Annie's Neighborhood

“I don’t know. I just got here and haven’t interviewed anyone yet.” Sky started to say more, but broke off as a woman separated herself from a foursome watching workmen install a window. She came toward them, undoing her hair from a band that had confined it. Sky’s attention stalled on thick, black waves unraveling around her shoulders, hair that shone almost blue in the sunlight. She was tall, but not quite as tall as his five feet eleven, even though she wore heels. A no-nonsense navy suit didn’t hide her womanly shape. He couldn’t help staring as she approached. The closer she got, the more Sky was mesmerized by her flawless skin and smoke-gray eyes fringed by jet dark lashes. Obviously natural lashes. In this job he often dealt with women who achieved that look with stuff that came in a tube and tended to smear when they cried. Women he encountered in the course of a workday were always crying, it seemed.

The woman stopped a few feet short of the men. “I’m Annie Emerson,” she said straightaway. “I called to report the fact that three homes were broken into and vandalized while we all attended my grandmother’s funeral.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sky muttered, unable to quit staring at her long enough to write her name on the report sheet, until Koot jabbed him none too gently in the ribs. “Ah, yes. We, uh, got the call. I’m Chief Sky Cordova. This is Lieutenant Talmage.”

Annie lifted an eyebrow. His hasty condolence fell a bit flat. She knew his job probably had him mouthing the words on a regular basis, but his perfunctory tone got under her skin. “I didn’t expect such high-ranking officials to show up. Mrs. Gilroy—” Annie pointed to the older of the two other women at the scene “—felt you’d be too busy to come at all.”

“Our department is small, and we’re stretched thin,” Koot explained. “We can see your exterior vandalism. Can you tell us what’s missing from inside? And did anyone see the perpetrators or their car, or get any kind of useful description?”

Annie hesitated. “As I said, I was at my grandmother’s funeral, and the others left before me, arriving home first. The center house belongs to my grandmother, Ida Vance,” Annie said, then with trembling lips corrected and stammered, “N-no, that’s not true. It’s my home now.”

Sky glanced up from the sheet on which he was scribbling. “Is it Miss or Mrs. Emerson?”

“Ms.,” she said. Was he trying to learn her marital status? Why? None of his business in any case. “You should speak to Peggy and George Gilroy or Mike and Missy Spurlock. I didn’t go in because I didn’t want to disturb any evidence. I assume my neighbors came home straight from the cemetery.” Annie chewed on her lip. “That would’ve been a little before one o’clock. Instead of calling the police, they contacted repairmen.” Gazing directly at Sky, Annie added, “I gathered they thought contacting you was pointless.”

Sky bristled, immediately going on the defensive. “At the moment, I and three officers cover all of Briar Run. Our open cases consist of two rapes, an unsolved drive-by shooting and a couple of gang-related drug deals,” he said, waving his pen. “Petty crimes do sometimes get wait-listed.”

The woman facing him didn’t so much as flinch, which made Sky wonder about her. He thought most females would. “You call a bold, daytime break-in of three homes, with wanton destruction of property, a petty crime?”

Koot grabbed Sky’s arm and tugged him toward the two couples who stood by the houses. “I’ll dust these places for fingerprints as soon as we collect a list of missing items, Chief.”

Sky nodded, still gritting his teeth.

George Gilroy leaned on his cane, and looked uncomfortable when the two cops joined him. After a bit of probing, he admitted, “We lost a TV, a DVD player and a pearl necklace Peggy had left out on her dresser. The thieves grabbed the easy stuff.”

Peggy piped up. “But other things got broken. Some dishes seemed to be randomly swept off our sideboard.”

“Ms. Emerson guessed you got home around one,” Sky said. “It’s three now. Were the perpetrators gone when you arrived?”

“Hi, I’m Mike Spurlock.” The younger man barged into the group. “The thieves must’ve heard us drive in, or else they had a lookout posted. I noticed our broken windows and told Missy to stay in the car. I entered the house through a side door, and saw our back door swinging as if they’d just run out. After I made sure there was no one inside, I had my wife come in to make a note of what all they took.”

“Our new flat-screen TV is gone, along with some wedding gifts I hadn’t even taken out of their boxes,” Missy said tearfully. “A vase, a duplicate coffeemaker I intended to return. We’re starting out our married life and don’t own much yet.” Missy Spurlock curled into her husband’s embrace.

Sky, who was scribbling everything down, turned to Annie. “What was taken from your place?”

“I told you I didn’t go inside. And even if I went from room to room, I might not know what’s missing.”

“Why not?”

“I’m visiting, or I have been for two weeks. This is the home where I grew up, but I, ah, have been living in California until I came to see about my grandmother’s health.”

Sky tapped his pen impatiently on the clipboard again. “You can’t say what’s gone, yet you were most adamant about wanting us to solve this case. The truth is, Ms. Emerson, odds are everything stolen today has already been hocked and the money divvied up.”

“It sounds as if you know who did this. So, can’t you round them up for questioning?”

Pretty as she was, her barbs got Sky’s back up. “It’s an all-too-familiar pattern,” he admitted. “If I were a betting man, which I’m not, my money would go on poor, dumb, local kids acting as puppets controlled by drug-dealer puppeteers from Louisville. Oh, I’d like to knock some sense into these kids—tell them they’re lucky to have folks, whether or not the family has trouble making ends meet. They have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, which is a lot more than kids I’ve seen in war-torn countries where families subsist on nothing. You, Ms. Emerson, would be wise to cut your losses here and hightail it back to your safe haven in California.”

“Well, thank you for the three-minute lecture, Chief Cordova. I applaud you for serving our country, as you apparently did. May I point out that your current job is to serve the taxpayers of Briar Run? If these are local kids going down the wrong path, it seems to me part of your job should be to show them a better one...by example.”

Koot Talmage, who’d returned from dusting around Annie’s door and windows, listened to their conversation—along with her neighbors. Talmage nudged his boss. “Why don’t you head out, Chief? I’ll wind up here, go to the office and type these reports. We can keep an ear to the ground. I doubt it’ll yield anything helpful, but the word will go out about who we suspect.”

Sky shook off Koot’s hand. He continued to glare at the woman whose intelligent gray eyes remained locked on him. Sky had to say he found Annie Emerson irritating, although definitely attractive. He hadn’t taken such a long look at any woman in quite a while. Not since Corrine’s defection led to the outright lies she continued to tell the family court about him. Ms. Emerson’s dig, as well as Koot’s blasé attitude, and yes, also his own hostile one, woke a sleeping noble-mindedness in Sky—something he thought he’d lost. An innate sense of justice that first made him serve his fellow man in law enforcement and then in the military resurfaced now. It surprised him that the glimmer still existed inside him and burned hot enough to spark a response, considering the carnage he’d witnessed and lived through during two wars. Yet there it was.

“I suggest, Ms. Emerson, that you make a list of missing goods and get it to us. Rest assured, I will find the culprit or culprits, retrieve your stolen property and bring the perpetrators to justice,” he promised, glancing at the other couples before he spun on his boot heel and strode back to his car.

Koot, slower to react, muttered goodbye and rushed to catch up to his rapidly retreating boss. “Chief, have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind? Why on earth would you give our word that we’ll solve a crime that’s virtually impossible to solve?”

“Because the lady’s right. It’s our job.” Sky opened his car and tossed the clipboard inside. Following it, he slammed his car door and drove off. He didn’t tell Koot he intended to dig into this case on his own, in his spare time. Anything he could find would give him a legitimate reason to go back and check on Annie Emerson. He was bothered by a look she had about her that suggested she might take matters into her own hands—making her a lamb in this den of jackals. She ought to return to California for her own good. And his. He’d growled at her for no good reason other than he found her attractive and that bugged him.

Perhaps if he went back when he was in a calmer frame of mind, he could convince her that this community wasn’t safe for a woman like her, especially a woman who planned to live alone in that big, old ramshackle house. Presuming she lived alone. She hadn’t said so, but then he hadn’t asked, either. That bugged him, too. Although, of course—as she’d likely point out—it was none of his business.

* * *

ARMS CROSSED, ANNIE stared after the arrogant cop’s car until it disappeared around the corner.

George Gilroy watched her. “I believe you hit a sore spot with Chief Cordova, Annie. He’s right, in one sense. This town’s gone to the dogs. Peggy and I could sell and move. Our son wants us to come to Dallas, but this is home. We have good memories of raising our boy here—well, he’s over forty now—and moving to a big city at our age is kind of frightening,” he lamented with a sad shake of his head.

Annie commiserated with the couple who’d been good friends to Gran Ida and to her. Peggy Gilroy, younger than her husband by ten or so years, had taught Annie how to cook, and often looked after her until Gran Ida got home from work.

Still in a bad mood, Annie negotiated with the locksmith and the glass company for her repairs. While they did them, she wandered along the sidewalk, studying the homes that had once looked so much nicer. All needed paint. Yards were weedy and several houses had tattered drapes in the windows. Annie remembered that Gran had mentioned neighbors losing their jobs when the glove factory closed.

Walking back home, Annie saw a battered bike at one house, and a rusted wagon outside another. It struck her that her old neighborhood had become similar to the ones she served in L.A. Maybe Gran Ida was right to suggest she stay and try to help. Gran was gone, but Annie’s roots were sunk deep in this neighborhood.

As Mr. Manchester had pointed out, Gran Ida was well past middle age when she’d taken on raising a baby alone. He’d said Gran had fended off Family Services in order to keep Annie. She imagined the trials and tribulations an older woman would have had to navigate. At fifty-six, Gran had stood at a crossroad, her choices either to give her errant daughter’s newborn up for adoption, or devote her later years to nurturing an energetic child. Gran Ida had chosen Annie.

Back at the Victorian, Annie paid the workmen and went inside to meander through the rooms. She ran a hand over a scarred table where she’d done her homework, and where Gran set up a sewing machine to teach her to sew. Gran read to her by the light of the fireplace on wintry nights when Annie was frightened by ice storms that knocked out their power. She must have done that after coming home exhausted from tedious sewing all day on delicate lingerie fabrics.

Going into the vintage kitchen, Annie filled the teakettle, and while water heated, she considered Gran’s legacy—a stately old house with worn contents, but a flush bank account...and dreams. Big dreams. Glancing out the window, as lights came on in houses along the street, Annie felt she, too, stood at a crossroad. She could abandon this house after donating its contents and use Gran’s money to enhance her life in L.A. Or, as Gran Ida had frequently stressed in her final days, Annie could stay and try to restore the neighborhood. Try to return it to the happy place it had once been.

Chapter Two

IT TOOK SKY over a week to track down some of the goods stolen from the trio of families on Rose Arbor Street. By tracing serial numbers, he found the two TVs at an obscure pawn shop across the border in Indiana. The broker brought out a cherrywood chest filled with silverware for twelve, which he said he’d also taken from the man who’d pawned the TV—a regular-looking guy claiming to be down on his luck. That was always the standard story. Sky didn’t have any silver on his list, but he redeemed the ticket in case it belonged to one of the couples.

As he left the pawn shop with the merchandise, he admitted it felt good to have made progress via old-fashioned legwork. It had been quite a while since he’d felt like this—good about his job. Maybe he’d let too much slide lately. Granted, he didn’t recognize the pawnbroker’s description of the guy who’d pawned these things, but Sky assumed the actual thieves were local kids who turned over the wares to gang leaders. The leaders were known to stay in the background during robberies or other crimes. It burned him to have a gang like that operating under his nose. Any gang. The one called the Stingers needed to be stopped. It was a particularly notorious one that had come to his attention numerous times.

Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, Sky pondered the steps his small department could take to start rooting out these sleazy leaders. It shouldn’t have been possible for three families to be burgled so openly in the middle of an otherwise normal day.

Entering his neighborhood, he started to wonder if Annie Emerson had packed up and gone back to California. He’d avoided her street since the break-ins for reasons he didn’t care to examine. Now, thinking she might have been a one-time blip on his radar, he felt a small sting of regret. If he was honest about it, their brief encounter had been scintillating—and intriguing. Yet he deliberately hadn’t looked her up since then, because he’d closed off that part of his life. He hadn’t let himself feel anything for a woman since his marriage fell apart—through what he believed was little fault of his. It represented a failure all the same.

Sky turned at the traffic light at the corner of Rose Arbor and Dusty Rose. Ah, Annie Emerson hadn’t gone anywhere. Approaching her old Victorian, he saw her at the front of the house as she sanded peeling paint from the lower siding. He parked, got out of his cruiser, and as he headed up the walkway to speak to her, he realized her noisy electric sander blocked the sound of his footsteps. Reaching out, he tapped her shoulder to announce his presence.

Annie yelped and flung the sander down.

It struck Sky on the shin. In the corner of his mind that wasn’t registering pain, he was thankful the sander had an automatic shutoff, or it would’ve have done serious damage to his leg. With that thought whirling in his head, he wasn’t aware that his grip on Ms. Emerson’s shoulder had tightened, and he wasn’t at all prepared when, without turning, she grabbed his wrist, jabbed her pointy elbow into his solar plexus and sent him flying. Even as he flipped through the air, Sky had no idea what had happened until he found himself lying flat on his back, staring into the blinding sun without his sunglasses. Then his world blurred as the toe of Annie’s sneaker on his throat cut off his blood supply. The pretty face he remembered swam before him. Today, her arresting gray eyes were obscured by the bill of a Dodgers baseball cap.

In martial arts fighting stance, Annie peered down into the stunned blue eyes of the police chief. “For heaven’s sake, what were you thinking, sneaking up behind me like that?” she demanded, yanking out earbuds attached to an iPod tucked into her shirt pocket.

Hearing him gasp for air, she lifted her sneaker from his neck. As he continued to blink up in confusion, she extended a hand to help him to his feet.

Sky ignored her offer. Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, he eased up on one elbow until he finally fit together the series of events that had landed him in this predicament. Chagrinned, he cast a stealthy glance up and down the street to see who might have witnessed his ignominious takedown at the hands of a woman. Thank goodness no one else was around. Only then did he allow himself to feel grudgingly impressed.

It took a moment before he vaulted up and dusted off the seat of his pants. Fleeting admiration already gone, and needing to counter his embarrassment, Sky shouted back at her. “What were you thinking, leaving yourself exposed to anyone who might be up to no good? You know young toughs roam these streets looking for easy marks, which you were. Between the blasting music and sander noise, you were totally zoned out.”

“Brother! Talk about arrogance.” Annie settled both fists on her hips.

“What would you have done if I’d been a thug? A thug with backup. I’m talking about gangs, lady. You were a sitting duck!”

Annie pointed a thumb at herself. “For your information, I’ve spent eight years doing social work on some pretty mean streets in L.A. Not to brag, but I hold a one-stripe red belt in tae kwon do. I figure I can take care of myself.”

“Big deal,” Sky snapped, snatching self-righteousness from the air that sizzled between them. “Martial arts moves aren’t an effective defense against a group of hoodlums packing heat.”

“You’re right,” Annie said. Backing down at once, she bent to retrieve her fallen sander. “I’m sure you didn’t intend to scare me half to death, and I’m just as sure you didn’t drop by to get involved in a shouting match. To what do I owe this visit, Chief?”

Needing to buy time for his reeling nerves to settle, Sky bent and scooped up his sunglasses out of a patch of weeds, where they’d flown during his somersault. Her sudden graceful capitulation surprised him—and provoked him at the same time. He studied her obliquely through the dark lenses, and found himself liking the fact that she was a woman of contradictions as well as the fact that she could admit to being wrong. That reaction immediately flip-flopped and her apologetic demeanor suddenly annoyed him. Because seeing her contrite left him wanting to untuck all that gorgeous black hair under the Dodgers baseball cap.

“I came by to see your neighbors,” he said gruffly. “This morning I managed to run down their stolen televisions. The other items they lost I doubt we’ll ever recover. It’s fortunate that George and Mike had paperwork on their TVs, which gave me serial numbers. Other run-of-the-mill household articles rarely provide cops with a workable trail.”

Annie nodded. “I’m so glad you got their TVs back. Neither family can afford to replace them. George is on disability, and Mike works on commission. He and Missy are still paying off their wedding. I asked if either family has theft insurance. Both carry basic fire coverage, and that’s all.”

“What about you?” Sky asked abruptly. “To my knowledge you never gave us any information on what you lost.”

“Gran’s TV was old. She was a lifelong reader, so she didn’t have any other electronics. The intruders did dump everything on her bookshelves. Gran also pieced and sewed quilts her church group passed on to a family crisis center. She was passionate about making a new kid-sized quilt for every child who ended up with their mom in an abuse shelter. But from what I could tell, her sewing supplies are intact. One thing that might be missing is her good silver. Truthfully I can’t say. I hadn’t seen it since I got here. But knowing Gran, she might have given it away. Although it meant a lot to her since it belonged to her mother.”

“Huh, you may be in luck,” Sky said, moved by the way her whole demeanor softened when she spoke of her grandmother. “The same guy who pawned the TVs left a chest of silverware. I have it in the car. I picked it up on the off chance it belonged to one of you three. If you can identify the set, the pawnbroker is out a bundle of cash.” He shook his head. “Who would’ve thought old silverware would be worth so much?”

“Wow, getting it back when I wasn’t even sure it had been stolen would be lucky.” Annie set her sander on the porch and prepared to follow him. “Solid sterling is costly in today’s market. Gran had a full service for twelve people. The pattern is La Perle. Some pieces are stamped with the maker’s name. If I recall, it’s Reed and Barton. Gran Ida didn’t own a lot of nice things. But in keeping with her Southern heritage, she always set a formal table for holidays.”

“Hmm. My mom’s not Southern. She’s a born and bred New Yorker, and she whipped us into shape for big family gatherings, too. I hope the silver is yours. If not, I’ll have to drive back to the pawn shop across the border.”

“Is that what the gang does? Shuffle what they pilfer out of state?” Annie matched his longer stride, seeming interested in hearing his answers.

“Unfortunately, they run an efficient underground,” Sky said as they reached his cruiser. He faced her home as he popped open the trunk of his car. “So I guess you’re doing a facelift, hoping to sell the house for a higher price,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the Victorian. “Not that you asked for my advice. However, it’s free. Renovating isn’t worth your time and money. Our housing market stinks. It wasn’t great when I moved here a little over a year ago. I shouldn’t have bought, and wish I’d rented instead. Only I needed to prove to... Oh, never mind,” he muttered, drawing her attention to the contents in the trunk.

Annie’s brain skipped from his question to his comment about the house and on to his abruptly cut-off revelation that might have revealed something personal. “Oh, that is Gran’s silver,” she exclaimed, letting his comment go. “I recognize the chest. But maybe we should check inside to be sure.”

Sky raised the lid and the broker’s guarantee lay on top of the first tray. It verified that the contents were sterling, the maker Reed and Barton and the pattern La Perle. “You nailed it,” Sky said, handing the guarantee to Annie. “Pawn shop owners have to know a lot about all kinds of merchandise, or they’d lose their shirts lending money to people they hope will come back to reclaim their goods, but rarely do.”

“I hadn’t thought about that. Isn’t it against the law to deal in stolen property?”

“If they have reason to suspect it’s stolen. Certain pawnbrokers have a backroom fencing operation, so to speak. This guy volunteered information about the silver, which I didn’t have on my list, so I figure he’s on the up-and-up.”

“Oh, then I’m sorry he got taken.” Annie lifted the chest out of the deep trunk of the aging Ford Crown Vic.

“Here, let me get that for you,” Sky said. “I’ll carry it to the house.”

“That’s okay. It isn’t that heavy and you have two TVs to deliver. George Gilroy has a bad back, and Mike Spurlock’s at work. I’m not sure if Missy is pregnant. Something she said the other evening made me think she might be. She broke down after the vandalism debacle and cried about the thought of raising children in this neighborhood.”

“Huh,” Sky snorted. “I’m an authority when it comes to that concern. My ex-wife’s attorney drives it home every time they haul me into court hoping to derail my bid for joint custody.”

“You have children?” Annie asked as he hefted the larger of the two TVs and slammed the trunk lid shut with more force than necessary.

“One,” Sky answered. “Zachary’s five.”

Annie saw his jaw tense. She recognized his not-quite-checked anger. She’d seen similar reactions on numerous occasions during her work with broken families. She didn’t know this cop well enough to sympathize, however. Besides, she was trained to remain neutral. “Just before you showed up, I was thinking of taking a break to have a glass of cold lemonade,” she said lightly. “If you can spare a few minutes to join me on the porch after you deliver those TVs, there’s something I’d like to run by you—in your official capacity.”