The Girl Next Door

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “Calvin stayed outside. He was my lookout. He was supposed to let me know if anybody was coming. I … went into the house by the back door to … steal the money from Mom’s purse.”

  “What?” Nina yelped.

  “We were high and we wanted to score some more drugs. We didn’t have any money. You know I was very messed up in those days …”

  “Jimmy!” Nina cried.

  “So, I remembered Mom went to the bank on Fridays. I figured …” Jimmy sighed. “I knew where she kept her purse. I sneaked into the house and went to their room and found it. I stole the money and I ran out.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” said Nina. “You were the thief ?” She was having a hard time absorbing this information. She had always believed that the thief was also the murderer. “Where was Mom when you were in the house? Are you saying that she was there in the house and she didn’t hear you come in? That’s impossible.”

  “No, I’m saying that it had already … that she’d already been attacked. Stabbed. I just didn’t know it.”

  “And you didn’t see her in there? Our mother, lying there like that, in a pool of blood on the living room floor?” Nina cried. “You didn’t notice the blood all over the kitchen, on the walls?”

  “I didn’t go in the living room. It was dark in there!” Jimmy cried. “And in the kitchen. That was pretty dark, too. Just that little light over the stove …”

  Nina remembered. Jimmy was describing the house as she’d found it, that long-ago night. But what he was saying she didn’t want to admit to herself that it could be true. “Oh, give me a break. You expect me to believe that you went in and took the money and left and you never saw her?”

  Jimmy nodded miserably. “I didn’t want to see her. I … was being quiet. I wanted to avoid her. But … I guess it didn’t matter because she was …” Jimmy fell silent. He tipped his head back against the wall and did not look at Nina.

  “Because she was already dead,” said Nina grimly.

  Jimmy shook his head. “No. She wasn’t dead. That’s what makes it even worse. It turns out she was still alive.”

  20

  NINA felt like the room was spinning. “Still alive?” she cried. “How could you possibly know that? You just said you didn’t see her.”

  Jimmy looked at her sorrowfully, but there was no compassion in her eyes. He hesitated, and then continued. “When we talked the other night, Dad told me that she was still alive. He said she was still alive when he came in and found her. He found her lying there in the living room in all the blood … She was barely alive, but she was able to speak—whisper, I guess.”

  “She could speak?” Nina said, going over that night as she remembered it in her mind. “He never said that. He told me she was dead.”

  Jimmy nodded sadly. “I guess she was by the time you came home. But when Dad found her, she was just clinging on. When Dad lifted her up, she was looking him right in the eye and saying my name, and Dad thought she—you know—mistook him for me. He didn’t realize, I guess … She must have known I was in the house. She must have heard me come in. Maybe she even saw me there. She was probably trying to call to me to come and help her. But I was too busy looking for the money. I was going through her purse, stealing from her, while she was lying there bleeding to death on the living room carpet, trying to call to me to help her.”

  “Oh my God, Jimmy,” Nina said, filled with revulsion.

  “I know. I was just too fucked up to even hear her. I might have been able to save her life. But all I cared about was getting the money.”

  His face wore an expression of sheer misery. Nina had a slight impulse to reach out for his hand, to comfort him, but she felt paralyzed. “Jimmy, why didn’t you tell the police all this?”

  Jimmy ran a hand over his bristly head. “Because Dad kept saying that whoever took the money must have killed her. I was afraid they would blame me. You know, they might think that I killed her.”

  Nina had a sudden terrible thought. “Jimmy, you didn’t …”

  Jimmy looked at her balefully. “I didn’t hurt Mom. Come on, Nina. How could you even …? I would never have laid a hand on Mom.”

  “But you had information that might have helped the investigation. Maybe they would have found out who really killed her. Instead they blamed Dad,” said Nina.

  “They had other evidence,” he reminded her.

  She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “So you assumed that they were right. That Dad killed her.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Jimmy feebly. “Mom and Dad were always mad at each other. When the cops arrested him, I just figured … I mean, they’re cops. They know about this stuff. I didn’t know what else to think.”

  “I never believed it,” she reminded him angrily.

  “I didn’t want to believe it. But during the trial, when it came out about how he wanted to divorce her. And then that business about him sleeping with Mrs. Ross.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I started to think … It sounded … possible.”

  “And what do you think now?” Nina said slowly.

  Jimmy sighed. “I think they must have been wrong. When he told me that part about how he found her there and she was whispering my name, I knew. I knew he was telling the truth. She heard me in the house. I just didn’t hear her. She was too weak to call to me. He didn’t kill her. She wasn’t even dead when he found her.”

  “I hope you told him that,” said Nina bitterly. “I hope you told him that you realized he was innocent so that he heard it from your lips before he was killed.”

  Jimmy shook his head slightly. “I wanted to. But …”

  “Oh, Jimmy!” Nina rolled her eyes in exasperation. Part of her wanted to just get up and leave him there in disgust, but there was more that she wanted to know. She took a deep breath and tried to compose her thoughts. “So when you told him you were the one who took the money, what did he say?”

  “What do you think?” said Jimmy defensively. “He was mad at me.”

  “Do you blame him?”

  “No,” Jimmy retorted. “It’s what I expected. That’s why I didn’t admit it for so many years.”

  Nina chewed her lip and stewed in silence for a moment. “Okay, what else?” she asked.

  Jimmy spoke in a monotone. “He asked me all about it. I told him how Calvin was waiting outside, being the lookout, and Dad wanted to know if Calvin had seen anything or anyone. You know, someone leaving the house as I was going in. He said the killer must have just left when I was arriving because Mom couldn’t have been lying there like that for long. Not as badly wounded as she was.”

  “So you gave him Calvin’s number …”

  “I didn’t have Calvin’s number. I told you, I hadn’t talked to him in years. I told Dad to call Calvin’s mother.”

  “Penelope Mears,” said Nina, “a.k.a. Perdita Maxwell. And she told him how to get in touch with Calvin.”

  Jimmy shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “And what did Calvin tell him? Did he remember anything from that night? Anything or anyone he might have seen?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jimmy.

  The bar was noisy around them, but they were an island of silence. For a moment they each pondered the wreckage of their family and wondered if it could have been avoided.

  Finally, Jimmy took a deep breath. “When the cops told us that he killed himself,” he said, “I lost it. I felt so guilty.”

  Nina softened toward him a little at this admission. “But Dad didn’t kill himself. Remember?”

  Jimmy nodded. “I know.”

  She hated to see him looking so lost and hopeless. “Look, Jimmy, what’s done is done. Right now we need to find out what Calvin told him.”

  Jimmy seemed too lost in his dejection to rise to the challenge.

  “Right now we don’t know where Calvin is or what he said,” Nina said.

  Jimmy shrugged. “He said he was going right back to California. Or maybe he’ll stay with
his aunt and uncle for a little while. I don’t know. When he gets back to L.A. I can call him and find out what he told Dad. If anything …”

  “I can’t wait that long,” said Nina. “I’ll track him down myself.”

  The waitress ambled over to the table, holding an empty tray against her hip. “Can I get you folks another round?” she asked.

  “No, just the check. We’re leaving,” said Nina.

  The waitress nodded and departed.

  “Do you hate me now?” said Jimmy.

  She didn’t want to look at him. “I don’t hate you. But I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t matter.”

  The waitress returned with the tab and set it on the table. Nina reached into her satchel for her wallet.

  Jimmy picked up the bill and set it down in front of him. He picked up the glass of Guinness and gazed at it. “On second thought,” he said, “I’m gonna stay.”

  Nina stared at her brother. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

  Jimmy looked at her defiantly. “Having a drink.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel guilty for making you tell me the truth?”

  “No. I just need a drink, okay?”

  Nina hesitated. Much as she wanted to deny it, she did feel guilty. She didn’t want to see him fall back into the habits that might lead him to the gutter. What would her mother want her to do? she wondered. She knew the answer. She took a deep breath. “All right, look, Jimmy. It’s bad. All this you told me. But it’s not the end of the world. We can get past this. It’ll all work out somehow.” She was scraping the bottom of her emotional barrel for some platitude that would assuage him, although, admittedly, her supply of optimism was low. But she had to try.

  “You don’t mean that,” Jimmy said.

  Nina looked around helplessly. “Well, I’m saying that somehow it will all be okay, Jimmy. All right? Now just put your coat on and come with me. Don’t undo all the good you’ve done. Dad was so proud that you’d straightened your life out. That was really important to him. To all of us. Please, Jimmy. Come back with me. Now.”

  Jimmy lifted the glass and gazed at it as if mesmerized. Then he raised the glass to his lips and took a sip. For a minute he closed his eyes and the tense muscles in his face relaxed, his expression some cross between ecstasy and despair. He sighed.

  “Jimmy, stop!” Nina cried. She leaned across the table and grabbed his upper arm. “Let’s get out of this place.”

  He glared at her and jerked his muscular arm out of her grasp. “Leave me alone, Nina,” he said. “Mind your own business. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been needing a drink for the longest time.”

  21

  IT was growing dark by the time Nina turned onto Aunt Mary’s street, and the flurries, which had stopped for a while, had begun again, swirling and dancing in her headlights. She was still trying to come to grips with what her brother had told her and with her repeated, futile attempts to dislodge him from the bar. Her head ached from the effort. She pulled into the dark driveway at Aunt Mary’s house, wishing she had put the porch lights on before she left. She got out of the car, slammed the door, and trudged up toward the front steps.

  All of a sudden a dark figure rose up in front of her.

  Nina screamed and stumbled. The man stepped forward and caught her.

  “Nina, it’s me.”

  Nina looked up at the man who was holding her by the arms and saw that it was Andre. For a minute her heart lifted, and then she suddenly became angry. “What are you doing? I didn’t see you there. You scared me half to death.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was sitting on the step. I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

  “I didn’t see your car,” she said accusingly.

  “I parked it on the street so you wouldn’t have to move yours to let me out.”

  “Jesus, Andre, you really scared me.” She knew she sounded irritable, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want him to know how glad she was to see him. He looked so handsome in the moonlight, with a dusting of snowflakes on his shiny black hair. He was wearing a tan shearling jacket over a dark turtleneck. The jacket was open at the neck and she could see its woolly sheepskin lining. For a moment, she wished fiercely that he would open his jacket and pull her in, so she could bury herself against the warmth of his broad chest. She banished the thought, reminding herself that it didn’t mean anything that he had come here. He wasn’t here to console her. On the contrary, he was a bystander, agape at the spectacle of her family’s destruction.

  “That was kind of a quick trip, wasn’t it?” she said coldly. “How long were you gone? Overnight?” She brushed past him and mounted the stone steps, fumbling in her pocketbook for the house keys.

  “It was long enough,” he said. “Nina, I’ve been concerned about you.”

  Nina stuck her key in the lock. Concerned? she thought. He sounded like a high school guidance counselor. “Nothing to worry about. Do you want to come in?” she asked without enthusiasm.

  Andre looked down at his clothes. “I’m kind of damp,” he said with a grimace.

  “Another time then,” she said, not looking at him.

  “We could sit outside,” he said. “I noticed there’s a patio around back. I’ve been on planes and in airports all day. I could use the air.” He held up a paper sack. “I even brought drinks. I’ve got two coffees in here—decaf.”

  Nina hesitated. Her head ached and her clothes stank of cigarette smoke from the bar. Her eyes met his shadowed gaze. Andre’s expression was guileless. She suddenly recalled the night of her father’s funeral, when she’d felt so alone, and he had shown up at the door, worried about Duncan’s death. He had not created the quagmire that she found herself in. He was a friend, was making a welcome offer after the miseries of this day, and the idea of sitting outside in the darkness appealed to her. “All right,” she said. “If you’re not too cold.”

  “Me? Nah,” he said, smiling broadly. Andre came down off the step and started around the house toward the patio in the backyard. Nina followed him, walking over the fallen leaves, now dark under the thin layer of snow. She noticed the smell of chimney smoke in the air, and felt a sudden longing for a hearth that she did not have. Behind the house, the cushioned patio chairs were circled around a glass table with a center hole for a nonexistent umbrella. Andre skimmed off the snow and set the two Styrofoam coffee cups down on the tabletop. He pulled out a chair for her, brushing snowflakes off the seat. Then he pulled out a chair for himself. The house loomed dark and unwelcoming behind them, but the backyard was silvery, the dancing flakes lit by a misty moon on the rise.

  Andre reached into the paper bag and pulled out stirrers, creamers, and sugar packets. “Let me just doctor these up,” he said. “How many sugars?”

  “Two,” she replied.

  “Sorry they’re not hotter,” he said. “I’ve been outside here for a while.”

  Nina nodded, but once again an irrational hostility toward him reasserted itself. “I didn’t ask you to wait,” she said, in a voice that was meant to sound offhand but came out sounding mean, even to her own ears.

  “I know,” he said wearily.

  Immediately she was sorry for her tone. Sorry for making him feel weary. “How come you’re back so soon?” she asked.

  Andre frowned and tapped his fingers against the side of the cup. “Things didn’t go exactly as planned,” he said.

  “With Susan?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah. She … kind of sent me packing,” he said.

  “Really?” Nina asked, her heart leaping. “Why?”

  Andre sighed. “She said she wasn’t … sure anymore. About us,” he said.

  “Oh. That’s too bad,” said Nina, although part of her was undeniably elated at this news. She tried to sound sympathetic.

  “Did she say why?”

  Andre hesitated. “It’s a lot of things. I think it’s been coming for a while,” he said vaguely.

  �
��Does this mean you’re not going to move out there?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m still … sorting it out.”

  “Are you still engaged?” Nina asked.

  “She still has the ring,” he said.

  Nina blushed and was grateful for the darkness. She imagined him begging Susan to keep his ring and promising that they would find a way to work it out. “Well, then, there’s still hope,” Nina said, forcing herself to sound cheery, although the mental image of him pleading with his faceless fiancée made her feel dead inside.

  Andre was silent for a moment. “That’s one way to look at it,” he said. He set his cup down on the tabletop. “But right now I want to know what’s going on with you. Did you find out anything more about Duncan’s death?”

  Nina shrugged and took a sip of the coffee. It was sugary and barely warm. “Oh yes. I found out a lot. Too much, you might say.”

  Andre frowned. “Like what?”

  After another sip, Nina set down her cup and recounted her conversation with Jimmy as fully as she could.

  When she finished, Andre blew out his breath with a soft whistle.

  “Damn,” said Andre, frowning. “Well, that explains Duncan’s renewed hope about finding your mother’s killer.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “So,” said Andre. “What do you intend to do now?”

  Nina took a deep breath. “I’d like to talk to Calvin Mears and find out what he told my father. But Jimmy thinks Calvin may have turned around and gone right back to L.A. Some guy came after him at the cemetery with a baseball bat.”

  “A baseball bat?” Andre cried. “Why?”

  “To settle an old score,” she said. “Luckily for Calvin, his uncle was there. Apparently he’s a cop down in Seaside Park. At least, it said in the obituary that they come from Seaside Park. Anyway, the uncle was armed and headed the guy off.”

  “Wow,” said Andre, shaking his head. “And you’re certain your brother is telling the truth about all this.”

  Nina nodded. “I believed him. He was a mess. Jimmy’s a reformed alcholic. When I left him he was diving into a beer.”