vision.
Her rear bumper had stickers that I could have predicted—she was still advertising KERRY/EDWARDS 2004, among other lost leftist causes—and started my own car and took off after her, in slow pursuit.
I followed her, usually with a few cars between us, through sleepy Homewood, from the downtown and on through a quietly affluent residential section; it was thekind of place Norman Rockwell could have painted, though had he spent much more than an afternoon here, he might have hanged himself out of boredom.
Soon the town had disappeared, as had my cover traffic, and she was out into the countryside, making my job harder.
Already my point was proven about the staleness of my client’s research: Janet Wright was not headed in the direction of her own apartment, the address for which was the first place I’d checked out getting to town. Nor was there anything in the written reports indicating that anything out this way was a regular stop of hers.
When Janet Wright turned down a lane into a deeply wooded area, I almost missed it; then I caught the tail of her Geo between the trees, and drove on. Pulled into a driveway half a mile later, turned around, and followed.
In five minutes, I caught sight of her pulling off the lane into a private drive. Cutting my speed to almost nothing, I waited until she was well out of view, then moved on by, and parked alongside the road, what there was of it. I walked back and slipped into the trees along the private drive; the snow on the ground was minimal, my shoes crunching on leaves and twigs underneath the dusting, and I was in no danger of earning my Inconspicuous Tracker MeritBadge. But I didn’t worry about that—I could see her getting out of her Geo, fiddling for her keys in her purse, clearly oblivious to my presence.
Still, my hand was on the nine millimeter in my jacket pocket. You never knew.
The Geo was parked in front of a secluded, expensive, sprawling home, not quite a mansion but oozing money, modern in the Frank Lloyd Wright manner, a story and a half with lots of wood and stone blending in nicely with the surrounding naturescape.
At the front door, she stooped on the stoop to pick up a newspaper, then gathered mail from the mailbox.
I was closer to the house now, and watched through a side window as she entered, mail and paper bundled in one arm, entering via a key in her other hand, pushing the door open—it was a little stubborn. A security tone kicked in, and a dog began to bark...from the sound of it, a small one, lapdog likely.
Which was good. A pinscher or a pit bull can ruin your day.
Janet went to a touchpad by the door and entered a code. I had an angle through the window that showed me her fingertips doing it, and I committed the numbers to memory, even if I did have to move my lips.
At a table near the door, already piled with rolledup newspapers and stacked magazines and envelopes, the librarian stood and sorted through the mail, putting individual items into their respective piles. Throughout, two things were a constant: I watched; and the dog barked.
She spoke to one of us, in a loud firm voice: “Just a sec, Poochie! Gimme a sec.”
Housesitting, most likely.
Through a kitchen window I watched as she unpenned the small dog—a little black-and-white rat terrier—who danced and yapped and danced and yapped for Janet. She knelt and petted it and it stood on its hind legs and lapped her face and whimpered orgiastically. About thirty seconds of good-girl-good-doggie talk followed. This I did not commit to memory.
I’d missed it, but while she was down there, Janet had attached a small leash to the dog, and when she and the doggie headed toward the back door, near the window I was peeking through, I damn near blew it.
But I got behind a tree in time, and then she was walking the terrier in the expansive, unfenced back yard, being careful not to walk in spots where the pooch had already made a deposit.
Over the next fifteen minutes, I
Her rear bumper had stickers that I could have predicted—she was still advertising KERRY/EDWARDS 2004, among other lost leftist causes—and started my own car and took off after her, in slow pursuit.
I followed her, usually with a few cars between us, through sleepy Homewood, from the downtown and on through a quietly affluent residential section; it was thekind of place Norman Rockwell could have painted, though had he spent much more than an afternoon here, he might have hanged himself out of boredom.
Soon the town had disappeared, as had my cover traffic, and she was out into the countryside, making my job harder.
Already my point was proven about the staleness of my client’s research: Janet Wright was not headed in the direction of her own apartment, the address for which was the first place I’d checked out getting to town. Nor was there anything in the written reports indicating that anything out this way was a regular stop of hers.
When Janet Wright turned down a lane into a deeply wooded area, I almost missed it; then I caught the tail of her Geo between the trees, and drove on. Pulled into a driveway half a mile later, turned around, and followed.
In five minutes, I caught sight of her pulling off the lane into a private drive. Cutting my speed to almost nothing, I waited until she was well out of view, then moved on by, and parked alongside the road, what there was of it. I walked back and slipped into the trees along the private drive; the snow on the ground was minimal, my shoes crunching on leaves and twigs underneath the dusting, and I was in no danger of earning my Inconspicuous Tracker MeritBadge. But I didn’t worry about that—I could see her getting out of her Geo, fiddling for her keys in her purse, clearly oblivious to my presence.
Still, my hand was on the nine millimeter in my jacket pocket. You never knew.
The Geo was parked in front of a secluded, expensive, sprawling home, not quite a mansion but oozing money, modern in the Frank Lloyd Wright manner, a story and a half with lots of wood and stone blending in nicely with the surrounding naturescape.
At the front door, she stooped on the stoop to pick up a newspaper, then gathered mail from the mailbox.
I was closer to the house now, and watched through a side window as she entered, mail and paper bundled in one arm, entering via a key in her other hand, pushing the door open—it was a little stubborn. A security tone kicked in, and a dog began to bark...from the sound of it, a small one, lapdog likely.
Which was good. A pinscher or a pit bull can ruin your day.
Janet went to a touchpad by the door and entered a code. I had an angle through the window that showed me her fingertips doing it, and I committed the numbers to memory, even if I did have to move my lips.
At a table near the door, already piled with rolledup newspapers and stacked magazines and envelopes, the librarian stood and sorted through the mail, putting individual items into their respective piles. Throughout, two things were a constant: I watched; and the dog barked.
She spoke to one of us, in a loud firm voice: “Just a sec, Poochie! Gimme a sec.”
Housesitting, most likely.
Through a kitchen window I watched as she unpenned the small dog—a little black-and-white rat terrier—who danced and yapped and danced and yapped for Janet. She knelt and petted it and it stood on its hind legs and lapped her face and whimpered orgiastically. About thirty seconds of good-girl-good-doggie talk followed. This I did not commit to memory.
I’d missed it, but while she was down there, Janet had attached a small leash to the dog, and when she and the doggie headed toward the back door, near the window I was peeking through, I damn near blew it.
But I got behind a tree in time, and then she was walking the terrier in the expansive, unfenced back yard, being careful not to walk in spots where the pooch had already made a deposit.
Over the next fifteen minutes, I
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