smiled to herself. Hours of shopping, and all she’d bought was one thing (some designer jeans, the ones Debbie Harry pushed on TV). Being a kept woman of a guy as tight as Nolan did have its drawbacks. Oh, he always came around, eventually; but being a Depression kid, he seemed to have trouble spending the kind of money it took to live in an inflated economy. But she wasn’t complaining.
She went in the front door, opened the closet, and turned off the burglar alarm. The alarm was not connected to the local police station (Nolan was respectable these days, but not that respectable); it was just something that made enough noise to presumably scare burglars away and perhaps rouse some neighbors.
Actually, Nolan’s house was about as isolated as a home in the midst of a housing development could be. Of course, it was a small, exclusive development, of $150,000-and-up homes, of which Nolan’s was easily the nicest and most secluded. The rest of the development took up one short street, which turned circular at its dead end and led back out again. Nolan’s private drive was just to the right as you entered the street, and the sprawling, ranch-style home was surrounded by trees, the backyard dipping down to expose the lower story, which led out to a patio surrounded by more trees—two acres of them—with just enough yard showing to put a pool. Have to work on that, Sherry thought.
It was a four-bedroom house, two up, two down, with a spacious living room with a wall of picture windows looking out on the trees in back of the house. There were no paintings or other wall decorations to speak of, giving the place a blank look. There was one paneled wall, with fireplace, adjacent to the picture windows. The ceiling was slanted, open-beamed. It was a room of creams and soft browns, like the comfy brown modular couch that faced the TV and stereo area, the TV a 26-inch Sony, the stereo a component number on a rack, with records below—hers on one shelf (running to Barbra Streisand) and his on another (running to Harry James).
She hung up her raincoat and stretched. She was wearing a cream silk blouse and tailored brown wool slacks, very chic, but she’d been wearing them all day, and they were on the verge of rank. She’d kill for a shower.
But first, the dog.
It had not greeted her at the door. Had Nolan been there, and had she come in the door, the dog would have been yapping hysterically, jumping up on her, pushing at her thighs, then nipping her heels. Had she been a stranger, it would have attacked. But she’d come to know that the dog recognized her, by sound, smell, whatever, and when she came in without Nolan, the dog kept its place by the glass doors on the lower, basement floor.
That was because Nolan always entered that way. He never came in through the garage, even though he parked his car there and that would be the easiest way. He never came in through the front door. He always walked past the house down the stone steps into the backyard and unlocked the glass patio doors and came in that way. Because even at this “respectable” time of his life, Sherry had come to learn, Nolan retained an outlaw’s paranoia. And entering his home the least expected way (actually, coming down the chimney or through a window would be even less expected, but . . .) seemed par for Nolan’s course.
And there the dog was, curled near the glass doors on its circular rug, where it had been sleeping, looking up at her with bright eyes, tail wagging, a white-spotted black terrier about the size of a healthy rabbit.
She leaned down and petted it—got licked for her trouble—and unlocked the glass door and slid it open for the dog to go out. No need to chain it up: it wouldn’t go far from where Nolan lived. It wouldn’t go out of the yard, in fact.
The dog, like Clint Eastwood in an Italian western, had no name. Nolan referred to it only as “the dog” or “the mutt.” It still seemed odd to her that Nolan would have a
She went in the front door, opened the closet, and turned off the burglar alarm. The alarm was not connected to the local police station (Nolan was respectable these days, but not that respectable); it was just something that made enough noise to presumably scare burglars away and perhaps rouse some neighbors.
Actually, Nolan’s house was about as isolated as a home in the midst of a housing development could be. Of course, it was a small, exclusive development, of $150,000-and-up homes, of which Nolan’s was easily the nicest and most secluded. The rest of the development took up one short street, which turned circular at its dead end and led back out again. Nolan’s private drive was just to the right as you entered the street, and the sprawling, ranch-style home was surrounded by trees, the backyard dipping down to expose the lower story, which led out to a patio surrounded by more trees—two acres of them—with just enough yard showing to put a pool. Have to work on that, Sherry thought.
It was a four-bedroom house, two up, two down, with a spacious living room with a wall of picture windows looking out on the trees in back of the house. There were no paintings or other wall decorations to speak of, giving the place a blank look. There was one paneled wall, with fireplace, adjacent to the picture windows. The ceiling was slanted, open-beamed. It was a room of creams and soft browns, like the comfy brown modular couch that faced the TV and stereo area, the TV a 26-inch Sony, the stereo a component number on a rack, with records below—hers on one shelf (running to Barbra Streisand) and his on another (running to Harry James).
She hung up her raincoat and stretched. She was wearing a cream silk blouse and tailored brown wool slacks, very chic, but she’d been wearing them all day, and they were on the verge of rank. She’d kill for a shower.
But first, the dog.
It had not greeted her at the door. Had Nolan been there, and had she come in the door, the dog would have been yapping hysterically, jumping up on her, pushing at her thighs, then nipping her heels. Had she been a stranger, it would have attacked. But she’d come to know that the dog recognized her, by sound, smell, whatever, and when she came in without Nolan, the dog kept its place by the glass doors on the lower, basement floor.
That was because Nolan always entered that way. He never came in through the garage, even though he parked his car there and that would be the easiest way. He never came in through the front door. He always walked past the house down the stone steps into the backyard and unlocked the glass patio doors and came in that way. Because even at this “respectable” time of his life, Sherry had come to learn, Nolan retained an outlaw’s paranoia. And entering his home the least expected way (actually, coming down the chimney or through a window would be even less expected, but . . .) seemed par for Nolan’s course.
And there the dog was, curled near the glass doors on its circular rug, where it had been sleeping, looking up at her with bright eyes, tail wagging, a white-spotted black terrier about the size of a healthy rabbit.
She leaned down and petted it—got licked for her trouble—and unlocked the glass door and slid it open for the dog to go out. No need to chain it up: it wouldn’t go far from where Nolan lived. It wouldn’t go out of the yard, in fact.
The dog, like Clint Eastwood in an Italian western, had no name. Nolan referred to it only as “the dog” or “the mutt.” It still seemed odd to her that Nolan would have a
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