Neighborly(85)

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Unbelievable,” she says. But I can tell she’s a little relieved. Like maybe there’s another way to let Wyatt off the hook.

“Thanks for hearing me out.”

She starts to push the stroller away and then says, “You’re better off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Opting out.”

What she doesn’t know is that I’m the one opting out; I’m just not sure if my husband is.





CHAPTER 34

I creep outside at four a.m., while Doug sleeps on peacefully, down the hall from Sadie.

He should be tossing and turning, his slumber fitful and disturbed. Even if he’s not an adulterer, he must know that he’s appearing to be an adulterer, with his disappearances and his emotional distance.

I will deal with my marriage at some point; I have to. We’re Sadie’s parents, and what we do will inevitably affect her.

But right now, I have to stay focused. There was an attempt on Sadie’s life, and the perpetrator is still out there, needing to be stopped.

Many of the couples on this block are wealthy. Wealth buys access. It can also buy secrecy. Vic and Tennyson, Oliver and Gina, Nolan and Andie, Brandon and Stone—they could all afford to do it and to cover their tracks afterward. Yolanda and Wyatt don’t seem nearly as rich, but Wyatt might have contacts through the police force. Obtaining leptospirosis is not out of the realm of possibility for my neighbors, if they wanted it badly enough.

But the motives . . . that’s where it’s murky. I’ve barely seen Vic, and I imagine he has his hands full with the spreadsheet. The idea of my being a threat to Tennyson is fairly laughable. Oliver and Gina—that they hate to lose, and that Doug and I got Crayola? Brandon and Stone—no way. Just, no way. Nolan and Andie.

Andie. She wants my husband.

I’m standing in the street, and now it’s 4:12 a.m., and I’m quaking. I’m dealing with an attempted murderer here. If I get caught, what will he (or she) do next? Whoever it is must be on alert. I basically announced on GoodNeighbors that I was planning to strike back.

How I wish I hadn’t written that, and I still had the element of surprise. But I am where I am.

The police won’t do much without hard evidence, and they’re not going to look very hard for evidence. That much was clear. So as frightened as I am, I need to be just as determined as my enemy.

This is for Sadie.

I start with the cans across the street. I’m wearing a pair of bright-yellow kitchen gloves, the kind you’d normally use to wash dishes, and I quickly develop a method for searching. Raquel and Bart, Oliver and Gina, Brandon and Stone, Wyatt and Yolanda, Vic and Tennyson, one after the other. Just for good measure, I check inside the can of the old crone Gladys. There’s not even one trash bag in there. Huh?

She’s not really on my suspect list, and the rest are, for lack of a better word, clean. It’s just the ordinary paper trail and detritus of life. I don’t care about the processed foods my neighbors hide or their brand of personal lubricant. I don’t care about their fungus cream, their stool softener, their Viagra, their probiotic pills, their Rogaine, their facial lotions and potions. Brandon takes Ativan; Yolanda takes Prozac. They see the same psychiatrist. But that hardly seems like a smoking gun.

I don’t have time for garden-variety snooping. I’m looking for something very specific, though I can’t say precisely what it is. Like porn, I’ll know it when I see it.

Gina and Oliver’s papers are shredded; everyone else has their bills, paycheck stubs, canceled checks, and other financial documents right out there for anyone to see. The numbers are, often, astounding. I’m amazed that anything legal can yield that kind of return. But it’s confirmation that my neighbors have the means to obtain anything, including that virus. Not that that’ll convince the police to do their jobs.

I mean, wouldn’t it have made the most sense for them to start questioning my neighbors yesterday, since they were already on the block? Instead, they just got in their cruiser and drove away, and I’m not sure when they’ll be back. Despite what they heard about the poisoning of a baby, they clearly feel no urgency. I need to create that urgency.

I cross the street and visit Andie and Nolan’s house. When I open their trash can, the stench of dirty diapers assaults my nostrils and almost prohibits me from going further. Almost.

I steel myself and paw through. No bills or financial documents, no embarrassing Twinkies. It’s like they want to make sure their garbage is of the highest quality. Everything organic, quinoa, spelt, high-fiber bread, sugar-free and low-salt marinara sauce . . . their nutritionist must be proud. No cheating on their diets here. There are some Q-tips and cotton balls but no old jars of moisturizer or other products. Diapers notwithstanding, they’re keeping it classy, those two. Well, three, counting Fisher.

I close the lid. I move back toward home and stop at Val and Patrick’s, leaving no stone unturned. If Val’s garbage is any indication, it seems like there’s nothing she won’t try to keep her weight low and the wrinkles at bay. Empty containers from detoxing fasts, supplements, and shakes, plus creams and supposed miracle products from QVC abound. Meanwhile, Patrick just has a can of old-style shaving cream from Gillette. The double standard of men’s and women’s aging is on full display.