The Girl Next Door

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “Who is it?” Nina demanded.

  “I can’t tell you that, Nina. But we’ll get to the bottom of it. We are investigating and we will continue to investigate until we apprehend a suspect. All right?”

  Nina gave a shuddering sigh and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I was so sure …”

  “Sure of what?” the detective asked.

  Nina shrugged. “I thought maybe he … I don’t know.”

  “If you have any information that could help us, now’s the time to tell me about it,” said the chief.

  “It’s just that … he always said that he was innocent. He wasn’t the one who killed my mother. I just thought he might have gone looking. You know, stirred things up trying to find Mom’s killer … I thought it was about that.”

  Chief Perry gazed at her sadly. “Your mother’s killer went to prison, Nina. Your father knew that better than anyone.”

  13

  PARKED in the nursing home lot, Nina sat behind the wheel staring through the drizzling rain at the building, knowing she should go inside and visit her great-aunt. She knew she had neglected Aunt Mary, and she felt guilty about it. But today, despite her guilt, Nina was too depressed to get out of the car. She couldn’t make herself do it. She couldn’t put on a cheerful face for anyone. Not even Aunt Mary. Not after news like that. Her father had been killed by a prostitute?

  What a sordid way for all of this to end, she thought. She did not want to know this about her father. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. For the first time, she felt absolutely furious at Duncan. She knew her anger was inappropriate, that she was blaming the victim, but she couldn’t help it. This would be the last chapter of his life story. It was horrible, and unfortunately, as Chief Perry had pointed out, not that difficult to imagine. This was the image of her father she would never be able to erase from her mind, no matter how hard she tried.

  Nina glanced at the door to the nursing home, which had swung open. A middle-aged aide in flowered scrubs was wheeling an ancient-looking woman out the door. The aide stopped the wheelchair on the sidewalk under the portico, which was bordered by lavender mums, still blooming. The patient, tiny and wizened, wrapped in a shawl, looked up hopelessly at the drizzling skies.

  Despite her own troubles, Nina felt a little pinprick of sympathy. There are worse problems than yours, she reminded herself sternly. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and go visit your aunt. She was there for you when your world collapsed. Nina forced herself to open the car door and step out into the rain.

  TWO hours later, Nina dropped her purse on the piano bench and slumped down on the sofa in her aunt’s living room. The nursing home visit, greeted with delight by Aunt Mary, had made Nina feel better for a little while, too. But now, back in the gloomy house, she felt the depression descending on her again. What now? she wondered.

  Nina’s skin prickled as she pictured herself surrounded, hounded by reporters after the police arrested a hooker and charged her with killing her john, Duncan Avery. She knew how it would be. They would ooze fake sympathy, reminding Nina of her faith in her father—the naïve girl who believed that her father could do no wrong.

  The only way to escape the curiosity seekers was to go back to New York and disappear into the anonymity of the city. There was probably little time to waste. The arrest could come at any moment. Nina forced herself to get up from the sofa and climb the stairs. She had moved back into her old bedroom, since her father was gone and the clutter from the nearly finished paint job in her aunt’s room remained. As she got her clothes out of the closet, she looked down and saw Duncan’s bag, still sitting where she had left it on the closet floor, the packet of parole information still visible.

  She had brought her father to this house. It was her responsibility to rid the house of any last vestiges of his presence. With a sigh, she pulled his few shirts and the one pair of pants that hung neatly in the sacheted closet off their hangers. She folded them and laid them on the bed. She looked at the book he had left on the nightstand. It was a well-thumbed copy of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl with a bookmark in it, as if Duncan had been in the process of rereading it and had just set it down. Yeah. Set it down to go in search of a blow job, she thought disgustedly, as she tossed the book on the meager pile of clothes. She noticed that there was a prescription vial on the nightstand also, made out to Duncan Avery. She’d seen it before, but she hadn’t thought much about it. Now she recognized it. It was the prescription Andre had told her about. Should I keep this? she wondered. It wasn’t as if anybody were ever going to use it. She held the vial over the fabric-covered pink wastebasket and hesitated.

  Then she was struck by the meaning of what she was doing. Why in the world are you sorting through these things, she thought, as if some of them were worth packing and saving and others weren’t? What, after all, was the point of saving her father’s meager belongings? There were already boxes of his books and clothes in Aunt Mary’s basement where she had carefully stored them so long ago. What was the use of putting even more stuff down there? Fill up the duffel and throw it directly into the trash.

  The realization was satisfying in a bitter sort of way. Clutching the vial, she walked over to the closet and picked the duffel bag up off the floor by the handles. As she lifted it up, the duffel bag felt unexpectedly heavy. What’s he got in there? she wondered, carrying it to the bed and setting it down on the bedspread beside the pile of clothes.

  She reached into the bag, rummaged through its contents, and her hand fell on something metallic and cold.

  Nina knew what it was before her hand unearthed it and pulled it out of the open zipper. She knew, but she could hardly believe it. She was holding a gun. Her father had a gun in that bag. Nina sank down on the edge of the bed, and stared at the pistol in her hand.

  She knew nothing about guns, except that they were deadly, and that her father was not allowed to possess one. But he did, she thought. Why? Why would he do something so dangerous and illegal? There would be no answer, she thought. She would have to live the rest of her life wondering what Duncan Avery was really all about.

  Her thoughts traveled back to his trial, and the prosecutor painting a verbal picture of Duncan as a man who appeared dignified and respectable, but who gave in frequently to his illicit desires. Sex and violence sprang from the same source, the D.A. said. Didn’t it make sense that this man of uncontrollable impulses might have become violent with his wife, a woman he wanted to be rid of?

  No, Nina thought. No. She had to draw the line somewhere. She couldn’t give in to those doubts now. Her faith in her father’s innocence had sustained her all these years. If she started to doubt him now, she would only be hurting herself. Duncan was beyond being hurt. No. She couldn’t allow this latest discovery or the information about the sordid end of his life to call into question everything she had relied on all these years.

  Nina stuffed the gun into the canvas duffel bag and piled his clothes on top of it. She zippered the top and carried it down to the kitchen, ready to take it to the trash, where it belonged. There was a big plastic trash can out by Aunt Mary’s garage. She would have to pick her way through the puddles in the backyard to get to it. But as she opened the kitchen door and looked out at the dark sky and the rain, she had a sudden, sickening thought. You weren’t allowed to throw guns into a trash can. What if some kid found it and killed somebody with it? No, that’s why they had those occasional days when people could turn in their firearms to the police with no questions asked.

  Jesus, Dad, she thought. You just keep making my life difficult.

  Nina sighed. She would have to keep her ears open for one of those occasions and bring the gun to the police station. She definitely did not want to have to answer any questions about it. Meanwhile …

  She had to put it somewhere. It might as well go down in the basement with his other belongings. With a sigh, Nina closed the back door and walked over to the door to the baseme
nt. She flipped the switches at the top of the stairs. The light over the stairs came on, but the basement itself remained dark. Must have burned out, she thought. For a moment she hesitated. She hated going downstairs in the dark. But she knew where Duncan’s other belongings were stored. In an area along the near wall. She could reach that without a light. She walked down the stairs and peered, by the light of the staircase bulb, into the dank basement. She could see the cardboard boxes she had left there years ago. With a sigh, she carried the duffel bag over to the stack of boxes.

  Her eyes unexpectedly welled with tears as she placed the shabby duffel bag on top of the boxes she had saved for her father when he first went to prison. There would be no further use for any of these things, she thought. He would not be needing them. Maybe once she got rid of the gun, she would give the rest to Goodwill. If they would have it, she thought.

  A shrill ring cut through the quiet of the house, and she jumped. It was the phone upstairs. Oh, no, she thought. What if the police have found that woman? Dammit, I didn’t get out of here fast enough, she thought. There was no way to tell who was on the phone. If only there were some way to screen the calls. Aunt Mary had none of the modern conveniences. No answering machine. No Caller ID. Nina stood at the foot of the basement steps, uncertain whether she should run to find out or try to escape the inevitable by letting it ring. As she was pondering her options, the ringing stopped.

  Nina breathed a sigh of relief and began to mount the cellar stairs. I’m going to get my stuff and leave, she thought. I’ll splurge on a cab to the bus stop.

  As she reached the top step and entered the bright kitchen, the phone began to ring again, as if the caller had taken a brief respite and then redialed. Why don’t you get an answering machine? Nina wondered, thinking impatiently of her aged aunt. It’s the twenty-first century, for God’s sake. The phone continued to ring, implacable and demanding.

  Leave me alone, she thought, glaring at it. Whoever you are. But she knew there was no escape. If the news was out, she would have to face it. You can do it, she thought. You have a lot of practice being steely. Nina hesitated and then picked up the phone angrily. “What?” she said sharply into the receiver.

  “Nina, it’s Andre.”

  For a moment, she felt both relieved and chagrined. She had promised to call him but she had forgotten. She’d forgotten everything but the discovery of Duncan’s gun, and the latest information from the police. And now here was Andre on the phone, wanting to know if he had been right. “Hello,” she said.

  “I hope I’m not bothering you,” he said warily.

  “No, no,” said Nina, feeling instantly apologetic. “I was afraid it might be a reporter on the phone, so I almost didn’t answer.”

  “You need to give me your cell phone number,” he said. “Here, I’ve got a pencil. Give it to me.”

  Reluctantly, Nina complied. “What do you want?” she asked in a dull voice.

  “I just wanted to know-did you go to see the police?”

  “Yes,” said Nina. “I went. And you were right. He was taking his medication. It wasn’t a suicide. My father was murdered.”

  She heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

  “But it turned out they already knew that. They even know why,” she continued, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “It seems he was murdered by a prostitute. You know, Andre, it was just like you said. He wanted to live every day to the fullest.” Her effort to make light of this news fell flat.

  Andre did not reply.

  She took his silence as a rebuke, and suddenly she felt angry at her father’s doctor for urging her to seek out this information, which had proved so humiliating, even though she knew logically that she would have found out anyway, eventually.

  “Frankly, I think I might have preferred to believe it was a suicide. Is there anything else?” she demanded.

  “Have they made an arrest?” Andre asked.

  “Not yet. They’re trying to track the woman down. Andre, look, I’m not in the mood to talk, if you don’t mind …”

  “So what makes them think it was a prostitute?” he said.

  “She was seen by a neighbor getting into his car outside her house. The neighbor recognized Duncan,” said Nina wearily, and realized that she had just referred to her father by his first name, as Patrick always did. “And what else? They found him in a place where people—you know—go to do that sort of thing …”

  “That’s it?” he said. “That’s all they know?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they have other evidence. I didn’t really want all the disgusting details. Look, I appreciate that you came by and tried to be … supportive but—”

  “But they’re sure it was murder. Someone shot him.”

  Nina tapped on the phone. “Yes. Hello, did you hear me? I have to go.”

  “Nina, listen …” His voice was interrupted by clicking sounds. “Can you hold on a minute? I’m still at the prison,” he said.

  Before she could reply that she didn’t want to hold on he was gone and there was silence on the phone. Nina held the receiver to her ear and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk anymore. She wanted oblivion. She wanted sleep. She pictured Andre’s angular face, his sensual lips and keen dark eyes. He was a very attractive man. He seemed full of life. Maybe at some other time in her life she would have made an effort to get to know him, but not now. What was the use? He was engaged and he was moving back to Santa Fe. And she—she was depleted, depressed. Anything he had to say to her would be about Duncan, and she didn’t want to think about Duncan anymore.

  Andre came back on the line. “Nina, are you there?”

  “Yes,” she sighed.

  “Crisis averted,” he said. “Look, I want to see you, but I can’t get there tonight.”

  “I’m tired, Andre. I’m whipped. I don’t really want to talk about all this.”

  “I know you’re tired,” he said kindly, and the compassion in his voice made Nina suddenly feel like weeping. “I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

  Her tone softened. This was not the enemy. This was someone who had tried to help. “Oh, Andre, I’m sorry to be so cranky. It was just so awful. The police chief was trying to spare my feelings. He didn’t want me to know about my father—you know—meeting his demise in such a … degrading way. I can’t help feeling … It sounds stupid, but I feel … like my father betrayed me.”

  “He didn’t betray you, Nina,” Andre said calmly. “They’ve got it all wrong.”

  14

  ANDRE’S words were like a surge of electricity that traveled through the phone wires and jolted her. “Wrong? What do you mean ‘wrong’?” Nina cried.

  “It’s very simple,” he said. “The medication he was taking, Nina …”

  “Yes. What about it,” she said irritably.

  “It had an unfortunate side effect that’s common to a number of antidepressants. It rendered him impotent.”

  “What? How do you know that? I mean …”

  “Believe me. I know it for a fact. We discussed it very frankly. Physician to patient. He’d tried some of the other medications that had no sexual side effects, but he got the best results with this particular compound. I asked if it wasn’t too high a price to pay and he assured me he could live with it. In prison, of course, it actually made his life somewhat easier. He knew that if he wanted to resume sexual relations, he was going to have to go off the drug for a while.”

  “But he didn’t go off it,” she said.

  “Exactly,” said Andre. “If he planned to seek the services of a prostitute, he knew enough not to take his medication.”

  Nina held the phone to her ear, but her face felt slack, numb.

  “Are you there?” he asked.

  “Yes. Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Absolutely. We talked about it very frankly.”

  Nina was silent for a moment. “So you’re saying …? Then the police must be lying about this. There’s no way h
e would have been with a prostitute.”

  “No, hold up there. I didn’t say that. He may very well have contacted this woman. I’m just saying that he wouldn’t have solicited her for sex.”

  “Why else, then?” Nina cried. “And why would she want to kill him?”

  “Look, I don’t know, Nina. I don’t know all that much about your dad’s life. As much as we talked, he never revealed all that much to me. He was kind of a secretive person. Don’t take that the wrong way. It’s just the way he seemed to me.”

  Nina sighed. “Oh no. I know exactly what you mean. He was a very private person. I’m sorry. This is not your problem.”

  “Well, not so fast. I may not know too much about Duncan’s comings and goings, but I can tell you this. Often when a guy gets out of this place, the ones who are still inside ask him to deliver messages to their girlfriends or their wives. Sometimes they give a guy money to buy something for her. That kind of thing.”

  Nina’s head was spinning. “Do you think he might have done that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible,” said Andre.

  “So why would the woman want to kill him?”

  “Nina, we’re not talking about your most rational citizens here. They might have argued about something. The boyfriend might have promised her that Duncan was bringing her a gift—some gift that he didn’t actually have for Duncan to deliver. I’ve heard of that happening. Then the girlfriend blames the poor sucker who comes around for stealing it and the boyfriend looks like a hero. Or Duncan might have delivered bad news and this woman just went off and killed the messenger. I don’t know why. I’m just speculating.”

  “No, of course you don’t,” Nina said. She was silent for a moment, thinking about what he had told her. Then she took a deep breath. “You know, you’ve already … gone out on a limb for me, Andre. For my father … I don’t have the right to ask you for anything else. It’s just that …”