The Neighbor

by Lisa Gardner

  “Sandy … and a student?” Jason couldn’t wrap his brain around it. It was inconceivable.

  Elizabeth arched a brow. “No,” she said firmly. “One, because young and pretty or not, I would never assume such a lack of professionalism from Sandy Jones. And two, well, if you saw Ethan Hastings, you’d understand point two. What I’m trying to tell you is that Sandy had only one free period each day, and hers was occupied.”

  Jason nodded slowly, looking down at the floor, scuffing his toe. There was something here, though. He had to believe there was something here, if only because it was better than his other options.

  “What about Thursday nights?” he asked abruptly. “When Sandy and Ree came to see the basketball games?”

  “What about them?”

  “Did she sit in the same place? Maybe beside the same guy? Perhaps she met someone during those nights, a fellow parent.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “I don’t know, Jason. I never noticed. But then, I haven’t made it to many of the games this season.” She gestured to her silvered hair. “I’m a grandma now, can you believe it? My daughter had her first child in November. I’ve spent most of my Thursday nights rocking my grandson, not sitting courtside. Though I can tell you who would know about Thursday nights. The basketball team picked up a new statistician for the season: Ethan Hastings.”

  | CHAPTER EIGHTEEN |

  Sergeant D.D. Warren didn’t give a flying fig what Colleen Pickler had said about sex offenders being model parolees, full of repentance and eager to please their court-appointed babysitters. D.D. had served eight years in uniform, and as a first responder to too many scenes of hysterical mothers and glassy-eyed children, she was firmly of the opinion that when it came to sex offenders, hell was not big enough.

  Homicides in her world came and went. The CSAs, on the other hand, always left their mark. She could still recall the time she was called out to a preschool after a five-year-old boy disclosed to his teacher that he had been assaulted in the bathroom. The alleged perpetrator—the kid’s classmate, another five-year-old boy. Upon further investigation, D.D. and her partner had determined that the suspect lived with not one, but two registered sex offenders. The first being his father, the second being his older brother. D.D. and her partner had dutifully reported the incident to DCF, naive enough to believe that would make a difference.

  No. DCF had determined it was not in the boy’s best interest to break up the family. Instead, the kid was kicked out of the preschool for inappropriate contact with another classmate and absolutely nothing else happened until six months later when D.D. encountered the same kid yet again. This time, he was a witness to a triple homicide, perpetrated by his older brother.

  D.D. still dreamed of the kid’s empty gray eyes sometimes. The learned hopelessness as he flatly recounted his sixteen-year-old brother pulling into the mini-mart, how he followed his older brother into the store, thinking he was gonna get a Twinkie. Instead, his brother had pulled a gun, and then, when the nineteen-year-old store clerk hesitated, the brother had opened fire on the clerk, as well as two other kids, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  D.D. had taken the boy’s testimony. Then she’d sent him home to his sex offender father. Nothing else the system would allow her to do.

  That had been twelve years ago. Every now and then, D.D. was tempted to run the boy’s name, see what had happened to him. But she didn’t really need to. A kid like that, who by the age of five had been a repeated victim of sexual assault, a perpetrator of sexual assault, and then a witness to a triple homicide … Well, it’s not like he was gonna grow up to be President, now, was he?

  There were other stories, of course. The time she’d arrived at a dilapidated triple-decker to discover the wife standing over her husband’s dead body, still holding the butcher knife, just in case after being stabbed two dozen times, he managed to get back up. Turned out, the wife had discovered her husband’s secret file on the computer, where he stored home videos he’d been shooting every night of himself having sex with their two daughters.

  Interestingly enough, the daughters had disclosed for the first time when they were seven and nine, but when the police followed up, they’d found no evidence of abuse. The girls tried again when they were twelve and fourteen, but by then, given their penchant for micro minis and tube tops, not even their own mother had found them credible.

  The video, on the other hand, had done the trick. So the mother had filleted the husband, then promptly sunk deep into depression after her court-appointed attorney got her off. As for the two girls, victims of incest from the time they were four and six, with full video footage of the repeated attacks so broadly disseminated on the Internet it could never be called back … Once again, it wasn’t like either girl was gonna grow up to be President, now, was she?

  D.D. and Miller pulled up to the address Colleen Pickler had provided for Aidan Brewster. D.D. was already practicing deep breathing exercises and trying to keep her fingers from forming an automatic fist. The PO had advised them to play nice.

  “Most sex offenders are inherently spineless, with low self-esteem—that’s why they prey on children, or, as a nineteen-year-old, feel most comfortable with a fourteen-year-old girlfriend,” she’d counseled. “You come down on Aidan like a ton of bricks, and he won’t be able to take it. He’ll shut down and you’ll be left spinning your wheels on the road to nowhere. Become his friend first. Then screw him over.”

  The whole friend thing was never gonna work for D.D., so by tacit agreement, Miller would be taking the lead. He got out of the car first, and she followed him up the walk to the modest, 1950s home. Miller knocked. No answer.

  They’d expected as much. They’d already learned from the two uniformed officers that Sandra Jones had her car serviced at the same garage where Aidan Brewster worked. Colleen Pickler had called them just an hour later to say she’d been informed by the garage owner, Vito Marcello, that he’d terminated Aidan Brewster’s employment.

  Mutual feeling was that Aidan was feeling spooked. Better to grab him now, before the guy bolted into the wind.

  Miller knocked again, then pressed his shield against the side window.

  “Aidan Brewster,” he called out. “Boston PD. Open up, buddy. We just want to talk.”

  D.D. raised a brow, and huffed impatiently. Breaking down the door would feel so much better, in her opinion, even if judges frowned on that sort of thing.

  Just when she was thinking she might get her wish, there came the sound of a bolt lock drawing back. Then the creak of the front door cracking open.

  “I want police protection,” Aidan Brewster stated. He stood with his body hidden behind the door, a wild look in his eyes. “Guys in the shop are gonna kill me. I just know it.”

  Miller didn’t step forward. Like D.D., he moved just slightly onto the balls of his feet, his right hand hovering inside his jacket, close to his holstered weapon. “Why don’t you step out from behind the door,” Miller said calmly, “where we can talk face to face?”

  “I’m looking at your face,” the sex offender said in bewilderment. “And I’m trying to talk. I’m telling you, Vito ratted me out—told the guys I was a registered pervert. And they’re mad, you know. Guys like them aren’t supposed to hang out with pussies like me. I’m dead for sure.”

  “Did someone say something explicit?” D.D. spoke up, her voice striving for the same measured calm of Miller’s tone, even as she stood one step behind the detective, her fingers dancing across the butt of her Glock .40.

  “Say it?” The kid sounded even more agitated. “It’s not something you have to say. I heard them whispering. I know what’s going down. Everyone thinks I killed that woman, thanks to your lackeys.” The kid finally came out from behind the door, to reveal disheveled clothing and two empty hands. He stabbed a finger at Miller. “It’s your fault I’m in this mess,” he told the older detective. “You gotta help me out. You owe me that much.”

  �
��Why don’t we talk about it?” Miller finally stepped forward, pushing open the door with his foot, then gently pressing Aidan back into the hallway. The kid seemed oblivious to the anxiety he’d raised in the cops. Instead, he was already turning around and heading to the back of the house, where they understood he had a one-bedroom apartment.

  The space was small. Kitchenette, floral love seat, ancient TV. D.D. figured that the landlord, a Mrs. April Houlihan, was responsible for the décor, because she couldn’t imagine a twenty-something male being quite so into crocheted doilies. Aidan didn’t take a seat, but stood next to the kitchen counter. He wore a green elastic band around his left wrist, and was snapping it compulsively.

  “Who are these guys, and what did they say to you?” she asked now, watching the skin on his wrist turn red and wondering why the stinging sensation didn’t make him flinch.

  “I’m not saying anything more,” Aidan declared in a rush. “More I tell you, the more I’m dead. Just … assign me protection. A police cruiser, a local motel. Something. You gotta do something.”

  D.D. decided Colleen Pickler had been right—Aidan Brewster was a first-class whiner.

  As the bad cop, she felt entitled to say, “If at some point you’d like to file a formal complaint against one of your coworkers, we’d be happy to look into the matter. Until then, however, there’s nothing we can do.”

  She thought Aidan’s eyes might roll back in his head from sheer panic. Miller shot her a warning glance.

  “Why don’t we start from the beginning,” Good Cop said in a soothing manner, taking out the mini-recorder, turning it on. “We’ll have a chat, get the matter resolved here and now. A little cooperation from you, Aidan, and maybe we can reciprocate by getting the word out that you’re in the clear on this. ’Kay?”

  “’Kay,” the kid whispered. Snap, snap, snap with the elastic.

  “So.” Miller pushed the mini-recorder closer to Aidan, got down to business. He held the kid’s attention, so D.D. seized the opportunity to roam the apartment. Without a warrant, she was restricted to only things in plain sight, but it never hurt to recon. She hit the bedroom, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

  “Have you ever met Sandra Jones?” Miller was asking in the front room.

  D.D. spied rumpled bedding, a pile of dirty clothes—mostly blue jeans and white T-shirts—a trash can that held used Kleenex. A corner of a magazine peeked out from underneath the mattress. Porn, she guessed, because what else would you hide under the mattress?

  “Yeah, I mean, I met her. But I didn’t know her, know her,” Aidan was saying. “I saw her sometimes on the street, playing with her kid. But I always crossed to the other side of the street. Swear it! And yeah, okay, I remember her coming into the garage, now that you mention it. But I don’t work the counter. I’m in the back and only the back. Vito knows the terms of my parole.”

  “What color is her hair?” Miller asked.

  Kid shrugged. “Blonde.”

  “Eyes?”

  “Dunno.”

  “She’s young. Close to your age.”

  “Now, see, I don’t even know that much.”

  D.D. wanted to gag. She used the tip of her pen to ease out a bit more of the magazine. Penthouse, it looked to her. No big deal. She let it go, but already wondered what else Aidan Brewster might have under his mattress.

  “Talk to me about Wednesday night,” Miller was saying. “Did you go out, meet with your friends? Do anything in particular?”

  D.D. eased over to what appeared to be a closet. She saw more clothes poking out, some white socks, dirty underwear. Door was open four inches. She decided to make it six. She saw a chain dangling down from the ceiling, and used it to click on the overhead light.

  “I don’t have friends,” Aidan protested. “I don’t go to bars, I don’t hang out with buddies. I watch TV, mostly reruns. I like Seinfeld, maybe a little Law & Order.”

  “Tell me what you saw Wednesday night.”

  “Seinfield was master of his domain,” Aidan said dryly. “And McCoy prosecuted some cult leader guy who thought he was God.”

  D.D. saw more piles of clothes. She frowned, withdrew, then paused. She glanced again at the piles of dirty laundry on the bedroom floor, then the pile of clothing in the closet. How many pairs of blue jeans and white T-shirts could one guy own?

  Plain sight, plain sight, plain sight.

  She kicked her foot into the closet pile, pressing down. And sure enough, hit something hard. Metal, she thought. Rectangular. Decent-sized. Computer? Lockbox? House safe? A computer would violate the terms of the kid’s parole. Interesting.

  She drew back again, chewing her lower lip, debating her options.

  “Don’t be yanking my chain,” Miller was saying now. “Because I can look up what aired Wednesday night. You get this wrong, we’re gonna be calling you down to the station, and this time, we won’t be friends.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Aidan exploded.

  “Woman vanishing on your block is entirely coincidental?”

  “She’s a grown woman. Come on, you’ve seen my record. What the hell would I want with a mom?”

  “Ah, but she’s a young, pretty mom. Same age as yourself. Lonely, too. Husband that works nights. Maybe she just wanted to talk. Maybe it started out with you two as friends. Did she learn what you had done, Aidan? Find out about your first love and freak out?”

  “I never spoke to her! Ask anyone. If that woman was outside, she was with her kid. And I stay clear of kids!”

  “You lost your job, Aidan. Must make you mad.”

  “Hell yeah!”

  “Everyone thinks you’re good for this. Got a garage full of guys who want to make an example of you. I don’t blame you for being agitated.”

  “Hell yeah!”

  “Wrist hurt?” Miller asked abruptly.

  “What?”

  “Wrist hurt? You’ve been snapping away for ten minutes now. Tell me about the elastic, Aidan. Is that part of your program? Snap the elastic every time you’re thinking impure thoughts involving little kids? My, my, you’re having an impure day.”

  “Hey, knock it off! You don’t know nothin’ about nothin’. I’m not into kids. I was never into kids.”

  “So a twenty-three-year-old mom isn’t out of the question?”

  “Stop it! You’re putting words into my mouth. I fell in love with the wrong girl, okay? That’s all I did wrong. I fell in love with the wrong girl, and now my life’s shit. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  D.D. came out of the bedroom. Her sudden reappearance startled Aidan, and she could tell that for the first time he realized she’d left the room and where she must have gone. His gaze dropped immediately to the floor. She liked it when liars were predictable.

  “Hey, Aidan. How ’bout giving me a tour of your room?”

  He gave her a bitter smile. “Looks to me like you already got one.”

  “Yeah, but I’m curious about something. How ’bout we look together?”

  “No.”

  “No?” She feigned surprise. “Now, Aidan, you were doing such a nice job of cooperating. Like Miller said, sooner we clear you on this, sooner we can pass the word along in the community. I’m sure Vito’d love to hear his favorite mechanic can return to work.”

  Aidan didn’t reply. He’d stopped snapping the band. His gaze was zipping around the room instead, around and around and around. He was looking for the out. Not physically. But the lie, the excuse. The magic words that would make his problem go away.

  He couldn’t come up with any, and she watched his shoulders hunch as if steeling for the blow.

  “I want you to go now,” he said.

  “Aidan—” Miller began.

  “You’re not going to help me,” the kid interjected bluntly. “We all know you won’t, so cut the bullshit. I’m a pervert to you, too. And it doesn’t really matter that I’ve served my time or that I’ve stuck with the program and the terms of my parole. Once a pervert,
always a pervert, isn’t that how it goes? I didn’t touch the woman. I told Vito that, I told the husband that—”

  “You told the husband that?” D.D. interjected.

  “Yeah.” Aidan raised his head belligerently. “I had a little chat with the husband. He seemed mighty interested that a registered sex offender lived down the street. In fact,” now the kid’s gaze was calculating, “I bet he told you all about me.”

  D.D. didn’t answer.

  “It’s pretty convenient for him, don’t you think? Why, you being here, questioning me, means you can’t be there, questioning him. Yeah, I’d say my presence is the best thing that ever happened to Mr. Jones. Wonder how long before he tells the press about me, hmmm? That’ll get them good and excited.

  “So, come to think about it, it’s not just in my best interest to be cleared of these ugly accusations, it’s in your best interest as well, isn’t it? ’cause as long as you’re looking at me, you can never move against him. And I bet he knows that. Cool cat, Mr. Jones. I bet he knows an awful lot of things.”

  D.D. didn’t say a word. She kept her features smooth, composed. Just her hand fisted behind her back.

  “Show me your closet, Aidan.”

  “No thank you.”

  “Help me now, or be arrested by me later.”

  The trapped look was gone. Now the kid was downright cocky. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “You know Aidan, I’m not partial to my predators. You, Mr. Jones, hell, the Boogey Man in the closet. I’ll arrest you all, let the court sort it out. That works for me.”

  “Can’t. Multiple suspects would lead to reasonable doubt.”

  “Yeah, but it can take months to go to trial. Months of you sitting in jail, unable to make bail, while word travels round that a known sex offender lives in cell eleven.”

  He blanched. Sex offenders didn’t do well in prison. Inmates had their own code of ethics, and according to the jailhouse value system, shanking a pervert was a great way to move up in the world. Build a rep and add a teardrop to your cheek, while making the world a better place.