Chapter 4: The Woman Who Had Been Watching
I stepped away from the table.
Cara watched me from her chair but didn't follow.
"Yes," I said into the phone.
"Who is this?"
"My name is Paulette.
I live two streets over, on Fenwick.
I know Denise — not well, but enough." A pause.
"I heard about your mixer.
I wanted to call you because I think you should know you're not the first."
I walked to the window.
Outside, Denise's porch light was on, casting a yellow square onto the driveway.
"Tell me," I said.
Paulette took a breath.
"Two years ago she borrowed my husband's pressure washer.
This was before he passed.
When it came back, the trigger mechanism was cracked — not broken all the way through, but cracked.
He noticed right away.
When he mentioned it to her, she told him it was like that when she got it." Another pause.
"It wasn't."
"No," I said.
"I imagine it wasn't."
"He let it go because he didn't want trouble.
He was that kind of man." Her voice shifted slightly, just for a moment.
"After he passed, I found out she'd borrowed the same washer from my neighbor on the other side — Greta — without asking me.
She just went and asked Greta if she could borrow the one from my garage.
Greta didn't know it wasn't Greta's to lend."
I turned away from the window.
"How did you hear about my mixer?"
"Greta told me.
She heard it from someone at the pharmacy.
Apparently Denise mentioned it herself — said her neighbor's old machine broke down in the middle of her dinner party and it was embarrassing for everyone."
I stood very still.
"She said that."
"Word for word, according to Greta.
She made it sound like the machine failed you.
Like you'd sent her something unreliable."
I heard Cara push her chair back in the kitchen.
She appeared in the doorway, reading my face.
"Paulette," I said.
"Would you be willing to put what you just told me in writing?
Not for anything legal.
Just a statement of what you experienced and what you heard."
A pause.
Longer this time.
"Yes," she said.
"I think I would.
Greta might too.
She's been wanting to say something for a while."
"Can I call you back tomorrow?"
"You can.
I'll give you my number."
I wrote it on the back of the repair shop receipt.
When I hung up, Cara was standing two feet away.
"Who was that?"
"A woman named Paulette.
Two streets over." I looked at the receipt in my hand — the repair estimate on one side, Paulette's number on the other.
"Denise has been doing this for years.
And when things break, she tells people the things were already broken."
Cara's jaw tightened.
"She's been saying that about the mixer?"
"That the machine failed her.
That it was unreliable.
That it broke down in the middle of her party."
"Mom."
"I know."
Cara looked at the number on the receipt.
"So now you have a witness."
"I have two.
Possibly."
"What are you going to do with them?"
I set the receipt down on the counter, repair estimate facing up.
"First I'm going to wait until Thursday," I said.
"See what condition the carpet cleaner comes back in.
And then I'm going to write everything down — the mixer, the carpet cleaner, Paulette's account, Greta's account — and I'm going to deliver it to Denise in a way she can't laugh off."
Cara looked at me for a long moment.
"You're going to make it formal."
"I'm going to make it impossible to ignore."
She nodded.
Then, quietly: "She's going to say you're overreacting."
"She's going to say a lot of things," I said.
"She always does.
But this time I'll have everything written down, and she'll have to respond to facts instead of just talking over me."
Thursday came.
No carpet cleaner on the porch.
Friday morning, still nothing.
No text.
No knock.
No word from Denise at all.
I sent one more message.
Short.
Factual.
*Denise.
The carpet cleaner was due back Thursday.
It's now Friday morning.
Please return it today.*
She read it.
The two small checkmarks appeared.
She didn't reply.
By Friday afternoon I was standing in my kitchen looking at the notepad, the receipt, and Paulette's number, and I was thinking about the phone call I had told Cara I would make.
Not to Paulette.
Not to Greta.
To someone else entirely.
I picked up my phone.
Found the number.
Pressed call.
It rang twice.
May you like
"Alderton Road Residents Association," said the woman on the other end.
"This is Sandra."
