Curtains

GOOD FENCES

That fence post was leaning again.

Herman could tell just by looking out the window, though the neighbor’s yard was over two hundred feet away. You’d think people would have a little pride. Back in Herman’s day, you kept your split rails pointing straight up to God, even here in the Blue Ridge mountains where level ground was as scarce as hen’s teeth. Of course, you were supposed to keep your grass mowed down close, too.

A hippie lived in that house. The new neighbor drove by every morning, hunched over the wheel of a Japanese junkaroo with a ski rack on top. The hippie had waved the first week after moving in, but each time Herman had given him a no-nonsense, get-a-haircut stare. Nowadays the hippie didn’t even look over, just rattled up the road to whatever job Communists held while plotting the revolution.

Too bad. The hippie could learn something about American pride from Herman. You keep your house painted and your windows clean. Your mailbox flap doesn’t sag open. The flag comes down when it rains, even if a stoned-out longhair would rather burn one than fly one. But most of all, by God, you set your fences straight.

Fences were the first impression, the first line of defense against those who thought the world belonged to everybody. Herman would bet his John Wayne video collection that the hippie at 107 Oakdale had a peace sign poster on his bedroom wall. The peace sign was nothing but the footprint of the American chicken. Herman didn’t mind a peaceful neighbor on general principle, but the lessons of history were clear. Peace started with strong borders, strong fences.

Herman was a picket man himself. There was something trustworthy about the sharp picket tips, a row of threatening teeth that promised to nip at unwelcome guests. Best of all, you could paint them church-white. Not that split rails couldn’t look proper if you took a little pride in them.

The door to 107 opened. Herman dropped the curtain in disgust and sat again at his bowl of oatmeal. Doctor said oats would clean out his pipes, and if a healthy diet didn’t do the job, then a pervert with a medical degree and a hospital hose would. The fear of a stranger meddling up his backside was about the only thing that could make Herman eat oatmeal. The stuff was barely fit for livestock.

As he spooned a butter-heavy dose into his mouth, he looked out the window. The hippie’s front door swung open wide, and a shaggy little dog raced out and squatted in the weeds. Hippie didn’t even have enough self-respect to get a boxer or a hound, something territorial that would chew the leg off a trespassing little brat. No, he had an overgrown lap dog, one that would probably be plopping piles of dookie all over Herman’s yard if the picket fence weren’t there.

The dog finished its business and ran to the hippie, who patted it on the head. Herman scowled into his oatmeal. Public displays of affection were the mark of a sissy who couldn’t be trusted. He waited until the hippie’s car passed, then he went into the garage. Tools neatly lined the rear wall, hanging on pegboard and shining under the glow of a single fluorescent tube.

He selected a claw hammer, then gritted his teeth and swung it viciously, imagining the hammer head sinking into the hippie’s skull. He swung again and again, his breath rapid and shallow, his heartbeat like the salvos of an anti-aircraft gun. His arm soon grew tired and he let the hammer rest against his thigh.

The August morning sun was bright on the dew when he went outside. Mrs. Breedlove from 103 had her television turned up too loud. That was okay, because Mrs. Breedlove kept her flower gardens in military formation, heads up and rumps tucked in tight. She had her flaws, but maintaining appearances wasn’t one of them.

Herman gathered a spare picket from the woodpile and tucked it under his arm. He stepped through the gate and walked down Oakdale, frowning at the dead leaves that clustered along the curb. He’d be needing the rake before long. One of the neighbor kids from 108 squealed in the distance. Brats. The budding delinquents would wear a path in your grass and not think twice.

A kid on a bicycle came out from the trees near the end of the block. It was a girl, one of the ugly redheads from 104. You’d think she’d be in school, since this was Friday. Ever since they’d made a big fuss over teachers’ rights, the brats did most of their learning from each other. And the lesson they learned best was how to mess on other people’s property.

Herman tucked his hammer behind his back. The redhead pedaled up, then stopped. She wore a New York Jets jersey, and the only thing worse would have been Yankee pinstripes. The early settlers of Aldridge Falls should have barred the dirt roads and burned all the bridges, because outsiders had the run of the place now. Rich folks with their Florida tans and fast New England accents and property law attorneys.

“Morning, Mr. Weeks,” the girl said. “What you doing with that stick?”

“Fixing things,” he said, smiling and holding up the picket. Maybe it wasn’t too late to pass along the concept of respect.

“A fence?” she asked.

He nodded. “I like good fences.”

“My daddy said fences are for greedy people.”

“You should always listen to your father.” Herman kept smiling, his face like warm wax in the sun.

The kid smiled back, confused, then pedaled on past. Herman walked to the hippie’s leaning fence post. It was cedar, a little more manageable than locust though it would rot a lot faster. He knelt and examined the base of the post.

He’d repaired the same post twice already this week. Usually he fixed things right the first time, but once in a while you got hold of a stubborn piece of wood. He leaned the post until it was ninety degrees, then eyeballed the angle against the corner of the hippie’s house. Satisfied, he wedged the picket into the ground, driving it with the hammer until the dirt was packed.

He reached for the top of the post to test it for sturdiness. He touched wood, and a sharp pain lanced along his finger. At first he figured he’d drawn a splinter, but the wound was clean. Herman bent for a closer look.

A razor blade had been embedded in the cedar. Its silver edge glinted in the dawn.

“Tarnation.” Herman muttered under his breath, sucking on his wounded finger. A closer study of the fence revealed several more razor blades in the crosspieces.

Herman glanced at the houses along the street. This was a Community Watch neighborhood. He didn’t dare trespass on the hippie’s property. But he was within his rights to walk the perimeter of the yard. As a concerned citizen, mind you, checking up on things.

At one corner of the fence, the ground was bare where animals cut through the forsythia. Herman saw a long fishhook wedged into a crack in the fence. Bits of cat fur and a tiny piece of shriveled flesh hung from the hook’s barb. The fur was light gray, the color of Widow Hampton’s cat.

Herman hadn’t seen the cat in several days. It had a habit of spraying in Herman’s yard, stinking up the petunias. Cat had no sense of territory and could scamper over a fence like it wasn’t there. He grinned at the thought of the cat yowling in pain after getting snagged by the hook.

Herman headed back to his house with new admiration for the hippie. You had to fight to protect what was yours. Hell, when you come right down to it, a hippie could be just like any normal person. All it took was a haircut and a Bible.

The red-headed girl rode up on her bike, stopped with a scruffing of brakes. “Sorry, mister.”

Herman had been lost in thought. “Huh? Sorry for what?”

She pointed up the street. “I ran into your fence.” She blushed beneath her freckles.

Herman saw leaning pickets, a whole section of them, one snapped in half. He bit back a curse. His hand went to his back pocket for the hammer. His cut finger bumped into the handle, and the pain drove his anger away.

“It’s okay, honey,” he said. He resisted the urge to pat her head, because he was afraid he might grab her hair and jerk her off the bicycle. A curtain lifted in nosy Mrs. Breedlove’s house. Community watch at its finest.

He walked back to his house as the girl pedaled away, off to her next act of trespassing and destruction. Herman spent the rest of the morning repairing his own fence, then went in for lunch and his daily bout of Gospel radio. He took a nap in the afternoon, charging his batteries for the night’s mission.

Supper was liver mush and potatoes, plus some pole beans grown in the garden out back. Back when Verna was alive, they kept up with the canning, making preserves from the apples and sauce from the tomatoes. With Verna passed on to the Lord, Herman saw little need to stock up for the future. He grew most of what he needed and in the winter there were grocery stores. Gas was so high, thanks to them sand-nigger terrorists, he didn’t drive much anymore. And the radio said the Democrats had gutted Social Security again, so he tried to pinch a penny where he could. Mostly, he kept to the house, which is why he wanted the fences in good shape. When your world got smaller, the part that was yours took on new value.

Night fell, and Herman left the lights on while he snuck around the house and into the vacant lot that ran beside the hippie’s house. The land had belonged to a dentist up on the hill, but when the dentist died, it fell into the hands of his sons, who were living somewhere contrary like Oregon or New Hampshire. The land had been a Christmas tree farm, and lately a hay meadow, but now it mostly just raised briars and bunnies.

He fought off the thorns and ducked into the forsythia, crabapple, and jackvine that straddled the property line. After checking the crosspieces for sharp edges, he slipped through the fence and waited. Soon enough, the hippie’s door opened and the shaggy, post-pissing mongrel came out, the hippie right behind. Even with the moon out, the hippie wouldn’t be able to see Herman crouching in the thicket, but the dog started whining right away. The hippie made a beeline for the post that Herman had straightened that morning. The hippie put a hand on it and leaned it forward, careful to avoid the razor blade embedded in the wood.

“There,” the hippie said to the whimpering mutt. “That ought to give the geezer something to fix tomorrow. Or else a heart attack.”

The hippie jumped as if electrocuted when Herman flipped on the flashlight. The longhair froze in the orange cone of light, pupils the size of BBs. Probably on meth heroin or whatever dope his kind cooked up these days.

“They look better if you do them square,” Herman said.

The hippie squinted against the flashlight’s beam. “Who’s there?”

“A concerned neighbor,” Herman said.

“You the one with the picket fence, up at 101?”

“None other.” Herman stood and flicked off the light. They stared at each other’s silhouettes under the quarter moon.

“Why have you been messing with my fence?” The hippie folded his arms across his chest. The shaggy mutt stopped whimpering and crouched at its master’s feet.

“Why you been making me?” Herman snapped his shoulders back Marine-style, even though it was dark and the hippie couldn’t get a cheap lesson in proper posture. This was his neighborhood. He had a right to take an interest.

“I like to know my neighbors,” the hippie said. “The faster you peg the weirdoes, the faster you can take steps to protect yourself.”

Herman’s jaw loosened. “You mean you done this on purpose? Like some kind of trap?”

The hippie’s high-dollar teeth caught the scant moonlight as he smiled. “One of them. The other traps are scattered around the perimeter.”

A light came on upstairs in the Hampton house. From his dark vantage point, Herman could see the top half of the widow as she slipped off her robe and stepped into the shower. His pulse jumped a gear and he felt a flush of shame. Spying like trash, that’s what he was doing. But she’d left her curtains open, so it was her fault.

“Ain’t seen Miss Hampton’s cat around lately,” Herman said. “You wouldn’t know nothing about that, would you?”

“You might find it at the foot of the dogwood,” the hippie said, nodding to the corner of his lot.

“Dogwood?”

“I thought that was fitting punishment,” the hippie said. “Get it? A cat and a dogwood?”

The mutt’s ears perked up at the sound of its master’s laughter.

“You buried her cat on your property?” Herman’s thumb twitched against the flashlight, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh with the hippie or addle the fool’s brains with a sideswipe.

“Don’t worry, the dogwood’s bark is worse than its bite.”

Herman eased backward a step, and the scrub vegetation that had minutes earlier afforded protection and cover now seemed like a prison wall, cutting off his escape. He thought about yelling, but his throat was tight and he was afraid he would sound like a sissy girl.

“I have some blueberry bushes along the rear of the property,” the hippie said. “Do you think it’s fair that the brats can just come on over anytime they please and stuff their faces? I pay my taxes and I send my mortgage payment to the bank on time. I’ve got rights.”

“That why you planted the razors?”

“Yeah. Of course, they can come down the driveway, but I figure that’s not sneaky enough for them. You know how kids are, they like to think they’re outsmarting the grown-ups.”

“Snagged any of them yet?”

“Just the cat. But it only takes once and I don’t have to worry about them anymore.”

“What about their parents? What if they call the cops, or Social Services?”

“I’ll just say the blades came with the property. How was I to know the previous owner was insane?”

“Now you just hold on a second,” Herman said. “That house belonged to Ned Loggerfeld, and not once did he let a post sag. He cleaned his gutters twice a year and snow never had a chance to melt in his driveway so long as he owned a shovel.”

“I heard he died of a heart attack,” the hippie said. “In the cold, your arteries narrow. Shoveling snow is about the worst thing you can do if your heart is bad.”

Herman recalled the February day when Ned had flopped on his back near the mailbox, arms spread like he was making a snow angel. Turned out he was making a real angel. Herman had dialed 9-1-1 while Mrs. Breedlove performed some pervert-looking maneuvers she said was CPR. If old Ned could have seen the woman sucking and blowing on his mouth, he might have come back down from heaven for a chance to smooch back.

“Okay,” Herman said. “Looks like a standoff. I got no gripe with a fellow doing what he wants on his own property, as long as he keeps up appearances.”

“Oh, I’m pretty good at keeping up appearances, Mr. Weeks.” The hippie grinned like he was in an organic produce market and the tofu was half price.

“How’d you know my name?”

“Deeds Office down at the courthouse. Like I said, I like to get to know the neighbors. Before I buy.”

“Don’t blame you none,” Herman said. He wished the ugly redheaded family had left on their porch lights like they usually did. The moon wasn’t bright enough to dull the shine in the hippie’s eyes.

“You’re a registered Republican.”

“So? What are you?”

“Libertarian.”

“That mean you don’t eat eggs or cheese?”

“Only in a free market economy,” the hippie said. “I also know you bought your two acres back in 1956. You were probably married once, judging from the Elvis decanter on the sewing machine in your living room. While you might have been an Elvis fan, I doubt you idolize him enough to collect. And being a product of the Eisenhower administration, you never saw fit to have your wife listed as co-owner of the property.”

“You been peeking in my windows?”

“No. Not on purpose. You can see it when you drive by. Your house sits a little below the road and Elvis is right there between the curtains. You ought to look at your surroundings with new eyes now and then. You might be surprised at what you see.”

Herman wished he had the hammer. He would fix the hippie, and then fix that damned fence post. Then he’d do what he should have done right after Verna’s passing, take the Elvis decanter out back and pound it into dust. But he couldn’t help himself, his head turned and he scanned the neighborhood, from 101 to 108 and back again.

All of the houses had gone through several families in his time. Widow Hampton’s kids, who used to stub around in diapers, were now grown and gone, he didn’t know the names of the couple in 107 or if they were even married, half of the houses now had vinyl siding, and, when you got right down to it, even with all the care and tending, his own house looked a little shabby and shopworn under the street lights. Like him, it had seen its best days, and an invisible earth digger was waiting in the wings to claim both of them.

“This is a nice neighborhood,” Herman said. “Why, look at the pride Mrs. Breedlove takes in her flowers.”

“Appearances are important, but they can also be deceiving. Order on the outside can often hide disorder inside.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Herman said. “Maybe your fence ain’t none of my business.”

The hippie’s dog skirted under the fence and pushed its nose to the ground, following the curb down to 103, where the Pilkingtons had left the trash out.

“Doggie bags,” the hippie said. “They’ll learn sooner or later.”

“Reckon so,” Herman said. “What’s your name?”

“Reynolds. Peter Reynolds.”

Herman was afraid that the hippie was going to stick his hand out in some jive shake or other, but he just stood there with that educated smile. Peter Reynolds had the home-field advantage, and he knew it. Herman had been caught where he didn’t belong. He looked over at the Pilkington house, where the mutt was gnawing through a plastic trash bag, scattering cellophane and rumpled paper towels.

“I’d best be going,” Herman said.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Herman thought of the razor blades, and wondered for the first time if Peter Reynolds maybe had a knife in his pocket. “What?”

The hippie pointed to the leaning fence post. “I don’t know about you, but my mom taught me to leave things just the way I found them.”

Herman started to argue, then thought of the maybe-knife and swallowed hard. He eased the post perpendicular to the ground and stomped his foot to tamp the dirt tight. “Good night, now,” he said.

“Watch your step,” the hippie, Peter Reynolds, said.

“Sounds like good advice.” Herman didn’t look back until he was inside his own home. He closed the curtains and hid the Elvis decanter in the closet with the rest of Verna’s things.

The next day, he called the Sheriff’s Office. The hippie wasn’t the only one who knew how to work the system. Herman had to sit on hold for a couple of minutes, but he finally reached Bud Millwood, a deputy who had made an unsuccessful run for sheriff a decade back. Herman had supported his campaign with cash and two signs in the yard, and though Millwood had lost the race, rural politics required his repaying of such a favor.

“I need you to check something for me, Bud,” Herman said.

“The city council trying to zone you again?”

“No, nothing like that. We voted that bunch out five years ago. The ‘Z’ word is a one-way ticket to hell around these parts.”

Millwood laughed. “You can set that in stone. A fellow’s got a right to do what he wants with his land.”

“Sometimes. Maybe sometimes.”

“What’s your problem?”

“I wondered if you could run a check on a fellow. Name of Peter Reynolds. He might not be from around here, but he ain’t Yankee, judging by his accent. Has Tennessee plates on his car.” Herman read off the license numbers he’d written on a scrap of paper.

“He do something wrong?”

“No, not yet. He just moved into the neighborhood, and you know how it is.”

“A fellow likes to know who his neighbors are.”

“Yep. So if you can dig anything up, I’d appreciate it.”

“Well, normally I got to have a reason to run a check. But maybe if you think he was growing dope or something.”

“He’s the type who might.”

“Good enough for me. I’ll call you when I learn something. If there’s so much as a counterfeit aspirin on his record, I’ll drive out and pay a personal visit.”

“No, I can handle him. Just let me know.”

“Sure, Herman, whatever. If you smell something funny, though, give me a holler. The way they’re cutting into our DARE programs, it’s a wonder the whole blessed county ain’t going up in smoke.”

Herman was midway through his oatmeal and eyeing a grapefruit half when Bud Millwood called back.

“I ain’t for certain, but if your Peter Reynolds is the same as the one from Trade River, just over the state line, then you might want to lock your doors of a night,” the deputy said. “Got into a quarrel with his neighbor over there. Deputies got called out three times for a domestic dispute.”

“I thought a domestic dispute was when a man was beating up his wife.”

“Yeah, that’s what they thought this was, but turns out Mr. Peter James Reynolds was whopping up on a forty-year-old woman. He claimed she snuck out in the middle of the night and moved the surveying stake that marked the corner of his property. Eased it over a good three feet and then dug up the ground and planted gladiolas.”

“He beat a woman for something like that?”

“Might not be the worst of it. This woman up and disappeared one night. That was a few months after the complaints. A thing like that, you figure people need to talk it out for themselves, maybe take it to small claims court instead of declaring war.”

“Do they think this Reynolds fellow done her in?”

“At first. They had the bloodhounds out and shoveled up some of her yard, thinking he might have buried her there out of spite. They checked out his crawl space, took him in for questioning, but he said he didn’t know nothing, sat there as cool as a ladybug in a cucumber patch. Six months later, when no body turned up, the detectives over there let the case slide. Apparently the family was happy to see her go, sold the property and split up the money. Wasn’t long after that old Peter Reynolds put his own house up for sale.”

“Along about April?”

“Yeah.”

Herman wiped a gummy speck of oatmeal from his lip. “Probably ain’t the same Peter Reynolds. Even a cornshuck place like Tennessee probably got dozens by that name. And license plates have been known to get stolen.”

“Funny, though. The detective I talked to remembered something Peter Reynolds repeated over and over while they questioned him.”

“What’s that?”

“Said, ‘She had no respect for another man’s property.’ Just like that. Said ‘had’ instead of ‘has,’ like he knew she was dead.”

“Yeah. Funny, ain’t it? I appreciate it, Bud. Send along my blessings to your folks.”

“Sure will. Take care, now.”

Herman hung up the phone and looked out the window at the hippie’s house. All the hippies he’d ever heard of were into that peace and love business. Somehow that didn’t square with murdering your neighbor. But neither did razor blades in your fence posts. Or a cat nabbed on a fishhook and buried at the foot of a tree.

Herman didn’t mess around with stalking the bushes that night. He went straight down Oakdale, into the hippie’s driveway, and up on the porch. He knocked hard enough for his knuckles to ache. The mutt started yapping behind the closed door.

The door opened a crack. Peter Reynolds gave a smile as if Herman were delivering a bouquet of flowers. “I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Weeks. Please come in.”

Herman’s anger took a left turn toward confusion. “Look here, I just come to talk about your fence.”

“I know. We’re neighbors. We need to talk these things out or else we’ll end up enemies. You know what the Good Book says.”

“You mean the Bible?” The mutt leaped forward and licked at Herman’s shoes. He looked down and saw dried oatmeal had formed white scabs on his trousers.

“It says to love thy neighbor.”

“It also says live and let live.”

“I hate to disagree since we’re trying to be friends, but that’s not written anywhere in the Bible. There’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but not a thing about live and let live.” Peter Reynolds opened the door wider. “Please come in. The neighbors might be watching.”

Herman took a long look behind him at the row of houses. They seemed too quiet, still, and dark. What if Peter Reynolds had been busy over the last day or two, and there were now a dozen mounds of raw earth at the foot of the backyard dogwood? Mrs. Breedlove’s legs tangled in the roots, the Pilkingtons with dirt in their lungs?

He stepped inside, surprised at how bright and neat the room was. He’d expected it to be dank and furnished with heavy vinyl pieces, the way it had been when Ned and Eileen lived here. But the hippie must have watched a few home improvement shows. The carpet was plush and the color of gunsmoke, the window treatments were light gray, and the trim was painted in white semi-gloss, giving the room the sort of forced order you’d expect in an FBI office or a doctor’s waiting room. A computer sat on a bleached oak desk, and the rest of the furniture was arranged around it. Herman peeked into the kitchen and didn’t see a single dirty dish.

“Have a seat,” Peter Reynolds said, motioning toward the couch. It looked like a regular-guy sort of couch, the kind where you could prop your feet on the arm rest and balance a bowl of chips on the back cushions, scratch your balls if you felt like it. Watch the Panthers whoop up on the 49ers. Except the hippie didn’t have a TV. All he had was the computer.

Herman sat, uncomfortable, wondering if dried mud filled the cracks on the bottoms of his shoes.

“You heard about Tennessee,” Peter Reynolds said.

“Did you kill her?”

“I’m surprised you’d ask something like that. I would have taken you for a man who minded his own business.”

“Did you bury her like you did the cat?”

“You should worry about your own problems instead of going around being suspicious of everybody.”

“I don’t have no problems.”

“That you’ll admit, anyway.”

“No worries nothing.”

“You’re old and alone and it’s slipping away. The last thing you have left to fight for is that patch of grass up there”-Peter Reynolds waved at the dark window in the direction of Herman’s house-“and a picket fence. And it’s getting harder to keep that fence standing straight, isn’t it? The winds keep coming, a little stronger every year, the snow leans on it, the neighborhood kids get a little bigger and bolder, and a fence starts looking like a dare instead of a warning. Yes, Mr. Weeks, I understand fences. I’m territorial myself.”

The hippie’s gray eyes, which were the same color as the carpet, seemed far too old. “All I want is a place to spread out, a yard for my dog to dig in, a roof over my head, and no barbarians at the gate.”

“Barbarians at the gate,” Herman repeated, as if he had the slightest idea what the hippie was going on about. He had a fleeting image of one of those old chariot movies, where the Romans were always punished because of nailing Jesus to the cross. You never saw John Wayne in a toga, that was for sure. Charlton Heston, maybe, but that was a different nut altogether.

“I’m a loner like you,” Peter Reynolds went on, standing across the room even though his guest was sitting. “I take care of what’s mine. That’s why I was so upset when I saw you had fixed my leaning fence post. It was an insult, you see.”

Herman could see that plain, now. At the time, he’d thought the hippie has bone lazy, without a stitch of pride. But the truth was the hippie was just like Herman, proud to the point of stubbornness. Ready to fight for home ground.

“I didn’t mean nothing,” Herman said. “But from where I come from, you set your fences straight.”

“I’m tired, Herman. I don’t mind burying a trespassing cat once in while.” The hippie gave Herman a look that said maybe cats weren’t all he’d buried. “But I don’t want to run anymore. Every time I think I’m settled in for good, that I’ve staked out a place to call my own, along comes some lousy neighbor to spoil it all.”

Herman didn’t want to think that he was spoiling anything for Peter Reynolds. Because the hippie’s left eyelid was twitching just a little.

“Well, I’m not running anymore. This time, I’m trying to recruit an ally. A good neighbor. A man who respects the property rights of others.”

“I’ve always been a good neighbor,” Herman said.

“You’ve got more to fight for than any of us do, since you’ve been here the longest.”

“I’ll fight to protect what’s mine. I registered for the draft, though I had the bad luck to come of age between Korea and Vietnam.”

“You don’t have to go overseas to find the enemy,” the hippie said, and those gray eyes had gone even darker, on toward charcoal. “The barbarians are right at the gate.”

Herman’s stomach was in knots and his bowels gurgled, scoured raw by fiber. He didn’t like the distant anger in the hippie’s voice. That was a murderer speaking, someone who could deprive another human being of the ultimate in property rights, the right to possess a living and breathing body. He flinched when the hippie spun and stormed toward the computer.

“It’s a technological age we live in, Herman,” Peter Reynolds said, tapping some keys. “All the public records are right here on the county Web site. Birth certificates, deaths, deeds, criminal charges, tax liens. And look here. Building applications.”

Herman squinted, trying to see around the hippie’s back, that long pony tail nearly down to his rump. From behind, wearing a dress, he could have passed for a girl. Assuming he shaved his legs. But he heard women didn’t hardly do that anymore. Barbarians at the gates was right.

“Next door,” the hippie said. “The Devereaux heirs have been busy.”

“The dentist’s boys?”

“Yes. They’ve sold the lot to an outfit out of Texas. Highland Builders LLC.”

“Damn. I knew that was going to be developed sooner or later. Wonder who the new neighbor is going to be?”

“Neighbors,” the hippie said. “Plural.”

“Do what?”

“Apartment complex. Six buildings. A hundred-and-fifty-two parking spaces. Legal occupancy of up to 122 unrelated persons.”

Herman dug a finger into his ear, as if wax buildup prevented his brain from accepting the words he’d just heard. “No way. You can’t fit that many people on such a little scrap of ground.”

“You must have missed the zoning hearings. This application says the property was zoned for multi-family back in the 1980s.”

“Oh, that. We didn’t go to none of those. We stayed away as a protest against zoning.”

“They zoned anyway.”

“Tarnation.”

“A foreign developer like that has absolutely no respect for the neighbors. Oakdale would be changed forever. For the worse.”

“I’ll say. How we going to keep all them people off our property?

“You know what they say. A good fence is the first line of defense.”

Herman wasn’t sure he liked the gleam in the hippie’s eyes. Those were Osama’s eyes, the look of a man who would just as soon bury you as nail up a “No Trespassing” sign. He thought of the fence post with its embedded razor, the barbed hook big enough to snag a cat. He wondered what sort of contraption the hippie could cook up to deal with a major invasion.

“I’ll bet they’ll put up crooked fence posts,” Herman said.

“No doubt. A Texas developer wouldn’t know the first thing about building in the mountains.”

“And those apartments will have kids.”

“Lots of kids,” the hippie agreed.

“Squalling, squabbling little yard monkeys who will wear a path in your grass deep enough to bury a mule.”

“Or bury a person.”

Herman looked at the window, at the dark, empty field. Fireflies blinked above the ragged vegetation. A crabapple tree swayed in the wind. Headlights cut twin yellow arcs across the small plot of land as a pizza delivery car cut into the neighborhood. Herman tried to picture the security lights, the view-wrecking walls, the cars crowded around the buildings. Four stories of noise and strangers. Bad neighbors.

The best way to stop bad neighbors was with good fences.

Fences like the hippie made.

“Want to see my shop?” Peter Reynolds said.

“You bet.”

Herman was sure it was full of sharp, shiny things and heavy, black hammers. He got up from the couch, feeling younger than he had in years. His heart, which usually beat in a tired and uneven rhythm, now burned with pride and a sense of duty. There was work to be done and fences to be mended. Herman, as old as he was, figured he could still learn a thing or two about handling property disputes. They could beat this problem together.

After all, what else were neighbors for?

Bud Millwood pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, something he’d probably seen in a detective movie somewhere. Herman let the door stand open, and though the October air was brisk, he didn’t invite the deputy in. Herman had nothing to hide, but a man’s home was private property and Bud was here as an officer of the law, not as a friend. Plus, his breakfast was getting cold, and nothing went down rougher than cold oatmeal.

“Find anything on that Reynolds fellow?” Herman asked.

“No. It’s been two months. We figure he knew the Tennessee law was closing in, so he cut out, started a new identity, maybe drifted to Canada or Mexico.”

“That kind, they don’t understand the value of setting down roots. They think they can just barge in any old where and call it ‘home,’ with no respect for what went on before.”

“Maybe so,” Bud said. “But he left a lot of his tools and clothes and furniture. Like he got up and drove off in the middle of the night.”

“How else do shiftless hippies know how to do it?” Herman looked past Bud to 107 Oakdale. A metal “For Sale” sign was stuck in the grass, its hinged metal face swinging in the faint breeze. Bud had explained the property wasn’t a crime scene anymore because there was no evidence of any crime. A new neighbor would be moving in soon, now that the bank had taken it over. There was no way such prime real estate would stay on the market for long, what with the mountains becoming such a desirable destination and all, like the Chamber of Commerce said.

“Hard to believe he killed a poor old woman over a property stob,” Bud said.

“Well, that’s Tennessee for you. And hippies.”

“The M.E. over there said she bled to death real slow. She might even have still been alive when he poured the cement over her.”

Cement. Herman looked over at the Devereaux property, the site of the new apartment complex. Those Texas developers hadn’t wasted any time, they’d moved in the backhoes and bulldozers and already a cement mixer was maneuvering to pour the oversize footers, beeping as it backed up, its gray sluice chute extended.

“So, you sure you didn’t see nothing?” Bud’s mouth was tucked in tight at the corners, but Herman stared straight into his own reflection doubled back in Bud’s sunglasses.

“I’m a big fan of this Community Watch program, but even neighbors can’t keep track of every little thing that goes on. Crosses the line into nosiness.”

“Reckon so.”

“It’s just as well,” Herman said. “That fellow didn’t have any sense of pride nor place. Just look at that fence post up yonder, leaning like a Thursday drunk.”

Bud looked at the fence at 107 Oakdale, then at the construction site. “Going to get real crowded around here soon.”

“They call it ‘progress,’ I reckon.”

“Well, let me know if you remember anything. I got to get on to the real cases, not make garbage runs for Tennessee.” Bud started to the sidewalk, back to the white picket gate and his patrol car.

“Don’t lose no sleep over him,” Herman called after Bud, over the rumble of the earth machines. “To run out on a mortgage like that, and to leave the place in such a mess, it goes to show he had no respect.”

Bud stopped at the gate. “You said ‘had,’ Herman. Past tense.”

“He’s past tense to me. We don’t need people like that around, them who think their way is the only way.”

Bud nodded and lifted his hand in a half-wave, then climbed into his cruiser and eased up the street.

The red-headed girl passed in the other lane on her bicycle, the shaggy mutt running down the street after her, barking and snapping at the bike’s rear tire. That dog wasn’t as bad as its former master. At least the dog had a sense of territory. And it kept its bones buried.

Herman looked once more at the construction site, the men in their hard hats milling around the loud machines. The cement would be hard by sundown. New neighbors on the way. More barbarians at the gate. But, for now, the fences were mended and order restored.

He went into his garage to clean his tools.