Tim Wynne-Jones - The Uninvited

“Snowplowing?”

The man nodded. “From last winter, eh? I done his drive for him.”

Right. Peters, the keeper of Paradise. What a laugh! She’d noticed the name on his mailbox when she was out jogging.

“I’m not much at the paperwork side of things,” he said. “Takes me a good long while, you know, to get around to it. What with the seeding and chores and such.”

“Jay’s on his way,” she said. “He should be here pretty soon.”

He nodded. “Good, then we can just wait and get to know one another.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Why don’t you just leave your bill in the mailbox.”

He scratched his chin. “If that’s the way you want it,” he said.

She maneuvered her way around the kayak, grabbing the towline in her fist, and splashed toward the bridge.

“Your shoes,” he said. He was behind her now and held her sopping running shoes in one meaty hand.

She reached out to get them and he handed them to her, though he didn’t let go right away, so that she had to tug to release them from his grip. Having a good old time, she thought.

Peters stepped onto the bank, dragging the dog with him. Clooney barked.

“And you, ” said Mimi to the dog, “can just shut up.”

“Boy,” said Peters, wagging his head. “You’re quite the snappish thing, aren’t you?”

She turned to him, pushing back a wing of hair from her eyes. “I’m a regular sweetheart, Mr. Peters, unless someone and his dog scare the shit out of me.”

“Well, we’re sure sorry about that, aren’t we, Clooney?”

Clooney wiggled and whimpered and jumped up to lick her master’s face again.

“Yeah, well, you’re not as sorry as me,” said Mimi. She had been keeping ahead of Peters, not wanting him staring at her breasts, which is what he seemed determined to do, as he kept pace with her along the bank.

Her headache was back with a vengeance. She felt like a fool. A wet fool.

“Around these parts,” said Stooley Peters, “we put a fair amount of stock in neighborliness. Maybe where you come from it ain’t the same.”

Mimi nodded. “Damn right. Where I come from, we shoot neighbors,” she said. It turned out to be a good mood breaker.

Peters slapped his knee and laughed, a dry, barely audible laugh. “But, honest now,” he said. “We look out for one another. It’s pretty far off the beaten path and all, being as the Upper Valentine don’t go nowhere no more.”

“What with the bridge out and all,” Mimi muttered under her breath, aping his thick accent.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, well, nothing’s pretty well what I thought I heard,” he said.

Mimi hauled the kayak up onto the shore on the opposite bank from him. “Look,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be rude just now. I’m having a really bad day. Okay?”

“Happens,” he said, nodding his head vigorously. “Seen a few of ’em myself.”

Quite a few, she thought. But his face didn’t seem so malevolent, now that there was a stream between them. There was a bit of a twinkle in his dark eyes. And the dog seemed to like him.

“You can let her go,” Mimi said. “I’m not afraid of dogs. Just don’t like it when they attack.”

Peters let go of the dog, which immediately tore off toward the road. For some reason, Mimi felt more vulnerable now that there was just the two of them. She wrapped her arms more tightly about her.

“I’ll leave you to get yourself sorted out,” he said. “You know where I am if you need anything.”

“Paradise,” she said.

“Right.” He laughed. Then he tipped an imaginary hat and turned to walk back to his truck, bending to grab at a stalk of grass as he walked.

“Mr. Peters,” she called.

He turned. “Call me Stooley,” he shouted back to her across the little stream.

“Stooley,” she said. “Have you seen anyone poking around here?”

“Poking around?”

“Yeah,” she said. “You know, just hanging around the snye.”

He scratched his head. “Well, there’s the Page boy, of course.”

“Not him. Someone else.”

“What kind of someone?”

Mimi shrugged. This was getting nowhere. “Someone’s been kind of…” What was she supposed to say? “You know, messing with stuff.”

“You have anything stole?”

“Yeah.”

He pursed his lips. “Well, if it’s big stuff, I’d say call the police. But maybe it’s just a prank, eh? Kids, you know.”

Right. Kids.

She realized, too late, that it had been a mistake to ask him a question. He had taken it as an invitation and was heading back toward her, about to cross the snye.

“Well, thanks, anyway,” she said. “I’ve got to be going now.”

He stopped, up to his ankles in the stream. “If I see anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.” He tapped his brow with his finger. “I’ll keep an eye out,” he said.

But she could tell well enough what he was keeping an eye out for.

The idea came to Cramer at the computer store, as he was tearing the hard drive out of an old PC. He abandoned the job, the electronic guts spread out all over his workplace, and went online to the Mac site, where he surfed for a few minutes. Then he sat back down at his desk, deep in thought.

“You okay, Cramer?”

It was Hank. He had just come into the back room with a handful of invoices.

“Oh, yeah. I was just daydreaming.”

Hank chuckled. “Well, it’s good to see you not doing something for a change.”

“Sorry.”

Hank waved off the apology, a good-natured expression on his face. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay holding down the fort next week?”

“Absolutely,” said Cramer. “Really, I was just-”

“Just taking a wee break,” said Hank. “People do take breaks, young man.”

“Thanks,” said Cramer, returning his attention to the job in front of him. But not all of his attention.

Working day and night didn’t leave much room in Cramer’s life for more than daydreaming. But, finally, Saturday came and he had the day before him, although he had to be at the plant by eight. When he woke up around noon, Mavis was out. He was glad. He didn’t want any confrontations, not today. He made his way down Butchard’s Creek and out onto the Eden, enjoying more than ever the freedom of the moment and filled with anticipation of what lay ahead. As much as he longed to see Mimi, he was almost hoping she wouldn’t be there. The sooner he had a chance to get into her house, the better. He was going to get the ball rolling. It was time to make a move.

There were curtains up. They hadn’t been there last time. Yellow curtains, open for the day. There also seemed to be a party going on. A white Toyota Camry was parked behind Mimi’s car, and loud music was coming from the place.

He circled the house by cover of the brush. But after a while he ventured nearer, drawn by the music, the laughter, until he was crouching under the kitchen window.

There were only three people, as far as he could tell: Jay, Mimi, and another female. They were in the front room. He peeked over the sill. The table was littered with dishes. Then a girl wandered into the kitchen, heading toward the bathroom.

Cramer ducked out of sight and slid down the wall to a crouching position. Iris Xu. Did that mean she and Jay were still together?

Somebody whooped with laughter. Cramer swatted at a mosquito. They were thicker near the ground, in the shadows. Then he heard voices entering the kitchen, and he skedaddled to the brush behind the shed. Taking a wide berth, he made his way back toward the snye. He was almost at the stream when he heard the back door opening and he hid behind a tree.