The Girl Next Door

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “Thanks. Thanks for trying. I found out from Detective Hagen—he’s the detective who worked on my mother’s case—that my dad was trying to track down information about my mother’s … murder. He told Detective Hagen that he had some new information.”

  Andre was silent for a moment. “Did he say what it was?”

  “He didn’t know,” said Nina.

  “Do you think that might be related to his murder?” he asked.

  Nina hesitated, then finally admitted it to herself, and said, “I think it’s possible. Don’t you?” She felt a sudden, overwhelming closeness to Andre, the only other person who seemed to really care about what had happened to Duncan Avery.

  “Well, it might be. If it is, you have to be very careful, Nina.”

  “I suppose,” she said.

  “It worries me,” he went on. “Because if Duncan was killed for stirring this whole thing up …”

  She smiled, happy in spite of herself to think that he might be worried about her. “I know, I know. Don’t worry. I’m not even in Hoffman. I’m in New York on a job right now …”

  “Nina, can you join us?” the director called out with an edge in his voice.

  “Andre, they need me. I have to go. Can I call you back?”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she heard him say as he ended the call.

  The day drew to a close without a single foot of actual film having been shot, and the director announced that they would have to postpone shooting for three days. When Nina got back to the apartment, it was growing dark, and gloom seemed to have settled over her spirits as well. She sat down in an armchair in the living room and stared out at the city lights, which were winking on all over the skyline as evening fell. It was good to be back in the city, she reminded herself. She felt at home here. I should call someone, she thought. Go out to dinner. The thought of getting ready was exhausting, but her friend Francine lived just around the corner on Amsterdam. Francine worked for a newsmagazine and always had lots of great stories, not to mention romantic troubles. They could go to a neighborhood place, where all she needed to do to get ready was to comb her hair. They could drink some wine and catch up over Thai food or a burger. She dialed Francine’s number and waited while it rang. When the machine came on, Nina hesitated, and then hung up.

  She could try her friend Sara, who lived in Tribeca, but it seemed too much like work to go all the way downtown. Maybe she was better off staying in, anyway. She needed her beauty sleep. Once she and her friends got talking they could stay out late, and she could end up drinking more wine than she intended. If she stayed in, she could have one glass, an omelette, and go to bed early. There was an open call she wanted to go to tomorrow. Nina sat back down in the living room. She found her mind wandering to Andre. She closed her eyes and felt a little weak at the thought of him. Then she shook her head and opened her eyes. Animal attraction to a stranger, she thought. An engaged stranger. Even though she thought he might feel it, too, it didn’t mean anything. He was already taken.

  Just then the phone rang, and she jumped. Andre, she thought, her heart lifting. She rushed to pick it up. “Hello?”

  “Nina? This is Frank Hagen.”

  “Lieutenant Hagen?” She felt curious and alarmed all at once.

  “Yeah. Look, after what we talked about this morning, I decided to ask a few questions of my own. I thought you might want to know. It seems they already found that woman they were looking for. The hooker.”

  “They did?” Nina cried. “Was she … did she tell them what my dad wanted? Why he was with her?”

  “No,” he said with a sigh. “And she’s not gonna be telling them anything. They found her in the morgue.”

  “She’s dead?” Nina’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Yup,” said Frank. “It turns out she’s been in the hospital for the last week. She was admitted with pneumonia. Nobody knew where she was because she kept quiet about having AIDS. I guess she figured it was bad for business. Anyway, from what I heard, she wasn’t too good about taking care of herself. She was more interested in scoring some crack than in taking her AIDS cocktail, so when the pneumonia hit she couldn’t fight it off and she checked out.”

  “Checked out, like …?”

  “Like died,” said Frank bluntly.

  “Shit. Pardon my language,” said Nina.

  “Yeah, Chief Perry’s put ‘case closed’ to it,” said Frank sarcastically.

  “But he can’t. My dad didn’t…”

  “I tried to tell him they were barking up the wrong tree, but he wasn’t interested,” said Hagen. “He reminded me that I was retired and that the force could get along just fine without my help.”

  Nina could easily picture it. She had heard the chief express disdain for the retired detective with too little to do. “So that’s it?” she protested.

  “Well, not exactly. It wasn’t a total loss. You see, the hooker’s name was Perdita Maxwell. It’s one of those names you don’t forget,” said Frank Hagen with a chuckle. “I recognized it the minute I heard it.”

  “What about it?” Nina asked, frowning.

  “I recognized it because she was one of the many people we interviewed when your mother was murdered,” said Hagen. “Perdita Maxwell, that was the name she used for customers. Her real name was Penny. Penelope Mears. Does that ring a bell? She was the mother of that druggie friend of your brother’s. The one who thought he was a rock-and-roll star. Calvin Mears.”

  Nina’s heart started to pound. She sat up straight, clutching the phone. “Calvin Mears? Jimmy’s friend.”

  “That’s the one,” said Frank Hagen. “I looked it up in the file to be sure, but I knew the minute I heard the name.”

  “My father was looking for Calvin’s mother?” she said.

  “My guess is, he was trying to locate Calvin,” said Hagen.

  “Right. Of course,” she breathed.

  “But,” Frank cautioned, “Calvin Mears is long gone. He had to leave town years ago. He was involved with some girl who died of an overdose.”

  “Yes. I remember Jimmy saying something about that,” said Nina. “Did he give her the overdose?”

  “Well, he was definitely on the scene when it happened. It was one of those things where everybody knew but nobody was saying anything,” said Frank, in a tone of reminiscence. “We picked Mears up for it but we had to let him go. We couldn’t really make anything stick. Not long after that, Mears disappeared.”

  “But his mother probably knew where he was,” Nina said, thinking out loud.

  “Probably,” Frank Hagen agreed.

  They were both silent for a moment.

  “You know …” said Nina.

  “What’s that?” Hagen asked.

  “Well, I’m just thinking. If Mears finds out that his mother died, he might come back. You know, just to pay his respects. Don’t you think?”

  “I doubt it,” said Hagen. “That girl that died? Keefer was her name. Her father wanted revenge. Keefer let everybody know that he was going to kill Mears if he got a hold of him. Mears knows better than to come back.”

  “Dammit. What did my father want with Calvin Mears?” she mused aloud.

  “I don’t know. Ask your brother.”

  Immediately, Nina remembered Jimmy telling her on the way to the funeral that he had paid Duncan a visit. He had insisted that they didn’t discuss anything important. He certainly hadn’t mentioned the name of Calvin Mears. “I believe I will,” she said.

  “If you want, I can go talk to him,” Frank said.

  Nina pictured Jimmy hyperventilating in the church when she told him that Duncan had been murdered. “No,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.” The thought of Jimmy pretending not to know anything filled her with fury. Was he protecting Calvin Mears at the expense of his family? Could he have stooped that low?

  “It might be a good idea to have someone else there,” said Frank.

  Nina felt as if her heart had turned to stone. “Th
ank you, Lieutenant,” she said. “I appreciate your help. But I’ll deal with my brother.”

  18

  BY ten o’clock the next morning, Nina arrived at her aunt’s house. She went inside only long enough to drop her bag on the piano bench and pick up the car keys. She looked around, knowing there was housekeeping she should do, but not now. Now she had to find Jimmy. She started out to the Volvo. The day’s newspaper, still in its sleeve, was lodged in a tangle of bushes near the driveway. She tucked it under her arm, unlocked the car door, and tossed the paper on the seat beside her. In fifteen minutes, including a stop for gas, she was climbing the wooden steps and ringing the bell of the Connellys’ neat bungalow.

  George Connelly came to the door. “Nina,” he exclaimed. “I don’t see you for years and now it’s getting to be an everyday thing.”

  “Hi, Mr…. George. Is my brother here?”

  George frowned. “No, he’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Isn’t this his day off ?” said Nina.

  “Yeah,” said George. “We take the same day off. Planned it that way so we could spend some time together. But I got up today and he was gone. Rose probably knows where he is, but she left me a note that she’d gone to the store. Do you want to come in and wait? She should be back … Oh, wait a minute—here she comes now.” He waved as Rose’s car pulled into the driveway. “Let me help her,” he said. “She’s got groceries.”

  Before Nina could reply, he was off the porch and down the steps, meeting his wife by the trunk of her car. Nina watched as he lifted the bags out of Rose’s arms and insisted that she precede him into the house. They walked up the path chatting amiably about someone Rose had seen at the grocery store.

  “Nina, could you hold that door open?” George asked.

  Rose’s smile faded as she looked up at Nina in the doorway. “Well, Nina.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Connelly.”

  “She’s looking for Jim, honey,” said George. “Do you know where he went?”

  Rose stopped just inside the porch door, holding a paper sack as if it were a baby in her arms. “No, I don’t.”

  I don’t believe you, Nina thought.

  “Can I give him a message when he comes back?” Rose asked.

  “This is … something personal,” said Nina stiffly..

  “I hope this isn’t more about your father. I only say that because after what happened in church the other day, Jimmy was quite upset,” said Rose. “And he doesn’t need that. He has his own struggles and he’s done a magnificent job. He doesn’t need to be constantly reminded about unpleasant things.”

  “Unpleasant things?” Nina cried. “Both of our parents have been murdered. You can’t very well just forget that.”

  “Yes, we read that in the paper. Now they think your father was murdered,” said George. “Terrible. That poor man.”

  “I don’t expect Jimmy to forget it,” said Rose sternly. “But Jimmy has come a long way, and I don’t want anything to drag him down again.”

  “You mean, like me,” Nina said bitterly. Her face flamed. She wanted to start shouting at Rose Connelly that it was none of her business what Nina said to her own brother, but years of being cautioned to respect her elders inhibited her, and she kept silent.

  “Don’t take that the wrong way, Nina,” said George soothingly, giving his wife a reproving glance. “We may be a little overbearing when it comes to Jim. It’s been such a struggle for him. And he’s like a son to us. You know that. We’re very aware that he doesn’t cope well with turmoil in his life.”

  “I do know that,” said Nina, a note of sharpness in her tone.

  Rose looked at Nina sympathetically. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Nina,” she said. “I could never forget all you children have suffered. And please believe me, I’m only thinking of your welfare. The both of you. It’s not healthy for you either, Nina. I think you might need to talk to a counselor or someone about this anger of yours. Before you let it ruin your life.”

  “My life is fine,” said Nina.

  “Well, I’m not going to tell you what to do. You’re a grown woman,” Rose said. “But I’d prefer if you didn’t get Jimmy involved.”

  Involved? Nina thought. Isn’t Jimmy an adult? she wanted to demand. But she already knew the answer. It was as if Jimmy had become a child again, in the family he really wanted to belong to.

  “So you won’t tell me where he is,” said Nina.

  Rose looked at her with a tranquil gaze. “I told you. I don’t know where he is, Nina. He doesn’t tell me everything he does.”

  “You could try the gym. He’s often there,” said George, trying to be helpful. “Or the church. He helps out there. He might be at a meeting. Usually he goes to the meetings at the Fellowship Hall of the Presbyterian Church. At any rate, we’ll let him know you were here,” George said, more gently, “when he comes home.”

  “Thanks,” said Nina. Thanks for nothing, she thought.

  “We’ll pray for you,” Rose said.

  AN hour of driving from one of the places George had mentioned to another yielded no clues to Jimmy’s whereabouts. When she stopped at a light opposite the Claremont Diner Nina’s stomach rumbled and she suddenly realized that she was hungry. She’d been in such a hurry to get the bus at Port Authority that she hadn’t even had a chance to pick up something for breakfast. Part of her was tempted to keep on looking, but physically she was running out of gas. She pulled into the lot and parked. For a moment, she recalled the night of her father’s funeral, when she had come here with Andre. She wondered when he would get back, and then she reminded herself that his life was no business of hers.

  As she started to get out of the car she saw the newspaper on the seat beside her and decided to bring it in with her. It would be something to do while she waited for her order. Maybe she would find an article in it about the police investigation of her father’s death.

  Inside the diner, she took a two-person table by the window and waved away the giant menu, asking the waitress for a roll and coffee. She pulled the plastic sleeve off the local paper and unfolded it, paging through it. There was a brief article about Duncan headlined, “Woman sought in Avery murder inquiry dies in hospital.” Nina pounced on the article and read it, but it left her feeling more frustrated than ever. All it said was that Perdita Maxwell, a.k.a. Penelope Mears, whom police believed may have been involved in the death of Duncan Avery, had died in the hospital from pneumonia, complicated by AIDS. Nothing more was said about the investigation except that it was ongoing. Instead, the newspaper devoted several column inches to rehashing the murder of Marsha Avery and Duncan’s conviction. Nina flipped the page impatiently.

  The waitress brought her order, and Nina ate, her eyes glazing over as she scanned the Kiwanis Club photos and editorials about property taxes. But when she came to the obituary page, she stopped short.

  “Mears, Penelope, 47,” read a small headline over a paragraph, without a photo, near the bottom of the page. The obit offered only the briefest, most sanitized summary of a life Nina now knew to be rather sordid. Penelope’s occupation was listed as massage therapist, and her only surviving family was a married sister named Sally Jenkins living in Seaside Park, N.J., and one son, Calvin, of Los Angeles. Nina tried to put a face to the name of Calvin’s mother, but she couldn’t remember ever meeting her. When she was a kid, she remembered the adults talking about Mrs. Mears as a mother who didn’t care what kind of trouble her son got into. Nina had always somehow understood that about her, but she’d never realized what it was that Mrs. Mears had done for a living. It must have been a well-kept secret at the time. She wondered if her own parents had known the truth about Calvin’s mother. Nina read over the funeral arrangements, and then, with a start, she looked again at the date and time listed. She glanced up at the clock over the diner counter. This was an opportunity. Maybe. She hesitated, remembering what Frank Hagen had said—that Calvin wouldn’t dare show his face in Hoffman beca
use of that vengeful father. But it was surely worth a try.

  · · ·

  BY the time she got to the funeral home, there were only two cars in the parking lot. A ponytailed attendant in a shiny suit, standing under the portico outside the doors, told her that the Mears mourners had already left for the cemetery.

  “You can catch them if you hurry,” he said.

  Nina got back in the Volvo and drove as fast as she dared to the stone pillars that marked the entrance to Shadywood Cemetery. She drove slowly, looking right and left for signs of life among the quiet markers. She passed a black Dodge pickup truck with tinted windows parked by the side of the road. Nina glanced over and saw that someone was sitting in the car. She looked away, not wanting to intrude on their grief, and continued on along the winding road through the cemetery.

  The small party of mourners was not hard to spot. They were on a hillside that sloped up from the road. Nina parked the Volvo and got out, walking up to where the knot of people were standing. The blustery gray November wind rattled the few leaves left on the trees around them, and a shower of flakes, looking more like cinders than snow, whirled around the tiny group. The priest was intoning a blessing while a sad-eyed middle-aged woman in a navy blue dress and a gray coat chewed the inside of her mouth. Beside her, a man in a checked sport coat and a fedora stood with his feet apart, his hands folded in front of him, in a straight-backed stance.

  There were two other women, both dressed in black, one a bleached blond, the other a redhead. The blond’s tight black dress had sequins across the yoke. The redhead wore a short skirt and tight sweater. There was a huge run in her dark stockings. Both of the women were red-eyed from weeping, and if appearances were any indication, Nina thought, they might have been Perdita’s colleagues.

  Between these disparate pairs stood a lean man with filthy hair and classic features. He wore an open-collared black shirt and a gray pinstriped suit over unbuckled black boots. He swayed slightly, and his large, glittering gray eyes stared blankly down at the coffin.