Neighborhood Watch Read Free Page A

meeting?”
    Philip nodded.
    “Yeah, but it’s a battle,” he said. “Why is it we have to convince people, punish people, so they will do what’s only good for themselves?”
    “I don’t know, Philip,” Marilyn said. “But if there’s anyone who can get them to do the right things, it’s you.”
    He gazed at her askance for a moment, not quite sure she had meant it as a compliment.
    Then he shook off the doubts and went to have some coffee.
    1
    “OH, THIS IS WONDERFUL!” Kristin Morris exclaimed the moment she, Teddy, and
    their five-year-old daughter, Jennifer, stepped through the front door onto the travertine marble entryway. From there, there were three steps down to the enormous sunken living room. The room was practically as big as their entire apartment in Commack. There was a white marble fireplace against the far wall, not to mention all of the upscale furniture and expensive wall hangings. Teddy tugged on his daughter’s hand, and he and she
    stepped back as if they had inadvertently entered the wrong house.
    “This is . . . er . . . this has got to be beyond our budget,” he said. Michele Lancaster, their forty-two-year-old real estate agent, smiled, revealing thousands of dollars of orthodontic work. Being fifteen or so pounds overweight, she attempted to hide her
    midriff bulge by wearing a very loose fitting one-piece with a billowing skirt. She wore a soft white leather jacket and dangling pearl shell earrings. Not a strand of her dark brown hair was out of place. Teddy thought it resembled a helmet.
    “It isn’t,” she said. She leaned toward him to deliver a secret. “In fact, I’m sure we can get it for a price that will keep the mortgage payments in your budget.”
    “How can that be?” Teddy asked, looking around again as if his first glimpse had fooled him.
    Michele didn’t respond. She simply held her smile. Looking over the elaborate artificial flower display in the flower box in front of him, Teddy could see a woman, presumably the present owner’s wife, sitting at a breakfast table with her back to them. She was gazing out of the French doors, her attention so concentrated on something amid the gardens and fountains that she didn’t hear them enter or even hear their conversation now.
    Teddy shifted his blue flecked green eyes toward Kristin. His twenty-nine-year-old wife widened her brown eyes and shrugged. She brushed her light brown hair over her right shoulder in a swift, graceful motion. Although it was a rather warm late-April day, she wore a white cable knit sweater over her dark brown slacks because she felt she looked like she was in her eighth month, instead of her fourth. It did no good for Teddy to swear that no one could tell she was pregnant simply by looking at her.
    “I wouldn’t have any problem finding a place for my piano in here,” Kristin commented.
    “No kidding,” Teddy said. “You could fit an orchestra in here.”
    “What’s an orchestra, Daddy?” Jennifer asked.
    “A whole group of people playing different musical instruments,” he explained patiently.
    He smiled at Michele. “She’s up to two hundred and fifty questions an hour.”
    “Adorable,” Michele said smiling and nodding at Jennifer. “And a wonderful place to bring up children,” she added widening her eyes.
    Kristin looked at Teddy with an I-told-you-so expression. He closed his eyes with a silly grin.
    “Right this way,” Michele said, and led them down the steps and into the living room.
    Still reluctant, Teddy closed the dark oak door behind them and shook his head. They had driven nearly three hours from Long Island to this housing development in the Mid-Hudson Valley, and they had to drive the three hours back. There really wasn’t all that much time to waste.
    “That is a working wood-burning fireplace with a gas starter,” Michele explained as she took them over the thick beige Berber carpet. The carpet was so plush, the real estate woman’s two-inch heels