The Neighbor

by Gardner, Lisa

  “Really? Given up this house, prime real estate in Southie?”

  “Money is not an issue for us.”

  “You’re loaded, then? Even more moola to have to surrender.”

  “Money is not an issue for us.”

  “That’s crap. Money is an issue for everyone. Now you do sound guilty.”

  “My wife is the mother of my daughter,” Jason found himself saying testily. “If we did separate, I would want her to have the resources necessary to take care of my child.”

  “Wife, child, wife, child. You’re depersonalizing them. Claiming to love them so much you’d never harm ’em, but on the other hand, you can’t even bring yourself to call them by name.”

  “Stop it. I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  “Did you kill your wife?”

  “Get out. Leave me alone.”

  “You’re right. I’m outta here. I’ve only spoken with you eight minutes, and I already think you’re guilty as hell. But hey, that means I got nothing to worry about. So see ya.”

  Kid headed for the fence. He already had his hands curled around the wooden slats, preparing to lift himself up and over, when it came to Jason, the piece he’d been missing since the very beginning.

  “You asked if my child was home,” he called out across the yard. “You asked about my child.”

  The kid was up now, one leg slung over the fence. Jason started to run toward him.

  “Son of a bitch! Your prior. Tell me what you did, tell me exactly what you did!”

  Kid paused at the top of the fence. He no longer looked like a golden retriever puppy. Something about his eyes had changed, his expression growing secretive, growing hard. “Don’t need to; you already figured it out.”

  “Background check, my ass! You’re a convicted sex offender, aren’t you? Your name is in the fucking sex offender database. They’ll be at your door by two.”

  “Yep. But they’ll still be arresting you by three. I didn’t kill your wife. She’s too old for my tastes—”

  “Fucking prick!”

  “And I know something you don’t know. I heard a car last night. Best I can figure, I saw the vehicle that took your wife away.”

  | CHAPTER SIX |

  I fell in love the first time when I was eight years old. The man didn’t actually exist, but was a character on TV: Sonny Crockett, the cop played by Don Johnson on Miami Vice. My mama didn’t hold with such nonsense, so I’d simply wait until she’d pass out cold from the afternoon “ice tea,” then pop open a Dr Pepper and watch the reruns to my heart’s content.

  Sonny Crockett was strong, world-weary. The kind of tough guy who’d seen it all and still went out of his way to save the girl. I wanted a Sonny Crockett. I wanted somebody to save me.

  When I turned thirteen I developed breasts. Suddenly, there were a lot of boys interested in saving me. And for a while, I thought that might work. I dated indiscriminately, with a slight preference for older boys with body art and really bad attitudes. They wanted sex. I wanted somebody to load me up in the front seat of his Mustang and drive a hundred miles an hour in the middle of the night with no headlights. I wanted to scream my name with the wind tattooing my face and whipping my hair. I wanted to feel wild and reckless. I wanted to feel like anyone but me.

  I developed a reputation for really great blow jobs and for being even crazier than my mad-as-a-hatter mother. Every small town has a mother like mine, you know. And every small town has a girl like me.

  I got pregnant for the first time when I was fourteen. I didn’t tell anyone. I drank a lot of rum and Coke and prayed real hard for God to take the baby away. When that didn’t get it done, I stole money from my father’s wallet and went to a clinic where they do those kinds of things for you.

  I didn’t cry. I considered my abortion an act of public service. One less life for my mama to ruin.

  I’m telling you, every small town has a girl like me.

  Then I turned fifteen and my mother died and my father and I were finally free and I …

  I dreamed for so long of somebody to save me. I wanted Sonny Crockett, the world-weary soul who still sees the true heart within the battered exterior. I wanted a man who would hold me close and make me feel safe and never let me go.

  I never found Sonny Crockett. Instead, the day before my eighteenth birthday, at a local bar, I met my husband. I sat on Jason’s bar stool, downed his Coke, and then, when he started to protest, ran my hands up the hard denim lines of his thighs. He told me to fuck off. And I knew at that moment that I would never let him go.

  Of course, no one can save you.

  But knowing now all the things I know about Jason, I understand why he felt he had to try.

  By 2:02 P.M., D.D. was feeling pretty good about the investigation. They had a game plan, and were executing it well considering they were looking for an adult female who could not yet legally be declared missing but needed to be found ASAP.

  At 2:06, she received the first piece of bad news. Judge Banyan had denied their petition to seize the Jones family’s computer and refused to declare the house a crime scene. She cited the lack of physical evidence of foul play as the overriding factor in her consideration, plus not enough time had passed. Missing ten hours was nothing for an adult. Maybe Sandra Jones had ended up at a friend’s house. Maybe she’d suffered some kind of injury and was at a local hospital, unable to provide her name. Maybe she’d gone sleepwalking and was still roaming the back streets of the city in a daze. In other words, a lot of maybes.

  However, the judge continued, if Sandra Jones was still gone after twenty-four hours, Banyan would be willing to reconsider things. In the meantime, she did grant them access to Jason Jones’s truck.

  One for three, D.D. thought, resigned. Discovering the quilt and nightshirt in the washing machine had complicated things. A missing quilt and broken lamp had seemed ominous. A quilt and a nightshirt in the washing machine …

  D.D. still wasn’t sure what the hell a quilt and nightshirt in the washing machine meant. That a husband had been trying to cover his tracks, or that the wife had liked to do laundry? Assumptions were dangerous.

  At 2:15 Detective Miller reported in. D.D. gave him the bad news from Judge Banyan. Miller provided an update from Sandra Jones’s middle school. According to the principal, Sandy Jones had taught social studies at the school for the past two years—first as a student teacher for the seventh grade class, then taking over sixth grade social studies in September. Thus far, kids seemed to like her, parents seemed to like her, fellow teachers seemed to like her. Sandra didn’t socialize a lot with her peers, but then again, she had a small child at home and a husband who worked nights, so that kind of thing was to be expected. Principal had met the husband once and thought he’d seemed nice enough. Principal had met the daughter, Ree, many times, and thought she was adorable.

  The principal couldn’t think of any reason for Sandra not to show up for work, and yes, it was out of character for her not to at least phone in. He was concerned and wanted to do anything he could to assist the investigation.

  P.S., the principal was a fifty-year-old happily married man, who according to the secretary was already engaged in a torrid affair with the drama teacher. Everyone knew about it, no one much cared, and there wasn’t enough Viagra in the world for one fifty-year-old to juggle both the red-headed drama coach and a twenty-three-year-old new conquest. Odds were, the principal only had a working relationship with Sandra Jones.

  Miller had also run preliminary financial reports on the Joneses. They had a staggering hundred and fifty thousand sitting in savings, with another two million stashed in various mutual funds with an investment bank. Monthly income was modest, same with monthly expenses. It looked to him like they had paid cash for the house, and did their best to live off their paychecks.

  Miller would guess the high net worth came from a lump sum deposit, such as an inheritance or insurance settlement. He had detectives working on tracing the money now
.

  In other news, the Joneses had been married in 2004 in a civil ceremony in Massachusetts. Their daughter, Clarissa, had been born two months later. There were no outstanding tickets or warrants for either Sandra Jones or Jason Jones. Neither had there been any indication of domestic violence or public disturbance.

  According to the neighbors, the Joneses were a quiet couple who kept to themselves. Did not party, did not entertain. If you saw them on the street, they would smile and wave, but were not the kind to stop and make polite chitchat. Except for Ree. Everyone agreed Clarissa Jones was precocious and would talk your ear off. Apparently, she was also hell on wheels on a tricycle. If you saw her coming it was up to you to get off the sidewalk.

  “Parents yell at her a lot?” D.D. asked.

  “Parents doted on her. And I’m reading verbatim here, three different accounts from three different neighbors: Parents ‘doted’ on daughter.”

  “Huh. ’Course, parents are also described as quiet and reserved, meaning, how well did any of the neighbors know them?”

  “True.”

  “Life insurance policies?”

  “Still inquiring.”

  “Two million dollars in the bank,” D.D. mused. “Plus cash, plus prime Boston real estate … what are we talking about, nearly three-point-five million in assets? People have killed for less.”

  “Figure the standard divorce would run the husband nearly two mil. That’s a lot of money for a starter marriage.”

  “Speaking of which, what year were they married again?”

  “Two thousand and four.”

  “Which would make Sandra Jones, what, eighteen years old? And already pregnant?”

  “Given that Clarissa was born two months later, yep.”

  “And Jason Jones is, what, thirty, thirty-one?”

  “That would be my guess. Still working on rounding up a birth certificate for him.”

  “Let’s consider that for a second. You got a young, beautiful pregnant girl, an older—richer?—man …”

  “Don’t know who had the money yet. Could’ve been Jason or Sandra.”

  “Somehow, I’m willing to bet the money was his.”

  “Somehow, I’m thinking you’re right.”

  “So Jason snags himself a pregnant teenage bride. Has an ‘adorable’ little girl, and four/five years after that …”

  “Is living a quiet life in South Boston, in a house reinforced tighter than Fort Knox, in a neighborhood where no one really knows him.”

  D.D. and Miller both fell silent for a bit.

  “You know what struck me most when we walked through the house?” D.D. said abruptly. “It was how … ‘just right’ everything felt. Not too dirty, not too clean. Not too cluttered, not too organized. Everything was absolutely, positively balanced. Like the principal said, Sandra Jones socialized enough for people to like her, without socializing so much that her fellow teachers might actually know her. Jason and Sandra smiled at their neighbors, but never actually entertained them. They wave, but don’t talk. They get out, but never invite anyone in. Everything is carefully modulated. It’s a balancing act. Except nature isn’t balanced.”

  “You think their life is manufactured?”

  She shrugged. “I think real life is messy, and these guys aren’t messy enough.”

  Miller hesitated. “We haven’t checked in with Jason’s employer yet….”

  D.D. winced. Which would be the Boston Daily, a major media outlet. “Yeah, I understand.”

  “I’m thinking of having one of my gals call in. Claim she’s doing a background check for security clearance, something like that. Somehow, it’s less suspicious if you have a female make the call.”

  “Good idea.”

  “And we’ll follow up with the daughter’s preschool. See what the teachers and staff have to say. Don’t little girls travel in packs, have little friends, attend sleepovers? Seems to me there’s gotta be some parents somewhere who know more about the family.”

  “Works for me.”

  “Finally, I got a copy of the marriage certificate faxed over. Now that I have Sandra’s maiden name, I’ll start tracking down the father, get more info out of Georgia.”

  “All right. I’m assuming there’s still no sign of Sandra nor activity on her credit card?”

  “Nope. Local establishments haven’t seen her. Local hospitals and walk-in clinics have no unidentified women. Morgue has no unidentified females. Credit card was last used two days ago at the grocery store. ATM card has no hits. Closest thing we have to activity is half a dozen calls on her cell phone. One call from the husband at two-sixteen A.M.—probably when he figured out his wife’s phone was ringing right behind him on the kitchen counter. Then a couple of calls from the school principal this morning trying to track her down, as well as three other calls from students. That’s been it.”

  “She received calls from her sixth grade students?”

  “Placed from their own cell phones, of course. Welcome to the brave new world of grown-up twelve-year-olds.”

  “I’m so glad I don’t even have a plant.”

  Miller grunted. “I have three boys—seven, nine, and eleven. I plan on working overtime for the next ten years.”

  She couldn’t blame him. “So you’ll track financials, cell phones, and grown-up twelve-year-olds. I’ll go to work on searching the truck and lining up a forensic interviewer.”

  “Think he’ll let us talk to the daughter? We don’t have anything to threaten him with anymore.”

  “I think if Sandra Jones hasn’t magically been found by tomorrow morning, he won’t have a choice.”

  D.D. had just risen from her chair when her desk phone rang. She picked it up.

  “Jason Jones is holding on line one,” the receptionist said.

  D.D. sat back down. “Sergeant D.D. Warren,” she announced into the phone.

  “I’m ready to talk,” Jason said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “My daughter is napping. I can talk now.”

  “You mean you would like to meet with us? I’ll be happy to send two officers to pick you up.”

  “By the time the officers get here, my daughter will be awake and I will no longer be available. If you want to ask me questions, it needs to be now, by phone. It’s the best I can do.”

  D.D. highly doubted that. It wasn’t the best he could do, it was the most convenient. Again, the man’s wife had been missing for twelve hours, and this was his idea of cooperation?

  “We have arranged for a specialist to interview Ree,” she said.

  “No.”

  “The woman is a trained professional, specializing in questioning children. She will handle the conversation delicately and with the least amount of stress on your daughter.”

  “My daughter doesn’t know anything.”

  “Then the conversation will be short.”

  He didn’t answer right away. She could feel his turmoil in the long pause.

  “Did your wife run off?” she asked abruptly, trying to keep him off balance. “Meet a new guy, head for the border?”

  “She never would’ve left Ree.”

  “Meaning she could’ve met a new guy.”

  “I don’t know, Sergeant. I work most nights. I don’t really know what my wife does.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a happy marriage.”

  “Depends on your point of view. Are you married, Sergeant?”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you were, you’d understand that marriage is about phases. My wife and I are raising a small child while juggling two careers. This isn’t the honeymoon phase. This is work.”

  D.D. grunted, let the silence drag out again. She thought it was interesting that he used the present tense, are raising a child together, but couldn’t decide if that was calculated or not. He used the present tense, but not the actual names of his wife and child. Interesting person, Jason Jones.

  “You having an affair, Jason? Because we’re asking enou
gh questions at this point, it’s gonna come out.”

  “I haven’t cheated on my wife.”

  “But she cheated on you.”

  “I have no evidence of that.”

  “But you suspected it.”

  “Sergeant, I could’ve caught her in bed with the man, and I still wouldn’t have killed her.”

  “Not that kind of guy?”

  “Not that kind of marriage.”

  D.D.’s turn to blink. She turned this around in her head, still couldn’t sort it out. “What kind of marriage is it?”

  “Respectful. Sandra was very young when we married. If she needed to work some things out, I could give her space for that.”

  “Mighty understanding of you.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Then D.D. got it: “Did you make her sign a prenup? Some kind of clause, if she cheated on you, then you wouldn’t owe her anything in the divorce?”

  “There’s no prenup.”

  “Really? No prenup? With all that money sitting in the bank?”

  “The money came from an inheritance. I never expected to have it, ergo I can’t mind too much if I lose it.”

  “Oh please, two million dollars—”

  “Four. You need to run better reports.”

  “Four million dollars—”

  “Yet we live on twenty-five hundred a month. Sergeant, you’re not asking the right question yet.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Even if I had motive to harm my wife, why would I harm Mr. Smith?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you ever read about Ted Bundy? He murdered and mutilated over thirty women, yet he wouldn’t steal an uninsured car because he thought it was cruel. Now, a husband who murders his wife rather than settle for a divorce is clearly psychopathic. His needs come first. His wife is little more than an animated object. She interferes with his needs. He feels justified in disposing of her.”

  D.D. didn’t say anything. She was still trying to figure out if she’d just heard a confession.

  “But the cat, Sergeant. Mr. Smith. Even if I had objectified my wife to a point where I decided I would be better off without her, what had the cat ever done to me? Maybe I could justify taking my daughter’s mother from her. But harming my daughter’s pet, that would be just plain cruel.”