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“I never much liked RickTalley,” says Jonas as the four of us sit in my living room, stirring Scrabble tiles on the table. “Fine-looking gal like Jackie, she could’ve done a lot better. He keeps moving around from job to job, never sticks it out. Jackie’s probably the one who brings in most of the money in that house. High school pays pretty well, I’m guessing. Hey, Larry?”
Larry Leopold just grunts and reaches for seven new tiles. As usual, he won the last round, thanks to his triple-word score withzymosis. I had to look it up to be sure it was a real word, and yep, there it was inWebster’s Dictionary. Anyone else would use the Z tile to spell outzooorzip. Or in a really inspired moment,ooze. But that’s Larry the high school English teacher, always showing us up. It irritates Jonas no end, because he hates it when another man defeats him at anything. Since Jonas knows he can’t best Larry on the Scrabble board, he focuses his annoyance instead on Rick Talley, who isn’t here to defend himself.
“When I moved to the neighborhood, Jackie came right over to introduce herself,” says Jonas. “She was sweet as pie, invited me to her house for coffee. I went there and we talked for an hour. Then Rick gets home and I tell ya, if I wasn’t as big as I am, he might’ve taken a swing at me.”
“You can’t be serious, Jonas,” says Lorelei. “He really thought you were after Jackie?”
Jonas puffs out his chest. If he’d been wearing all his military medals, we would’ve heard theclink-clankof brass. “Some ladies prefer their men rough-and-tumble. That Rick, there’s nothing rough about him. More like slick and smooth as a hairless—” Jonas pauses, gives me a wink. “Better keep it clean for the ladies in the room.”
We each peruse our new sets of letter tiles. Once again, I’ve drawn a bad lot. Threees, twols, ak, and anr. All I can think of isreek. Orleek.
“Definitely something uncomfortable going on in that house,” says Lorelei.
“Well, of course. Their daughter ran away,” her husband points out.
“No, it’s something else. Yesterday I stopped by there to drop off those petitions against pesticides. I was on the front porch and heard them yelling. Jackie was screaming that he needs to move out and Rick yells thatshe’sthe one who needs to move out. No wonder Tricia ran away. Who can live with all that yelling?”
“When they moved here,” I say, “they seemed happy enough. Like a normal couple.”
“Happy is normal?” Larry mutters.
Jonas puts down his word on the Scrabble board.boobs.
“Last go-round, you usedbreast,” says Lorelei. “Geez, Jonas, don’t you ever think of anything else?”
“I meantboobsas inidiots.” Jonas smirks. “You’rethe one who put the dirty spin on it, Lorelei.”
“Because I know exactly how your mind works.”
“Ha. You wish you did.”
Larry gives a grunt of satisfaction as he plunks down seven tiles. Using one of Jonas’sbs he spells outbasilisk, hitting a coveted double-word square. We all groan.
“Your turn, Angie.”
As I ponder my wretched selection of tiles, a car’s taillights glow red in my living room window. I glance up to see Matthew Green’s black SUV pull into his driveway. He climbs out and stands in his driveway, looking in my direction. Scoping out my house.
“Hey, Angie, are you in there somewhere?” says Jonas, waving his hand in front of my face.
I look down at my tiles and suddenly a word screams at me, a word that hits me like a splash of ice water. I swallow hard as I spell it out on the board, using anifrom Larry’s last word.
killer.
Across the street, Mr. Green vanishes into his house.
“Such strange people,” I murmur as his silhouette moves past his window. “Have any of you been inside their house?”
“You mean the Greens?” Lorelei shakes her head. “They’ve never invited us in, not once. And they’re right next door to us.”
“Well, I’ve never been in Jonas’s house either,” Larry points out. “All I’ve seen is his backyard.”
Jonas laughs. “Don’t want you to see the bodies I keep in the basement.”
“Those people, they’re so unfriendly. I wouldn’t be surprised iftheyhave bodies in their basement.” Lorelei leans toward me, a conspiratorial glint in her eye. “You know what I saw the other day?”
“What?” I ask.
“I was on the upstairs balcony and happened to look over and there he was, standing on his back balcony. He was installing a video camera on the railing.”
