Late 90s.
I had just returned from a work week in Florida. Dropping my suitcase on the floor of the tiny living/dining space of my one-bed townhouse, I changed into my pyjamas, made a little dinner and ate it. Then I pottered around, trying to wind down, unmindful of the suitcase lying open on the floor. ‘I’ll unpack in the morning,’ I thought.
I lived in Atlanta, Vinings to be precise, in a picturesque little apartment complex called the Lakes. True to its name, there were three “lakes” within the complex. As you entered the gated community, there were rows of townhouses to the left. Pretty little trellised townhouses. I lived in the third one in one of the rows. A parking lot was to the right of the row, and a paved path led to all the houses in my row. There was a pond right across from the paved path in front of my door, a grassy patch separated the pond from the parking lot.
While I sat there trying to decide if I wanted to go to bed or the pub, there was a knock at the door. It was 9:30 pm, an hour had passed since I’d come home. I was surprised. The blinds were shut and I couldn’t see who was standing at the door.
‘Who is it?’ I asked.
‘Police, ma’am,’ was the astounding reply. ‘We’d like to ask you some questions.’
I was more than shocked. The police? What did they want with me?
I opened the door to a tall gentleman, dressed in a sharp suit, next to a blonde woman in a ponytail and equally sharp suit. (Yes, they dress up like that in real life too!). They held up their badges and introduced themselves as detectives. ‘Detectives. Wonder which branch?’ i thought, but didn’t ask.
‘Please, come in,’ I invited, more than mindful of the suitcase sitting open on the floor. Then I thought, ‘what the heck? it’s my apartment, I’ll be a slob if I want to.’
‘We’d like to ask you about your neighbours,’ he started.
‘Which one?’ I asked. I had neighbours to the right and left of me. The one on the left was prone to playing loud rap music in the early hours of the morning, and I had reported him to the management already.
‘The one on the left,’ was the surprising answer. ‘Have you noticed anything in particular about him lately?’
The neighbours he spoke of were a couple in their late twenties, maybe early thirties. When they first came, he was in a wheel chair with a broken foot. Later he progressed to crutches. They seemed like a nice couple.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know them very well. Enough to say hello, that’s about all.’ I shrugged.
‘Can you describe them?’ he asked me
‘Sure,’ I rattled off a detailed description of the couple.
‘So they are together,’ his partner remarked. ‘When was the last time you saw them?’
Now, I traveled every week for work. So I would only see them, if at all, on weekends or holidays. The question made me think. Strangely, I couldn’t remember seeing them in the last four/five weeks. I told the detectives as much. The couple used to be quite loud in their intimate moments - if you know what I mean. You could hear them through the paper-thin walls of the apartment.
But one night stood out to me. I could hear them having a row. They were angry and loud The next morning, torn pieces of paper littered the green patch near the pond in front of our houses. I picked up one of the pieces, and saw that it was from a page in a passport!
I realized I hadn’t seen them since. I recounted this to the detectives.
‘Damn!’ exclaimed Mr. Detective. ‘They must be far away by now.’
‘Did you ever see a silver Mercedes in the parking lot?’ was the next question.
I told them that there were lots of expensive cars in the neighbourhood. I didn’t recall a specific Mercedes.
Thanking me, they left. I stood at the door, watching them walk away, when suddenly, they came back.
‘Did they drive a car? Do you know what kind it was?’
‘Yes, of course, they had a car,’ I told them. Gave them the specific make, model, color and year. It was actually a very unusual colour.
They looked relieved and thanked me. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
I sat down after this strange encounter, and wondered. So many things. I’d reached home at 8:30 - they must have been watching the apartments, because they showed up exactly an hour later. Detectives - which meant a fairly serious issue - kidnapping, drugs, homicide? They never did tell me which division. What had the couple done that had the police after them? Why were they on the run? (this much was now clear). Did the police ever find them? I never did find out.
The saga doesn’t end there.
Some weeks later, the apartment was rented out to a couple of young boys. A week after they moved in, I returned home one night at about 2 am. I didn’t notice anything amiss. But the next morning, the security from the complex were knocking at my door. They asked me if I had noticed or heard anything the previous night.
‘No, I didn’t’ I told them.
Turns out, the apartment had been broken into. Nothing had ben stolen, but the door was broken and things had been scattered around.
Curiouser and curiouser. I wondered if it had anything to do with the couple who’d rented it previously? After all, the townhouse next to it was empty, and at the time the break-in occurred, I was either sleeping or out. Neither had been broken into. Just that same one.
I’ll never know.
