Work Text:
Mrs. Grant knows the neighbors call her a gossip.
Mrs. Grant has lived in this neighborhood for quite a while.
Oh, she’s aware that people call her the neighborhood gossip. But she’s simply been here longer than most others. She knows everything about everyone. And they sure don’t mind when she finds their lost dogs and escorts them home, notices suspicious activity in the alley, or catch their teens skipping school now, do they?
Tim Bradford has mostly kept to himself through the time he’s lived here. He’s a cop, and even though he tries not to tell too many people that - of course Mrs. Grant knows. So, she sometimes turns to him when she needs help with her home security system, or advice on what type of fence around her backyard is the safest.
He’s a nice enough guy, definitely good looking – she’d be surprised he’s single, but she’s heard he’s divorced. For a while recently, he seemed to be in a serious relationship. Either his girlfriend would spend the night at his place, or his house was dark – she assumes he was at hers. But they were almost always together.
Then, suddenly, he’s at home every evening, alone, the girlfriend seemingly long gone. She seemed nice enough. Loved his dog as if it were her own. Made him smile and come outside more often.
Typical man, always messing up a good thing.
Tim’s home a lot more after that, but he also keeps to himself a lot more.
One day she asks him to come over and change her floodlight for her. He does. Mrs. Grant tries to find out about his girlfriend, asks if he’s seeing anyone. He just grunts a no and then goes back to the floodlight.
She gets the body language and the subtle hint – yet, still she suggests to him that she knows someone who she could set him up with, just to see.
If looks could kill. Even a gossip like Mrs. Grant knows when to let it go.
She can hear Tim playing his video games a lot more when she walks by on her nightly walks (what? She’s not purposely inching up his walkway. She just has to drop off some guavas from her guava tree on his doorstep. Sure, he didn’t ask for them, but…).
Then suddenly, she’s back. The girlfriend.
And not only is she back – Mrs. Grant notices the moving truck – she seems to live there now which is odd, really, because she hasn’t seen her for months, close to a year even, and then suddenly she’s back and coming with all her belongings?
She’s definitely moved in, though. Mrs. Grant knows because she sees her every day, her car is always in the driveway - even when they’re at work, she takes Kojo out for walks, she’s got her own key, and the mail comes in her name (not that she’s snooping. She can’t help it if Lucy Chen’s junk mail ended up in her mailbox one day).
She still hears Tim play his video games, sometimes. But not as often. Sometimes, she hears Lucy playing too.
Or, she thought that’s what they were doing. When she goes up to their porch one night to tell them their porch light is flickering, probably needs to be replaced, she realizes the “yelling” is not from Tim playing his video games.
Good, god, they’re loud.
He must be really good in bed.
She’ll have to tell Nancy about that.
Lucy is much easier to get gossip from than Tim.
When Lucy walks Kojo, Mrs. Grant always stops and chats with her. Lucy tells her that she and Tim recently got back together after some time apart, that he asked her to move in right away and she agreed.
Very romantic, actually, Mrs. Grant thinks. And bold.
Lucy also tells her that Kojo had originally been her dog, that Tim had taken him in when Lucy had realized she couldn’t keep him.
Mrs. Grant loves dogs.
Poetic that now Kojo is their dog.
One morning when she sees her out with Kojo, on her way back from the dog park, she invites Lucy and Tim over to dinner – Lucy agrees. Mrs. Grant expects them to cancel, once Tim gets wind of the invite.
But, they don’t.
Actually, she doesn’t hear anything from either of them, and their dinner date is coming up.
She texts Lucy to ask if they have any dietary restrictions; no response.
Rude.
So, she keeps an eye out for her (or Tim), hoping to catch them while they walk Kojo so she can get confirmation about Saturday. After all, she has to scope out the yellow house. Something odd is going on there – and the best place to do that is from her porch.
But Lucy, Tim, and Kojo don’t come by.
Maybe they’re avoiding walking past her house, she thinks, just like they’ve avoided her text.
Curious, now, she decides to go see what she can see at their house, try to figure out if they’re ignoring her.
Walking up the path to their front door, she notices only Lucy’s car in the driveway.
In fact, she’s not sure that she’s seen Tim’s truck since yesterday.
She really should take that thing for a drive more often, Mrs. Grant notes. Battery is going to die the way she leaves it sitting here all the time. It seems like she enjoys being a – what is it her daughter calls it - passenger princess?
Porch light is off, which is weird.
They always turn their porch light on.
Maybe it finally went out like I told them it would, she huffs to herself.
She hears Kojo barking inside, and that’s unusual. Kojo is usually pretty well behaved when he’s home alone – which is not often, because she knows they take him to doggy daycare while they’re at work (she’s tried to tell them that she knows a better place, but Tim refuses to take her advice).
The house is dark inside, which is also odd – she knows that Lucy insists they leave an overhead light on for Kojo if they’ll be out late enough that he’s home alone in the dark.
(She knows this because she heard her and Tim bickering over the price of their electricity bill; Lucy won that debate, of course.)
She knocks.
No one answers. Kojo barks louder at the noise.
Poor thing, she thinks. She notices the gate to the backyard is ajar. Maybe she should just scoot around back and check in on him?
She peeks in through the sliding glass door. They haven’t closed the blinds, as if they haven’t expected to be out past dark. Kojo barks when he sees her.
He’s torn up the place!
She can see his food dish is empty.
“What the…” she murmurs, pulling out her phone and dialing.
“LAPD.”
“Yes, hello,” she says with her most charming voice. “My neighbor’s dog is being neglected.”
“Ma’am, you should call animal control services –“
“Poor thing has been left alone for who knows how long! He’s barking and howling! He’s torn up their house in anguish.”
“Are you asking to file a noise complaint, ma’am?”
“No, no. I just want somebody to come take care of him. His food dish is empty.”
“Again, please call animal services. They can better help you with this matter.”
“I think he’s been alone since yesterday.”
“Have you tried contacting your neighbors?”
“Look, Officer…?”
“Penn.”
“Officer Penn. Could I please speak to Officer Tim Bradford? He’s my neighbor. It’s his dog that’s barking and being neglected.”
“Sergeant Bradford?” the officer asks, seemingly confused and a little surprised.
“Well, how should I know his title? He never talks about his job.”
She hears some noise in the background, someone saying something to Officer Penn. “Ma’am, Sergeant Bradford isn’t on duty today.”
“Well, what about his girlfriend? She’s a cop, too.”
“Sergeant Chen is not on duty either,” Officer Penn replies.
“Well then where the hell are they? Why would they just leave Kojo alone like this? It’s very unlike them. And, quite frankly, very irresponsible.”
“Perhaps they are just out for the day?” Officer Penn suggests, “Being they have the day off and all.”
“No, young man. You don’t understand. His car hasn’t been in the driveway since yesterday. Kojo’s been alone this whole time. He has no food left. They wouldn’t leave him like that.”
There’s a silence, as if this Officer Penn is considering this information. “Hold on one moment, please.”
She hears rustling in the background, Officer Penn talking to someone else, a female voice. She hears the words detective, propose, he scheduled days off, both of them and haven’t heard from them.
What could be so important that no one wants to come help poor Kojo?
“Officer Penn, if I were to simply open the sliding glass door to feed Kojo…”
“That would be breaking and entering. Ma’am, are you saying you haven’t seen Sergeants Bradford and Chen since yesterday?”
“Yes, that’s correct, and-”
Officer Penn hangs up.
Rude.
She wishes she still had the number of Tim’s sister from that time she caught her older son skateboarding down the street and he fell down and hurt his leg (it wasn’t her fault she startled him. He shouldn’t have been trying to do flip tricks on her front steps).
The sister does come, to pick up Kojo – thank god! Some police officers come and take a look around the place, then swiftly leave. Mrs. Grant keeps her eyes peeled, interested. She’s not sure if they’re here on business, or they’re just friends of Tim and Lucy. She recognizes the brunette one, she’s come by before, quite often. She appears to be a detective of some sort, because she’s not in uniform but she has a badge on her hip.
Lucy’s car remains in the driveway. Tim’s truck doesn’t appear.
The mail starts to pile up on the front porch (she’s not keeping track, no, she just passes by their house daily on her walking route).
They don’t come over for dinner on Saturday, don’t text or call her about it.
Then suddenly, days later, they’re home.
They’re acting different, now, though. She never sees them outside alone – they’re always together.
They don’t walk Kojo anymore – seems like they let him out in the backyard only.
Lucy doesn’t take him to the dog park in the mornings like she used to.
They don’t even bring the trashcans out alone – both of them come out to pull the trashcans down the driveway together, and both of them come out to pull them back in.
Lucy does have a ring on her finger, Mrs. Grant notices that immediately. She’ll tell Nancy about that at their lunch this afternoon.
“Hello there!” she greets, catching them one afternoon while Tim is watering the plants, Lucy sitting on the steps, apparently supervising him. Lucy looks up, almost startled by her sudden presence.
“Hi Mrs. Grant,” Lucy says carefully, looking to Tim. They share a look, almost like they’re bracing for impact.
“Everything all right with you two?” she asks, and Tim and Lucy exchange a look that she really can’t read. “I thought we were set for dinner last Saturday!”
“Oh,” Lucy says softly. “I’m sorry. I figured you knew, that you’d heard about us on the news.”
“The news? Oh, dear, I don’t watch that, nothing but negativity.”
Tim raises his eyebrows. “Huh. Seems like a good place to get goss-“ Lucy shoots him a look, “information,” he corrects.
“Well,” she huffs, a little perturbed by his insinuation.
“We’re sorry about dinner,” Lucy adds, sincerely empathetic.
“We were busy being kidnapped and held hostage,” Tim deadpans.
Mrs. Grant gives him a look.
What an unbelievable excuse.
Although…
That would explain…
She notices the look Lucy gives him, as if she’s telling him to be nice about it, nothing implying that it’s not true.
Wait. She remembers Sheryl trying to talk to her about the police officers on the news, but she’d been too busy trailing Mr. Jones’s mistress to stop and listen to her (turns out it was just his sister, but whatever. Better to be safe than sorry).
“I guess we owe our thanks to you,” Lucy adds with a soft smile. “Our coworkers told us you called in about Kojo, which alerted them that we were missing.”
Tim nods. “I’d taken us off the schedule for a couple days after…” he says, trailing off, and Lucy twists her ring with a soft, knowing smile. “They wouldn’t have noticed we were missing right away if you hadn’t called.”
“And, no telling how long Kojo would’ve been left alone,” Lucy adds. “I was so worried about him. So, thank you.”
Mrs. Grant beams and nods.
Well, well. Look at that.
She’s not a gossip. Mrs. Grant is clearly a hero.