Chapter 4: The Woman at the End of the Street
Her name was Patricia, and she lived in the gray house at the far end of the block — the one with the rose bushes along the fence that she tended every spring without fail.
I had her number from the neighborhood directory.
We'd waved to each other for years.
We had never sat down together.
She answered on the second ring.
"Patricia, this is Carol.
From the middle of the street — the blue house."
"Oh, Carol.
Of course.
Is everything all right?"
"I'm calling because I'm putting together some information about Denise.
About things she's borrowed from neighbors.
I wanted to ask if she'd ever approached you."
The silence that followed was longer than Linda's had been.
"Patricia?"
"Yes.
She did." Another pause.
"Carol, can I ask — why are you doing this now?"
I told her about the mixer.
About the post in the neighborhood group.
About the repair estimate.
When I finished, Patricia said quietly, "She told me you gave it to her as a gift.
She said you two had talked it over and you wanted her to have it."
My grip tightened on the phone.
"She said that to you directly?"
"Last Sunday.
I ran into her at the end of the driveway.
She was carrying it back to her house and I asked about it because I recognized it — I'd seen it through your kitchen window when you had the back door open last summer.
She said you'd offered it because you were thinking of getting a newer model."
"I wasn't."
"I know that now." Patricia's voice had gone careful and soft.
"Carol, I owe you an apology.
I believed her.
I didn't think to question it."
"You had no reason to."
"I should have." She stopped.
"Can I tell you what she borrowed from me?"
"Please."
"My good pruning shears.
The Felcos — the red-handled ones.
My husband gave them to me for our anniversary twelve years ago.
She asked to borrow them last October, said she had one rose bush that needed cutting back.
I said yes." Patricia paused.
"She returned a pair of shears in April.
They weren't mine."
"How do you know?"
"Mine had a small chip in the left handle.
My husband dropped them on the patio once.
The chip was always there.
The ones she returned were clean.
No chip.
Different weight entirely."
I wrote it down.
"Did you say anything to her?"
"I said, 'Denise, I don't think these are mine.' And she said, 'Patricia, I only borrowed them for one afternoon.
I wouldn't mix them up.' And she walked away." A beat.
"I've been looking at those wrong shears every time I go into the garden for eight months."
I put my pen down.
"Would you be willing to write that down?
What you just told me?
Dates, what she said, what came back?"
"Yes," Patricia said.
Without hesitation.
"Yes, I would."
We talked for another twenty minutes.
By the end of it, Patricia had agreed to speak to two other women on the street — neighbors she knew better than I did — and ask them quietly if they'd had similar experiences with Denise.
"There's one more thing," Patricia said, just before we hung up.
"What's that?"
"Her sister visited last month.
I spoke to her briefly over the fence.
She mentioned — and I didn't think much of it at the time — she mentioned that Denise does this wherever she lives.
That's why she moved here from the other side of town.
Something happened with a neighbor over there.
She didn't say what."
I sat with that for a moment.
"Thank you, Patricia."
"Carol." Her voice was firm and kind at once.
"Whatever you're planning — I hope it works."
I added her statement to the folder.
Then I sat back and looked at what I had.
A repair estimate.
Photographs.
A handwritten account of substituted shears.
A pattern that had followed Denise from one neighborhood to the next.
And somewhere on the other side of town, a neighbor who already knew what I was only beginning to understand.
I picked up my phone and opened the neighborhood group.
Denise's post was still there.
Fourteen comments.
*It was a gift.
I'm very lucky.*
I didn't comment.
May you like
Not yet.
I had one more call to make first — and this one wasn't to a neighbor.
