She steps back out onto the porch, and a second later he joins her, closing the door behind him as much as he can with the cord in the way.
“Sorry,” he says, smiling. “I’m just trying to clean up some water. The storm made a mess of things last night.”
“I know,” she says. “That’s why I’m here.”
“You’ve got a leak, too?” he asks, his voice so innocent and naive that she momentarily feels bad for what she’s about to say to him.
“No,” she says. “The leak is coming from your side of the roof.”
“How do you know?”
Her patience snaps.
“My roof is practically new, Roy. Yours is the one missing shingles. Anyone walking by the house can take one look at your roof and know it’s going to leak.”
Roy looks up as if he can see through the porch ceiling, with an expression on his face as if it’s never occurred to him to work on the roof. Ann’s frustration with Roy has been brewing for a long time, and she decides not to hold back now.
It’s time to give him a piece of her mind.
“Roy,” she says, “the roof is the first thing you should be working on. You’re spending all this time ripping out water-damaged wood inside. Well, where do you think the water is coming from?”
“It’s not all coming from the roof,” Roy says. “Some of it’s coming through the walls, too.”
Ann stares at him, dumbfounded. So fix that, too! she wants to shout.
Instead, she says, as calmly as she can manage, “Look, I know you want to do all these repairs yourself, but you need to hire some help. I have the number of a good roofer. Get someone to fix your roof right away. Then you can take your time doing whatever it is you’re doing inside.”
“Take my time?” he says, giving her a sharp look. “I’m sorry if I’m not moving fast enough for you.”
Ann ignores the comment.
“I’ll get you my guy’s number,” she says. “He can probably come over today, put some tarps up there to stop the worst of it, and then reroof the whole house as soon as the weather breaks. It’s going to rain again tonight, you know.”
“I’ve got some tarps,” Roy says. “I’ll go up there and do some triage.”
“Do you have a ladder that can get you on the roof?” Ann asks, astounded that she feels the need to ask such a question of someone who claims to be a contractor.
“It might reach,” he says, stepping to the edge of the porch and looking from the grass to the porch roof.
“Roy,” she says, stepping out into the yard and pointing toward the roof. “The leak is on the second floor. You need a ladder to get up there.”
“I know, Ann. I’m not stupid.”
He steps out into the yard with her, looks up at the second story of their row house.
“I’ll take care of it, okay?” With that, he stomps up the porch steps.
“Thank you,” she says, trying to sound genuine but sure she’s coming across as pushy.
As Roy steps into his place, he tries to slam the door behind him, but the door won’t close because of the extension cord in the way. It bounces back open and he grunts in frustration, trying to force the door shut, but again, the cord won’t let it latch.
Finally, he storms away, leaving the door hanging open a few inches.
CHAPTER 10
NOT LONG AFTER, ANN sees that Roy’s truck is gone. She assumes he’s headed to the hardware store to purchase an extension ladder and some tarps. She tries to play her piano, but she can’t concentrate. She paces, checking and rechecking the front window for any sign of Roy.
Three hours go by, and still there’s no sign of her neighbor.
The clouds in the sky start to darken again, building toward another storm. The forecasters are predicting another gully washer.
Ann has the sinking suspicion that Roy isn’t going to return. She paces the house, unsure what to do. Then she gets an idea—two, in fact.
First, she picks up her cordless phone and takes it to her office. She looks through her file folder with all the receipts and invoices from the work she had done on her house, and dials the roofer who installed her roof. She explains who she is, reminds him that he did her roof, and explains that she has a leak.
“I don’t think it’s my roof,” she assures him. “I think it’s coming from my neighbor’s. I just want you to come over and check it out to make sure.”
She wants to have documentation from a professional showing that the problem isn’t on her side.
The roofer says he doesn’t mind checking, since he wants to ensure she’s happy with the work he did on her roof, but it’ll be a few days before he can make it over—his plate is full after last night’s storm.
Ann agrees, and after she hangs up, she puts her second idea into effect.
She goes into the storage closet in her office and roots around. A minute later, she pulls out her Canon camera. She hasn’t used it in a while and is worried she doesn’t have any film, but she checks and finds one roll. She’ll have to buy more if this problem with Roy continues, but one roll should be enough for what she has in mind today.
She steps outside and begins snapping photos of the trash filling Roy’s yard, and the broken, boarded-up windows. She crosses the street to get a photo of the entire property. She tries to zoom in on the roof on Roy’s side, but she’s not shooting from the best vantage point. She goes inside and calls a neighbor, Phil, whose property backs up against theirs.
“I know this sounds like a weird request,” she says, “but can I take a photo from your second-story window?”
When she explains what she’s doing, Phil says, “Be my guest. I’m tired of looking at that dump. I can’t tell if it’s a house or a landfill.”
From Phil’s bedroom window, she has a good angle on the roof, both her side and Roy’s. She takes plenty of photos, but she makes sure to leave a few frames on the roll.
She stays for a few minutes to chat with Phil, but when she notices raindrops starting to fall onto the sidewalk, she hurries home. The sprinkling turns heavier, and soon after she gets in the door, the sky opens up and unleashes another deluge onto Pittsburgh.
Ann watches from her front window as the rain pours down.
There’s still no sign of Roy.
Tonight, she’s prepared. She takes a pan upstairs, positions it back in the spot where she had it last night. An hour later, the ping, ping, ping of water begins to sing through the room.
The ceiling plaster has turned a shade of gray from the saturation.
Ann points her camera at the wet spot.
Click.
Part 2
CHAPTER 11
October 1996
REBECCA PORTMAN WALKS DOWN Lawn Street to Roy Kirk’s residence—not the property next to Ann Hoover’s house, the place down the street where he actually lives. She is a petite woman in her early thirties, with curly brown hair and freckles on her nose and cheeks. She wears a black trench coat and carries an umbrella to shield her from the rain that’s just begun.
It’s dusk, and the sky is full of black, menacing clouds. The light rain she’s walking through is only the beginning—a real storm is only minutes, if not seconds, away.