Ravenous by Ray Garton Page B

suspicious happens.”
    â€œMother, listen to me,” Victoria had said. “The Sheriff him self took out a restraining order on you, just to keep you from coming down to the station every day.”
    â€œI have every right in the world to call them,” Doris said. “I pay my taxes.”
    â€œYou can’t call them every time you see a black person. Black people are around , Mother, they’re out there. There are black families living in this very neighborhood, and they have every right to be here. And just because you see a few Asian teenagers does not mean the Tongs have come to Big Rock, okay? There are Asians around, too, Mom, you’ve gotta get used to it.”
    Doris saw everything that happened on Weeping Willow Drive—at least, the part of Weeping Willow Drive that she could see from her front window. She knew almost all her neighbors, knew their schedules, their habits. She spent most of her time watching them through her binoculars, for which she’d paid nine hundred and sixty dollars over the Internet (which her grandson had shown her how to surf after the family had presented her with a computer a couple of Christmases ago—Doris had taken to it surprisingly well, and for that reason, her grandson thought she was pretty cool). They were better than television, her neighbors, although she usually had the television on all day, as well. She managed to divide her attention between her window and her morning game shows and her afternoon stories. And Oprah , of course. Doris had nothing but admiration for Oprah Winfrey.
    Sometimes, weather permitting, Doris would take a stroll along Weeping Willow Drive, and as she walked, she would peer into windows and garages. She knew when her neighbors were home, when they were away—she knew the best times to take a peek. Sometimes, she even lifted the lids on their garbage cans to see what they’d been discarding. One could tell a lot about people’s lives by taking a look at their garbage.
    Doris was a slight woman—short, reed-thin, with a face covered by an intricate cobweb of wrinkles. Her once-blue eyes were now grey, her once full lips now paper-thin. Her white hair was pulled back in a bun. The patch of shriveled skin that dangled beneath her chin jiggled when she spoke or moved her head. She wore a simple blue housedress and a beige sweater she kept halfway buttoned up. The sweater’s right pocket bulged with tissues. Her mouth was always dry, so she usually sucked on a peppermint as she sat at her window.
    Doris knew the Nortons had marriage problems. She heard shouting from over there a lot. Always from him, never from the wife. She strongly suspected he beat her, because the poor young woman frequently showed up with black eyes and swollen lips. Once, she’d limped for days.
    Doris had heard the shouting from over there this very morning. From him, of course. And one sound that had come from her—a high, sharp yelp , like a dog being kicked. They frightened Doris, those sounds. She was frightened again when she saw Jimmy Norton come out the front door less than a minute later, putting on his coat. He was whistling something. He was whistling —it both frightened and infuriated Doris. She’d phoned the Sheriff’s Department immediately.
    Doris suspected they didn’t take her too seriously down at the Sheriff’s Department. She had a tendency to call too often, she realized that. But this was something real, something solid—that girl could be badly hurt, no telling what that bastard had done to her. And there was a baby and a little girl to think about, as well.
    She waited for a car to show up. Plenty of cars went by in both directions—people going to work, or taking their children to school. But none of them were the white cars with the green-and-gold decals on the side doors—a gold star with a green pine tree standing in the center of it, the whole thing outlined