The Neighbors Are Watching (39 page)

“Oh?” Dorothy looked alarmed.

“Something wrong?” Sam asked, snapped into full attention.

“No,” Dorothy said too quickly. “No, of course not.”

They sat down at the table and Dorothy carefully placed her folder of papers off to the side where it wouldn’t be spilled on.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, pointing to it.

“Oh, I—”

Yvonne came down the stairs and Dorothy cut herself off. The two women exchanged greetings and Yvonne sat down at the table. Sam noticed again that she looked tired. But then so did she and Dorothy.

As soon as Yvonne sat down, Dorothy’s chatter petered out. She sipped her tea and smiled at them both, but Sam could see her fingers trembling and feel her anxiety increasing. Whatever it was that she needed to say was trying to get out, but Dorothy didn’t know how to let it.

“I wanted to ask you,” Dorothy said finally, fixing Sam with an unusually intense look, “if you would … I mean, I thought you would be the right person …” Sam waited, perplexed. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, sorry,” Dorothy said. “All I wanted to know, Sam, is if you would take over the Neighborhood Watch list. Keeping up with it, I mean, and getting all the information from everyone. Making sure everyone’s on board.”

“But—”

“These are the street charts and the contact lists and everything.” Dorothy handed Sam the papers as if she were handing over something precious and rare. “I haven’t updated them since … Not since last year, so a lot of it isn’t that current and it really should be.”

“But, Dorothy—”

“You know, the Mitchells have moved in and Jessalyn has moved out and of course there’s you, Yvonne. You’re here.”

“But why, Dorothy?” Sam managed to ask when Dorothy finally took a breath. “You’ve always been, I mean, you’ve always done a great job with this.”

Dorothy lowered her gaze all the way into her teacup and stared at it as if she were trying to divine her fortune from the leaves. Her shoulders slumped and the air seemed to leave her body. When she looked up again there was a fierce battle of emotions in her face—fear, sadness, but also something that looked like relief.

“I’m going to be … I’m going away for a while,” she said. “There are some things I have to take care of and I’ve been putting it off too long.”

“By yourself?” Sam asked. Thoughts raced through her head. Dorothy was staring at her like she should know. Was it rehab? Sam was sure Dorothy said that her problem was long behind her. Had she relapsed? All the stress with Kevin. Her horrible husband. And Diana … But no, maybe she was planning, at last, to reconnect with the family she’d left behind so long ago?

“By myself, yes,” Dorothy said. “I hate to leave Kevin, but …” She looked at Yvonne, who drew back ever so slightly. “I think in the long run it’s better for him that I do this now.”

“Dorothy, where are you going?”

“I’m not …” She ran her hand through her hair and sighed. “I can’t really say yet. I’ll tell you. Soon. But Sam, I’m really hoping you’ll do this. Will you? I’d ask Dick, but …” In her eyes, a brief flash. Sam couldn’t tell
if it was anger or fear. “He wouldn’t be good for it. You know. He’ll have a lot … He’ll have enough to do with the house and Kevin and everything. You know how men are, right?” Dorothy looked at Sam and bit her lip. “I mean, you’d be the best, Sam.” She flushed deeply, all the way to the roots of her hair.

“Okay,” Sam said. “I can do it while you’re gone. Sure.”

“That’s great. I knew I could count on you.” The color slowly drained from Dorothy’s face as she poured herself a half cup of tea and drank it down with one swallow. “I’m so appreciative, Sam. Thank you.”

“So when are you leaving?” Yvonne asked.

Dorothy grew flustered. “Oh, I’m not really sure. I have a few things to take care of. But soon. Quite soon.” She stood up, weaving a little as if drunk, and had to steady herself against the table. “Thanks, Sam, thank you so much. I have to get back now. But if you need anything …” She waved at Yvonne. “I’ll let myself out. Thanks, Sam.”

So many thanks for such a mundane task. Sam waited until she heard the front door close and then she turned to Yvonne.

“What was all that about?”

“Gloria used to call her Dotty Dot,” Sam said, and almost smiled before the inevitable creep of regret set in.

“That was weird,” Yvonne said. “Even for her.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “She’s … I think she’s changed since—since I moved in here. No, for sure she has because, you know, she wouldn’t give me the time of day when we first got here. I wish you could’ve seen the look on her face when she realized that Gloria and I were a couple. I mean, it would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. Now she wants me to take over her famous List.” Sam opened the folder and leafed through Dorothy’s carefully color-coded charts. “She wants me to take over the neighborhood.”

Yvonne traced her finger around the rim of her teacup. Sam could see her eyes filling again. The grief was recurrent, as ceaseless as the tide.

“What do you think about that?” Yvonne asked and Sam knew she could be talking about anything at all.

She touched Yvonne lightly on the shoulder, her version of gravity, a way of letting her friend know where she could turn and what she could count on.

“I think people can change,” Sam said.

SanDiegoNewsBlog.com

North County Mom Turns Self In

Woman had concealed crime for 30 years

By Maria Luz Martinez

SAN DIEGO NEWS STAFF WRITER

March 3, 2008

NORTH COUNTY—
Local police were stunned when Dorothy Werner, 48, a married mother of one living in an affluent community, walked into their station last week and turned herself in for crimes she committed 30 years ago. A native of Amarillo, Texas, whose real name is Christine Kelly, the stay-at-home mom who regularly volunteered her time for local charity drives and organized neighborhood potlucks has a dark past that involves drugs, fraud, and prostitution. While shocked, Werner’s neighbors on her quiet, tree-lined street are sympathetic and supportive.

“She was a teenager who fell in with a bad crowd,” said Samara Jacobs, Werner’s friend and neighbor. “It could happen to anyone.”
Most teenagers, however, do not skip bail after being charged with grand theft, solicitation, and drug possession. These were all charges leveled at the young Christine Kelly, a wild child who stole her elderly neighbor’s social security checks and cashed them for drug money and solicited sex to support her heroin addiction.

While freed on bond, Christine Kelly literally disappeared. She changed her name, her appearance, and, by all accounts her personality. Some years later, she emerged as Dorothy Werner, community-minded wife of an insurance executive. The real mystery in Werner’s story, however, may not be how she managed to elude arrest and prosecution for three decades, but why she now surrendered herself to police. If her family or neighbors know the answer to that question, they are keeping the information to themselves. Richard Werner has refused to comment on his wife’s arrest other than to say, “This is a devastating blow for our family and we request the privacy to which we are entitled.” A neighbor who requested not to be identified informed
San Diego News
that Werner’s husband and son had no knowledge of her criminal past. Werner is being held at Las Colinas Detention Facility pending extradition to Texas.

The revelation of Werner’s criminal past is the second shock in as many months for her usually calm neighborhood. In January, the partially decomposed body of Diana Jones, 17, was discovered near the Rancho Bernardo burn area. Jones, who lived a few houses away from the Werners, had been missing since October. A third resident, a juvenile whose name has not been made public by law enforcement, is currently being charged in connection with that case. Police say there is no link between the Jones case and Dorothy Werner.

M
y sincere and grateful thanks to Detective Rena Hernandez of the San Diego Police Department, Northwestern Divison, and Lieutenant Joe Young of the Oceanside Police Department for taking the time both in person and on the phone to offer thoughtful and extremely helpful answers to my many questions.

Many thanks as well, to Kate Kennedy, Linda Loewenthal, Shaye Areheart, Wade Lucas, the wonderful Sarah Breivogel, the booksellers who continue to support me, especially the intrepid, eclectic, and altogether wonderful group in Southern California, my parents, my sisters, my brother, my son, my dedicated Facebook friends, and Gabe.

And for throwing me that line and pulling me out before I drowned in a river of doubt—thank you, Mom. So much.

D
ebra Ginsberg is the author of the memoirs,
Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress; Raising Blaze;
and
About My Sisters;
and the novels
Blind Submission
and
The Grift
, a
New York Times
Notable Book of 2008. She lives in Southern California. Visit her at
www.debraginsberg.com
.