Neighborhood distractions.

Yesterday I took the boys to the store. I thought the pharmacy would be open past 6:00pm on a Sunday, silly me. On the way out on to our cross street to the store, I noticed a whole lot of police cars and police in yellow jackets, police in uniforms and undercover officers. I stopped to look, but then they turned to look at me in my car, so I drove on, minding my own business. I figured it had to do with a particular family in our neighborhood. They have a teenage boy who has gone down the wrong path, so to speak. We see police often at their home, just not in these numbers.

Some of the cars were still there an hour later when I came back. The evening went on without incident. I was getting the boys ready for bed and the phone rang at 10:00 pm. A little late, but I do have a couple friends that tend to call when they want or need to talk. This call was my neighbor. That worried me. I think crisis, accident. She asks if she can come over. She needs to share something she heard. Absolutely, I can hear the stress in her voice. Its after dark this late so I turn on the porch light and go out to greet her. I see her husband watching from his doorway, as if to make sure she gets to my door safely. Its just across the drive. I am thinking what is up?



She wants to sit in the front room. No distractions from children or TV. I love my front parlor just for that reason. Riley is all curiosity, but I send him away telling him if its important enough I will share later. I can tell my neighbor is uncertain if she should share in front of the children. Tom calls down from above. Who would be coming by this late at night, does he need to get his gun, (his sense of humor). Surprisingly, my neighbor says maybe. That's when I call up to him and say maybe he should come down and hear this conversation also, with my neighbors permission. He grabs some pants and comes to join us.



The police have been by to ask questions of my neighbor. A woman walking her dog in the neighborhood had her dog react strangely to one of the other neighborhood back yards. He was a trained cadaver dog. The reaction was that he smelled something he shouldn't be smelling. The woman called the police. They brought their own cadaver dog and he also had reacted to the same spot. Thus the police action. They wanted information on the particular house and owners.



I had been told two years ago, the husband had divorced the wife and used the undocumented card to keep his children and send his wife back to Mexico. She was a very nice neighbor, but spoke little English. I paid no more attention after that other then waving at the children when passing in my car.



Now my neighbor, sitting in my parlor, is telling me that the police say this woman may not have made it to Mexico. Potentially, she may be berried in her own backyard. The police will be watching the house over night. My neighbor tells Tom and me the police plan to dig. We share what we know with each other about the family, then my neighbor heads home in the dark. I lock my front door, then I check the locks on all the doors and windows.



The thought of a police officer patrolling the street looking for a lurking felon who may be trying to move the body of his murdered wife, does not make me feel any more secure. All speculation of course, we don't even know if there is a body. I am Louise Cratchet, the neighbor in Bewitched, who peaks through her curtains trying to figure out what the neighbors are doing.



I am sure if they are going to take soil samples or dig, they will need warrants, and some proof other than a dog scent. So, today I keep peeking out my little bathroom window to see if there is any action going in that distant backyard. Its our own episode of Law and Order. It may turn out to be nothing.



Tom and I had a similar incident when we lived out in the country. Driving home one night in the dark, I was blockaded from my neighborhood by police action. Tom just missed the lockdown so he made it home. A neighbor came over to our house to tell Tom the news. A police officer, delivering an arrest warrent, was attacked and shots were fired. The officer had shown up at our neighbor's house covered in blood on his face and clothes, to warn us all of the suspect in our woods. The fleeing suspect had taken off with the officer's gun and run into the woods around our neigborhood. There was a man hunt on.

Tom calls me on my cell where I wait on the road. He says he has the chair facing the door and is watching the woods. I tell him to be careful not to get shot by the police by doing something silly. The police at the blockade finally wave me through. I pass another police car on our private drive. I am relieved to be home. We lock the house up well that night.



The next day on the news, we hear the suspect was apprehended. He had run down to the river nearby, and swum down stream, evading capture. He showed up at his known girlfriend's house for dry clothes and was captured there. The incident was over. Everyone was safe.



I am hopeful this turns out to be nothing. I like the children. The dad has done yard work for us. I have had coffee with his maybe missing ex wife. It is hard for me to believe something that heinous could have happened. So I peak out my curtains periodically, so far nothing, that's good news to me.