Chapter 14 #2
“Well, he’s on notice now,” she said to Gilda when she got back into her own house.
“You be on your guard. Remember what happened in Rear Window once the killer knew they were onto him.”
A shiver needled its way up Louise’s spine. Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing that Alec James was now on notice.
Really, though, what could he do to her? She had locks on her doors. She had people coming and going all the time.
But her kitchen door had a glass window, the kind burglars and crazed killers easily broke. She shivered again as a vision of a beefy arm reaching through a jagged hole in the glass to unlock the door swam into her mind.
Now she was being silly. Alec James was an angry brute, but his anger wasn’t directed at her or Zona. Darling was another matter. But the fence problem was solved and the only person he had left to be cruel to was that poor deluded woman who was with him.
Why did she stay? Details from Deathline episodes ran through Louise’s head. Was he bribing her to stay with spending sprees? Or . . . had he threatened to find her and kill her if she left him?
Oh, now there she was back to making her new neighbor a murderer. Martin was probably right. She needed to mind her own business.
But when Zona went to shut her bedroom blinds after she was in bed that night she said, “Leave them open.”
“You won’t sleep,” Zona protested.
“I’ll sleep fine, and I like the moonlight coming in.”
“It’s not a full moon,” pointed out Zona.
“I’ll enjoy it anyway,” said Louise, and didn’t add, “I’ll enjoy keeping an eye on the neighbors, too.” That would have made her sound like a voyeur.
Which she wasn’t. She was simply being vigilant. So there.
Zona said her good-night, then left Louise to enjoy her book.
Louise awakened a little after eleven when the book fell on her face. She was putting it on her nightstand when she heard, “I hate you!” coming from next door. Easy to guess who that was. Elementary, my dear Watson. It was the poor, foolish woman staying with Alec James.
Louise struggled to roll onto her side with her encased leg, leaned over, and peered out through the sheers. Craning her neck just so, she could see the form of a woman running from the house. The woman got into her car, started it, and raced away.
Good. Maybe she’d finally come to her senses.
Except she hadn’t taken anything with her, not even a purse. No suitcase, no box of personal items, none of the goodies from her shopping sprees. Would she be back with a policeman accompanying her to get her things?
“SHE MUST HAVE been terrified not to even take her purse,” Louise finished the next morning after she’d filled Zona in on what she’d seen.
“Just because you didn’t see one doesn’t mean she wasn’t carrying one,” Zona said. “You couldn’t exactly get a full view from your bedroom window. Maybe next time we should prop you up in a chair right next to it. That way you’d have a better view of everything going on over there.”
Louise scowled. “Very funny.”
“I thought so. Seriously, Mom. We can’t let ourselves get sucked into our neighbor’s dysfunctional life. I’ve offered help and the woman refused it. And now she’s gone, hopefully for good. Let’s let go of this.”
“What if she comes back?”
“If she needs help, we’ll help her.” Zona changed the subject. “There’s not much exciting for breakfast this morning. I’ll make puff pastry when I get home tonight.”
“You don’t have to go to all that trouble,” Louise said.
“I want to. I’ve been craving some.”
Louise’s phone buzzed with a text from Bree. Want company later today?
“Looks like you’ll get more than one taker. Bree wants to come over,” said Louise.
“She probably wants to hear what you’ve got written on your book.”
“I haven’t written anything yet,” Louise protested.
“I guess you’d better get cracking.”
“You girls are getting rather pushy,” Louise grumbled. Did they think she could simply turn a spigot in her brain and the creative juices would start pouring out?
“We’re not being pushy. We’re motivating you.”
So was what was going on next door. No. That wasn’t accurate. What was going on next door was just plain scaring her. She hoped the poor woman had truly left for good.
“I DON’T KNOW where to begin on this story,” Louise said later to Gilda after they’d settled at the kitchen table with cereal.
“Sure, you do. You’ve read enough mysteries. You start by showing us the murder victim and the potential killers. Let’s get you all set up after you’re dressed. I’ll be quiet as a mouse so you can work.”
Quiet didn’t help. Louise sat for half an hour and stared at the doodled-on first page in the notebook her granddaughter had bought her.
Then she grabbed her phone and checked Facebook to see what was going on there.
Then she called her friend Carol and checked on her.
Gilda said nothing, but she raised a judging eyebrow after Louise ended the call.
“I have writer’s block,” Louise informed her.
“Okay, let’s talk about your woman. The wife who gets poisoned, right?”
“Right.”
“Maybe she should be . . . older. Desperate for love.”
“All older women aren’t desperate for love,” Louise protested.
“Heaven knows I’m not,” Gilda said. “But this is fiction. This woman can’t stand being alone.
Her first husband died suddenly. He was the love of her life and she was lonely.
That’s how she got into this mess in the first place.
She married a man who was a smooth talker, but he doesn’t really love her.
He only married her for her money, but she can’t see it. ”
“Love is blind,” said Louise and began writing. “I’ll start with showing him bringing her breakfast in bed, looking like the world’s most considerate husband. And he’s surprising her with a cruise. To Hawaii.”
Like the one she should have been taking. But there was no sense crying over spilled pina coladas. She kept scribbling. Yes, the juices were flowing now and she was on a roll.
When Bree came over later with hamburgers from In-N-Out, Louise had two pages to read to her.
“I wish our mother wasn’t taking this cruise. I have a bad feeling about it,” Emily Dickinson said to her brother.
“Emily Dickinson. Isn’t she a famous poet?” Bree interrupted.
“It’s a nice name,” Louise insisted, and read on.
“It’s their five-year anniversary. Just what she needs after being sick,” said the brother.
Louise interrupted her reading to explain, “Marion’s husband has already been slowly poisoning her so we’re setting things up for later.”
Bree nodded. “I like that.”
“Poor Mother,” Emily said. “She’s had one thing after another wrong with her ever since she and Gerard married. He’s been awfully patient.”
“While he sets her up to die,” Gilda put in, and smiled as she worked her crochet hook.
Louise’s narrative continued, explaining how lonely poor Marion, the future victim, had been before Gerard came into her life.
She’d been unwell off and on ever since they married, and worried at one point that he was cheating on her.
But this grand gesture proved he was still as in love with her as ever.
“This is good stuff, Gram,” said Bree when Louise had finished.
“Gilda’s been helping me,” said Louise. “She suggested the poisoning idea.” And most of the best lines. Hmm. Maybe Gilda should be writing this book.
“You two should become a team, like Christina Lauren,” Bree said.
“Oh, no. I’m no writer,” said Gilda.
But after Bree left, Louise said, “Bree might be right. You’re the one who came up with all the good ideas for my book.”
“But you’re the one who wrote them down.”
“More like taking dictation,” said Louise.
“All I did was help free up your creative juices,” Gilda said, refusing to take credit for anything. “But let me tell you, I’ve seen a lot of crazy things in my life. I could probably write a dozen books if I had a mind. It’s shocking what people are capable of.”
That was all it took to launch her into another story of the shady life of a doctor she’d once worked with. “And everyone thought he was a saint,” she finished. “I tell you, you never know.”
“So true,” said Louise. The man next door was proof of that.
“THAT WOMAN NEXT door still hasn’t returned,” Louise reported later when she sat at the kitchen table, slicing avocados into the salad bowl while Zona stood at the stove, finishing up quesadillas.
“Good,” said Zona. “I’ve had enough of them both.”
It was true. She had. The bad vibes from the house next door had been making it hard to settle into the stress-free routine she was trying to create. The things she’d heard, coupled with her mother’s speculations, kept bouncing back into her head.
Before she got into bed later, she found herself looking down on the house next door from her upstairs window.
A woman fleeing in the middle of the night spoke volumes.
Even though it had turned quiet over there it felt like the calm before the storm, like something dark was crouching, just waiting to pounce.
Those thoughts were enough to make her shudder.
And the fact that she was standing at her bedroom window looking down at nothing was enough to make her shake her head in disgust.
She had better things to do than spy on the neighbor, for crying out loud. She wasn’t going to waste any more brain energy on the man next door. He and his girlfriend had fought and yelled a lot and now she was gone. That was it. That was all.