In the tree, Vincent moved to a thick limb next to the trunk and settled himself. Through an opening in the leaves he looked toward the side of the house. From his vantage point he could see into the kitchen and living room.
The Peerson’s were all in the living room except Ken, who lay underneath a forty-one Chevy perched on blocks in front of the garage. He’d been restoring the car for the past five years.
His wife and children thought the whole exercise very funny and teased him about his ‘project’. Rose Peerson told him he’d be so old when he finished he wouldn’t remember what he was supposed to be doing with it.
In the tree Vincent smiled. The pieces of his world fell into place.
“Hi, Ken, Rose, Sarah, Peter. It’s a fine evening,” he whispered.
Chapter 5
Teresa drove too fast. She left the 134 in Glendale, whipping the new VW Jetta, a birthday present from her father, around every turn viciously.
She was angry and didn’t know why. Like quicksand, the more she struggled, the deeper she sank. She needed anger to hide her inability to act sensibly.
She turned off Orchard into the entrance of the underground parking garage beneath her apartment house, tires squealing in protest.
The day began with a call from her mother complaining about Teresa’s shortcomings. In fifteen minutes Mrs. Keely covered everything including Teresa’s refusal to eat asparagus when she was three. Who could fight that? And it didn’t end there.
Five minutes after she arrived at the station the Watch Commander called her into his office and chewed her out for going into Chango’s Cafe alone. She couldn’t say anything in her own defense while he called her, ‘hotdog, glory hound, and dumbass bimbo’. The bimbo remark went to the bone.
She wrongly blamed it on Jaime who hadn’t said anything about the incident. The Watch Commander heard about it from an officer who interrogated the people at the cafe.
Jaime got pissed and wouldn’t talk to her and so they ended up working the Burbank Studio district in cold silence. It lasted through the entire shift. Teresa’s stubbornness wouldn’t let her admit she was wrong, again.
She was still muttering as she got out of the Jetta in the garage below her apartment building.
“Asshole, probably thinks I’m on my period. Chauvinist prick.”
She slammed the door and stalked across the cement to the elevator. She met the two poofs from the apartment next door outside her apartment. They started to say something, saw her expression and backed off. She slammed the door behind her and stood in the entry way scowling.
“Pretty boring, Teresa. Be a lot easier if you had something worth being pissed about.”
She shook herself like a wet cat, walked into the kitchen, saw the phone blinking and stuck her tongue out at it. The refrigerator was covered with a mass of notes telling her to get things done. She hadn’t done any of them.
She took a half bottle of orange juice out and drank the whole thing in three long swallows. Large and robustly healthy, everything about her was oversize. She looked at her hand holding the orange juice container and sighed.
She yearned to be small, dainty, dark-haired, not just another California blonde. Bimbo, the Watch Commander said. She couldn’t fight what nature gave her. She avoided the beach, and the sun; not out of fear, but because she didn’t want to be California tan. Consequently her skin was pale, rosy—not ‘in’ at all.
She looked at the clock. “Christ, nine already.” She’d got home after eight every day for the last ten days.
She tapped the answering machine play button.
“...Lunch tomorrow, don’t forget. And Sunday dinner. Your brothers will be here: Daddy will be very disappointed...again if you don’t show up.” Her mother’s understanding of emotional blackmail was total.
“...Hi, gorgeous. This is the best D.A. in Los Angeles. Come to dinner with me Saturday night. I’ll tell you all the latest. Call me, please.”
“Damn, the Groper.”
Teresa went in the living room and stripped out of her uniform. As usual it joined and assortment of clothing pushed to one end of the couch. She stripped quickly to panties and bra, put on a pair of thongs and turned the TV to the news. She watched for a moment, frowned and shivered.
“Must have left the window open again.”
She walked into her bedroom. The curtains fluttered in the breeze.
“Nice home safety, Keely,” she murmured.
She knelt by the window and reached out to close it. When she pulled the curtains apart she froze. She stared hard at the locust tree just across the alley, not sure if she imagined seeing a man’s shape through the leaves.
What was it? An unnatural movement. She looked away from the tree toward the Peerson’s house then back to the tree. There! Through the leaves, a man sat on a branch next to the trunk. He had something in his hand. It looked like a notebook. Her eyes began to adapt to the semi-dark.
She spoke softly. “A peeper, for God’s sake. Well you’re in for a surprise, sport.”
In the front room of the Peerson’s house, Rose Peerson argued with her daughter, Sarah, about the biker as usual. The eight year old boy, Peter, sat in the front room studying and watching TV at the same time.
“How does he do that?” Teresa whispered.
Teresa saw the light by the garage go out. She couldn’t see Ken Peerson, the tree was in the way, but she knew his habits as well as the man in the tree. Ken Peerson would have spent the evening working on the old car in front of the garage.
Rose Peerson, goaded beyond endurance by her daughter, lost her temper.
“Sarah! That is it! That is all, by God!” I do not want to hear one more word! You are not going out with that greasy lout. Are you totally out of your mind? Do you think I’m going to sit at home worrying while you ride around Glendale on that man’s Harley Davidson ‘dawg’? They were made for each other, you were not! If you mention him one more time I’ll ground you for ten years.”
“Grounded until I’m twenty four, oh, great. I might as well be living in some Russian prison camp.” Sarah snuffled pitifully. “You’re cruel and unfair. Daddy would let me go out with Tommy.”
Ken Peerson appeared behind her. “Daddy would not let you walk across the street with that bum. Forget Tommy what’s his name.”
“Selkirk.”
“I put up with that other troll, the one with the purple hair. Little turd ate every thing in sight. At least he was your age.”
Peter, snickered. “You mean the Zit King. Terminal acne,” he giggled. “He sweat gallons every time you looked at him, Dad.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Peter, I was kinda getting used to him. His hair reminded me of those creatures who came out of the pods in Alien.”
Father and son laughed together. Sarah sobbed tragically and left the room in high drama. “You hate me! Nothing I do is right!”
Father and son looked at each other and shrugged. Neither had any understanding of puberty.
“You think it’s funny, little man,” Mrs. Peerson said. “You wait till the first time you bring home some little girl in pig tails and braces. You’ll get yours.”
“Never happen, Mom. If they don’t look like a Playboy Centerfold, I’m not taking them anywhere.”
“Good plan, son. A fella should have his