The Neighbor

by Gardner, Lisa

  “I don’t know, sweetheart,” Marianne said honestly. “After you and your mommy wrestled, then what happened?”

  The girl shrugged. She looked tired now, wrung out. D.D. glanced at her watch. The interview had been going on for forty-four minutes, well beyond their twenty-minute target time.

  “Bedtime,” Ree mumbled. “We got on PJs—”

  “What did you wear, Ree?”

  “My green Ariel nightgown.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She wears a purple shirt. It’s very long, almost to her knees.”

  D.D. made a note, another detail that could be corroborated, given the presence of the purple nightshirt in the washing machine.

  “So after pajamas?”

  “Brush teeth, go potty, climb into bed. Two stories. A song. Mommy sang ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’ I’m tired,” the girl declared abruptly, a trace petulant. “I want to be done now. Are we done?”

  “We’re almost done, honey. You’ve been doing a really good job. Just a few more questions, okay, and then you can ask me anything you want. Would you like that? To ask me a question?”

  Ree regarded Marianne for a bit. Then, with a sudden, impatient exhalation, she nodded. The girl had the stuffed bunny on her lap again. She was rubbing both ears.

  “After your mother tucked you in, what did she do?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Did she turn out the light, close the door, something else? How do you sleep at night, Ree? Can you describe your room for me?”

  “I have a nightlight,” the girl said softly. “I’m not five yet. I think when you are four, you can have a nightlight. Maybe, when I ride the school bus … But I’m not on the school bus yet, so I have a nightlight. But the door is closed. Mommy always closes the door. She says I am a light sleeper.”

  “So the door is closed, you have a nightlight. What else is in your room?”

  “Lil’ Bunny, of course. And Mr. Smith. He always sleeps on my bed ’cause I go to bed first and cats really like to sleep.”

  “Is there anything else that helps you sleep? Music, a sound machine, a humidifier, anything else?”

  Ree shook her head. “Nope.”

  “What is the name of my cat, Ree?”

  Ree grinned at her. “I don’t know.”

  “Very good. If I told you those chairs were blue, would I be telling the truth or would I be telling a lie?”

  “Nooo! The chairs are red!”

  “That’s right. And we only tell the truth in the magic room, don’t we?”

  Ree nodded, but D.D. could read the tension in the child’s body again. Marianne was circling around. Circling, circling, circling.

  “Did you stay in bed, Ree? Or did you maybe get up to check on your mommy or go potty or do anything else?”

  The girl shook her head, but she did not look at Marianne anymore.

  “What does your mom do after you go to bed, Ree?” Marianne asked softly.

  “She has to do her schoolwork. Grade papers.” The girl’s gaze slid up. “At least, I think so.”

  “Do you ever hear noises downstairs, maybe the TV, or the radio, or the sound of your mother’s footsteps, or something else?”

  “I heard the tea kettle,” Ree whispered.

  “You heard the tea kettle?”

  “It whistled. On the stove. Mommy likes tea. Sometimes we have tea parties and she makes me real apple tea. I like apple tea.” The girl was still talking, but her voice had changed. She sounded subdued, a shadow of her former self.

  D.D. eyed Jason Jones, still standing against the far wall. He had not moved, but there was a starkness to his expression now. Oh yeah, they were homing in.

  “Ree, after the tea kettle, what did you hear?”

  “Footsteps.”

  “Footsteps?”

  “Yeah. But they didn’t sound right. They were loud. Angry. Angry feet on the stairs. Uh-oh,” the girl singsonged. “Uh-oh, Daddy’s mad.”

  Behind D.D., Jason flinched for the second time. She saw him close his eyes, swallow, but he still didn’t say a word.

  In the interrogation room, Marianne was equally quiet. She let the silence draw out until abruptly, Ree began speaking again, her body rocking back and forth, her hands rubbing, rubbing her stuffed toy’s ears:

  “Something crashed. Broke. I heard it, but I didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t want to get out of bed. Mr. Smith did. He jumped off the bed. He stood by the door but I didn’t want to get out of bed. I held Lil’ Bunny. I told her to be very quiet. We must be quiet.”

  The girl paused for an instant, then spoke suddenly in a soft, higher-pitched voice: “Please don’t do this.” She sounded mournful. “Please don’t do this. I won’t tell. You can believe me. I’ll never tell. I love you. I still love you …”

  Ree’s gaze went up. D.D. swore to God the child looked right through the one-way mirror to her father’s face. “Mommy said, ‘I still love you.’ Mommy said, ‘Don’t do this.’ Then everything went crash, and I didn’t listen anymore. I covered Lil Bunny’s ears, and I swear I didn’t listen anymore, and I never, ever, ever got out of bed. Please, you can believe me. I didn’t get out of bed.”

  “Am I done?” the child asked ten seconds later, when Marianne still hadn’t said anything. “Where’s my daddy? I don’t want to be in the magic room anymore. I want to go home.”

  “You’re all done,” Marianne said kindly, touching the child softly on the arm. “You’ve been a very brave little girl, Ree. Thank you for talking to me.”

  Ree merely nodded. She appeared glassy-eyed, her fifty minutes of talking having left her spent. When she tried to rise to her feet, she staggered a step. Marianne steadied her.

  In the observation room, Jason Jones had already pushed away from the wall. Miller made it to the door just ahead of him, opening up the room to the brilliant fluorescent wash of hallway light.

  “Miss Marianne?” Ree’s voice came from the interrogation room.

  “Yes, honey.”

  “You said I could ask you a question …”

  “That’s right. I did. Would you like to ask me a question? Ask me anything.” Marianne had risen, too. Now D.D. saw the interviewer pause, squat down in front of the child, so she would be at eye level. The interviewer had already unclipped her tiny mic, the receiver dangling down low, in her hands.

  “When you were four years old, did your mommy go away?”

  Marianne brushed back a lock of curly brown hair from the girl’s cheek, her voice sounding tinny, far away. “No, honey, when I was four years old, my mommy didn’t go away.”

  Ree nodded. “You were lucky when you were four years old.”

  Ree left the interrogation room. She spotted her father waiting for her just outside the door, and hurled herself into his arms.

  D.D. watched them embrace for a long time, a four-year-old’s rail-thin arms wrapped tautly around her father’s solid presence. She heard Jason murmur something low and soothing to his child. She saw him lightly stroke Ree’s trembling back.

  She thought she understood just how much Clarissa Jones loved both of her parents. And she wondered, as she often wondered in her line of work, why for more parents, their child’s unconditional love couldn’t be enough.

  They debriefed ten minutes later, after Marianne had escorted Jason and Ree out of the building. Miller had his opinion. Marianne and D.D. had theirs.

  “Someone entered the home Wednesday night,” Miller started out. “Obviously had a confrontation with Sandra, and little Ree believes that someone is her father. ’Course, that could be an assumption on her part. She heard footsteps, assumed they had to be from her dad, returning home from work.”

  D.D. was already shaking her head. “She didn’t tell us everything.”

  “No,” Marianne agreed.

  Miller glared at the two of them.

  “Ree totally got out of bed Wednesday night,” D.D. supplied. “As is exhibited by the fact she went out of he
r way to tell us she didn’t.”

  “She got out of bed,” Marianne seconded, “and saw something she’s not ready to talk about yet.”

  “Her father,” Miller stated, sounding dubious. “But at the end, the way she hugged him …”

  “He’s still her father,” Marianne supplied softly. “And she’s vulnerable and terribly frightened by everything going on in her world.”

  “Why’d he let her come in, then?” Miller challenged. “If she came into the bedroom Wednesday night and saw her father fighting with her mom, he wouldn’t want her to testify.”

  “Maybe he didn’t see her appear in the doorway,” D.D. suggested with a shrug.

  “Or he trusted her not to tell,” Marianne added. “From a very early age, children get a feel for family secrets. They watch their parents lie to neighbors, officials, other loved ones—I fell down the stairs, of course everything is fine—and they internalize those lies until it becomes as second nature to them as breathing. It’s very difficult to get children to disclose against their own parents. It’s like asking them to dive into a very deep pool and never take a breath.”

  D.D. sighed, eyed her notes. “Not enough for a warrant,” she concluded, already moving on to next steps.

  “No,” Miller agreed. “We need a smoking gun. Or, at the very least, Sandra Jones’s dead body.”

  “Well, start pushing,” Marianne informed them both. “Because I can tell you now, that child knows more. But she’s also working very hard at not knowing what she knows. Another few days, a week, you’ll never get the story out of her, particularly if she continues to spend all her time with dear old dad.”

  Marianne started picking up the toys in the interrogation room. Miller and D.D. turned away, just as the buzzer sounded at the pager clipped to D.D.’s waist. She eyed the display screen, frowning. Some detective from the state police trying to summon her. Figures. Throw a little party with the media, and all of a sudden everyone wants in on the action. She did the sensible thing and ignored it, as she and Miller headed back up to homicide.

  “I want to know where Jason Jones comes from,” D.D. stated, working her way up the stairs. “Guy as cool and collected as that. Working as a small-time reporter, sitting on four million, and according to his own child doesn’t even have a best friend. What the hell makes this guy tick?”

  Miller shrugged.

  “Let’s get two detectives digging into some deep background,” D.D. continued. “Cradle to grave, I want to know everything about Jason Jones, Sandra Jones, and their respective families. I can tell you now, something there is gonna click.”

  “I want his computer,” Miller murmured.

  “Hey, at least we have his garbage. Any news?”

  “Got a crew on it now. Give them a couple of hours, they’ll have a report.”

  “Miller?” she asked with a troubled look on her face.

  “What?”

  “I know Ree saw something that night. You know Ree saw something that night. What if the perpetrator knows it, too?”

  “You mean Jason Jones?”

  “Or Aidan Brewster. Or the unidentified subject 367.”

  Miller didn’t answer right away, but started to look concerned, as well. Marianne Jackson had been right: Ree was very, very vulnerable right now.

  “Guess we’d better hurry up,” Miller said grimly.

  “Yeah, guess so.”

  | CHAPTER FIFTEEN |

  I dreamed of Rachel last night. She was saying, “No, no, no,” and I was finding all the right spots to change her “no, no, no” to “yes, yes, yes.”

  “It’s not my fault,” I was saying in my dream, “you have such perfect breasts. God wouldn’t have given you such perfect breasts if He’d really meant for me to leave you alone.”

  Then I was pinching her nipples between my fingers and she was leaning back and breathing heavy and I knew I was winning. Of course I was winning. I was bigger, stronger, smarter. So I rubbed and stroked and cajoled until that magic moment when I was sinking deep inside her and maybe she was crying a little but what did it matter? She was also gasping and writhing and I made it good for her. I swear I made it good.

  In my dream world I could feel it all building. Her legs wrapping around my waist. Her breasts rubbing against my chest. And I wanted. Oh God, I wanted. And then …

  Then I woke up. Alone. Hard as a rock. Mad as hell.

  I rolled out of bed still breathing hard. Made it to the shower, cranked it on as hot as it would go. Barreled into the steam and finished my business, because when you’re a twenty-three-year-old registered pervert, this is as good as it gets.

  Except it’s not. In my mind I can still touch and taste the girl I want. The girl I have always wanted. The girl I can never have.

  So I whack off, and I hate every minute of it. Touching Rachel was purity. This is an aberration. Pure transactional lust, nothing more, nothing less.

  But I get it over with, clean up, towel off.

  I get dressed without turning on a light or looking into a mirror and I know before I ever leave the house that it’s gonna be a bad day. A real shitkicker. My quiet little existence is over. I’m just waiting to see who delivers the death blow.

  Colleen ended our little session last night by recommending that I continue with my usual routine. Sure, the police will pay me a visit. Can’t blame them for asking. And of course it’s my constitutional right to ask for counsel the moment I feel the need. But hey, I’m doing well. I’m a regular freaking success story. Don’t give up ground too easily, that’s what she tells me.

  What she means is, running will be worse than staying. Something I’d already figured out for myself, thank you very much.

  So hey, I walk to work. Seven-thirty A.M., I’m garbed in blue coveralls, my head under the hood of an old Chevy, pulling spark plugs. Look at me, Joe Schmoe, fighting the good fight. Yes sirree, Bob.

  I’m tending, fixing, tightening, pretending that my grease-covered hands aren’t shaking a hundred miles per hour, or that my body isn’t still hard as a rock, or that I haven’t worked myself into such an agitated state that for the first time in my life, I’m honestly praying no female walks through the door because I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll do. I’m fucked up. I’m just plain fucked up, and it’s not even nine A.M.

  Vito’s got the radio on in the shop area. Local station. Plays a mix of eighties and nineties music. Lotta Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Nine-fifteen, the news comes on, and for the first time I hear the official announcement that a woman has gone missing in South Boston. Young wife, beloved sixth grade teacher, vanished in the middle of the night, leaving behind a young child. Some female detective is laying it on thick.

  I finish the Chevy, move on to a big Suburban that needs new rear brakes. The other guys are muttering now, making conversation.

  “In Southie? No way.”

  “It’s drugs, gotta be drugs. It’s always drugs.”

  “Nah. It’s the husband. Twelve to one he’s got a little project on the side, and doesn’t feel like paying alimony. Prick.”

  “Hope they get him this time. Who was that last year, two of his wives disappeared, but they still couldn’t build a case …?”

  On and on they go. I don’t say a word. Just attack the lug nuts with the impact wrench, then wrestle off the two rear tires. The old Suburban has drum brakes. What a bitch.

  Only vaguely do I become aware of the whispering, of the pointing. My face reddens automatically, I find myself sputtering to speak. Then realize no one is pointing at me. They’re pointing at the front office, where Vito is currently standing with two cops.

  I want to crawl inside the huge Suburban. I want to disappear into a pile of metal and plastic and chrome. Instead, I work my way around the vehicle, taking off the front tires now, like I’m gonna inspect the front disk brakes as well, even though nothing’s written on the order sheet.

  “You’re a success story,” I mutter to myself, “a regu
lar freaking success story.” But I’m not even buying it anymore.

  I finish the Suburban. Cops are gone. I eye the clock, decide it’s close enough to the mid-morning break. I go to fetch my lunch pail and discover Vito standing in front of my locker, arms crossed over his chest.

  “My office. Now,” he orders.

  I don’t fight Vito. I unpeel my blue coveralls, ’cause I can tell from the look on his face I won’t be needing them anymore. He doesn’t say a word, just stares at me the entire time, making sure buddy boy doesn’t get out of his line of sight. Nothing bad is gonna happen on Vito’s watch.

  When I’m cleaned up, lunch box in hand, sweatshirt slung over my arm, Vito finally grunts and leads the way to his office. Vito knows what I’ve done. He’s one of those employers who doesn’t mind hiring sex offenders. He’s got work that doesn’t involve mixing with the public, and being a big, burly guy, he probably believes he can keep a kid like me in line. To be fair, he has moments where he’s actually kind. Hell, maybe employing a felon is his idea of public service. He’s taking in untouchables and turning them into productive members of society and all that. I don’t know.

  I just find myself thinking that Vito has never made me feel as low as he does now, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression a mix of disappointment and disgust. We arrive in his cramped office. He sits behind his dust-covered desk. I stand because there isn’t another chair. He gets out the checkbook and starts writing.

  “Police were here,” he says crisply.

  I nod, then realize he’s not looking up, and force myself to say out loud: “I saw.”

  “Woman’s gone missing. Sure you heard it on the news.” He skewers me with a glance.

  “I heard it.”

  “Police wanted to know if she got her car serviced here. Wanted to know if either she, or her cute four-year-old kid, had ever met you.”