Page 4 of The Nosy Neighbor

My feet lead me down the hall to Doris and Bob’s master bedroom. The door is open, and the bed is made, with a scarlet coverlet that looks like something out of a James Bond film. The wall behind the bed features a mural of wild horses, leaving no question about who chose the bedroom decor. The closet door is slightly ajar, and even at this angle, I can see Bob’s flamenco costume inside. Those ridiculous frilled sleeves have no place on a man, and the black pants beside them look as stretched and exhausted as Bob himself.

I open the closet wide. The men’s clothes account for a tiny fraction of what’s in there, while the rest of the space is devoted to Doris—flashy dresses in rainbow colors, a dizzying array of wholly improper garb for a seventy-five-year-old woman. Below the clothes are shoes—mostly hers, except for two pairs of men’s loafers up front. At first, Bob’s shoes appear dusty, but as I bend, I see it’s not dust on them but a gritty powder. A deodorizer perhaps? The last thing I want is to sniff Bob’s shoe, but I do it. Then I rub some granulesbetween my thumb and index finger. I smell them too. I even put a tiny particle to my tongue to make sure my senses aren’t failing me. They are not. Peanuts—ground peanuts. In Bob’s shoes.

I hurtle backward as if bitten by a cobra. It’s then I notice the same dusty particles on the carpet by the bed. I bend for closer inspection. No question about it—peanuts. I throw back the lurid satin coverlet and shake the pillows from their cases, only to watch as a dusting of beige crumbs cascades onto the scarlet sheets.

My eyes scan the room—two dressers, his and hers. I open the top drawer, which contains Bob’s socks—taupe, gray, beige. I rifle through to the bottom until my fingertips palpate whole peanuts hidden in the back corners. I open the next drawer—Bob’s tighty-whities. I pull the entire thing out and dump it on the carpet as peanut dust fills the air. The next drawer—men’s cardigans, which I throw onto the floor. Poof! A cloud of peanut dust rises. Next, I ransack the walk-in closet, tossing Bob’s dress shirts out, shaking out the breast pockets—every last one filled with peanut particles.

Trembling, I don’t stop until I’ve checked all of Bob’s garments, leaving them strewn on the bed and floor of the bedroom where Bob has slept, unsuspecting, beside his wife, Doris, every night for about fifty years. I collapse on the bed, short of breath even though I’m not at all allergic, but the scent of peanuts in the room is suffocating. I hobble out of the bedroom and head for the sliding back door.

I’m standing in Doris’s back garden, panting in front of the plot of hydrangeas. That’s when it occurs to me. No, it cannot be. But I can’t stop staring at the strange six-foot-by-two-foot mounded garden plot. I never actually saw Bob in the passenger seat beside Doris as she drove off. What if henever made it into the car? What if he never left the house at all?

No. It cannot be. I’m jumping to insane conclusions. I’m not thinking straight. My heart thumps as I rush up the steps to the sliding door and race through Doris and Bob’s house, trailing muddy footprints, but I don’t care. I lock her door behind me and rush home.

Once safe inside, I head to the living room, where I stand breathlessly in front of Harold. “Peanuts everywhere,” I gasp between labored breaths. “Doris—what if she wanted him dead all along? I think maybe she’s gone and done it. I think she killed Bob.”

The rest of the day passes slowly. My mind won’t stop racing. I can’t sit down. I pace in front of my picture window. Doris and Bob are due back tomorrow morning, but if I’m right, only one of them will return. I think back to how Doris ran an index finger across her neck, suggesting Bob was a goner unless he found a passion for flamenco. I thought she meant divorce, but what if that’s not what she meant at all? What if Bob is already done for, buried in her backyard?

Oh, poor Bob. Poor allergic, four-eyed, asthmatic Bob. He was bland and boring in every way, a terrible match for Doris, but he wasn’t a bad man. Doris always wanted to transform him into someone he could never be. He didn’t stand a chance. Why she didn’t divorce him years ago, I’ll never understand. But is it really possible she took matters into her own hands? Even as I say it, I’m filled with doubt. It cannot be. Doris is a right pain in the ass, a narcissist if there ever was one, but she cannot be a murderer. I’m getting ahead of myself. I must be. But there’s only one way to know for sure.

On any given day, the hours of my old age pass far too slowly for my liking, but on this day, time is even more relentlessly slow. To pass the time, I decide to ring my niece. When my sister died ten years ago, Fiona became my last living relative, and sometimes it’s just nice to hear her voice.

The phone rings ... and rings ... and at last she picks up.

“Fiona! It’s your aunt Marge. How are you, dear? How are the kids?”

“Aunt Marge, it’s two in the morning,” Fiona replies. “You remember we’re living in Denmark now, right?”

“Oh dear, I forgot about the time change again, didn’t I.”

“Listen, I’ll call you another time, okay?”

“Yes, dear,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

I hang up, feeling ashamed of myself. Of course Fiona’s in Denmark now. And of course it’s hours ahead of us. How could I be so foolish?

I distract myself with a book, and it helps. When the streetlamps turn on, I’m filled with relief, though there are still hours more to while away before I can make my move.

When it’s bedtime, I help Harold upstairs. I tuck him into bed as usual and kiss him good night, then I wait a few more hours, tossing restlessly beside him, counting the cracks in the ceiling, hoping to find a reasonable explanation for Doris’s house to be filled with hidden peanuts. How long was she slowly poisoning Bob under everyone’s noses, and to what end?

The clock on my bedside table reads3:00 a.m.Doris will return from Spain midmorning, so this is my only chance. I slip out of bed and get dressed in all black. I tiptoe to Doris’s house, make my way through the kitchen, and open the sliding door. The motion-sensor lights switch on immediately—something I never considered. In the house behind Doris and Bob’s, a light flicks on—probably someone coincidentallymaking a nighttime bathroom trip before stumbling groggily back to bed.

Once the neighbor’s house goes dark, I make my way to Bob’s shed and locate a shovel. I set to work, digging up the hydrangeas, then stabbing the shovel into the heavy, wet earth below. I dig and I dig. This is no job for a seventy-five-year-old woman with bad knees and a fluttery heart. It’s not long before beads of sweat are streaming down my forehead. Despite the stabbing pains in my joints, I keep digging, until suddenly my shovel crashes against something that won’t yield. I kneel in the dank muck, hoping to find an old brick or a stone, but when my fingers clear the dirt, I’m horrified by what glows in the shadowy light—a stark, white bone.

I stagger backward, then rush back into Doris’s house, shovel in hand. I’m hyperventilating. I can’t see straight. I flick on all the lights, leaving muddy smears everywhere I step. I head to the living room, but my wet shoes slip on the carpet, and I fall on the floor with a thump. The shovel leaves my hands, twists in the air, then ricochets into Doris’s picture window with a startling, high-pitched crash. The glass bursts into a million pieces, falling all over the credenza and taking out the photo of Doris and Bob in their flamenco outfits.

I brush the shards of glass off me and get back to my feet. Across the street, some lights flick on. The neighborhood hounds start to bark, and a man—my next-door neighbor—comes out onto his front porch, dressed in a housecoat.

I rush out Doris’s stupid yellow door and call out, “Everything’s fine! Just a bit of broken glass.”

“Marge?” he says, squinting. “What are you doing at Doris’s?”

“Watering the plants!” I yell back. “Nothing to worry about. Go back to bed!”

I watch as my neighbor pulls his housecoat tight, then heads back into his house, appeased for now.

I sink into Doris’s couch.Think,I tell myself.Think.Should I call 911? And if so, what do I say?Hi, I’ve just dug up my neighbor, Bob, whose wife buried him in their backyard after poisoning him with peanuts?I’ll sound like a lunatic. No, I have to pause, think things through ...

I stare out Doris’s broken window, where the first rays of light are streaming up over the rooftops. I’m so tired, worn out. I rest my heavy head in my hands.

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