“Anyway, he was holding this pry bar thing, which is pretty sinister-looking, and behind him, his whole room was coated in plastic.”
“Come again?”
“Yes. The entire living room, in plastic. It’s like—it’s like what criminals put up when they’re planning on getting rid of a body.”
“Okay, you are seriously going too far with this criminal thing,” Leanne interjects. “I keep telling you that when you fill your mind up with all that murder mystery garbage and true crime, you’re going to start seeing it everywhere. This isn’t research for your writing. The guy was probably just trying to work on a project.”
“By putting plastic up all over his living room?” I reply incredulously. I take another sip of coffee and wince at the bitterness. It could really use cream to cut it down, but I’m sure the carton in the fridge went bad a few days ago, and I still haven’t dumped it down the sink. The brew might be bad, but it would be worse if I added sour gloppy-looking yogurt-like stuff to it.
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a little weird.” Leanne sighs. She sounds exhausted and done. With me.
“Only a true asshole, one who is hiding something, would refuse to come over and help someone deal with a spider. It’s just not right. He isn’t neighborly.”
“You’re a complete stranger. You went over to his house in the middle of the night, raving like a crazy person about spiders. You probably scared him.”
“Very funny,” I hiss.
“It wasn’t supposed to be.” There’s a shuffling sound on the other end, something muffled, then a door creaking, and then water running. Except, I know it’s not water running.
“Are you seriously taking a pee right now while you’re on the phone with me?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Leanne sounds offended. “You called and woke me up. I had to go!”
“I’m trying to tell you something serious here, and you go to the bathroom!”
“I’m done now,” she informs me, clearly annoyed. I hear more muffling and shuffling noises and then a sigh. “Okay, I’m back in the bedroom. Go ahead. Give me your crazy theory.”
“I just think the guy is weird. He’s totally off. Who wraps their living room in plastic? Who never leaves the house? Who always goes out wearing a hoodie, a hat, and sunglasses like they don’t want anyone to recognize them? Who stays awake all night? Who—who won’t freaking help someone with a spider problem for like, two minutes?”
Leanne kindly doesn’t go over the whole I’m a stranger and probably appeared totally crazy thing again. Instead, she sighs hard into the phone to make sure I know what she thinks about all this ranting first thing in the morning. I’ve had six cups of coffee. I realize Leanne hasn’t had any, but seriously, if she phoned me to tell me about a harrowing middle of the night experience and a crazy dude who is quite possibly chopping people up in his living room, I’d be a little more interested and a heck of a lot less skeptical.
I think.
“Well, if he’s doing something sketchy in there, then you need proof,” Leanne surprises me by saying. “Like, hard evidence. You can’t call the cops or go to the police in secret or to anyone with just a theory about plastic in a living room. You need to take things seriously. Install some cameras pointed at this house. Keep an eye on things. Maybe even dig through his trash for evidence. I don’t know. I doubt there’s anything to worry about, but if you think there is, then you need to be more careful.”
“If I think there is?”
“You know you kind of tend to have an overactive imagination. Real-life isn’t like the stories you write.”
“I know that!” I can’t keep the hurt out of my voice.
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” Leanne says, a new edge to her tone. “Seriously, I’m just saying that sometimes things have a logical explanation.”
“And sometimes they don’t.”
“And sometimes they do.”
“And sometimes they don’t.”
“Lu-Anne!” Leanne snaps. “We’re not five years old here. If you think something’s up, you need evidence. And you need to be careful. Don’t go outside after dark. Don’t ever go over there again. Cameras. That’s your best bet. Please be safe. Use your head. You shouldn’t go marching over to the house of someone you don’t even know in the middle of the night. You’re lucky you weren’t chopped up.”
“I’m sure he only chops up people who cross him.” I don’t dare go into my mob/underworld theory with Leanne. She doesn’t have the patience for it at the moment. Maybe I shouldn’t have called to wake her up, but I just couldn’t wait. She’s lucky she didn’t get a call at four in the morning when I was seriously freaking out and having a meltdown. No, I waited until I calmed down.