Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

Therefore, after finding what seemed to be an ideal location for her needs she did a considerable amount of checking before signing the lease. She made the same thorough kind of investigation she was used to making in her welfare cases. From the police she learned that the section of the Boyle Heights district where the duplex was located was a low-crime area. From nearby residents she found out it was a quiet neighborhood, and of course she called on and became acquainted with the tenants in the other half of the duplex. John and Angela Garrett were in their early thirties and had no children. They did have a cat, however—a Siamese tom named Edward—which Loretta considered a plus. John Garrett was a stolid, chunky man with a rather dull personality, but he was cordial enough. He drove a bread truck for a living. Angel, a plump, placid woman with dyed blonde hair, was a clerk in a department store.

During her brief visit Loretta was unable to unearth any intellectual interests the couple shared with her. John’s main interest seemed to be watching sports on television, and Angela’s seemed to be situation comedies. But they qualified in her judgment as acceptable neighbors. They seemed clean, their house was neat, and they were unlikely to have loud parties; they told her they seldom entertained.

It wasn’t until after she had signed the two-year lease and moved in that Loretta found out about Friday nights.

That was the night the Garretts drank. Every Friday. It always started peacefully enough, but after a time they became quarrelsome, and it always ended in a shouting match. The wall between the two units was so thin Loretta could hear every word if she wanted to. As it happened, she preferred not to, and deliberately tried not to listen. But it was impossible not to hear the louder shouts, and some of them were so vulgar they caused Loretta to blush. And Mrs. Garrett had the greater capacity for obscenity.

Loretta believed in being a good neighbor. The first two Friday nights she simply endured in silence. But the third week the couple became so loud she felt some protest was justified. She took her broom from the closet and pounded on the connecting wall with the handle.

Her thumping brought momentary silence from the other side. Then Angela Garrett yelled through the wall, “How would you like that broom shoved up your nose, you old bat?”

Shocked, Loretta put her broom away and made no further protest when the fighting resumed in a somewhat lower tone. But she was even more shocked the next morning when she answered a tap on her back door to find Angela with a cup in her hand and a friendly smile on her face.

“Hi,” the woman said cheerily. “Can I borrow a cup of sugar?”

Flabbergasted, Loretta murmured, “Of course,” let the woman in, and filled her cup with sugar.

“Thanks,” Angela said, still cheery. “I’ll return it this afternoon as soon as I come back from the store.”

“No hurry,” Loretta assured her, still not recovered.

Shortly after lunch John Garrett returned the sugar. Shamefaced, he asked if Loretta would excuse their noise of the previous night.

“Of course,” she said, equally embarrassed.

“Don’t pay any attention when my wife yells like that,” he advised her. “She does that when she’s had one too many. She doesn’t even remember it, which is why she sent me back with the sugar. I didn’t tell her how she yelled through the wall until after she’d been over here this morning, and now she’s ashamed to come back.”

“Please tell her not to be,” Loretta said, now understanding that morning’s astonishing visit. “I like to get along with my neighbors and I hope there won’t be a strain between us.”

“There won’t be as far as we’re concerned,” he assured her, relieved. “I’ll tell my wife there are no hard feelings.”

“Please do.”

That was the beginning of what developed into the oddest relationship Loretta had ever had. Eventually, during a particularly violent Friday-night argument, Loretta again risked pounding on the connecting wall with her broom handle. Again Angela Garrett screamed through the wall. Again the next day Angela acted as friendly as ever, as though nothing had happened.

This time Mr. Garrett made no apology, though he looked a bit uncomfortable when Loretta happened to encounter him in the back yard the next morning. As weekly apologies would only have embarrassed Loretta, she was just as happy that nothing was said and a tacit understanding developed between her and Garrett that Friday nights would simply not be mentioned.

There also developed a kind of routine on those Friday nights when the noise became unbearable to Loretta. She would rap on the wall and Angela would shout some insult through it. Often the fighting would stop, however, and even if it didn’t it usually resumed at a lower decibel level. Loretta ignored the insults and on Saturday mornings she and Angela would be on neighborly terms again.

One Friday night Loretta was seated at her kitchen table having a cup of tea when the weekly fight started in the kitchen next door.

She heard Angela scream, “Who are you calling a mess?”

“You!” her husband yelled back. “Go look in a mirror. You’re at least twenty pounds overweight.”

“So you’re Burt Reynolds?”

“Compared to you I’m a Greek god!” he shouted.

Loretta was contemplating getting out her broom but unaccountably, there was a long period of dead silence. Eventually, from the tenor of the argument when it again resumed, she realized the respite was because Mrs. Garrett had been out of the room, presumably in the bedroom dressing to go out.

John Garrett said loudly, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To one of those singles bars,” Angela spat back. “I want to see if other men think I’m such a mess!”

“You aren’t going to any singles bar at this time of night!” her husband said even more loudly.

“I’ll go anywhere I please any time I want!” Angela shouted. “You just try to stop me!”

“You think I can’t?” he shouted back, and there was the sound of a chair overturning.

Angela screamed, “You dare touch me and I’ll have you in jail!”

Loretta was not alarmed that physical violence was about to erupt. Mrs. Garrett often screamed such warnings at her husband, but so far as Loretta knew he had never struck her. Their fighting was strictly verbal. There was always a first time, however, and just in case Mr. Garrett was on the verge of losing control of himself Loretta thought it would be wise to let him know she heard the argument. Opening the broom closet, she took out the broom and banged the handle against the wall three times.

There was momentary silence, then Angela Garrett yelled, “Mind your own business, you old witch, or I’ll be over there to mind it for you!”

The threat left Loretta unruffled. Having attracted their attention, she was content to put the broom away and return to her tea.

John Garrett’s voice thundered, “You step out that door and you won’t get back in!”

“Who wants to come back to this stinking place?” Angela yelled at the top of her voice.

The back door slammed so hard it made Loretta wince. Getting up, she peered out her kitchen window. It was quite dark, about 9:30, but Angela had turned on the light in their open carport. As she climbed into the car, Loretta could see that she was dressed up.

The engine started and the car backed into the driveway. Leaving the carport light on, Angela roared away. Loretta felt alarmed concern, wondering if the woman was sober enough to drive.

A half hour later Loretta was watching the 10:00 news on television when her doorbell rang. When she peered through the peephole and saw it was John Garrett, she opened the door.