P Is for Peril

the tank. Once I peed and flushed, I checked the medicine cabinet and sorted through his dirty clothes basket.
    When I got back to the main room, Leila had sunk into that hypnotic state television generates. The A-frame was getting dark. I turned on some lights. Since she was paying absolutely no attention, I took advantage of the moment to search the desktop and the contents of the drawers. Most seemed to be filled with the other fellow's junk. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I simply couldn't resist the urge to stick my nose in where it didn't belong. I sifted through a handful of Lloyd's bills, all overdue. Restlessly, I moved into the kitchen. The refrigerator didn't yield much, but the pantry turned out to be better stocked than mine. Dried pasta, jars of sauce, canned soups, condiments, peanut butter, the strange orange macaroni and cheese in a box that only kids and dogs will eat. I was bored and getting hungry.
    I moved across the great room and climbed the stairs to the loft, peering over the rail. Below I could see Leila, still engrossed in the flickering images on the screen. I couldn't believe she was leaving me to snoop at will. Lloyd's bed was unmade. On the bed table there was a framed eight-by-ten photograph of Lloyd and Leila. I picked it up and studied it. The picture must have been taken at a birthday celebration. The two were sitting at a kitchen table, a wobbly-looking chocolate cake festooned with candles in front of them. Lloyd and Leila had leaned their heads close together, grinning and clowning for the photographer. Lloyd's right ear was pierced. A newly opened package was visible and Lloyd was holding one of a pair of earrings to his ear-a tiny dangling gold skull and crossbones-apparently a gift from her. Hard to tell how long ago this was; sometime within the past year, judging from her hair.
    A check of the dresser drawers revealed nothing except a wide array of flashy-looking boxer shorts. I turned and surveyed the area. There was a telescope on a tripod standing by the window and that interested me. I crossed and studied the view with my naked eye at first, orienting myself to my surroundings. This was not a neighborhood I knew and I had no idea what Lloyd could see from here. Startled, I realized his current digs were located just across the reservoir from Fiona Purcell. Through the haze of mist and rain, I could see the barren outline of her house, jutting out from the far hill like a fortress. Lloyd's view was toward the mountains while Fiona's view stretched in the opposite direction taking in the ocean and the islands twenty-six miles out. I bent to the eyepiece on the telescope and squinted through the lens. Everything was black. I removed the lens cap, which improved the visibility, though at first, all I saw was the surface of my own eye. The landscape was reduced to a big yawning blur: objects distorted by the magnification.
    I lifted my face and found the focus mechanism, then peered through the lens again and adjusted the knob. Abruptly, the far shore came into sharp relief. I could see the scarring on a boulder standing out in such sharp contrast it looked as if it rested just a foot away from me. The water in the reservoir was ragged where the raindrops hit. The sky was reflected in hammered silver on its surface. I caught movement to the right and shifted my view a hair.
    There was Trudy, the German shepherd, barking at a stick-one of those brainless behaviors dogs seem to thrive on. I could see her mouth open and shut like a doggie hand puppet. The enthusiasm of her barking caused her whole body to shake, but the sound was reduced by the window glass to the faintest report. Her legs and feet were muddy and I could clearly see the raindrops beading on her coat. Behind her, a wide path through the undergrowth had been flattened and I could see white where a line of saplings had been snapped off at ground level. Maybe a boat trailer had been backed down close to the water's edge to launch an outboard. Faintly, I heard Trudy's owner whistle and then her barely audible call. "Trudy! Truuudy!"
    Trudy looked over her shoulder with regret, torn between her current obsession and her need to obey. Obedience won out. She went bounding up the hillside and disappeared over the crest. I lifted my sights to Fiona's house, where the lights were winking on in sequence, probably on timers. I zoomed in on her bedroom window, but there was no sign of movement. Odd that she