Walk With Me

Prologue

Tommy Sallow
Oakwood, NY

Another day, another house call.

I was almost done. I'm talking, twenty minutes left on this shift, just to have a neighbor not be able to mind her own fucking business.

That's a fucked up thing to say, I know. I'm just tired. I was ready to go home.

Pulling up to the address on Fairview, I cut the engine and take a glance around the property. It's a cute, little brick number, similar to most of the houses on this street. Small yard, the grass dingy and brown under January's dismal chill but it somehow still looks better than any other yard on the street.

As usual, my eyes are drawn to the porch. It's happens like a reflex, my instinctive way of preparing myself for what's behind the front door.

Sometimes, the whole damn vibe of a neighborhood will tell you exactly what you need to know before you walk into something. Other times, it's not that easy. Abuse doesn't exactly have an M.O.

But you can tell a lot about a domestic violence call before you even knock on the door if you just take a good look at the front porch. I've always been good at reading people, which comes in handy in these situations. But after spending a decade on the force, I've also learned a few interesting things about their front porches, that personal space you step onto before entering their home.

Messy porches say things. So do clean ones. They just say different things.

Pristine, almost posed furniture sits on this one. I can tell from all the way back here on the street that no one has sat up there and enjoyed a single cup of coffee and conversation. The setup is too stuffy and perfect to possibly be enjoyed and that makes me sad. My mom has always said that front porches are for warm beverages and long talks about nothing in particular.

A sharp knock at the driver's side window pulls my attention. A middle aged woman in a bathrobe is standing there, her body shimmying anxiously back and forth with an expectant look on her face. She backs out of the way as I open the door.

"Are you here to check on the Hill family?" Her voice comes out in a whisper yell as though she's afraid someone will hear her. But honestly, she's about as stealthy as a five year old trying to stay quiet in church.

"I believe I am. Are you the one who called it in?"

She nods her head frantically. "I'm Eloise, the next door neighbor. I didn't know what to do. I've heard them argue before. They argue all the time but this one sounded bad, you didn't hear that from me though." Her eyebrows shoot upward as she gives me a worried, keep that to yourself buddy look before rambling on again. "I think I heard something break and the baby was crying. She just had her a few weeks ago and I was worried. It's been quiet now since I called but you never know."

I give her a reassuring nod. "Where do you live, ma'am?"

"Just there," she says, pointing to the right of the house in question. They're smacked up close to each other so it's no surprise to me that she hears things. I try to stay objective in these situations and not entertain gossip but the truth is, more often than not, the nosy neighbors are typically the place where you find the most truth.

Just ask the lady who lived next door to my childhood home. Her name was Mrs. Goodwin and she could probably give you a full analysis of my family, right down to what our messy porch said on those noisy nights when I herded my little sisters outside with coloring books and crayons to escape the fray.

If you talked to the parents inside the house, all you would hear was lies.

And so... I dig a little, try to find out just how much Eloise, the nosy neighbor, knows. "You said they argue a lot? What's a lot?"