Cold was seeping through my layers of jacket and sweatshirt. Despite the unsettling mildness of the weather-here it was, early March, with no snow, and no hard freeze all winter-it was still too cold to sit for long. I got up from the bench and backed up to the meadow so I could see the upper windows. Nothing.
I made another circuit of the building, stubbing my toe on the same loose brick I’d hit the previous two times. Cursing, I sat on a step by the pool and listened to the night around me. For a time, I heard only the skittering of night creatures in the underbrush beyond Larchmont’s perimeter. Every now and then, a car would drive down Coverdale Lane, but no one stopped. A deer tiptoed across the lawn. When it saw me move in the moonlight, it bolted back across the meadow.
Suddenly, over the wind, I heard a louder crashing in the undergrowth beyond the garage. That wasn’t a fox or raccoon. Adrenaline rushed through my body. I jumped to my feet. The crashing stopped. Had the newcomer seen me? I tried to melt into the shrubbery lining the ornamental garden, tried not to breathe. After a moment, I heard the whicking of feet on brick: the newcomer had moved from dead leaves to walkway. Two feet, not four. A person who knew his way, coming purposefully forward.
I dropped to my belly and slithered around the pool toward the house, sticking to the paths so I wouldn’t announce myself on dead leaves. When I reached the shelter of a great beech, I cautiously lifted my head, straining at the shadows of the trees and bushes. All at once, a darker shadow appeared, ectoplasmic limbs floating and wavering in the moonlight. A slight figure, with a backpack making a hump in the silhouette, moving with the ease of youth.
I put my face back down in the turf so that moonlight wouldn’t glint from the white of my nose. The figure passed a couple of yards from my head, but didn’t pause. When I heard him at the north wall of the house, I got up and tiptoed after him. He must have seen the movement reflected in the French doors, because he whirled on his heel. Before he could bolt, I was running full tilt, tackling him around the knees. He cried out and fell underneath my weight.
It wasn’t a youth at all but a girl, with a pale narrow face and dark hair pulled back into a long braid. Her skin gave off the sour sweat of fear. I rolled away from her, but kept a strong grip on her shoulder. When she tried to break away, I tightened my hold.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed, terrified but fierce. Our breath made little white puffs in the night air.
“I’m a detective. I’m following up a report of housebreakers.” “Oh, I see: you work for the pigs.” Fear muted her scorn.
“That insult was old when I was your age. Are you Patty Hearst, stealing from your fellow robber barons to give to the terrorists, or Joan of Arc, rescuing the nation?”
The moon was riding high in the sky now; its cold light shone on the girl, turning her soft young face to marble. She scowled at my mockery but didn’t rise to the bait.
“I’m minding my own business. Why don’t you mind yours?”
“Are you the person who’s flashing a light in this house in the middle of the night?”
It’s hard to read expressions in the moonlight, but I thought she looked startled, even afraid, and she said quickly, “I came here on a dare. The other kids thought I was too chicken to go through this big deserted place at night.”
“And they’re lurking on the perimeter to see you make good on your word. Try another story.”
“You don’t have any right to question me. I’m not breaking any law” “That’s true, not yet, anyway, although it looked as though breaking and entering was going to be your next step. Is this where you and your boyfriend come to make out?”
Her eyes squinched shut in disgust. “Are you with the sex police? If I want to fuck my boyfriend, I’ll do it in comfort at home, not squirreling around in some abandoned attic.”
“So you know that the light is coming from the attic. That’s interesting.” She gasped but rallied. “You said it was the attic.”
“No. I said the house. But you and I both know you know what’s going on in here, so let’s not dance that dance.”
Her soft mouth puckered into a scowl. “I’m not breaking any laws, so let me go. Then I won’t sue you for assaulting me.”
“You’re too young to sue me yourself, but I suppose your parents will do it for you. Since you came on foot, you’re probably from one of these mansions. I suppose you’re like all the other rich kids I’ve ever met, so overindulged you never have to take responsibility for anything you do.”
That did rouse her. “I am responsible!” she shouted.