Chapter 6

The minute Meredith lifted her shovel, preparing to put up the yard sale sign, Elsa Johnson burst from the doorway of her house. Meredith heard her name called and set the shovel down, watching Elsa march up the block.

“There was another one,” the large woman called as she came into hearing. “It happened again. Just as I expected.”

“What happened? Another what?” Meredith resented the interruption. She had stopped to put up the yard sale sign while on the way to her car. She had no time to waste.

“Another incident. I heard it on the radio. And they almost caught the man. By the way, where are you off to so early?”

“An appointment,” Meredith said, and added silently, from which you are not going to keep me. Gus Halburton’s only free hour, as she had learned when she called first thing that morning, was between ten and eleven. She meant to take advantage of it. “And what happened? What was on the radio?”

“They say—mind you this was on the nine-thirty news—the man was standing around the alley behind Economy Grocery. You know that one on Third? Well, now, according to the report, one of the high school girls took a shortcut, and what do you think happened?”

Meredith lifted the shovel and struck the soft turf. She pried up a piece of sod. “I think the man tried something illegal.” She struggled to keep the annoyance from her voice. “He nearly got caught. You heard it on the radio.”

Elsa pressed her lips tightly together and glared. “Well, if you know all that, what’s the sense of my saying so? I mean, considering . . .”

“Considering what?” Meredith pushed the stick holding the sign into the soft soil. It held. She felt faintly sorry; she had not meant to hurt Elsa. On the other hand, no one had enough patience to always handle Elsa gently. “How does that look? And you said another incident? Did something happen before?”

Elsa cast a critical glance at the sign and shrugged. “Yes, something happened,” she said coolly. “Something certainly did happen.”

“I have a radio in my car,” Meredith said. “No doubt I’ll get a clearer picture.”

“A high school girl,” Elsa said. “Probably no better than she should be. Girls nowadays . . .” Elsa trailed off, but it was obvious she would not allow her story to be spoiled by a news report on a car radio. “Three times before,” she said. “Three women. He wears a mask, like on Halloween. That’s what I heard. He makes those women do things.” Her lips pursed, and it was obvious to Meredith that Elsa could not bring herself to use the word rape.

So that was why women did not work in their yards alone. That was why children were kept close to the house. That was why men walked to the store, not women. What had she and Richard gotten into? This was a nice neighborhood. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen. Meredith picked up the shovel and carried it to the garage. Anger and a touch of despair followed her. She had Richard, and she had a nice home. Now she felt attacked, not only from the stranger within her home, but from some unknown rapist outside. That, at least, explained the eerie feeling the other morning while painting the mailbox. The whole situation seemed to tarnish everything she and Richard had hoped for.

“I’d appreciate hearing more about it,” she said over her shoulder to Elsa, “but let’s save it for another day, can we? Want to come for coffee Wednesday?”

“Wednesday’s my beauty-parlor day,” Elsa said firmly.

“I forgot,” Meredith lied. “Perhaps some other day. If I don’t see you, be sure to come to the sale on Saturday.”

She regretted being so abrupt, and she regretted it more when she saw Elsa’s reaction. The woman knew she was being dismissed, and anger made her cheeks puff and her eyes seem smaller. “There’s more than men doing illegal things around here,” she said, and looked directly at Meredith’s house. “There’s been death around here. Very ugly. Very sad.”

Meredith told herself that she really had to leave or be late for the appointment. She was shocked and, watching Elsa’s eyes, believed that Elsa was lying. “I’ve heard no such thing,” Meredith said. “You’ll surely want to tell me about it.”

The older woman did not reply. She had turned to watch a yellow compact car that turned the corner and now moved slowly up the block.

Meredith leaned the shovel against the garage door, picked up her handbag, and walked to her car. Maybe when she started the engine, Elsa would give another tidbit of information. If, that is, Elsa really did have any information. Meredith pulled open the car’s door and was about to slide in when Elsa’s voice stopped her.

“Well, can you believe that?” the older woman called breathily. She watched the yellow car recede up the block. “Of all the nerve.”

“Believe what?” Meredith paused long enough to call back.

“Oh nothing, nothing.” Elsa slipped her hands into the pockets of her housedress. “Just someone I thought I knew. Have a good—where was it you said you were going?”

“An appointment. And you have a good day, too.”

Meredith eased into the car seat, started the motor, and waited until Elsa stepped from the drive before backing out. The woman was impossible, and now Meredith believed that Elsa was also a liar. Elsa continued to stare up the street, her head shaking from side to side. Probably the yellow car would give her something else to be mysterious about. Meredith pulled into the street, thinking of noises at night, thinking of screams from the darkness, thinking of the ache of the struggle from Friday afternoon’s illusion. She almost raced away from her house, and from Elsa.

The sound of the old biddy’s voice kept echoing in her thoughts. She turned on the car radio to block it out. Unfortunately, after a single song, the news came on. It was Elsa all over again.

“A third brutal attack has been reported in the Mabton-Westwood area,” a chillingly calm male voice announced. The report drew out the details—an unseen assailant, a woman nearly strangled—before Meredith’s hand could reach the knob to spin it down the broadcast band. She did not need this today. No one needed this, and today, especially now, her imagination resonated with that poor woman’s terror. That woman, she knew at once, must feel it was all her fault. Meredith wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she did. At last the tuner caught the sound of violin strings. That felt better. It was safe music. More than anything, the frightened part of her mind, a part that apparently grew more vivid on some days, wanted to be safe. Meredith had always disliked the sound of Mantovani strings, but today his songs comforted her all the way to the college.

Twenty minutes later, settled into a burgundy armchair outside the door marked Chairman—Department of Psychology, Meredith dismissed the echoes of problems from her mind. She had only ten minutes to make a decision, and thinking of terror or even watching the psychology department’s head secretary type efficiently at her desk nearby was not going to help. She had to decide what to tell Gus. There was no sense going in and spilling the whole story. After all, this ridiculous business probably added up to nothing.

The dreams had not returned over the weekend. Friday afternoon’s session had either done the trick or, as she had begun to suspect this morning, merely yanked the problem from the world of dreams into the more real and frightening realm of waking hallucination. She would not have thought so on Saturday or Sunday. Now the suspicion nibbled at her peace of mind.

She and Richard spent Saturday raking the leaves that the storm had scattered over the yard. Sunday morning was taken up with reading papers, and in the afternoon they worked together to prepare an elaborate threecourse meal. They ate it all by themselves by candlelight, delighting in their selfishness. No question, the weekend had gone perfectly. It was only this morning, and then only briefly, that Meredith began to suspect she was not yet free of the stranger.

The moment Richard’s car pulled from the drive and the sound of its engine faded with distance, a pall seemed to settle over the house. Meredith tried to busy herself with the breakfast dishes. She worked at the sink, but felt a presence, an air of hollow expectancy, gathering at her back. She turned more than once to check over her shoulder. The kitchen looked as it always had. Nothing there.

Nevertheless, the hint of a presence persisted. It hovered near while she called the university, then followed upstairs to wait politely while she dressed and put on her makeup, a devoted servant marking time outside the bedroom door. She glanced out the door once, unable to restrain herself. No one stood there; only the hallway carpet, vacuumed this morning, stretched smooth and unruffled toward the staircase. Except in one spot. She looked closer. Two shoe-sized shapes, too large to be her own, flattened the weave directly outside the bedroom door. Meredith shook her head, chasing off the scare. These shapes did not flatten the carpet very much. Richard must have stood there. Then she’d missed that spot when she vacuumed.

Meredith returned to the bedroom to finish dressing, and collected her bag and jacket, determined to ignore the illusion, this imaginary friend her mind had invented. Not until she pulled the front door shut and stepped out on the porch did the aura diminish. It was uncanny. For two hours she felt sure another person was sharing the house. Most peculiar of all, while the presence felt frightening, somewhere deeper it whispered a promise of security.

Meredith heard a buzzing sound and looked up. The psychology department’s secretary clicked off her typewriter, answered the phone, then glanced toward Meredith. “You may go in now.” She laid the receiver down. “The doctor will see you.”

Meredith stood, annoyed at being mistaken for a patient. Not that there was anything wrong with needing help, as long as you were not patronized. In a way, she did need help. Perhaps it was just as well she had not decided how much to tell Halburton. As the office door swung open, she knew Gus would probably get the whole truth despite her intentions.