T Is for Trespass

liberated from their respective company tills. Bank and mortgage frauds were down, and the telemarketing scamsters were listless and uninterested. Even divorcing spouses didn’t seem to be in a battling mood, sensing perhaps that hostilities could just as easily carry over into spring. I continued to do the usual paper searches at the hall of records, but I wasn’t being called upon to do much else. However, since lawsuits are always a popular form of indoor sport, I was kept busy working as a process server, for which I was registered and bonded in Santa Teresa County. The job put a lot of miles on my car, but the work wasn’t taxing and netted me sufficient money to pay my bills. The lull wouldn’t last long, but there was no way I could have seen what was coming.
    At 8:30 that Monday morning, December 7, I picked up my shoulder bag, my blazer, and my car keys, and headed out the door on my way to work. I’d been skipping my habitual three-mile jog, unwilling to stir myself to exercise in the predawn dark. Given the coziness of my bed, I didn’t even feel guilty. As I passed through the gate, the comforting squeak of the hinges was undercut by a brief wail. At first I thought cat, dog, baby, TV . None of the possibilities quite captured the cry. I paused, listening, but all I heard were ordinary traffic noises. I moved on and I’d just reached my car when I heard the wailing again. I reversed my steps, pushed through the gate, and headed for the backyard. I’d just rounded the corner when my landlord appeared. Henry’s eighty-seven years old and owns the house to which my studio apartment is attached. His consternation was clear. “What was that? ”
    “Beats me. I heard it just now as I was going out the gate.”
    We stood there, our ears attuned to the usual sounds of morning in the neighborhood. For one full minute, there was nothing, and then it started up again. I tilted my head like a pup, pricking my ears as I tried to pinpoint the origin, which I knew was close by.
    “Gus?” I asked.
    “Possibly. Hang on a sec. I have a key to his place.”
    While Henry returned to the kitchen in search of the key, I covered the few steps between his property and the house next door, where Gus Vronsky lived. Like Henry, Gus was in his late eighties, but where Henry was sharp, Gus was abrasive. He enjoyed a well-earned reputation as the neighborhood crank, the kind of guy who called the police if he thought your TV was too loud or your grass was too long. He called Animal Control to report barking dogs, stray dogs, and dogs that went doo-doo in his yard. He called the City to make sure permits had been issued for minor construction projects: fences, patios, replacement windows, roof repairs. He suspected most things you did were illegal and he was there to set you straight. I’m not sure he cared about the rules and regulations as much as he liked kicking up a fuss. And if, in the process, he could set you against your neighbor, all the better for him. His enthusiasm for causing trouble was probably what had kept him alive for so long. I’d never had a run-in with him myself, but I’d heard plenty. Henry tolerated the man even though he’d been subjected to annoying phone calls on more than one occasion.
    In the seven years I’d lived next door to Gus, I’d watched age bend him almost to the breaking point. He’d been tall once upon a time, but now he was round-shouldered and sunken-chested, his back forming a C as though an unseen chain bound his neck to a ball that he dragged between his legs. All this flashed through my mind in the time it took Henry to return with a set of house keys in hand.
    Together we crossed Gus’s lawn and climbed the steps to his porch. Henry rapped on the glass pane in the front door. “Gus? Are you okay?”
    This time the moaning was distinct. Henry unlocked the door and we went into the house. The last time I’d seen Gus, probably three weeks before, he was standing in his yard, berating two nine-year-old boys for practicing their ollies in the street outside his house. True, the skateboards were noisy, but I thought their patience and dexterity were remarkable. I also thought their energies were better spent mastering kick-flips than soaping windows or knocking over trash cans, which is how boys had entertained themselves in my day.
    I caught sight of Gus a half second after Henry did. The old man had fallen. He lay on his right side, his face a pasty white. He’d