She put the key back in the lock, turned it, then tried the cupboard door. It was tight, tight as a tick, and she felt suddenly as if a huge boulder had rolled off her heart. She tried the cupboard door again, nodded briskly, and slipped the key into the pocket of her ho ' usedress. When she got to Polly's house, she would put it on a piece of string and hang it around her neck. She would do it first thing.
"There!" she told Raider, who had begun wagging his tail. Per 7
haps he sensed that the crisis was past.
"That's taken care of, big boy, and I must get to work! I'm late!"
As she was slipping into her coat, the telephone began to ring.
Nettle took two steps toward it and then stopped.
Raider uttered his single, severe bark and looked at her. Don't you know what you're supposed to do when the telephone rings?
his eyes asked her. Even I know that, and I'm only the dog.
"I won't," Nettle said.
I know what you did, you crazy bitch, I know what you did, I know what you did, and I... am going to... get you!
"I won't answer it. I'm going to work. She's the one who's crazy, not me. I never did a thing to her! Not one solitary thing!"
Raider barked agreement.
The telephone stopped ringing.
Nettle relaxed a little... but her heart was still pounding hard.
"You be a good boy," she told Raider, stroking him. "I'll be back late, because I'm going in late. But I love you, and if you remember that, you will be a good doggy all day long."
This was a going-to-work incantation which Raider knew well, and he wagged his tail. Nettle opened the front door and peered both ways before stepping out. She had a bad moment when she saw a bright flash of yellow, but it wasn't the crazy Polish woman's car; the Pollard boy had left his Fisher-Price tricycle out on the sidewalk, that was all.
Nettle used her housekey to lock the door behind her, then walked around to the rear of the house to make sure the shed door was locked.
It was. She set off for Polly's house, her purse over her arm and her eyes searching for the crazy Polish woman's car (she was trying to decide if she should hide behind a hedge or simply stand her ground if she saw it). She was almost to the end of the block when it came to her that she had not checked the front door as carefully as she should have done. She glanced anxiously at her watch and then retraced her steps. She checked the front door. It was locked tight. Nettle sighed with relief, and then decided she ought to check the lock on the woodshed door, too, just to be safe.
"Better safe than sorry," she muttered under her breath, and went around to the back of the house.
Her hand froze in the act of pulling on the handle of the woodshed door.
Inside, the telephone was ringing again.
"She's crazy," Nettle moaned. "I didn't do anything!"
The shed door was locked, but she stood there until the telephone fell silent. Then she set sail for work again with her purse hanging over her arm.
4
This time she had gone almost two blocks before the conviction that she still might not have locked the front door recurred, gnawing at her. She knew she had, but she was afraid she hadn't.
She stood by the blue U.S. mailbox at the corner of Ford and Deaconess Way, indecisive. She had almost made up her mind to push on when she saw a yellow car drift through the intersection a block down.
It wasn't the crazy Polish woman's car, it was a Ford, but she thought it might be an omen. She walked rapidly back to her house and checked both doors again. Locked. She got to the end of her walk before it occurred to her that she ought to doublecheck the cupboard door of the armoire as well, and make sure it was also locked.
She knew that it was, but she was afraid that it wasn't.
She unlocked the front door and went inside. Raider jumped up on her, tail wagging wildly, and she petted him for a moment-but only a moment. She had to close the front door, because the crazy Polish woman might come by anytime. Anytime at all.
She slammed it, turned the thumb-bolt, and went back out to the woodshed. The cupboard door was locked, of course. She went back into the house and stood in the kitchen for a minute. Already she was beginning to worry, beginning to think she had made a mistake and the cupboard door really wasn't locked. Maybe she hadn't tugged on the pull hard enough to be really absolutely one hundred per cent sure. it might only be stuck.
She went back to check it again, and while she was checking, the telephone began to ring. She hurried back into the house with the key to the armoire clutched in her sweaty right hand. She barked her shin on a footstool and cried out in pain.
By the time she got to the living room, the telephone had stopped again.
"I can't go to work today," she muttered. "I have to... to...
(stand guard) That was it. She had to stand guard.
She picked up the phone and dialled quickly before her mind could start to gnaw at itself again, the way Raider gnawed at his rawhide chewy toys.
"Hello?" Polly said. "This is You Sew and Sew."
"Hi, Polly. It's me."
"Nettle? Is everything all right?"
"Yes, but I'm calling from home, Polly. My stomach is upset."