Until then, residents of Fieldstone continue to gape at the house and recount haunting stories and images of the Guryevs, and of the arrests. They ache for the two children, who were presumably unaware of their parents’ vocation and were not at home when the F.B.I. first arrived.

One next-door neighbor recalled how the Murphys’ accents never quite fit their back stories — how Cynthia was supposedly Flemish and her husband of mixed Mexican and German heritage. Richard was such an expert at repairing a lawn mower that the neighbor now suspects he was trained in the fine art of suburbia.

After the raid, there was a period of confusion and self-examination among residents. Rumors spread quickly in the vacuum of information. Gossip had it that one family that left shortly after the arrest might have been employed by the United States government to spy on the spies.

Nothing felt the same, and neighbors wanted to know more. Ms. Lapin peered inside a window of the empty house and spotted an impressive portrait painted by the older daughter. On a table lay money, a child’s Chinese language workbook and the memoir “A Woman in Berlin,” an odd choice for the Guryevs, about the raw excesses of Russian soldiers at the close of World War II.

Chris Joyce, an adjacent neighbor who moved in two years after the Russians left, is disconnected from all the excitement and drama. It has been quiet, he said, and there is extra parking, so that is an upside. “It would be nice to have someone next door,” Mr. Joyce said. “But if they knock it down, you fear what happens next.”

What comes next cannot possibly be more intriguing, or deflating, than what came before. The wooden angel in the backyard of the spy house was removed by friends after the arrests and relocated to a small neighborhood green space.

I walk the same dog on the same route. Nobody leaves the spy house for the bus stop. Nobody pets Scout in the morning.