by Terri Reid
Stanley took Rosie’s arm and placed it firmly around his. “You stay close to me, girlie, understand,” he said.
Rosie smiled up at him. “Of course, Stanley,” she replied, scooting closer to him. “I’ll stay as close as I can.”
“Well, er, good,” Stanley murmured, reaching up and loosening his collar a little. “Just so you know who’s in charge.”
Rosie laid her cheek against his shoulder for a moment. “Oh, Stanley, I know who’s in charge.”
Once the door closed behind them, Ian turned to Mary.
“And why do you think they call women the weaker sex?” he asked.
“A man wrote the book,” Mary said with a shrug. “And his wife told him to put that in there.”
Ian chuckled. “Well, poor Stanley,” he said. “I don’t believe he’s realized yet that he’s good and caught.”
“Yeah, but I don’t see him fighting his way loose,” Mary said. “They’re both pretty smitten.”
Stanley helped Rosie down the slick driveway and on to the sidewalk. “Now, remember, we don’t want to do anything to make Bob feel threatened,” he said. “So, as far as he knows, we’re just new neighbors.”
“Yes, Stanley,” she said. “And I’ll distract him so you can put the bug somewhere in the house.”
“Yeah, but don’t take no chances,” he said.
“I promise, Stanley.”
They walked up the walk to Bob’s house and climbed up the stairs to his front porch. Stanley rang the bell and then stood in front of the solid steel door that only had a peep hole, no window.
“Don’t like people looking in,” Stanley whispered to Rosie. “That ain’t a good sign.”
“Maybe he’s shy,” Rosie whispered back.
“Humph,” Stanley said.
After a few moments they could hear the door being unlocked and then it was opened a crack. “Can I help you?” Bob asked curtly.
“Hello,” Rosie said with a brilliant smile. “We’re your new neighbors. We live just next door. I was baking this morning and thought I’d bring you over some cookies.”
“Oh? New neighbors?” he said, widening the opening.
“Yes,” she said. “We just moved in with our grandchildren. They’re newlyweds, so we wanted to give them a little time alone. I’m sure you understand.”
The door opened wider. “Moved in with grandchildren?”
Rosie moved in closer, thrusting the plate of cookies ahead of her. “Well, our granddaughter and her new husband,” she said. “I’m Rosie and this is…”
Stanley moved forward and extended his head. “I’m Stanley, her husband,” he said. “And you are?”
“Bob. Bob Turner,” he said.
“Well, howdy, Bob,” Stanley replied. “You don’t mind if we come in for a moment or two? My Rosie here makes the best cookies in the whole state of Illinois.”
“Um, no, come in,” he said. “Come in.”
Stanley put his arm around Rosie’s shoulders and guided her into the small foyer.
Rosie swallowed a gasp and forced herself to smile at Bob. “Well, it seems you are a collector,” she said as she looked around house.
Almost every inch of space was covered with stacks of newspapers and magazines, towers of boxes and piles of clothing. The furniture was covered, the floors were covered, the bookcases were covered and even the bathroom was filled. There were little pathways, just wide enough for one person to walk down, throughout the house.
Rosie and Stanley both jumped when they heard the distinct click of a steel bolt into a lock. They turned to see Bob locking them securely into the house. “You can’t be too careful,” Bob said. “Scary things have happened in this neighborhood.”
“No, really?” Stanley responded. “This seems like such a nice neighborhood.”
“Oh, about eight years ago,” Bob responded. “The woman next door disappeared.”
He looked at Rosie and smiled. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want that to happen to your wife, would you?”
Stanley pulled Rosie a little closer. “No, I sure wouldn’t,” he said. “Course, nothing like that would happen while I was around.”
Bob shook his head. “Good man,” he said. “Protecting your wife should be the first priority in your life. Too many men think about themselves first.”
Rosie swallowed and refreshed the smile on her face. “Where would you like me to put these cookies?” she asked. “In the kitchen?”
Bob pondered the question for a moment. “No, no why don’t we all go to my office,” he said, “then we can sit, visit and get acquainted.”
They followed him through a maze of garbage to the back of his house. Rosie almost screamed when a mouse darted from one stack across their path to another one, but Stanley placed his hand on her shoulder for reassurance. She turned and sent him a grateful smile. Stanley felt his heart hit the ground and then bounce right back up. Well, dammit, I’m in love with her, he suddenly realized.
As they passed through the house, Rosie’s stomach clenched tighter and tighter. The house was filthy. She could see mouse droppings on most of the exposed surfaces, cobwebs hung everywhere and the air was filled with smell of mold. She shivered. How does someone live like this?
Bob finally led them to a door that was closed to the rest of the mess. He opened it and, unlike the rest of the house, Rosie could tell there was sunlight streaming in from the windows. He entered the room first and motioned for them to follow.
The room was spotlessly clean, with a small desk and chair in one corner and a floral love seat, occasional chair and small coffee table in the other corner. Rosie couldn’t believe the difference. “This is a lovely room,” she said without thinking.
“As opposed to the other rooms in my home?” Bob asked.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Rosie said, placing her hand over her mouth.
“Please sit down,” Bob said, pointing to the love seat.
Rosie perched on the edge of the seat and put the plate of cookies on the table. Stanley sat down next to her, angling himself so she was slightly shielded from Bob. “Help yourself to a cookie,” he said. “I’ve already snatched enough hot out of the oven that I shouldn’t have another.”
Laughing, he reached for one. He bit into it and his smile increased. “Oh, these are very good cookies,” he said. “You know, Jeannine used to make cookies for me.”
“Jeannine?” Stanley asked.
“Oh, Jeannine was the woman who disappeared,” he said. “She used to be my next door neighbor.”
“Oh, what ever happened to her?” Rosie asked.
Bob shrugged. “Well, the police never figured it out,” he said, shaking his head. “They never asked me. I would have told them the truth.”
Rosie moved closer to Stanley. “The truth?” she asked.
Bob reached out and Stanley and Rosie leaned back. Then Bob picked up another cookie.
“I can be honest with you,” he said. “Can’t I?”
Stanley shook his head. “Well, we’re your neighbors,” he said. “If you can’t be honest with your neighbors, who can you be honest with?”
Nodding, Bob met Stanley’s eyes. “Yes. Yes, you’re right,” he agreed. “Of course, if you tell anyone, they’re never going to believe you anyway.”
“What will no one believe?” Rosie asked.
Bob glanced around the room and then leaned forward. This time Rosie and Stanley leaned toward him. “Aliens,” he said.
“Aliens?” both Rosie and Stanley repeated.
Bob slowly nodded his head and raised his eyebrows in silent agreement. “They’re here, among us,” he said.
“Why would they be interested in your next door neighbor?” Stanley asked.
“Because she was abducted by them and they impregnated her,” he said.
“They impregnated her?” Rosie said. “She was going to have an alien baby?”
He nodded. “And you know what would happen once an alien race begins to
be born?”
Rosie shook her head. “No. What?”
“They take over the world,” he said. “They multiply and take us all over.”
Stanley cleared his throat. “Are aliens the reason you have all that stuff in your house?”
Smiling widely, Bob turned his attention to Stanley. “Have you studied alien beings before, then?” he asked. “They don’t like clutter. The clutter and garbage in my house confuses their devices, so they can’t find me.”
“But this room,” Rosie said. “I don’t understand…”
Bob looked at them and then lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Aluminum foil.”
They looked up and, sure enough, the ceiling was coated with aluminum foil.
“Does that work?” Stanley asked.
Bob shrugged. “It has so far.”
“But, getting back to your neighbor,” Rosie said. “How did you know about her?”
“Oh, I guessed it right away,” he said. “And then, I decided I had to do something about it.”
Rosie looked at Stanley. “What did you do?” she asked.
“It’s better if I show you,” he said. “I have it down in the basement.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Mike sat in the corner of the sleeping quarters in the firehouse waiting for the change of shift. Bradley’s announcement of who the John Doe had been sent a frisson of dread down his spine. Just like the other people on the force, he thought Paul Taylor was a real creep and secretly hoped the guys in prison would take care of the child killer. But to find Taylor’s body in a fire that looked to be set by a professional. He was really hoping it was just coincidence, but he had to find out.
He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, the new shift was getting ready to put their gear into their lockers and catch some sleep before an alarm woke them up.
Mike looked at the professionals he’d considered friends for the past ten years of his life. Could any of them have been a murderer? Could any of them have decided to take the law into their own hands?
Most of them had dedicated their lives to the Fire Department. A couple of them were hot heads. But, they would risk their lives to save anyone else, didn’t matter what their color was, what church they went to or what neighborhood they lived in. They risked it all every day.
Johnny Corbonni, who considered himself an Italian stud, was laughing as he walked over to his locker. “So, the Chief tells me he thinks Mike is haunting the firehouse,” Johnny laughed. “He says his cup went flying across the room, like a missile.”
“Hey, if Mike was gonna haunt someplace, it’d be the women’s locker room at the Y,” Pat Brennan laughed.
Mike always thought Pat looked like a matchstick, tall and skinny with a bright flame of red hair on the top of his head. But those who thought because he was thin, he was weak, were soon proved wrong.
Mike slipped past the two firemen and made his way downstairs. Maybe Chief Jack Williamson could give him some insight into the death of Paul Taylor.
He entered the Jack’s office and saw him standing in his private bathroom, next to the sink. He was opening up a bottle of pills and swallowing a couple of them. Mike hoped he hadn’t given Jack a headache or anything. Course, considering how he’d been moving, it was probably arthritis medicine.
Mike sat down in one of the chairs in the room and looked around the room. There were family pictures, but none of them had the Jack in them. He remembered some of the late evening chats where Jack had given a few of them advice about relationships.
“Boys, the job ain’t worth it,” he had said. “You gotta have a life. You gotta be a dad, a husband and a lover.”
“So, does that mean we gotta get three different women, Chief?” Johnny had teased.
Jack smiled, but it was short-lived. “You know, I had three different women,” he said. “Three wives. I tried marriage three times, and each time I was the one who let everyone down. I got kids who grew up without ever getting to know their dad.”
“Hey, you had a job to do,” Mike had said. “You were saving peoples’ lives. You know, maybe it was the women you choose.”
Jack shook his head sadly. “No, Mike. I’d like to be able to say that,” he said. “But I escaped to the firehouse when life got tough. Fire and danger I could deal with. At the firehouse, I was a hero. I was a good guy. At home, I was just a guy who was supposed to deal with everyday problems. I was supposed to remember to take out the garbage, call the bank, pick up the kids at school and mow the lawn.”
He ran his hand over his face. “It’s a lot easier being the hero,” he said. “But, in the long run, the guy who stays home and plays with his kids and loves his wife, he’s the hero.”
Jack had walked away from their group and closed his office door behind him.
“Damn,” Pat said. “Just damn.”
“Yeah,” Johnny added. “I ain’t ever getting married. I’m just gonna play around.”
“What, you don’t want no kids with the famous Corbonni schnozzola?” Pat asked.
“Hey, there ain’t nothing wrong with my nose,” Johnny replied, touching the side of his nose. “It’s dignified.”
“Yeah, so’s a giant Sequoia, but I don’t want one of those sticking out of the middle of my face,” Pat said.
Mike hadn’t participated in the argument that day, he remembered as he glanced around the walls of the office. And Jack never said anything about his family after that. He did remember hearing that one of Jack’s kids got married and he hadn’t been invited to the wedding. But Jack hadn’t mentioned it; he just scheduled a practice drill that day and they burned down a derelict factory on the edge of town.
Just then, as Jack walked out the bathroom, the phone rang. He picked it up on the second ring and sat behind his desk.
“Chief Williamson.”
Mike watched him pull a piece of paper across the table and write on it. “Paul Taylor, you say,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, I remember the guy. Can’t say I feel bad about this.”
He wrote down a few things on the paper. “Yeah, I got it,” he said. “Keep this quiet until you can get some investigators down here to question them. I got no problem with that. My people would not commit murder and they wouldn’t start a fire.”
He listened for a moment longer. “Yeah, I can call them in,” he said. “But we had a three-alarm last night and my alternate shift is probably sound asleep. I’d really prefer you have those investigators here towards the end of the shift. That way no one talks and my people get their sleep. That work for you?”
He paused again. “No, no questions,” he said. “Wait. Yeah, I do have one. Yesterday, when you were in here, was Mike with you?”
He listened and shook his head. “Damn,” he said. “Guess I owe Miss O’Reilly an apology.”
Mike grinned. “Good for you, Bradley,” he said.
Jack hung up the phone, cradled his head in his hands and just sat there for a few minutes. Then he picked up the phone and dialed. “This is Chief Williamson,” he said. “I gotta cancel my appointment for this afternoon. Yeah, something came up here at the station and I can’t get away.”
He listened for a moment. “Yeah, I’ll call back and make another appointment,” he said. “Thanks.”
He had barely hung up the phone when the fire alarm sounded throughout the building. Jack jumped up and ran out of the room. “All right boys and girls, let’s go put out a fire,” he called to the crew slipping their gear on.
Mike waited until the fire trucks had left the building and then he faded away.
Chapter Twenty-six
Mary dialed the number and waited for someone to answer. “Hello, this is Mary, um, MacDougal,” she said. “Bradley Alden gave me your name. We’re renting from him for a little while until we find our own place and he thought you might be able to help us.”
Mary smiled at Ian and nodded. “Oh, yes. Well, my husband is a professor and we’re actually fairly newly married,” she said. “He’
s been in Scotland and now we’re settling here in the States.”
Ian walked over next to her. “Ach, me darling, have you bin able to call up the real estate agent,” he asked loudly with a grin. “I’ve a strong need to have us in our own wee castle and start filling it with our own wee bairns.”
Mary rolled her eyes at him and tried not to laugh.
“Yes, he actually is from Scotland,” she said in the phone. “Yes, those Scots can be very impatient.”
“Really, darling, I’ve a mind to see some houses today,” he said. “Can we go down to meet her now?”
“I’m so sorry,” Mary said. “Is there any chance we could come by this morning and look at some listings with you?”
Mary frowned and shook her head.
“Oh, darling, I forgot to tell you,” Ian said. “The fellow at the college had a friend who’s a real estate agent too. He said to give him a ring if this one’s too busy.”
Mary grinned. “Actually, if today doesn’t work out, that’s fine. No, don’t worry, we have some other options.”
“Oh, you can see us this morning?” she said. “Well, that’s just great. Bradley told us how wonderful you were and I really would feel much more comfortable putting ourselves in your capable hands.”
