged at the collar of her navy blue suit. “Does anyone have any questions?”

The silence did a 180. Suddenly, everyone began talking at once as hands shot in the air.

“Do the police know who did this?”

“How did Candace die?”

“Does anyone know where Jerry is?”

“Are we really safe?”

Hillary held up her hands. “One at a time, please!”

It was a moment for the history books. Hillary was losing her precious control. Kent and I looked at each other and grinned. That was one thing I had to give Hillary credit for: Our mutual disdain for her had pulled us closer together.

“Do the police have any suspects? Probably a city slicker,” Emma Jean theorized. Emma Jean’s family went back a hundred years in this town. For Emma Jean, newcomers weren’t welcome in sweet little Boring. We were corrupt—and, as she often liked to say, litterers.

Harry shook his head. “The police aren’t sharing any theories as to who they feel is guilty. But they do assure me that they’re on top of this investigation.”

More than likely, they’d told him to mind his own business.

“Are we safe? I mean, really safe, because I haven’t been sleeping at night, I’m so worried that someone’s going to get me too!” Tiara knitted her eyebrows together, looking much younger than her thirty-eight years.

Harry pushed his chest out further, and the Neighborhood Watch emblem on his knit shirt caught my attention. He must have a closetful of those shirts, one for each day of the week. “We can’t live in fear. We have to resume our normal lives. After all, there’s no evidence that would lead authorities to think that this is the work of a serial killer.”

“A serial killer!” Pandemonium exploded again.

Hillary’s face turned red, and her eyes shot daggers at Harry. “I’m sure this was a crime of association. Nobody has anything to worry about!”

“How can you be sure?” asked Harry. “Did the police tell you that?”

“I’ve got children to think about! Speculation just isn’t good enough.”

“I moved here because it was supposed to be safe.”

Hillary looked speechless. The gavel dangled in her hands, and her bottom lip dropped slightly.

An idea struck. Before I lost courage, I stood up and rubbed my hands on my slacks. “I have an idea, everyone.”

Silence. All eyes zeroed in on me.

I swallowed and glanced quickly at Kent, who stared at me with wide, questioning eyes. I turned my gaze back to the crowd around me. “Why don’t we add more people to our Neighborhood Watch program? Harry does a great job, but it’s really too much work for just one person. We need to have a constant patrol, someone who can be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.”

Noise erupted.

“Great idea.”

“Let’s do it.”

“It’s the perfect solution.”

I could tell by looking at Harry that I’d just stepped on his toes. The Neighborhood Watch was his territory. I waited for his reaction. With the entire association around me, he couldn’t throw much of a temper tantrum.

He nodded slowly, and his gaze never left me. It was as if he tried to send me a silent message, and I got it loud and clear: He did not appreciate my suggestion.

Finally, he said, “I guess it couldn’t hurt to expand the program—at least until this killer is behind bars. The problem is, who’s going to help? Everyone here has families, or they work full-time.”

I slowly brought my hand up. “I will.”

I felt Kent’s sharp gaze on me.

“I mean, I’m not working right now. It makes sense that I should help.”

“You have no experience with something like this!” Kent whispered. “It could be dangerous being out there by yourself.”

Babe stood. “I’ll help her. We can be partners.” She grinned widely at me.

I couldn’t help but smile back, even though the thought of working with Babe was enough to make my blood pressure skyrocket. Babe was likely to find trouble and jump into the middle of it instead of calmly calling the authorities.

Besides, wasn’t she a suspect? I needed to talk to her later about her questioning down at police headquarters.

Harry shook his head. “Two women doing Neighborhood Watch? I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Aren’t there any men who can volunteer?” He looked back to the crowd.

“A woman can do this job just as well as a man!” Hillary cried. “I resent that comment, Harry.”

He held up his hands in protest. “All right, all right. I guess since there’d be two of you, I’d feel better about it.” Harry stared at us, his brows furrowed in thought. “I’ll have to train you. This isn’t a position for the weak.”

Babe held up those three fingers again. “Weak isn’t in my vocabulary.”

Everyone looked at me.

“And I’m a city slicker. You know how we are.”

Everyone nodded, as if that response satisfied them.

Hillary slammed her gavel onto her podium. “It’s settled then. Laura and Babe will join our Neighborhood Watch. We’ll have someone on duty at all times. This neighborhood will be safe!”

“Neighborhood Watch, huh?” Kent ran the razor down his cheek, plowing a puff of shaving cream, after we returned home from the meeting. He couldn’t stand to go to bed with prickles on his face. It was one of his little quirks. “You never fail to surprise me. I never thought you’d be interested in something like that.”

I sat in bed and continued to rub lotion over my hands. “I just want to do my part to contribute to the community. I think it will go a long way as far as establishing trust. Don’t you?”

His eyebrows went up as he considered it. He moved the razor under his nose. “You’re probably right. I just worry about you. There is a killer out there. And someone did leave pork rinds on our porch, not to mention that creepy DVD.”

I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. In reality, this was the perfect excuse to get involved in this case. I had to find out who was threatening my husband and me before we both ended up six feet under.

“I’ll just be doing patrol. I have no intention of tracking down any killers or taking the law into my own hands. I’m not Harry.” My throat burned as the words left my lips. I didn’t lie to Kent. Until today. But I couldn’t tell him about the note. What if—just what if—whoever wrote that note was not only videotaping me, but also monitoring my conversations? I felt like a loon even thinking the thought. But right now I knew that the killer was three things: psycho, stupid, and technologically-savvy.

“It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s Babe. The woman has no fear.”

I couldn’t argue. Apparently the police had questioned her for three hours. Did she fret? Of course not. She enjoyed telling everyone, detail by detail, how the police had practically tortured her to get information. It had been worse than the interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay, only they didn’t use water torture. Instead, they used the good cop/bad cop routine.

Apparently, Babe’s fingerprints had been found on the bag of pork rinds. She claimed she contemplated buying them at the General Store last week, then proceeded to telling an agonizingly long story about how she put them in her shopping cart, then put them back on the shelf, and repeated the process numerous times before deciding on Funyuns instead. Sadly, I believed her.

Kent climbed in bed beside me and turned on the TV. The theme song from CSI blared into the room. Using the remote, he set the timer for an hour before placing the controls back onto the nightstand. He kissed my forehead. “Goodnight, honey.”

I bit back a frown. “Good night.”

Next thing, we’d have Lucy and Ricky Ricardo beds.

Our marriage was not going according to the script I’d envisioned. I’d dreamed of being Hart to Hart. Instead, we were turning into that couple from the sitcom Mad About You —you know, the one about the crazy-in-love couple who almost gets divorced at the end of the series?

My mom had always warned me that my storybook fantasies would only disappoint me. I’d grown up watching too many Disney movies and reading too many fairytales. Marriage wasn’t like that.

My self-talk did nothing to lift to my spirits.

I had to think about something else. Candace seemed a good option.

I turned over in bed, trying to get comfortable. What had happened to my friend? Who could have killed her? Someone I knew? I couldn’t stop considering the possibilities. It could have been anyone: one of my neighbors, someone I went to church with, a respected member of the community. The possibilities were endless.

And what did dear, sweet Kent know about it?

There my thoughts went back to Kent. We used to not have any secrets. Maybe that was our problem now—we both had too many secrets, too many separate interests. Would one of those secrets end up killing us?

I sighed, and tuned out the sound of the television.

Kent was right. This whole investigation was none of my business.

Of course it was my business. Candace was my friend. I was nothing if not loyal.

That was the conclusion I’d come to by the next morning. I’d tried to ignore my obsession with my neighbor’s murder. Really. But I had a new reason to wake up each morning now in suburbia: murder.

As morbid as that sounded, I’d accept that reality in my life. It beat the other alternatives—that I was bored to death or clinically depressed.

That morning, for example, I had cleaned the floors, dusted the entire house, and reorganized the bathroom closet—an obvious sign of desperation. I moved one step beyond desperation and into insanity when the highlight of my hour was walking around the house while balancing five folded towels on my head. Being a housewife just wasn’t my gig.

But solving a murder and saving my marriage just might be. I was walking to my home office to retrieve a pen and paper—to write out a list of suspects—when I heard a loud thud in the backyard.

I froze in the hallway, and placed my hand on the wall to brace myself. Had I been hearing things? What was that sound? Someone trying to break into my house? Someone planting evidence to make Kent look guilty? Or maybe someone trying to hide bugs so they could hear if I ratted them out about the note?

I waited, holding my breath, because apparently my breathing’s so deafening I might miss a loud—

Bang!

I threw myself into the wall. My heart raced.

The sound definitely came from my backyard. It wasn’t crisp enough to be a gun, or concise enough to be a hammer.

Maybe someone was trying to break into my house to put some—bam!—on my food. Maybe that unlocked door the other day wasn’t a coincidence in the least. After all, I was obsessive about locking all my doors and windows. I’d lived in downtown

Chicago, for goodness sakes!

Okay, I had to think with a clear head. I needed to call the police. I needed to protect myself from whatever evil lurked outside my doors.

Where was the phone? I’d been carrying around the cordless earlier when my mother had called from Cincinnati. Of course I hadn’t left it on the charger. That would make my life too easy.

I mentally retraced my steps. I thought I’d left it in my bedroom.

I slowly took a step, still clinging to the wall. Once I got to the doorway, I dropped to my knees, just in case anyone could see me through the window. I didn’t want to be an easy target.

Two bangs sounded from outside. My heart raced.

I scrambled toward the bed and grabbed the phone. My fingers paused on the buttons.

Laura, think clearly. It could be neighbors in their back yard. Maybe it just sounds like your backyard.

Get a grip!

I needed to peek outside and make sure something suspicious was going on before I called the police. The noise sounded close. My gut told me so, and I had to trust my instincts.

I took a deep breath and crawled out of my bedroom, slid down the stairs, and crept into the living room, where the windows faced the backyard. Usually I enjoyed looking out those windows onto the deck. Behind the deck and the semi- green grass sparkled the retention pond—or lake, as others in the neighborhood liked to call it. A fountain spouted in the center, and ducks dotted the blue water. I caught glimpses of the golf course beyond the lake.

Today, the lake didn’t matter, nor did my deck or the oh-so- popular golf course.

I only cared about the sound. Like a kid at a fun house who feared someone jumping out from behind a corner, I approached the window. I darted to the wall, pressing my back against it. Great, I’d turned from a kid at a funhouse into a James Bond wannabe.

I decided on the count of three, I’d move the curtain and glance outside. The action would be swift and stealth-like, so that if anyone outside were watching, he wouldn’t even notice it. After all, I was a part of Neighborhood Watch. I could handle this.

My hands trembled as I reached for the drapes. I recited jargon I’d learned in the stress management classes I’d had to take when I worked for the PR firm. Focus your breathing. Visualize your goal. Maximize the moment.

The recitations weren’t effective with my PR work, nor were they much use in life-threatening situations.

I moved the drape an inch and angled myself to take a peek. Sunlight streamed through, and I saw the edge of my new lawn furniture. The sun reflected on the lake.

Another bang ricocheted through my backyard.

The noise sounded close. My gut told me so, and, I had to trust my instincts.

Just then, I heard someone turn the knob at the back door.