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17514 Quail Court

   Steve Shelley wasn't much of a man.  He beat his wife, exposed himself to the female neighbors , and drank like a fish.  Oh, and did I mention that his idol had become the sadist across the street?  So it was a sad day for Steve the morning he stepped out of his two-story traditional house, walked down his recently pressure-washed driveway, bent over to retrieve his newspaper, and upon looking up found himself staring into the vacant eyes of his hero.

   Mick Papper sat cross-legged in the flower bed between the two topiary trees that framed his front picture window like bookends.  Dressed in a clean white T-shirt, orange suspenders, khaki shorts long enough to shroud his kneecaps, and white gardening gloves, his attire culminated with the red dunce cap balanced on his head.  Someone even went to the trouble of applying rosydots of rouge to his cheeks. The dead man's image could rival any lawn ornament, and the accuracy with which his 5'2", rotund frame had been modeled into a life-size garden gnome was a tribute to the killer's twisted, yet clever, mind.

   Steve let out an anguished howl.  Who had done this to the middle-aged man whose retirement afforded him the luxury of presiding as a ranger at the country club's golf course?  A man who offered "free swims" in his recently built backyard pool to privileged neighbors, despite the fact that ninety percent of the homeowners in his neighborhood village had swimming pools of their own complete with hot tubs.  Mick's original design had included a spa.  When the pool company broke ground an area had been carved out for the hot tub where the pipe was installed, but in the end frugality caused Mick to nix the additional feature.  His action was without his wife's approval, a big mistake on his part.

   He was a man whose wife was half his age and twice his height, had a baritone voice to his falsetto, and was 105 pounds of sculpted muscle and over-tanned skin the color of a horse's rear end.  Sadie was a self-proclaimed marathon runner who popped diet pills like Tic-Tacs, swallowing the tablets straight without even chasing them with water, and she was a shameless exhibitionist.

   The latter is what lured Steve to her and served as the catalyst of his admiration for her husband.  Daily she would run past Steve.  His eyes would travel from the jog bra that cleaved to her bosom down to the diamond stud that pierced her navel.  Finally, after a lot of heavy breathing, his vision would tunnel to her shorts.  The tiny bottoms were a piece of cloth away from being a thong.  The ensemble tortured Steve's warped mind with fantasies of a naughty teenager.

   Life was a stage for the Pappers where the curtains were never drawn.  Five previous families had lived in that house.  When the Pappers took  possession of the residence, however, the blinds in their bathroom window which faced the dining room of my house next door came down and were replaced by a transparent shade.  This creative window dressing was then raised whenever the bathroom was in use.

   "Daddy, what's wrong?" Steve 's three-year-old daughter was tottering out from the front door.

   "Baby, stay there!" Steve demanded, panic in his voice.

   Startled, and a little frightened, Emma began to raise her nightgown over her head just as Steve reached her and ushered her back into the house.  With the front door opened, Steve could be seen grabbing his cell phone; then he ran back outside leaving Emma on the couch beside her medicated mother.