Артур Порджес - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 121, No. 2. Whole No. 738, February 2003

“So he said.” Rick leaned his forehead against the glass. His biceps bunched as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

“I believe him,” Ada said.

“You’d believe anyone.”

Ada flinched. Did Rick really think so little of her, or was he lashing out in his anger at their neighbor?

“He said you had to stop—”

“I know what he said.” Rick moved away from the window. “I’m not doing anything. I’ve even stopped complaining. Maybe he thinks he can harass us like he thinks I’m harassing them.”

Rick paced to the bed, to the door, then to the window again, looking out as if he were checking to see if the neighbors had come home in the few seconds he was gone.

“It’s too late to call the police.” He pressed a fist against the frame. “You should have told me right away.”

“It’s not too late,” Ada said. “The maître d’ saw everything. They’d know we weren’t making it up.”

“And they’d wonder why you waited until now.”

“We tell them the truth — you told me to call.”

Rick shook his head. “Won’t do any good now. They’d have to catch him in the act, or near the act. Maybe I’ll have a talk with him.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Ada said, remembering how angry the man had been.

“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Rick snapped. “You screwed this up enough. I’ll handle it from here.”

And with that, the conversation was closed.

Ada put a hand over her distressed stomach and made her way down the stairs to watch something mindless on television. Anything to keep her distracted.

Maybe she should ignore his request this time. Just because his mind was made up didn’t mean she had to live with it. She could talk to the neighbor — after all, he’d been approaching her. She could find out what had him so upset, and maybe she could change it.

Maybe. All she knew was she had to try.

The neighbors got home at seven-thirty, their arrival heralded by a basketball hitting the side of Ada’s house. She expected Rick to speed down the stairs and launch himself out the door, but he remained in the office, working on his computer. He seemed so involved that, for a moment, she thought of going to Muffler Man’s then.

But she didn’t. She wanted no chance of being caught. No chance at all.

The next day, she planned to visit the house at lunch — the wife was often home then, and Ada thought she might be easier to talk to — but the sheriff changed her plans.

He arrived at seven A.M., the flashing lights from his squad car sending pale blue and red squares across the bedroom ceiling. His pounding woke Ada up, but Rick was already awake. He was standing near the window, his body turned toward the side so that no one looking up could see in.

Voices rose below: Muffler Man’s deep and indignant, swearing he’d made payments and had checks as proof; the wife’s shrill and sharp, demanding that the sheriff wait for their lawyer; and the sheriff himself, claiming the problem was not his.

Ada thought Rick would be angry at the noise, at the interruption of his morning ritual, but he wasn’t. He was bobbing on the soles of his feet, his hastily donned gym shorts leaving nothing to the imagination, an expression of satisfaction on his face.

Ada grabbed her robe just as the beep-beep-beep of a truck in reverse echoed throughout the neighborhood and then she walked to the window which, to her surprise, was open. Rick never left the window open, claiming it let in too much noise.

“Not so close,” he hissed as she approached.

But she ignored him, facing the window head-on. A tow truck had latched onto the rear axle of the muscle car and was dragging it onto the street. The sheriff was supervising the truck. A deputy stood near the house’s door so that no one would interfere.

The rest of the neighborhood watched, from their doorways and windows. The children sat on the stoop as if their world had ended, and the wife was nowhere to be seen.

Muffler Man stood in the middle of the lawn, another deputy beside him. His fists pushed against his hips, and he looked more like a linebacker than ever.

He also seemed to know that Ada had reached the window. His gaze met hers and his lips moved. Even though she couldn’t understand what he was mouthing, she knew it had to be a threat.

“Serves them right,” Rick whispered. “Someone must have complained about the noise.”

“The sheriff doesn’t seize a vehicle because of noise,” Ada said.

“If it’s nonpayment, maybe they’ll move.” Rick continued to whisper. “Or get evicted.”

“It takes years to get evicted from your own house,” Ada said.

The tow truck dragged the car down the center of the block. The school bus stopped at the corner, waiting for the tow truck to go by.

“We didn’t even get any warning notices,” Muffler Man said to the deputy, but his gaze was still on Ada. She backed away from the window.

“It’s not our problem, sir,” the deputy said. “You’ll have to contact your creditors.”

Rick was smiling. Ada pulled the window closed. “You shouldn’t be so happy about someone else’s misfortune.”

“Couldn’t happen to a nicer family,” Rick said, and headed to the shower.

She was shaking. The files haunted her. The credit history, the personal files. Had Rick done something to get the car repossessed?

He couldn’t have. Muffler Man had to be lying, trying to cover up for failing to make his car payments.

The children were still sitting on their stoop, even though the bus had stopped at its usual place near the driveway. Muffler Man shook himself, as if waking from a nightmare, and walked to his children.

“It’ll be all right,” he said, his voice now muffled by the glass. “We’ll have this settled by the time you get home.”

Ada clutched her robe tightly. Instead of crawling back in bed to wait for the shower, she went downstairs to make herself breakfast.

The ugly orange kitchen looked even brighter in the early morning sunlight. Her plants, in the extended window over the sink, liked the strange light, but they were the only ones. Ada started the coffeemaker, then stirred some batter for waffles. Rick liked waffles and so did she, when she had time for them.

The shower continued its hum, echoing through the pipes. She stirred, and stared out the back window at what passed for their lawn.

Here she couldn’t hear the neighbors fight or the squeal of the bus wheels. Even with the radio off, all she heard was the scrape-scrape-scrape of her wooden spoon in the bowl, and the chirping of some tiny morning birds as they ate the seeds she’d left on her back porch.

A pounding on the front door so startled her that she almost dropped the bowl of batter. The pounding continued, hard and furious, and she knew without looking who was there.

She set the bowl of batter on the counter, and thought about getting Rick from the shower, but that would only make matters worse. Rick would gloat and Muffler Man, already unreasonable from his misfortunes, might respond violently.

She shoved aside a week’s worth of papers and mail on the far counter, searching for the mobile phone.

More pounding. She wanted to yell at Muffler Man to stop, but she didn’t. She didn’t want him to think of her in here alone. But the moment the shower shut off, Rick would be down here, yelling at her for not answering the door, and then laughing at Muffler Man for being such a fool.

Her hand closed on the mobile phone. She picked it up, shaking, and pressed it on. The dial tone sounded loud in the kitchen.

The pounding had stopped. She let out a small sigh and hung up, relieved she wouldn’t have to call after all. She didn’t want to make things worse.