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My daughter still isn’t answeringme. I’ve sent her three text messages and tried calling her twice but both times it went straight to voicemail. She’s ignoring me because she’s tired of all my phone calls, all my dispatches from the neighborhood. I’m the mom who cried wolf too many times and this is the result. When there reallyisa wolf at the door, she pays no attention.
So I call the Revere Police Department instead.
“This is Angela Rizzoli, on Mill Street. I just heard—”
“Hello again, Mrs. Rizzoli.” The dispatcher sighs, and I recognize the note of resignation in her voice.
“I just heard a gunshot. Outside my house.”
“Are you sure it was really a gunshot, Mrs. Rizzoli? That it wasn’t just a car backfiring or something?”
“I know what a gunshot sounds like! And I also know the people across the street own a gun!”
“This would be about the Greens again.”
“I don’t know ifthey’rethe ones who did the shooting. I’m just pointing out they have a gun andsomeonein the neighborhood is shooting one.”
“Can you give me any more information about this gunshot?”
“Wait. Let me turn off the lights. I don’t want anyone to see me in the window.”
I scurry around the living room, flicking off light switches. Only when the room is completely dark do I go to the window and peer outside. The first thing I notice is that the Greens’ lights are off as well. Are they home? Or are they also peeking out from one of those dark windows, trying to size up the situation? Jonas’s lights are on and he’s standing in his living room, fully visible as he peers out. For a Navy SEAL, you’d think he’d try to avoid being such an easy target for a sniper. The lights are also on at the Leopolds’ house, but no one there is standing in any windows.
“Mrs. Rizzoli?” the police dispatcher says. I’d almost forgotten I still had her on the line. “Do you know where the shot came from?”
“It’s hard to tell. I just know I heard it.” I pause, suddenly focusing on a vehicle parked in the Leopolds’ driveway. It’s not their car, but it looks just like Rick Talley’s Camaro. Why would Rick be visiting the Leopolds at this time of night? Just as unusual is the fact the Leopolds’ front door is wide open, the lights from their foyer spilling out onto the porch. Larry’s a security freak. He would never leave his door unlocked, much less hanging wide open on a Friday night, so anyone could just walk in.
“Something’s wrong,” I tell the dispatcher. “You have to send someone.”
“Okay.” She sighs. “I’ll have a patrol car check out the situation. But you stay out of it, okay? Stay in your house.”
I hang up and remain glued to my window, watching whathappens next. Across the street, Jonas emerges from his house and stands on the sidewalk, looking up and down the street. Now Agnes Kaminsky comes out of her house and she has the nerve to stand smoking a cigarette right in front of my window, no doubt spying on me at the same time.
I can’t stand not being part of the action. The dispatcher told me to stay inside, which is exactly what Jane would tell me to do, but when even my seventy-eight-year-old neighbor is brave enough to be out there, staying inside makes me look like a coward.
I step out of the house.
Agnes greets me with a scowl. “Angela,” she says coolly.
“What’s going on?”
“Why don’t you ask Mr. Universe over there?”
I look across the street at Jonas, who waves at me and calls out: “You want another martini?”
“We’re only friends,” I tell Agnes.
“Doesheknow that?”
Jonas crosses the street to join us. “Ladies,” he says. “A little excitement in the neighborhood, hey?”
“You heard the gunshot too?” I ask him.
“I had my workout music at full blast, so I can’t be certain what it was I heard.”
“I think that’s Rick Talley’s Camaro over there,” I say. “What the heck is he doing at the Leopolds’?”
Jonas sighs. “And here come the consequences.”
