The Girl Next Door

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “Gemma. Guess what?” he cried. “I got accepted at Rutgers.”

  Two spots of color appeared in Gemma’s cheeks as he set her back down. “Patrick. That’s fantastic!”

  “Patrick, are you ready to go?” Lindsay asked impatiently.

  Patrick stretched, his shirt riding up over his taut, tanned abdomen. “I guess so.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Marsha. “Where are you going?”

  Patrick threw an arm around his mother and squeezed her. “We’re going to celebrate. Probably hang out at the mall. Have a bite to eat at T.G.I.F.’s.”

  “Why not take Gemma with you?” said Marsha. “After all, without her help …”

  “Oh no, really,” said Gemma, blushing. “Patrick did the work.”

  “Besides, she’s still under the weather,” said Patrick breezily. “Look how pale she is. She’s been out of school for two days. But I am going to buy her a present.” He turned to Lindsay. “You can help me pick something out.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Gemma said.

  “Maybe some nice shampoo,” said Lindsay.

  Gemma reached up and touched her hair self-consciously. Nina glared at Lindsay. She couldn’t think of a sufficiently acidic retort.

  “Okay, we’re out of here,” said Patrick. “Come on, Gemma. We’ll drop you off.”

  “If you see Jimmy …” said Marsha anxiously.

  “I’m not planning on looking under any rocks,” said Patrick. Then he relented, noticing his mother’s hurt expression. “Why don’t you call Calvin’s? Maybe that little creep’s mother will know where they are.”

  Marsha shook her head in disgust. “That woman is so worthless. She doesn’t care what they do.”

  “Well, I’ll send him home if I see him,” said Patrick. “Gemma, are you coming?” Patrick headed out the screen door with Lindsay, Gemma trailing them.

  Marsha watched them go thoughtfully. “If that girl gets any thinner she’s going to disappear,” she said.

  “You know, I saw her at the park yesterday when I was painting,” said Marsha. “I wonder why she said she was sick?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nina in exasperation. “But she just got the Delman Prize so I doubt she’s playing hookey or flunking out. Mom, I have to ask you something.”

  Marsha glanced at her watch, and then picked up the remote. “Let’s see if the early news is on. They might have something about the Kilgore baby.” She switched on the TV in the corner above the sink and changed the channels until she found the local news. “What is it?” she said.

  “Can I go to the movies tonight with Brandon …”

  Her mother tore her gaze from the TV screen. “With Brandon? Is this a date? Fourteen is a little bit young for a date.”

  “It’s just the movies,” Nina cried.

  “It better be. ’Cause if I find it was anything else,” Marsha warned her.

  “It’s nothing else.” Nina rolled her eyes.

  “The movies and then straight home. You hear me?”

  “I hear you.” Nina felt a little deflated by her mother’s response. This was her very first real date. She had expected her mother to be excited. To ask her all about it, at least. But her mother’s attention was now absorbed in the TV news. She was watching it intently.

  “The baby’s remains were found wrapped in a black plastic trash bag,” the reporter in the blue coat was saying on the screen. “We have reports now that the child had been suffocated, and buried in a shallow grave …”

  Marsha let out a gasp of horror.

  “When asked about speculation that this could be the missing Kilgore baby, a police spokesman had this to say …”

  It was sad, Nina thought. But it really wasn’t her concern. She had a date tonight. A date. With Brandon Ross. She floated up the stairs to her room to call and tell him the screening times and plan her outfit.

  · · ·

  BY the time the movie was over, and Nina and Brandon had streamed out of the theater with the other moviegoers, the night sky was black and spangled with stars. Nina wanted to grab the people who walked by her and shake them, and make them realize the improbable thing that was happening right under their noses. Nina Avery was on a date.

  At least, she thought it was a date. So far, Brandon hadn’t even held her hand. When we’re walking home, she thought. That’s when he’ll do it. It will seem natural to just grab hands and walk along.

  But now they were walking up Madison Street, and coming ever closer to their houses, and still he hadn’t touched her. He was talking easily to her, telling her about his plans for the summer and his ideas about high school, but he kept his hands resolutely to himself. Maybe he just wants to be friends, she thought in despair. Maybe he just needed somebody to go to the movies with him. She felt her mood sinking as their houses came into view. That was probably it. It wasn’t a date at all. Just two friends going to see a movie.

  “Nina, is something wrong?” he asked.

  She shook her head, and tried not to look tragic. She plastered a smile onto her face. “No, nothing,” she said. “That was fun. I’m glad we went.”

  Brandon looked over toward his house. “I’d invite you over to my house, but I see my dad’s car is back and my mom went upstairs with a headache before I left. They might not want any company.”

  Nina yawned, as if the very idea of spending another moment together was tiresome. “I better go in, too. I’ll see you, Brandon.”

  He gazed at her with a troubled look on his face, and for one second she thought he might be going to lean toward her and kiss her, but then he backed down off the front step. “Okay, I’ll see ya,” he said.

  She opened the front door, wanting to escape from his sight. It was a disaster, she thought. There was no other way to describe it. In her mind she’d rehearsed how she was going to tell her mother about it. Her mom was always interested in the details of Nina’s life. Earlier, when Nina left the house, her mother had been brooding and had hardly said good-bye. Nina knew she was distracted by her worries about Jimmy. And that fight with her dad. But by now she would be more relaxed, her cheeks flushed from the evening wine, that familiar half-smile on her face. She would be ready to listen.

  Nina stepped into the front hall and was surprised to find that it was dark. Instantly, she felt alarmed, her fretting over the date forgotten. Nobody around there ever went to bed that early. Besides, her mother wouldn’t turn the light out when Nina hadn’t come home yet. And there was something else. A funny smell. Somebody had to be here. Both of her parents’ cars were in the driveway. “Mom?” she called out. “Dad?”

  There was a light on in the living room. From the looks of it, it was only one light—maybe the standing lamp by the bookcase. She followed the dim arc of light and walked into the living room. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust, to register what they were seeing. And then she let out a gasp and a strangled cry.

  “Nina,” her father said.

  He was crouching on the oriental rug in front of the coffee table, looking up at her. His broad even-featured face was pale and sweaty. He was disheveled, still wearing his shirt and tie but no jacket. The front of the shirt was splotched with something dark. On the rug in front of him lay her mother, clutching the newspaper from the coffee table, as if she had pulled it down with her when she fell. Marsha’s eyes were open, and there was a look of panic frozen in them. The front of her turtleneck was ripped, and there was a huge dark splotch over her chest. Her jeans and even her white socks were speckled with dark spots. Near her head on the rug was a knife. Nina recognized it. It came from the block in the kitchen. It, too, was stained.

  “Mom, oh my God!” Nina started to rush toward her mother.

  Slowly, Duncan rose to his feet, waving his hands at her. “Nina,” he said. “Don’t. Don’t come any closer.”

  “Mom,” she cried in a hoarse voice. “Mom. What’s wrong with her?”

  “Honey, your mom is … gone,” he said. “I came
in and found her like this.”

  “You mean …?”

  “She’s dead. Yes.” He approached Nina gingerly, as if she were a rearing horse.

  “No, she’s not dead!” Nina cried. “Don’t say that.” She lunged toward her mother, but he intercepted her and held her back.

  “No. There’s nothing you can do. Someone’s stabbed her.”

  “No. That’s crazy. Let me go!” Nina cried frantically. “Mommy!”

  “Honey, stop. She’s dead. Believe me. I’m a doctor. I know when someone’s dead. Come on. Get away from her. I don’t want you to see her like this.”

  “Mommy,” she whimpered.

  “Don’t go near her,” Duncan murmured, holding her. “Come on. We have to go in the kitchen. We have to call the police. Come with me.” He steered her away from her mother’s body, although Nina could not tear her gaze from the horrible, incredible sight. Supporting one another, they stumbled into the kitchen, which was lit only by the light over the stove. Nina slid on something wet and slippery. She looked down just as Duncan flipped on the switch for the overhead light. Nina saw that her own sneakered foot was resting in a scarlet puddle. She looked up. Blood splattered the cheerful, fruit-garlanded wallpaper and smeared the checkered tile floor.

  “Oh my God,” said Duncan.

  Nina began to scream.

  1

  NINA seated herself on a cold metal folding chair in the back of the parole board hearing room. She was one of the first to arrive. The train from New York City to Trenton had left her with an hour to spare. She smoothed down the skirt of the claret-colored knit dress she was wearing. It was a rich shade that matched her garnet earrings and went well with her long black hair and her white skin. When she chose her clothes that morning, she had been conscious of wanting to look vibrant in contrast to the drab group that made up the parole board. She wanted her father’s gaze to pick her out as soon as he walked into the room, so he could see the encouragement in her eyes.

  The door behind her opened and Nina shifted around in her seat, wondering if it was Patrick arriving. She saw that it was an elderly couple shuffling in, the woman leaning on a cane. Nina turned back around and faced the long table at the front of the room. Maybe Patrick wouldn’t show up this year. She hoped he wouldn’t. But she feared that he would. It wasn’t as if either one of them could ever forget about it.

  Her thoughts drifted back to that horrible night fifteen years earlier and the jumble of nightmarish images she could never shake. She remembered hurling herself into Patrick’s arms when he arrived home that night, shaken and bewildered, accompanied by the cops who had gone out to search for him. She could still see her eighteen-year-old brother, sobbing against their father’s shoulder like a small boy, insisting that it couldn’t be true. And then the three of them looking on in equal measures of horror and outrage as the detectives produced Marsha’s rifled purse and empty wallet, which they had found on the bedroom floor. After that, the questioning, the endless questioning. Detective Hagen, gray-haired and sharp-eyed, suggesting, over and over, that Duncan had been slow to call for help. Too slow. The expression in Patrick’s eyes beginning to change. Anger beginning to dawn there.

  The door behind the conference table opened and the twelve members of the board straggled in, shuffling papers and conferring with one another. They were, as always, a stolid-looking bunch, more men than women, more white than black, all solemn, their suits a somber array of blue, black, and gray. Some of their faces were familiar to her. A couple of them were new. Year after year, these proceedings had a sameness to them. Normally, it seemed, they ended in disappointment. A few times, waiting out in the echoing corridor, Nina had seen genuine joy as a prisoner was given a second chance unexpectedly early. She told herself that she was not being unrealistic in hoping that this time she would be the one rejoicing. This year she had reason to hope.

  Someone whispered her name, and Nina looked up to see Patrick entering the room, followed by his wife. She smiled, but her heart sank. She’d been hoping he might give their father a break, considering all that had happened recently, but no such luck. He was here, as usual. Without looking around, Patrick seated himself in the middle of the bank of seats on the other side of the aisle from her. He glanced over at her and nodded. Gemma poked her head out from behind Patrick and mouthed, “Hi, Nina.” Nina smiled weakly back at Gemma.

  So Patrick was here as usual and Jimmy, as usual, was not. To be fair, Jimmy had made great progress in his life from that night when their mother was killed. That night when he returned home high on drugs, trailing an equally doped-up Calvin Mears. Her father had ordered Calvin out of the house, and held Jimmy’s forehead when he vomited at the sight of their mother’s blood in the living room and all over the kitchen. Nina had often thought, although her father had never admitted as much to her, that the reason he refused to go to the police station that night, the reason that he insisted on having a lawyer before the police asked any more questions, was because he feared Jimmy would be busted for drugs. But Patrick scoffed at that notion. Their father’s actions that night gave rise to Patrick’s first suspicion, later confirmed in his mind by a jury’s verdict, that Duncan was the one who had murdered their mother.

  Nina straightened up as the head of the parole board, Arnold Whelan, instructed the bailiff to bring in prisoner #7796043. The bailiff went out the side door and came back into the room after a moment accompanied by a thin, gray-haired, gray-complected man in an orange jumpsuit who had his hands handcuffed in front of him. Nina felt the familiar stab of pain at the sight of her father, restrained that way, as if he were likely to be violent.

  Duncan Avery did not look around, but sat down in the chair facing the board.

  “Will the clerk please read the prisoner’s file?” asked Arnold Whelan.

  The clerk cleared his throat. “Duncan Patrick Avery, on August eighteenth, 1988, in the township of Hoffman, County of Bergen, New Jersey, convicted of the crime of murder in the second degree.” The clerk then read a history of Duncan’s applications and denials for parole. When he was asked if everything in this file was accurate, Duncan said gruffly that it was.

  Mr. Whelan then announced that the board would hear testimony from two new witnesses on behalf of the applicant. He called for Stan Mazurek, and a burly young man in a wheelchair wearing a midnight blue law enforcement uniform was pushed up to the front of the room by a young woman with lustreless brown hair. The woman was wearing a V-necked tunic over stretch pants, and on the front of the tunic was a large round laminated pin that had a photo of two smiling little girls in red dresses seated, one behind the other, against a Christmas tree backdrop. The woman put the brake on the chair and gave Mazurek a quick kiss before she sat down in the front row, far from where Duncan Avery was seated.

  “Now, Mr. Mazurek, you are, as I understand it,” said Whelan, looking at the papers in front of him, “a guard at the Bergen County State Prison, where Mr. Avery currently resides.”

  Dr. Avery, Nina silently corrected him.

  The guard nodded in agreement.

  “And you are here today to support the applicant’s petition for parole?”

  Mazurek shifted uneasily in the wheelchair and put a protective hand over the area under his ribcage. “I got stabbed and the doc, there, saved my life.”

  “You’re referring to the prisoner,” Whelan said, glancing over his half-glasses at the stenographer who was working at the end of the table.

  “That’s right. Doc Avery is in my bloc. He’s not like the others. He’s a good prisoner. He keeps to himself, keeps quiet, doesn’t make no trouble for nobody.”

  “Now, as I understand it,” said Whelan, “there was an insurrection on that bloc.”

  “That’s right,” said Mazurek. “Just last week. I came over here today from the hospital. The docs told me I have to take it easy, but … I wanted to come.”

  “All right. Please tell us what happened.”

  “Yessir. We
ll, a couple of whackos got a hold of shivs, and when they gave a signal, all hell broke loose. They took me prisoner.”

  “You were a hostage,” said Whelan.

  Mazurek nodded and hung his head. “Yessir, they had me. And they were getting a big kick out of telling me what to do. I took all of it I could stand, and then I wouldn’t go along with them, so one of them cut me. Sunshine. He tried to kill me. I knew the moment he did it. Wasn’t something … minor, you know.”

  “And the applicant …?”

  “Doc Avery. Yeah, well, he’s always quiet, ’cause he knows what these guys are. But he pipes up, right in Sunshine’s face, and says, ‘Hey, you know Mazurek is gonna bleed to death. You gotta let me stop the bleeding.’

  “Those bastards were all shouting, ‘Yeah, let him bleed,’ but Doc Avery was talking to them real quiet but firm, sayin’ if he didn’t stop the bleeding, I was gonna end up dead, and they’d all be on death row. So some of them seemed to get that, and they let him get through so he could work on me. He used his own shirt as a bandage. Dr. Quinteros there told me I would have died if he didn’t do that, the doc.”

  Whelan held up a hand to stop his testimony. “We’ll let Dr. Quinteros testify about the nature of your injury.”

  Mazurek shrugged. “Okay. I just want to say to you people that my wife and daughters and I are grateful to the doc. I owe him my life.” Mazurek had been speaking earnestly to the parole board. Now he turned and looked directly at Duncan Avery. Nina felt tears spring to her eyes at the intense sincerity in the man’s tough-looking face. “I mean it, Doc,” he said gently. “I’ll never forget what you did for me.”

  Duncan nodded slightly.

  Whelan turned to the rest of the board and asked them if they had any questions about the incident. A couple of board members asked a few questions about the hostage situation while Nina studied her father. He was paying careful attention to everything they said. You were a hero! Nina wanted to shout. They’ve kept you caged up all these years, but they have not turned you into an animal.