A House by the Side of the Road

by Jan Gleiter

  How far to the fence? She slowed, dropped to the ground and crawled, grateful for the blackness of the night, frustrated by it as well. There it was, just in front of her. She scrambled over, her shirt catching on a picket. She ripped it loose and dropped again to the ground, lying flat and turning her head to look back at the house.

  Through the fence, she could see the glow of the flashlight sweeping the yard. What now? The meadow between her house and the Ruschmans’ was uneven and profusely scattered with brambles, shrubs, and trees. She could move across it, but barefoot and in the moonless night, only very slowly. If he guessed where she’d gone, if he followed her with the flashlight, her speed wouldn’t save her because she wouldn’t be able to use it.

  Scattered with trees … Where were the closest trees outside the yard? Just beyond the fence. There were apple trees there, a small grouping. She peered into the darkness. They should be to her right, if she’d come over the fence where she thought she had.

  Crouching, she crept toward where the trees should be. They rose in front of her, their clouds of blossoms barely perceptible. A few more feet and the bark was faintly rough against her palms. She passed the first, went on to the second. Its lowest branch parted from the trunk no more than three feet off the ground. She pulled herself up, gripping the trunk with one hand, feeling for branches above her with the other. She climbed carefully and silently but quickly and, in a few moments, was fifteen feet off the ground. Unless he caught the dark blue of her shirt directly in the beam, she would blend with the trunk and branches.

  She felt the outside corners of her eyes tighten, prelude to a sneeze, and clamped one hand across her mouth, fighting the involuntary response. The flashlight glow disappeared into the house. She sneezed, the muffled sound like thunder to her ears. The light did not re-emerge.

  She stood, one arm clinging to the trunk, frightened and furious that she had to wait helplessly while the intruder took his time deciding what to steal. After what seemed like hours but she knew could not be more than twenty minutes, the beam reappeared in the yard. It moved steadily toward the road. He was walking in that direction. The light went off. Meg stopped trying to breath silently. If he wanted to find her, he wouldn’t have turned it off. Or would he?

  She stared at the road, hoping for the light to go on again, to show her where he was. Only blackness met her eyes. There was no sound. Wherever he was, whatever direction he had taken, he was moving noiselessly. She moved uneasily on the branch, lowering herself to a sitting position.

  The night air had turned her legs to ice. She pulled her knees up and stretched her T-shirt down to her ankles. Her arms around the trunk began to cramp, and the branch she huddled on became painfully hard. She shifted her weight, bark snagging against the nylon of her underpants.

  What was the most logical thing to do? Walk carefully through the meadow to the Ruschmans. If he realized that, and if he wanted to find her, he would be waiting in the meadow. But it didn’t make any sense for him to want to find her. He was almost surely far down the road by now. Or up the road.

  Stay in the tree, she told herself. It is often the rabbit that thinks it has escaped that ends up in the talons of the hawk. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to five hundred, resting her head against the trunk.

  She jerked awake, tightening her arms around the tree. How long had she dozed? The sky seemed lighter. It was lighter; she could make out the fence thirty feet away. She was frozen, could no longer bear her motionless wait. She stretched her left leg down, found the next branch with her toes, and let it take her weight. Slowly, stiffly, she descended.

  * * *

  Both detectives, a young man and a woman in her thirties, were sympathetic but patronizing. They introduced themselves and accepted coffee at the dining room table.

  “Even out here,” said the woman, “it makes sense to lock your doors at night.”

  “I thought I had,” said Meg.

  The detective inclined her head toward the kitchen. “The door hasn’t been forced,” she said. “You positive you bolted it when you came home?”

  Meg sighed. “I’m from Chicago,” she said. “In Chicago, Detective Stanley, we lock our doors. But, no, I’m not positive. It’s just the kind of thing I do.”

  “But it was unlocked when you came back in the house this morning.”

  “That doesn’t mean I left it unlocked last night.”

  “No,” agreed the young man. “But when there’s no sign of forced entry, it’s a logical conclusion. We’ve had trouble with this kind of thing from time to time. The Stansburys, next house that way…” He nodded toward the east. “The one time they left a window unlocked when they went back to the city, their place hosted a party they hadn’t authorized. But breaking and entering … well, kids around here aren’t normally that determined.”

  “It wasn’t kids,” said Meg.

  Detective Stanley raised an eyebrow and drummed her fingers on the notebook that lay in front of her on the dining room table. “No?”

  “There was only one person. No conversation. No, ‘Hey, man! Let’s get outta here!’ No panicked flight. No car. How many kids go off by themselves at three-thirty in the morning, on foot, to try the doors of what may very well be an occupied house?”

  “Do you have a theory about who it was?”

  “No. Not specifically. How could I?” Maybe Dan Ruschman, who’s married to my good friend Christine, she thought. Probably not, but maybe. “Not kids looking for a place to make out, have a party, or smoke questionable substances, however. A burglar, I’d guess. One who thought I wasn’t home.”

  “How many people knew you’d be gone?”

  “For all I know, everybody in town. For all I know, it was announced at the PTA meeting, or the Journal printed it in their ‘What’s Up Around Town?’ column. Besides, I wasn’t secretive about it.”

  “But nothing’s gone. You said so yourself.”

  I lied, thought Meg. Something is definitely gone. The tape that I found in the toolshed and hid in the house has mysteriously vanished. But I’m not telling you about that, because I’d have to tell you things I don’t want to tell you, and it wouldn’t do any good anyway.

  Soon after she’d come in the house, she had managed to stop shivering. And as soon as she stopped shivering, she realized what had happened. She had walked, slowly and deliberately, to the couch, tugged out the middle cushion, unzipped its upholstered cover, and groped unsuccessfully inside it. The tape was gone.

  She had been right. Someone had been in her house, who knew how many times? This time, he had been mistaken about her being gone. Perhaps he had not watched as carefully. Perhaps, as before, he’d seen her leave; clearly, he had not seen her return. Lulled by the absence of her car, by the quiet of the night unbroken by a dog’s furious barking, he had felt secure.

  She had called the police. But, before they arrived, she had wound her way through the possible ramifications of telling them this particular detail. What did she have? Her memory of an unusual voice making some suspicious but inconclusive remarks. The only thing that made it more than merely a perplexing and bizarre recording was her knowledge that Dan Ruschman had, somehow, found a way to get ahold of fifteen thousand dollars his wife didn’t know existed and that this was a secret. It was not knowledge she could share.

  Still, no one—not Dan, not anyone—had the right to invade her home.

  “Somebody had been going through my things not long after I moved in and, I think, my first night here,” said Meg.

  The woman officer lowered her chin and raised one eyebrow. “Going through your things?”

  Meg explained, realizing how ridiculous the story sounded.

  The younger detective looked at his partner as if requesting permission to speak and then cleared his throat. “It, uh, seemed to you that someone had gone through your medicine cabinet and two drawers in a dresser were switched and a clothesline had been moved? Was anything missing on any of these occasions?”<
br />
  “No,” said Meg. “No, Detective Schultz, nothing that I know of was missing.”

  He frowned. “Is there any reason for people to think you keep a lot of cash? Jewelry? Small, portable valuables?”

  “No.”

  The woman shifted in her chair. “Because the person who came in last night wasn’t after your computer,” she said. “Or anything heavy. He, or she, didn’t bring a car.”

  “It wasn’t a woman.”

  “Because?”

  Meg couldn’t articulate why she was so sure. It seemed insane to say, “Because I wouldn’t have been so scared.” She shrugged. “Because it just wasn’t.”

  “Lock your doors.” Both detectives stood. “We’ll file the report,” the woman said. “I’m sorry you were startled.”

  Meg’s mouth tightened. Sorry she’d been startled? It sounded as if someone had knocked unexpectedly at her door.

  “Thank you,” said Meg coldly. She had hoped for a team with fingerprint powder and the ability to locate a single dropped hair. She had hoped for far too much.

  “No checking for fingerprints? Like on the doorknob after I was so careful not to touch it?”

  Detective Stanley closed her notebook and tucked it into her pocket. She smiled suddenly, which made her immensely more appealing. “You’d be surprised how infrequently we look for fingerprints,” she said. “I assume there are a number of people who have been in the house with your permission? And, in this case, well … you don’t know who had legitimate reasons to be here before you moved in. Unless you’ve scrubbed every surface in the place since then…?”

  Meg didn’t bother to respond.

  “Feel free to call us if you have any more trouble.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did the woman who used to live here, Angie Morrison, have a record? Did the police ever deal with her?”

  Detective Schultz smiled self-consciously. He had obviously dealt with her, and not minded. “She tended to ignore the posted speed limits,” he said. “She got some warnings, which didn’t do any good, and some tickets, which did a little.” He shook his head and smiled. “She’s somewhat noticeable,” he said, then blushed suddenly. “I mean, her car is.”

  “I want to find her,” said Meg. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  The woman frowned. “You want to find her?”

  “Yes,” said Meg, using the story she’d told Mike. “She left a valuable bracelet in a drawer in the bedroom. Really valuable. I need to send it to her. Could you maybe look up one of those tickets she got and get her license plate number and see if she’s changed her address with the DMV? Or gotten another ticket somewhere? I’d really appreciate it. So would she.”

  Detective Stanley nodded. “Sure. I’ll check.”

  * * *

  The Chopin sonata was as incongruous as the shining sun and the breeze that gently lifted Meg’s hair as she sat on the porch. None of the details of the day matched the mood that enveloped her.

  “Feel free to call us if you have any more trouble,” she mimicked bitterly. The dog got up, stretched, and walked over to her. Meg had phoned Christine, explained her car trouble and asked her to let the dog out. There would be time later to describe her night in the tree. The dog had shown up ten minutes later, leaping on her with gratifying delight.

  “I wasn’t actually talking to you,” said Meg. “But who else is there to talk to?”

  The dog’s interest was caught by a sound or smell undetectable to human senses. “So, go,” said Meg. “Just be sure to come back.”

  * * *

  She stood looking out the kitchen window while she tried to eat a sandwich. Maybe it had been a woman in her house after all. Who besides Angie would have been looking for the tape? But that didn’t make sense, not if Meg’s suspicions that someone had been in the house before then were accurate. Angie wouldn’t have come into the house, gone through the medicine cabinet, removed dresser drawers, and searched the pantry. She would have gone directly to the toolshed, days before Meg discovered the tape there, and there would have been no tape for Meg to find. But if not Angie, then who? And why? The tape contained no useful information. What made it worth stealing?

  The dog scratched on the door. “Want a sandwich?” asked Meg, opening the door. “I thought I did, but I don’t particularly. We’ll share.”

  She put half of her lunch in the dog’s bowl. Crouched on the floor, she thought of why the tape had been taken. Only she and the person who made it knew what was on it. Someone else knew only that it existed and feared it contained more information than it did. It was that someone else who had searched so diligently and, eventually, successfully.

  The man on the tape had responded angrily to a suggestion that he had not waited for someone’s death before helping himself to her property. He was probably angry because the suggestion was true. And the husky-voiced woman was not letting her suspicion of that fact stop her from benefiting from it.

  One of two people—the unknown man or the unknown woman—had been in the house. At least, Meg thought, getting to her feet and leaning against the sink, whoever it was had no reason to bother with her or her house again. Luckily, she had hidden the tape in one of the few items of furniture that had been in the house all along. Only Angie herself would suspect that Meg even knew it existed. She let out her breath, aware of the luck involved in having hidden the tape in the couch, of having kept the couch in the first place instead of banishing it, with so many other things, to the Salvation Army store.

  The Salvation Army store. The tape explained the break-in there, too. Her intruder had been looking for it before she ever moved in. Other than her uneasy feeling that it might have been her friend’s husband who had frightened her in the night, the tape and whatever it suggested had nothing to do with her. Nothing at all.

  Forget about it, she told herself, gazing across the driveway into the distance where the low mountains began. It’s over. The worst part is the damage that’s been done to a friendship, but maybe someday … Maybe someday Christine would tell her who Leslie McAlester was, and she’d be someone who dealt in intricately carved finials, not a husky-voiced conspirator, not a criminal of any sort.

  * * *

  “If your car’s getting fixed today, I could run you over to Allentown after the game to get it.” Christine’s offer was a friendly one, but her tone was distant, and her eyes were strangely flat. “Are you coming to the game?”

  Meg held the kitchen door open. “Come in,” she said.

  Christine shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  “I’m coming to the game since I’m here after all, but the car won’t be ready until near the end of the week.”

  Christine nodded. “I’ll be teaching, but if you need a ride, I’ll work something out. Let me know.” She turned away, walked around her car to the open driver’s door, and stood there with her hand on the frame. She looked back at Meg. “Why were the police here?” she asked. “And were you really not going to tell me about it?”

  Meg stepped out onto the stoop and let the screen door bump shut behind her. She should have realized that a police car in a neighbor’s driveway would cause comment.

  “Of course I was going to tell you.” As soon as I decided it wasn’t your husband in my house, she thought. “I had to call Sara and tell her I wasn’t coming and call about the car and check to see if anything was missing and—”

  “Why would anything be missing?”

  “Somebody was in my house last night. I woke up and somebody was there.”

  Christine lost her irritated look. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I just ran out the door and climbed a tree. Eventually he left and I came down. The police are sorry I was ‘startled.’ They say if I lock my door, I won’t be startled again.”

  Christine rested her elbows on the roof of the car and looked stricken. “That’s awful. I’m sorry I was pissy. So, did he take
anything?”

  “Not that I know of,” lied Meg.

  * * *

  The Eroica might help, especially the third movement. Meg inserted the cassette into the player and sat down with her feet on the coffee table. She leaned back and tried to stop moping. She closed her eyes. It was early in the evening, but she was so tired her bones felt heavy.

  She’d stayed in the dugout for most of the afternoon’s game, trying to remember to call out who was on deck and in the hole in time for them to quit swinging their heels against the fence behind the bench and get their helmets on. She wouldn’t have had to go, having arranged for Suzanne’s father to help out while she was in New York, but she’d thought it would be good to have something to think about besides odd noises in the night and the feeling of bark against her skin. It had helped, but not much. She knew her team had lost and that the score had been close, but she couldn’t remember what it was. She was too tired to remember much of anything.

  She would sleep better tonight. The hardware store in town had sent a man out to change the locks on both doors. The dog was at home. Whoever had broken in had no reason to come back.

  Think about the music, she told herself. Pay attention to how inevitable each note seems to have been, once you’ve heard it. Don’t think about the husky voice on the stolen tape, or what she said, or what she hinted at. There is nothing to be done about any of that, and it has nothing to do with you anyway.

  It was useless. She could not concentrate on the music. What if she hadn’t been so clumsy? What if she hadn’t erased those few minutes? Could there have been something telling on that section, something that was now gone forever?

  She opened her eyes and stared blankly at the opposite wall, a realization forming whole in her mind. The problem was not what she’d erased. The problem was that what replaced it was the sound of a coffeemaker and her own irritated, confused voice. Anyone who listened to the whole tape would know she had too.

  The world shifted a few crucial degrees. It may have been true that the tape and what it suggested had only to do with her house, not with her. But it was no longer true. And the safety she’d been trying to convince herself she now enjoyed had fled.