Neighborhood Watch (v5.0)

by Cammie McGovern

  Once, I told him my marriage to Paul sometimes felt more like a friendship with lots of sex for baby-making purposes. He laughed and then stopped himself. “Yes,” he said. “Corinne and I are like that except she doesn’t want the babies.” It was the first time we’d mentioned the children neither one of us had. Though he didn’t say it directly, I thought I heard the disappointment in his voice, recognized the expression on his face.

  “Do you still own a gun?” I asked at the bottom of his driveway. He had his hands in his pockets, and I wondered if he was as nervous as I was, standing in the dark.

  “Yes,” he said. “But don’t tell Corinne. She thinks I sold it before we left.”

  It was one of many secrets we shared, sure that neither one of us would judge what the other was saying. And I didn’t. I went home that night and lay awake in bed beside my sleeping husband, replaying each look, every moment, without once thinking it was wrong that he secretly kept a gun his wife didn’t know about.

  CHAPTER 10

  Linda Sue wasn’t killed with a gun. She died from blunt-force injury to the back of the head. Not one blow, but three. We heard this as one of many rumors that were flying around the morning we woke up to the sight of police cars pulling up and parking haphazardly on our street. At first we assumed she’d died of natural causes. When blood was mentioned, and “evidence collection” by one of the police officers standing outside, we assumed that she’d died in some terrible fall down the stairs. An accident, an accident, we all told one another. But an hour later it was confirmed: There was evidence of head injury and foul play. Blood spatter on the wall ruled out any chance of accidental death.

  By the afternoon we’d gathered at Helen’s house and learned, from her brother-in-law who worked as a detective downtown, that Linda Sue had been hit with something large and metal that was found in the house and—we all gasped at this—was cleaned and left behind. Helen filled in more details. “Sometimes these guys try to make a murder scene look like a robbery that’s gone wrong. They steal stuff they don’t even care about.” We sat in her living room, cups of coffee in our hands. “But this guy—nothing. He didn’t even take a twenty-dollar bill lying on the coffee table.”

  It was forty-eight hours before we learned what the murder weapon was, and each of us was struck dumb by the irony: She was killed by one of the dead bolts we’d all ordered from Marianne’s police officer at that first Neighborhood Watch meeting. All except Linda Sue, for whom Marianne negotiated a free one, saying, when she delivered it to Linda Sue, that she meant no harm and wanted only for everyone to feel equally safe.

  As we heard more and tried to make sense of it all, the cleaning of the weapon became the greatest source of mystery and ultimately, Franklin admitted, the reason my defense never gained traction. Even if the jury had believed that a person could remain in a somnambulant state long enough to cross a street, enter an unlocked house, surprise its occupant and kill her, how did that same person clean up so thoroughly and stay asleep? On the weapon itself, lab testing showed residues of dish soap and bleach, even scratch marks where a steel-wool pad had been used to scrub the hinges. But whoever took such care cleaning it had failed to dislodge the hair and skin residue from the joint. Testing easily confirmed both the damage it had done and the attempt to cover it. Though Franklin could point to cases of assault committed by a sleepwalking assailant, none had gotten busy afterward with a bucket and sponge.

  The prosecutors, given only the burden of proving that I was conscious while committing the crime I’d already confessed to, never addressed other peculiarities in the evidence and Franklin never pressed the matter. For instance, my fingerprints were found throughout the house, but not on the front doorknob. Back then we weren’t trying to prove the argument Jeremy had made, that I was never there that night, that my fingerprints were from a visit I’d made to Linda Sue during the day. Jeremy showed me a map with X’s marking the places my prints were found: on the book beside her bed, on an unwashed glass around the sink where I must have poured myself water. “Do you remember doing that?” Jeremy asked at one of our earliest meetings.

  “Jeremy”—I leaned forward in my chair—“it was twelve years ago. No, I don’t remember if I poured myself water.”

  “But it’s possible. You touched a glass. You touched the sink.”

  “I must have,” I said.

  “Right, exactly.” He nodded so emphatically his glasses slipped down his nose.

  If the murder weapon struck others as ironic, no one’s ever made a joke about it. If I’d gotten a chance to talk to Geoffrey alone after my arrest, it would have been the first thing I’d have done to cut the tension. Looks like Marianne’s locks were a big help. Good thing she got the extra one for Linda Sue. That was one irony to the murder weapon; the other was the fact that all of us had one. “Were there identifying characteristics? Serial numbers?” I asked, the same day we learned what weapon was used.

  “No, Betsy.” Marianne rolled her eyes. “Most people don’t worry about their locks being stolen.”

  How many people had already installed their heavy-duty lock system by the night of Linda Sue’s murder? One? None? Anyone could have brought their lock over, intending to do harm with it. All of us were potential perpetrators.

  When I pointed this out after we’d learned what the murder weapon was—before I found the nightgown and realized I was the one we were all looking for—Marianne shook her head. “Oh, Betsy, honestly. You read too much. This wasn’t someone we know. This was a crazy person who got to us before we could get decent locks installed.”

  Ultimately I made it easy for the police, handing over my nightgown and, eight hours later, my confession, too. “It was me,” I told them. “It must have been me. Who else could have done it?” I’m not sure what I was thinking. I vaguely sensed that my future had been erased and nothing much mattered anymore, so what difference did it make? The morning after I made the confession, I woke up in jail knowing I’d made a terrible mistake. I called my lawyer and said I needed to change my story. I assumed it would take a few days to clear the mistake up.

  “You’re recanting your confession,” Franklin said, at our first face-to-face meeting. He had snow-white hair and the only handlebar mustache I’d ever seen on a living person. “You’re saying you didn’t do it?”

  “That’s right. I didn’t do it.”

  “Why did you confess, then?”

  “I was in a dark mood. I can’t really explain.”

  He folded his hands over his knee. “You’ll have to do better than that. Recanting a confession is a bitch, I’ll tell you right now. You need solid evidence of physical or psychological coercion. Do you have any bruises or cuts right now?” I shook my head. “Any physical intimidation used on you last night?”

  “No.” They’d played mind games all night, offering to bring me dinner from a sandwich shop, asking my preference and then returning with a broken granola bar, saying it was the best they could do. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast nine hours earlier. I was starving, but too proud to eat it on the spot. Instead, I opened it under the table and ate it in furtive bites. After another hour, I gave them my confession because I honestly wasn’t sure what had happened and I thought it was possible. I also thought doing so might get me a sandwich.

  Franklin was right. Recanting a confession is nearly impossible if you weren’t inebriated, a minor, or cognitively disabled when you made it. And there were other problems working against me: The blood didn’t follow a clear-cut or obvious pattern. There was a pool of it around Linda Sue’s body, and the wall opposite was heavily spattered, but there was no visible blood sprayed in between. Also, no trace spatters on the ceiling or on the wall, which—we were told—would have been expected if an ordinary beating had taken place. One theory was that she was already lying on the ground when she was hit, suggesting that there was an accidental fall and her aggressor might have been someone who was “not physically superior or capable of overpowering
her.”

  There was also this detail that every reporter loved to endlessly repeat: The perpetrator, either before or after the crime (both unimaginable), stopped and fixed a turkey and cheese sandwich. With no sign of it in the contents of Linda Sue’s stomach, it had to have been her killer who left his mayo knife on the counter, along with a torn half sandwich—no bite marks, no saliva, no DNA—as if he had made it not to eat but to drive the investigators crazy.

  And one more thing: a spiral notebook found beside Linda Sue’s bed, folded open to a list that read Dr.’s appt., Library books, Betsy T. The prosecution argued that my name on this list must have meant that Linda Sue was awake, writing, when I arrived. The evidence suggests there was no struggle in the bedroom where her few possessions remained undisturbed, her bed comforter neatly folded back, as if she had gotten up to go to the bathroom. There was also no sign of a struggle on the second floor. No telltale handprints clutching at the banister, no fingerprints or blood on the walls at the top of the stairs. Franklin pointed out the illogic. When someone lying in bed sees an unexpected person walk into her bedroom, is her first impulse to write the name down? Absurd, he argued, though no one could think of another reason.

  Over the years, I’ve thought a great deal about this list—all the more mysterious if you consider that Linda Sue had no library card. I’ve wondered if they ever analyzed the handwriting, if it might not have been Linda Sue’s to-do list but Geoffrey’s, left in her bedroom, along with the nine ghastly semen stains found on her sheets, proof that she cared as little about laundry as she did about her yard. But if it was Geoffrey’s list, why was my name on it?

  In a trial like mine such questions get asked and never answered. Witnesses aren’t allowed to speculate; important evidence gets dropped. What matters isn’t who wrote that list and why. What matters is the feeling you evoke sitting in a jury’s presence day after day. To those people I must have seemed too distant, too unconnected to everything being said. One juror claimed the only time I cried was hearing Geoffrey testify that, yes, he was in love with Linda Sue and had wanted to start a life with her, which isn’t exactly fair. After hearing this, I turned around to look for Paul, who wasn’t where he usually sat. It took a while to find him, and when I did, he looked so small sitting in the back, so demoralized and ruined, tears sprang to my eyes.

  A few weeks after that first Neighborhood Watch meeting, we gathered at Helen’s house for a wine and cheese party to launch the “fauxfinishing” business she’d been talking about starting for years. “It’s a painting technique,” she explained after we arrived. “This is Victorian Gothic. And this is Shabby Chic.” She pointed at a footstool painted with rose vines, then at a side table crackled to look old. By the time ten people arrived, her living room felt like a very crowded flea market.

  “I love it, Helen, I do,” I whispered. “But I think I’m going to step outside.”

  Helen and Warren’s was one of the few homes that already had an addition—a covered eating porch out back with an expanded master bedroom/bath upstairs. Around the edges of the porch, she had propped mirror frames and medicine chests, sponge-painted to look old and dusted with mold. I squinted at her price tags and had to sit down. “Oh, my,” Paul said joining me. “I don’t think I get it.”

  For no reason I could explain, I felt like crying. Suddenly it was more effort than I could bear, praising Helen’s “art,” buying the smallest, cheapest piece we could find. Sometimes this happened. I stood in a room full of people and had to stop myself from screaming the bleak truths I felt. This stuff doesn’t look good! We aren’t really friends!

  “Are you okay?” Paul asked softly. He knew me well enough not to come any closer or touch me.

  “Yes,” I said, breathing once, then twice. “I’m fine.”

  I looked up and saw Geoffrey through the door bent over a flowerpot painted to look like dirt. The smile on his face had dried to his teeth. My heart skipped ahead. He would see us and slip out here. In a minute this party would make more sense. We’d find a piece of furniture to point out and make a gentle joke about. “I like the flowerpot because you don’t have to wash it,” he’d say, and we’d laugh, and the evening would already be half over.

  At his suggestion, he and I had recently started reading Anna Karenina, and it seemed as if the dynamic were shifting between us, as if he were ceding some of the authority on literary matters to me. “You understand the modernists better than I do,” he’d said last week. When I said nothing, he added, “It’s true. You do.”

  I kept thinking about a conversation we’d had that afternoon. After he clarified a point about Flaubert, I asked him how his own novel was coming. “You’d better hurry up. I need something good to read after we’re done with this.” Right away, I regretted saying it. I knew he got letters from fans begging him to publish, not realizing how much pressure he felt, how complicated it was for him. I also knew he was having trouble. He was a perfectionist, he’d once said, and he couldn’t part with anything that wasn’t as good as he’d imagined it could be. It made me wonder if he held himself to impossibly high standards. “Doesn’t every book have weaknesses?” I pointed out. “Isn’t that the fun for the reader? Finding holes and inconsistencies?”

  I thought I’d made a decent point—the book clubs I knew spent most of their time dissecting the flaws of very good books—but he shook his head. “That’s not my problem exactly,” he said. I could tell he was upset. “I thought moving here would help my concentration, get me more focused. I don’t know. I keep letting myself get distracted.”

  We were standing in the library and I pushed my shelving cart to the farthest corner of the row. “By what?” I asked.

  For the last week and a half I’d been afraid of the changes I’d seen in him—the extra nervous energy, the way he brought up topics and dropped them quickly. It felt as if he were on the brink of making some confession I didn’t want to hear. Perhaps he was drinking again or moving back to Florida.

  “It’s not right,” he said, shaking his head.

  “What isn’t right?”

  I’d never seen himat a loss for words before. “Corinne and Ihaven’t—” He stopped himself there. Whatever he’d wanted to say, he didn’t.

  When Geoffrey finally came out onto the porch at Helen’s party, Paul smiled and laughed at the joke he made (“I’m looking for the American flag dining room table. Is that out here?”). A minute later, Paul left, which wasn’t like him. Usually the three of us looked for excuses to sit alone together at these parties. For a second, I wondered, Is he trying to give us space? Is he angry with me?

  Even then I worried about how little I intuited about the people around me, basic dynamics, things that were obvious to everyone else. What’s going on? I wanted to ask Geoffrey. Explain it to me. My one flicker of prescience: I felt, that night, as if our world were shifting, changing irrevocably, and I just wanted to know where it was headed.

  “Linda Sue is coming, right?” Geoffrey said. It was the first time I’d ever heard him mention her name.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess. Usually she does.” For all the distance Linda Sue ostensibly kept, she never missed a gathering as far as I could tell.

  “Just curious,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “No reason. I mean, she likes stuff like this, I assume. Arts and crafts.”

  “Are you okay, Geoffrey?”

  “Sure, yeah. Just fired up. Did a little writing today.”

  For what felt like forever neither one of us spoke.

  “Inspired by you, I guess,” he said, wearing the same dry-mouth smile he’d been wearing earlier, examining the flowerpot.

  Say what you mean! I wanted to scream. Just tell me what’s happening. Then I saw it on his face first: how every muscle relaxed into a real, heart-stopping smile; how he exhaled so deeply, I could hear his relief. I turned and saw what he was looking at: Linda Sue had arrived.

  Over dinner, I got stuck with Marianne, who was runn
ing unopposed to be Neighborhood Watch block captain. “The most important thing is tell the drug addicts we’re united,” she said. We were standing with our plates, balancing our wineglasses, the assumption being that we shouldn’t sit down on chairs Helen was trying to sell.

  Across the room I saw Roland staring at me, and for a second I imagined going back to his basement and asking him to explain everything he was working on. I imagined what it would be like to be less afraid of the secrets on this street. I watched Geoffrey and Linda Sue move over to a wooden love seat wide enough for two and sit down as if they hadn’t noticed the rest of us not sitting. I had never seen them talk alone before and I tried to imagine what they were saying. Linda Sue spoke so softly, Geoffrey’s head bowed toward hers as if he were afraid of missing a word.

  I saw Paul notice, too, and raise his eyebrows at me. We were both in conversations we weren’t paying attention to. He had Helen Baker-Harrison showing him her sponges and explaining her process. Then we watched Linda Sue and Geoffrey stand up from their bench, move over to the coat tree holding their jackets, and leave without saying good-bye to anyone. A few minutes later, Paul and I found each other. “Did you see that?” he said.

  I was surprised, actually. Usually, Paul registered even less than I did in these social situations. I’d never understood the exact nature of the friendship between Paul and Geoffrey. On the surface it seemed like one thing—Geoffrey, the star, and Paul, his earnest and approving shadow—but up close I understood there were shades of gray, periods of discord, old resentments that Paul never specified. “Geoffrey can be self-serving sometimes, but who isn’t, I guess,” he’d say. Or, “Geoffrey’s always had a father hang-up.” I’d seen no evidence of this myself. Sometimes I wondered if Paul didn’t dwell on the past as a way of staking his own claim on Geoffrey, as if he alone knew the real problems plaguing his childhood friend. At those moments I wanted to touch his hand gently and say, “Actually, Paul, I see him more than you do.”