The Neighbor

“Denial,” Miller offered up, trudging along beside her.

  “We’re gonna have to do this the hard way,” D.D. declared. “Get a search warrant for Jason Jones’s truck, get an affidavit permitting us to seize the computer, as well as requesting printouts of the wife’s cell phone records. Hell, we should probably just have the entire house frozen as a crime scene. That’d give Jason Jones something to think about.”

  “Tough on the kid.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s the kicker.” If the house was declared a crime scene, Jason and his daughter would be forced to evacuate. Pack a bag, move into a motel under escort from a police cruiser kind of thing. D.D. wondered what little Ree would think, giving up her garden oasis for a cheap hotel room with brown carpets and the stale scent of a decade’s worth of cigarettes. It didn’t make D.D. feel too good about things, but then she had another thought.

  She stopped walking, pivoting toward Miller so abruptly, he nearly ran into her.

  “If we move Jason and Ree out of the house, we’ll have to assign officers to cover them twenty-four/seven. Meaning there’ll be fewer officers actively searching for Sandra Jones, meaning our investigation will slow down during a time when it’s critical to ramp up. You know that. I know that. But Jason doesn’t know that.”

  Miller frowned at her, stroked his mustache.

  “Judge Banyan,” D.D. said, resuming walking at a much brisker pace. “We can prepare the affidavits now, and get ’em to her chamber right after lunch. We’ll get warrants for the computer, the truck, and dammit, we’ll have the house declared a crime scene. We’ll knock Mr. Arctic right out on his ass.”

  “Wait, I thought you just said—”

  “And we’ll hope,” D.D. interjected forcefully, “that when Jason Jones is given a choice between vacating his own home, or letting a certified forensic specialist talk to his child, he’ll opt for the interview.”

  D.D. glanced at her watch. It was just after twelve now, and on cue, her stomach rumbled for lunch. She remembered her early-morning fantasy of an all-you-can-eat buffet, and felt just plain pissy.

  “We’ll need more manpower to execute the warrants,” she added.

  “All right.”

  “And we’re gonna have to think of a way to broaden our search without alerting the media yet.”

  “All right.”

  They were at her car. D.D. paused long enough to look Miller in the eye and sigh heavily.

  “This case sucks,” she declared.

  “I know,” Miller said affably. “Aren’t you glad I called?”

  | CHAPTER FIVE |

  At 11:59, Jason finally got the last law enforcement officer out of the house. The sergeant retreated, then the lead detective, the evidence technicians, and the uniformed officers. Only a plainclothes detective remained behind, sitting obtrusively in a brown Ford Taurus parked in front. Jason could watch him from the kitchen window, the officer sitting with his gaze straight ahead, alternately yawning and taking sips of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

  After another minute, Jason moved away from the window, realized that his house was all his again, and nearly staggered under the weight of what to do next.

  Ree was staring at him, her big brown eyes so much like her mother’s.

  “Lunch,” Jason said out loud, slightly startled by the hoarse sound of his own voice. “Let’s have lunch.”

  “Daddy, did you buy Oreo cookies?”

  “No.”

  She exhaled heavily, turning toward the kitchen anyway. “Maybe you should call Mommy. Maybe, if she’s near a grocery store looking for Mr. Smith, she can bring home some cookies.”

  “Maybe,” Jason said, and managed to get the refrigerator door open even though his hand had started to shake violently.

  He made it through lunch on autopilot. Found the bread, pulled out whole wheat slices. Mixed the natural peanut butter, spread the jelly. Counted out four carrots, picked out some green grapes. Arranged it all on a flowered daisy plate with the sandwich cut on the requisite diagonal.

  Ree prattled about Mr. Smith’s great escape, how no doubt he would be meeting up with Peter Rabbit and maybe they’d both come home with Alice in Wonderland. Ree was at the age where she easily blended fact and fantasy. Santa was real, the Easter Bunny was best friends with the Tooth Fairy, and there was no reason Clifford the Big Red Dog couldn’t have a play date with Mr. Smith.

  She was a precocious child. All energy and high hopes and huge demands. She could throw a forty-five-minute temper tantrum over not having the right shade of pink socks to wear. And she had once spent an entire Saturday morning refusing to come out of her room because she was furious that Sandra had bought new curtains for the kitchen without consulting her first.

  Yet, neither Sandra nor Jason would have it any other way.

  He looked at her, Sandra looked at her, and they saw the childhood neither one of them had ever had. They saw innocence and faith and trust. They relished their daughter’s easy hugs. They lived for her infectious laugh. And they both, early on, had agreed that Ree would always come first. They would do anything for her.

  Anything.

  Jason glanced at the unmarked police car sitting outside his house, felt his hand curl into an automatic fist, and checked the reflex.

  “She’s pretty.”

  “Mr. Smith is a boy,” he said automatically.

  “Not Mr. Smith. The police lady. I like her hair.”

  Jason turned back toward his daughter. Ree’s face was smudged with peanut butter in one corner, jelly in another. And she was looking at him again with her big brown eyes.

  “You know you can tell me anything,” he said softly.

  Ree set her sandwich down. “I know, Daddy,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She ate two green grapes half-heartedly, then rearranged the others on her plate, around the white petals of the daisy. “Do you think Mr. Smith is okay?”

  “Cats have nine lives.”

  “Mommys don’t.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He tried to open his mouth, tried to summon some kind of vague reassuring phrase, but nothing would come out. He was mostly aware that his hands were shaking convulsively again, and he had gone cold somewhere deep down inside, where he would probably never be warm again.

  “I’m tired, Daddy,” Ree said. “I want to take a nap.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  They headed upstairs.

  Jason watched Ree brush her teeth. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

  He read Ree two stories, sitting on the edge of Ree’s bed. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

  He sang one song, tucked the covers around his daughter’s shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

  He made it all the way to the doorway, then Ree spoke up, forcing him to turn around. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his fingers fisted beneath his elbows, where Ree couldn’t see the tremors in his hands.

  “Will you stay, Daddy? Until I fall asleep?”

  “Okay.”

  “Mommy sang me ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’ I remember her singing ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’”

  “Okay.”

  Ree shifted restlessly beneath the covers. “Do you think she’s found Mr. Smith yet? Do you think she’ll come home?”

  “I hope so.”

  She finally lay still. “Daddy,” she whispered. “Daddy, I have a secret.”

  He took a deep breath, forced his voice to sound light. “Really? Because remember the Daddy Clause.”

  “The Daddy Clause?”

  “Sure, the Daddy Clause. Whatever the secret, you’re allowed to tell one daddy. Then he’ll help keep the secret, too.”

  “You’re my daddy.”

  “Yep, and I assure you, I’m really good at keeping secrets.”

  She smiled at him. Then, her mother’s daughter, she rolled over and went to sleep without saying another word.

  He waited five more minutes, then
eased out of the room, and just barely made it down the stairs.

  He kept the picture in the kitchen utility drawer, next to the pen flashlight, green screwdriver, leftover birthday candles, and half a dozen wine charms they never used. Sandra used to tease him about the tiny photo in its cheap gilded frame.

  “For God’s sake, it’s like hiding away a picture of your old high school sweetheart. Stick the frame on the mantel, Jason. She’s like family to you. I don’t mind.”

  But the woman in the photo was not family. She was old—eighty, ninety, he couldn’t remember anymore. She sat in a rocking chair, birdlike frame nearly lost in a pile of voluminous hand-me-down clothes: man’s dark blue flannel shirt, belted around brown corduroy pants, nearly covered by an old Army jacket. The woman was smiling the large, gleeful smile of the elderly, like she had a secret, too, and hers was better than his.

  He had loved her smile. He had loved her laugh.

  She was not family, but she was the only person who, for a very long time, had made him feel safe.

  He clutched her photo now. He held it to his breast like a talisman, and then his legs gave out and he sank to the kitchen floor. He started to shake again. First his hands, then his arms, then his chest, the bone-deep tremors traveling down to his thighs, his knees, his ankles, each tiny little toe.

  He didn’t cry. He didn’t make a sound of protest.

  But he shook so hard it felt as if his body should break apart, his flesh flying from his bones, his bones splintering into a thousand pieces.

  “Goddammit, Sandy,” he said, resting his shaking head upon his shaking knees.

  Then he realized, quite belatedly, that he’d better do something about the computer.

  The phone rang ten minutes later. Jason didn’t feel like talking to anyone, then thought, a little foolishly, that it might be Sandy, calling from … somewhere … so he picked up.

  It wasn’t his wife. It was a male voice, and the man said, “Are you home alone?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Is your child there?”

  Jason hung up.

  The phone rang again. Caller ID reported the same number. This time Jason let the machine get it. The same male voice boomed, “I’ll take that as a yes. Back yard, five minutes. You’ll want to talk to me.” Then the man hung up.

  “Fuck you,” Jason told the empty kitchen. It was a foolish thing to say, but it made him feel better.

  He went upstairs, checked on Ree. She was tucked almost all the way under the covers, sleeping soundly. He looked automatically for the familiar copper pile of Mr. Smith curled up at his daughter’s feet. The spot was empty, and Jason felt the familiar pang again.

  “Goddammit, Sandy,” he muttered tiredly, then found his coat and stepped into his back yard.

  The caller was younger than he expected. Twenty-two, twenty-three. The thin lanky build of a young man who hadn’t filled out yet and probably wouldn’t until his early thirties. The kid had scaled the wooden fence around Jason’s yard.

  Now he leapt down and sprang forward a few steps, moving like a golden retriever puppy with floppy blond hair and long, rangy limbs. The kid stopped the instant he spotted Jason, then wiped his hands on his jeans. It was cold out, and he wore only a white T-shirt with faded black print and no coat. If the March chill bothered him, he didn’t show it.

  “Umm, cop out front. Sure you know. Didn’t want to be seen,” the kid said, as if that explained everything. Jason noticed he wore a green elastic band around his left wrist and was snapping it absently, like a nervous habit.

  “Who are you?”

  “Neighbor,” the kid said. “Live five houses down. Name’s Aidan Brewster. We’ve never met.” Snap, snap, snap.

  Jason said nothing.

  “I, uh, keep to myself,” the kid offered, again as if that explained everything.

  Jason said nothing.

  “Your wife has gone missing,” the kid stated. Snap, snap.

  “Who told you?”

  Kid shrugged. “Didn’t have to be told. Cops are canvassing the neighborhood, looking for a missing female. A detective has set up camp outside your house, so obviously this is ground zero. You’re here. Your kid is here. Ergo, your wife is missing.” The kid started to snap the elastic again, caught himself this time, and both hands fell to his sides.

  “What do you want?” Jason asked.

  “Did you kill her?”

  Jason looked at the boy. “Why do you think she’s dead?”

  Kid shrugged. “That’s the way these things work. Report starts with a missing white female, mother of one, two, three kids. Media kicks in, search teams are organized, neighborhoods are canvassed. And then, approximately one week to three months later, the corpse is recovered from a lake, the woods, the oversized freezer in the garage. Don’t suppose you have any large blue plastic barrels, do you?”

  Jason shook his head.

  “Chain saws? Barbecue pits?”

  “I have a child. Even if I had such items, the presence of a small child would curtail my activities.”

  Kid shrugged. “Didn’t seem to stop the others from getting the job done.”

  “Get out of my yard.”

  “Not yet. I need to know: Did you kill your wife?”

  “What makes you think I would tell you?”

  Kid shrugged. “Dunno. We’ve never met, but I thought I’d ask. It matters to me.”

  Jason stared at the kid for a minute. He found himself saying, “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Okay. Neither did I.”

  “You know my wife?”

  “Blonde hair, big brown eyes, kind of a quirky smile?”

  Jason stared at the kid again. “Yes.”

  “Nah, I’ve never met her, but I’ve seen her out in your yard.” The kid resumed snapping the green elastic band.

  “Why are you here?” Jason asked.

  “Because I didn’t kill your wife,” the kid repeated. He glanced at his watch. “But in about one to four hours, the police are gonna assume that I did.”

  “Why would they assume that?”

  “I got a prior.”

  “You killed someone before?”

  “Nah, but that won’t matter. I have a prior, and like I said, that’s how these things work. A woman has gone missing. The detectives will start with the people close to her, making you the first ‘person of interest.’ Next, however, they’ll check out all the neighbors. That’s when I’ll pop up, the second ‘person of interest.’ Now, am I more interesting than you? I don’t have the answer to that, so I figured I’d better stop by.”

  Jason frowned. “You want to know if I harmed my wife, because then you’re off the hook?”

  “It’s a logical question to ask,” the kid said neutrally. “Now, you claim you didn’t kill her. And I know I didn’t kill her, which leads us to the next problem.”

  “Which is?”

  “No one is gonna believe either of us. And the more we claim our innocence, the more they’re gonna come down on us like a ton of bricks. Wasting valuable time and resources trying to get us to admit guilt, versus finding out exactly what did happen to your wife.”

  Jason couldn’t argue with that. It’s why he’d kept his mouth shut all morning long. Because he was the husband, and the husband started the process automatically suspect. Meaning every time he spoke, the police would not be listening for proof of his innocence, but rather for any gaffe indicating his guilt. “You seem to know a lot about how the system works,” he told the kid.

  “Am I wrong?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Okay, so going with the old adage that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, the cops are our mutual enemies, and we’re now friends.”

  “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “Aidan Brewster. Neighbor, auto mechanic, innocent party. What more do you need to know?”

  Jason frowned. He should be quicker than this, seeing the obvious flaw in such a statement. But he could fe
el the stress and the fatigue catching up with him now. He had not slept in nearly thirty hours, first watching Ree, then going off to work, then returning to the scene at home. His heart had literally stopped beating in the space of time it had taken him to discover the empty master bedroom and walk the twelve feet to Ree’s room, his hand curling around the doorknob, twisting, pushing, so deeply unsure of what he might find inside. Then, when he’d spotted his daughter’s sprawled shape, sound asleep under the covers, he had staggered backward, only to realize in the next instant that Ree’s presence raised more questions than it answered. All of a sudden, after five years of almost leading a normal life, of almost feeling like a real person, it was over, done, finished, in the blink of an eye.

  He had returned to the abyss, in a space he knew better than anyone, even better than convicted felon Aidan Brewster.

  “So,” the kid was saying now, snapping, “did you ever hit your wife?”

  Jason stared at him.

  “Might as well answer,” his neighbor said. “If the police didn’t get to drill you this morning, they’ll get to it soon enough.”

  “I didn’t hit my wife,” Jason said softly, mostly because he needed to hear himself say the words, to remind himself that that much, at least, was true. Forget February vacation. Forget it ever happened.

  “Marital difficulties?”

  “We worked alternate schedules. We never saw each other enough to fight.”

  “Ah, so extramarital activities, then. You, her, both?”

  “Not me,” Jason said.

  “But she had a little something, something going on?”

  Jason shrugged. “Isn’t the husband always the last to know?”

  “Think she ran off with him?”

  “She never would have left Ree.”

  “So she was having an affair, and she knew you’d never let her take her daughter with her.”

  Jason blinked his eyes, feeling his exhaustion again. “Wait a minute …”

  “Come on, pull it together, man, or you’ll be rotting in jail by the end of the day,” the kid said impatiently.

  “I wouldn’t harm my daughter, and I would’ve granted my wife a divorce.”