Ruffly Speaking

ones killed by deer. “I’m not sure, but I think maybe it uses sound. Would Miss Savery... Steve, are there even any gophers in Cambridge?”
    “Not in my practice.”
    “Seriously.”
    “No. The only animal around here that’s going to do any real damage to lawns is a skunk. They dig. But that’s not what’s going on. Those pest repellers run constantly, or they’re on a fixed schedule. Ruffly’s only reacting every once in a while. Whatever the device is, it’s malfunctioning and going off by itself every now and then, or something’s triggering it. Barking. Someone pressing a button. Something.”
    “I didn’t think of that.” I shook my head. “But speaking of Miss Savery, I have wondered whether she might’ve noticed something. She must spend half her life outside in the yard, plus she’s paranoid about kids touching her precious fence or running through her yard.”
    “Phobic,” Rita said.
    “Phobic. So if someone’s been sneaking around Stephanie’s using a Yap Zapper or something, it’s not likely to have escaped Miss Savery.”
    “Someone like that’s going to be the first person to call the cops,” Steve said. “She isn’t going to keep it to herself.”
    “Not necessarily,” said Rita, trotting along breathlessly.
    “Miss Savery calls them all the time,” I said as we rounded the corner and started up Highland. “Kevin told ro e about her. She calls them about everything. So, damn, if she has called about someone hanging around Stephanie’s house, they wouldn’t’ve paid any attention, because she’s cried wolf a million times. I should’ve asked Kevin to find out if she’d made any recent calls about anyone lurking around. Those nine-one-one calls are recorded. He ought to be able to look it up.” As I talked, I found myself scanning the lush green yards. No matter how hard I stared, ultrasound wouldn’t become visible, and a neighbor with a powerful, wide-range anti-bark machine wasn’t apt to set it on a pedestal like a sundial or a birdbath. I looked, anyway.
    “But even if she has called, what’s that going to mean?” Rita gripped the bottle of wine. “It’s going to mean that she called because she saw, (a) something that was there or (b) something she imagined was there, so—”
    “Good point,” Steve said.
    “Damn!” I said softly.
    “What?” Rita asked.
    “Damn!”
    “I heard you, I just—”
    I caught Rita’s eye, dipped my head, and stared pointedly. “That," I said, “is Alice Savery, the grayhaired woman in the khaki dress, and she’s coming straight down her front walk. Damn it, it never occurred to me, but it would be just like Stephanie to feel sorry for her and invite her tonight. She is the nastiest woman. If you didn’t go to Harvard, she treats you like a dog that just messed on her rug, and she doesn’t even like—”
    “Class,” Rita muttered, “the issue of the decade. She Probably has a social mode that she switches into for occasions like this. Little anecdotes about her brother, that kind of thing.”
    “Right,” I said sourly. “She’ll keep us in stitches. If we have to spend an entire evening—”
    “We don’t,” Steve said. “She’s carrying a trowel and a bucket. She’s weeding.”
    After marching down her front walk and peering up and down Highland Street without giving me even a nod of acknowledgment, Alice Savery headed back into her yard and then fell to her knees before a bed of what I thought were King Arthur delphiniums, the tall purple ones with little bits of white in the middle of the blossoms, white bees. Relieved as I was to be spared Alice Savery’s condescension, something in the bend of her wiry spine and the sharp angle of her elbow aroused my sympathy. Cultivating the soil around her delphiniums, Alice Savery couldn’t fail to see the arrival of guests next door. Alone with her flowers, she’d hear the greetings and the small talk, and, later, in her gracious, shabby house, the windows open to let in the night air, she’d have to smell the food cooking and listen to the ring of our wine bottles on the rims of glasses, the clatter of plates and silverware, the sounds of the party amplified by her own exclusion.
     

30
     
     If I’d been allowed to choose my own spot on the deck, I’d have plunked myself down between Steve Delaney and the platter of jumbo shrimp. Stephanie, alas, was the kind of organized hostess who graciously prevents a guest from committing such