The Neighbor

by Lisa Gardner

  “All in good time,” D.D. assured him, polite, but remaining in control. Down the table from her, Miller started twirling his pen around his finger, drawing Maxwell’s attention.

  “When was the last time you spoke with your daughter, Sandra Jones?” D.D. asked.

  Maxwell blinked at her, looking momentarily distracted. “Um, oh, years. Sandra wasn’t the kind to pick up the phone.”

  “You didn’t call her in all that time?”

  “Well, if you must know, we had a falling-out right before she left town. My daughter was only eighteen years old, much too young for hanging out with the likes of Jason, and I told her so.” Black sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, Sandy always was a headstrong girl. She ran out in the middle of the night. Eloped, I imagined. I’ve been waiting for a phone call or at least a postcard ever since.”

  “You file a missing persons report after your daughter left?”

  “No ma’am. I didn’t consider her missing. I knew she’d run off with that boy. That’s the kind of thing Sandy would do.”

  “Really? She ran off before?”

  Black flushed. “It is a parent’s job to know his child’s weaknesses,” he stated primly. “My daughter—well, Sandy took the death of her mother hard. Went through a rebellious spell, and all that. Drinking, staying out all night. Being … well, an active teenage girl.”

  “You mean sexually active,” D.D. clarified.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Child made no bones about it. Would come in at the crack of dawn reeking of cigarettes and booze and sex. I was a teenager once myself, Sergeant. I know what kids do.”

  “How long did this go on?”

  “Her mother died when she was fifteen.”

  “How’d she die?”

  “Heart attack,” Black said, then seemed to catch himself. He looked at her, then at Miller, who was still twirling his pen, then switched his attention back to D.D. again. “Actually, it was not a heart attack. That’s a story we’ve been telling for so long it seems to have become the truth in the way lies sometimes do. But you might as well know: My wife, Sandra’s mom, she committed suicide. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Sandra was the one who found the body in our garage.”

  “Your wife killed herself at home?”

  “In her own Cadillac.”

  “Did your wife have a history of depression?”

  That almost imperceptible hesitation again. “My wife probably drank more than what would be considered medicinal, Sergeant. I have a very demanding job, you understand. I guess the loneliness took its toll on her.”

  “Your wife have a good relationship with Sandra?”

  “My wife may not have been a perfect mother, but she tried hard.”

  “And you?”

  “As I said, I was probably gone more than I should have been, but I love my daughter, too.”

  “So much so that you never once tried to find her in the past five years?”

  “Oh, I tried. I definitely tried.”

  “How so?”

  “I hired a private investigator. One of the best in the county. Here’s the kicker, though. The man Sandra introduced to me as her future husband was Jason Johnson, not Jason Jones.”

  D.D. excused herself to get a glass of water. While she was out, she swung by Detective Cooper’s desk and gave him the heads-up—start running background checks on Jason Johnson as well as Jason Jones.

  Cooper just gave her a look. He was the best in the unit at this kind of stuff, and without at least a middle initial or any other additional detail, sorting through the reams of Jason Johnsons in the world wasn’t going to be any easier than sorting through the lists of Jason Jones.

  “I know,” she assured him. “You love your job and each day is more satisfying than the last. Have fun.”

  D.D. returned to the interrogation room, but rather than go inside, she opted to watch the show from the other side of the observation glass. Judge Black was entirely too comfortable with women. He would ooze Southern charm and spin easy tales until the cows came home. Given that, she thought it might be more productive to let Miller take a run at him.

  So far, Miller had made no attempt to rouse himself from his slouch, and the detective’s continued disinterest was already starting to make Maxwell fidget. The judge played with his tie, smoothed his pocket kerchief, then took several sips of coffee. His hand shook lightly when he raised his cup. From this angle, D.D. could see the dark age spots on the back of his hand. But his face was relatively un-lined and attractive.

  He was a nice-looking man. Wealthy, charming, powerful. It made her wonder why there wasn’t a second Mrs. Black yet.

  “Did you know Sandra had gotten knocked up?” Miller asked suddenly. “Before she eloped?”

  The judge blinked several times, seemed to belatedly fix his attention on the detective. “Excuse me?”

  “Did Sandy tell you that this Jason Johnson or Jones or whomever had gotten her pregnant?”

  “I … I knew she was pregnant.”

  “That’d piss me off,” Miller said conversationally. “Some thirty-year-old guy impregnating my eighteen-year-old daughter. I’d be rip-shit if that were me.”

  “I, um … well, as I said, you have to know your child. Sandra was on a reckless path. It was only a matter of time before she got pregnant—or worse. Besides, I don’t believe Jason is the one who got her pregnant.”

  Miller stopped twirling his pen. “You don’t?”

  “No, sir. I remember how Sandy’s mom was when she was expecting. First three months, Missy could barely crawl out of bed, she was so tired and nauseous. Same thing happened to Sandra. Suddenly, she was ill, sick enough to stay home and sleep all the time. I thought she’d come down with some bug, but then it went on long enough I began to suspect the truth. Shortly thereafter, she seemed to recover. She even started going out again. It was after that period that she first mentioned this new man she’d met, Jason Johnson.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re saying Sandy got knocked up, then latched onto some wealthy older guy and got him to marry her?”

  “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Hey, pardon me, but wouldn’t that be cause for celebration? Your daughter goes from unwed teen mom to wealthy trophy bride in six months or less. Can’t hate Jason for that.”

  “Jason Johnson took my daughter from me.”

  “You told her she couldn’t get married. Come on, know your child, right? Minute you told her no, ’course she was gonna run off.”

  “She was too young to be married!”

  “Tell that to the guy who knocked her up. Seems to me she’s lucky she got Jason to clean up some other guy’s mess.”

  “Johnson took advantage of her vulnerable state. If she hadn’t been so scared, she never would’ve left me for a stranger.”

  “Left you?”

  “Left the security of her home,” Maxwell amended. “Think about it, Detective. This thirty-year-old man appears out of nowhere, sweeps my vulnerable young daughter off her feet, and carries her away without so much as asking my permission.”

  “You’re mad he didn’t ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage?”

  “Where we live, these things matter, Detective. It’s protocol. More than that … it’s good manners.”

  “You ever meet Jason?”

  “Once. I was still awake when my daughter came home one night. I came out when I heard the vehicle in the drive. Jason got out of the car and walked her up the steps.”

  “Doesn’t sound like such bad manners to me.”

  “He was gripping her arm, Detective, tightly, right above the elbow. It struck me at the time, the way he was touching her. Possessive. Like she belonged to him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked him if he was aware of the fact that my daughter was only eighteen.”

  “Was he?”

  “He said, and I quote, ‘Good evening, sir.’ Ne
ver answered my question. Never even acknowledged it. He walked right past me, escorted my daughter to the front door, then walked calmly back down the steps and got in his car. Last moment, he nodded once, said, ‘Night, sir,’ and that was that. Arrogant son of a bitch drove off like he had every right to be parading around town with a high school girl.” Maxwell shifted in his seat. “And I’ll tell you something else, Detective. Back then, when Jason spoke, he sounded just as much like a good old boy as I do. Maybe he’s gone Yankee now, but he used to be Southern, no doubt in my mind. You want to have some fun with him, take him out for some grits. Bet you he butters ’em up with the best of them.”

  On the other side of the glass, D.D. made a mental note. Jason Johnson, perhaps born in Georgia or a neighboring state. Interesting. Because now that the good judge mentioned it, she’d caught an inflection in Jason’s voice from time to time. He always checked it, flattening his tone. But something lingered in the background. Apparently, their prime suspect could drawl.

  “Wasn’t but two weeks later Sandy disappeared,” the judge was saying now. “Found her bed neatly made and half of her closet cleaned out. That was it, she was gone.”

  “She leave you a note?”

  “Nothing,” the judge stated emphatically, but he didn’t look at Miller when he said this. Maxwell’s first obvious lie.

  “Now, you tell me, sir,” the judge moved on quickly, “what kind of man spirits a young girl away to a completely new life under a completely new name? Who’d do such a thing? Why would he do that kind of thing?”

  Miller shrugged. “You tell me. Why do you think Jason Johnson became Jason Jones?”

  “To isolate my daughter!” Maxwell said immediately. “To cut her off from her home, her town, her family. To make sure there’d be no one Sandy could call for help, once he started doing what he really wanted to do.”

  “And what did Jason really want to do?”

  “As you so eloquently put it, Detective, what possible reason would one man have to ‘clean up’ another man’s mess? Unless he wanted the baby. Or rather, access to a child whose mother was too young, too overwhelmed, too troubled to attempt to protect it. I’ve served on the bench over twenty years, long enough to have seen this sorry story more times than I can count. Jason Johnson is nothing but a pervert. He targeted my daughter. No doubt, he’s already grooming little Clarissa for what’s gonna happen next. He just needed to get Sandy out of the way once and for all.”

  Holy crap, D.D. thought. She leaned closer to the glass. Was the good judge saying what she thought he was saying?

  “Jason Jones is a pedophile?” Miller asked for the record.

  “Absolutely. You know the profile as well as I do, Detective. The exhausted young wife, with a history of depression, sexual activity, drinking, drug abuse. Isolated by the older, dominant male, who slowly but surely makes her more and more dependent upon him. Jason and little Clarissa are alone together every single afternoon. That doesn’t raise any hairs on the back of your neck?”

  Miller appeared to be considering the matter, without commenting. D.D., in the meantime, felt like half a dozen lightbulbs were exploding inside her head. The profile the judge gave was dead-on. And it would fill in a lot of pieces of the puzzle—Jason’s affinity for aliases, the tight rein on his daughter and wife’s social circle, his clear panic that Sandy had started digging into the family computer.

  D.D. needed to get Jason’s picture faxed over to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children immediately. They would run it through their database of images culled from various exploitive images recovered from the Internet and other sex abuse cases. If they found a match, she’d have her grounds for an arrest, let alone for a fresh interview of Clarissa Jones. Suddenly, they were getting somewhere.

  Except then she felt uneasy again. She remembered the way Ree had flung herself into her father’s arms following her interview, the naked tenderness on his face. At that moment, D.D. had believed their love was genuine, but maybe it was only because Ree hadn’t given their secret away?

  Sometimes, this job sucked a little, and sometimes, this job sucked a lot.

  Miller was still grilling the honorable Maxwell Black. “You think your daughter is dead?”

  Maxwell gave the detective a pitying glance. “Have they ever found one of these women alive? Please, Jason Jones murdered my daughter; there is no doubt in my mind. Now I want justice.”

  “That why you’re moving for visitation rights with your granddaughter?”

  “Absolutely! I’ve been doing the same asking around you’ve been doing, Detective, and the picture I get is not pretty. My granddaughter has no close friends, no extended family, no other primary care-giver. Chances are, her father has murdered her mother. If there was ever a time when a little girl needs her grandfather, this is it.”

  “You gonna push for custody?”

  “I’m willing to fight.”

  “Jason Jones tells us Sandy wouldn’t approve.”

  “Please, Detective … Jason Jones is a liar. Look up Jason Johnson. At least know who you are dealing with.”

  “You rent a car, Judge Black?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “From the airport. Did you rent a car, or maybe use a car service?”

  “I, uh, rented a car, of course. I figured I’d need to move about the city.”

  “I’m gonna need the name of the rental agency. What time you picked the car up, when it’s due to be returned.”

  “Fine, fine, fine. Why are you pestering me so? I’m not the suspect here. Jason Johnson is.”

  “Jason Jones, aka Jason Johnson. Got it. So why haven’t you been out looking for your daughter?”

  “I already told you: The only way we’ll ever find Sandy is to expose her husband.”

  “Sad to lose your daughter and your wife, both so young.”

  “I’m focusing on my granddaughter. I can’t pity myself for my own tragedies. My grandbaby’s all who matters now.”

  “And obliterating Jason Jones.”

  “He took my daughter from me.”

  “Did it surprise you to find out that your daughter was doing well up here? Devoted mom, respected teacher, good neighbor. We certainly haven’t found any stories involving depression, alcohol abuse, or general self-destructiveness. Maybe, since the birth of her daughter, Sandra finally pulled it all together.”

  Maxwell merely smiled. “Obviously, Detective, you don’t know my Sandy at all.”

  | CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE |

  Do you remember the moment you first fell in love? The way your body would tremble if you stood too close? Or how you would have to stare at a spot just beyond his shoulder, because if you actually looked him in the eyes, his beautiful, green-flecked hazel eyes, you would blush foolishly?

  Thursday became my favorite night of the week. The culmination of a slow build of e-mail messages Wayne and I would exchange during the days in between. Nothing torrid. Nothing flagrant. I would relate stories of Ree, how she’d just mastered using a butter knife and now would only eat food she could cut in half, whether that was chicken fingers or green grapes. He would tell me of his latest assignment, maybe the cell phone he was analyzing from a bank robber, or an ongoing initiative to help the public secure their open wireless networks. I’d describe a funny episode that happened during the sixth grade’s attempt to locate Bulgaria on a map. He’d tell me about dinner at his sister’s house, where Ethan hijacked his father’s BlackBerry and spent most of the meal hacking into a major bank’s website.

  By Wednesday, I’d find myself humming under my breath in anticipation. Only one more night. Twenty-four hours. Ree and I would put on fancy dresses, blast Loreena McKennitt, and prance around the house as two fairies attending a party at the Home Tree. Then we’d eat dinner served on bright flowered plates, with our milk poured into small crystal juice glasses, which we would toast with our pinkies in the air

  I felt younger, falling in love with Wayne Reynolds. I felt
lighter, happier in my own skin. I wore more skirts and fewer pants. I painted my toenails bright pink. I bought all new underwear, including a leopard print WonderBra from Victoria’s Secret.

  I became a better mother. More patient with the endless routine of feeding, bathing, and tending a small child. More willing to laugh at Ree’s precocious demands for exactly this fork positioned exactly this way on exactly this color plate.

  Ironically enough, I even became a better wife. On the one hand, I managed to purchase a blank hard drive on which I was supposed to copy the contents of the family computer. On the other hand, I attempted the deed less and less, because once I had the “forensically sound” copy, I wouldn’t have a reason to meet with Wayne again.

  So I made excuses for my husband. One random photo over a few months’ stretch of time did not a porn-addict make. Most likely, the image was downloaded to his computer by mistake. He’d stumbled upon the wrong website, copied the wrong file. My husband could not be a pedophile. Look at the way he smiled at his daughter or his endless patience for her attempts to braid his thick wavy hair or the way he spent the first snow day of the season pulling her around the neighborhood on her little purple sled. That photo was simply some odd, vaguely terrifying anomaly.

  I fixed my husband’s favorite meals. I praised his articles in the newspaper. And I shooed him out the door to work, because the sooner he left, the sooner I could go online and talk to Wayne.

  Jason didn’t question my new and improved mood. I knew he still remembered my middle-of-the-night request for a second child, and was grateful I’d let him off the hook.

  I didn’t try to touch my husband anymore, and he was happy.

  Ree and I developed a new routine for Thursdays. I would pick her up at home and we would go to the little bistro around the corner for an early ladies’ dinner. Afterward, it was back to the school for the basketball game, where Ree would take a seat next to Ethan, and, once the game got going, I would disappear with Wayne.

  “We’re just going for a little walk,” I’d tell Ree, and she would nod placidly, already too engrossed in pestering Ethan to care.