Criminals by Valerie Trueblood Page A

that for some time; her husband Garth did not kiss. A staff manual for the retirement village was already in print and it had a paragraph for moments like the one in the Kralls’ living room: inappropriate situation arises, staff member reacts with calm, makes a report. But Shannon was her own supervisor, so there was no one to report it to. And she had returned the kiss, which began in sympathy but held for a beat. When Shannon stepped back Mr. Krall’s eyes were still closed, lids dark as his wife’s eye shadow. He did not look like an old man, he looked like a young man exhausted.
    She had met him days ago but on this day he entered the room with his hand outstretched, so she turned off the vacuum cleaner and shook hands with him. “Not Mr. Krall, no. Ivan.” And did she, with her high cheeks—he swiped his own cheekbone with his thumb, admiringly, she thought—come from central Europe? No? Where did her family originate? How many in the family? So small, no brothers, no sisters! No matter, what did she study in school? And no mathematics? And her parents? Ah, divorce, divorce. And her husband, the young man digging and planting, who was not here in the early weeks? A soldier. And was he from some other country, that he worked so hard?
    And when she was on the porch next door—yesterday morning, was it not?—had she been crying? In the early morning, with the dog. Yet this was not, of course, for him to ask. And yet, her face. . . . For tears swell the lips.
    The Kralls, Ivan and DuÅ¡ka, were the poster couple for a magazine piece about the village and its green ethos, though Shannon had to clean hard before anybody got in there to photograph their lifestyle. She had warned the founders, Mark and Dane. Mark said, “They’ve been here a month, how bad can it be?” About a house once the roof was on, Shannon saw, Mark knew nothing. He might be learning the ropes of construction but he was still a computer guy.
    â€œâ€˜Green ethos,’” Garth said when he was first home and Mark was showing him around, telling him about the job. “Sounds like an MRE.”
    â€œMark doesn’t know what that is,” Shannon said.
    â€œI do happen to know what that is,” Mark said. “Meals Ready to Eat.”
    In the old days Garth would have made friends with somebody like Mark. With anybody. He would have grinned and said, “Ever eat one?”
    The counters, of a composite Mark said would outsell granite one day, were already hidden under dead plants, egg cartons, books held open with potatoes, cutting boards stacked wet, but the Kralls themselves looked good: a tall, lean, white-haired pair in turtlenecks, DuÅ¡ka with silver rings on her thumbs, Ivan with a voice as deep as Garth’s smoker’s voice and blue eyes wasted on an old man.
    DuÅ¡ka was older than he and had something that affected her motor skills but not her mind. Her name had a little v over the s that made it a “sh.” “You pronounced it wrong,” Shannon told Mark and Dane. “Say Dooshka .” At home she said to Garth, “I get to boss those guys around. Mark and Dane. They like it. Employee input. How you get to, like, consensus.”
    She was supposed to act out showing DuÅ¡ka the cupboards hung so low there was no need for reaching, but first she had to use thesink sprayer to run the dirt of plant roots off DuÅ¡ka’s hands. “This child is an angel,” DuÅ¡ka told the photographer. “Do you see her washing me? Take a picture! My dear, angels are often given this plain beauty that you have. You see? She does not hear. That is the mark of an angel.”
    The photographers kept wanting Shannon in the pictures. When the sun came out they stood her in front of the old truck with its painted sign, “Neat & Green.” They wanted her plaid shirt and the soft broom from the Asian grocery store where she bought Garth’s beer