The Pretty Woman Who Lived Next Door

by Preston Pairo

  He said, “It’s fine. Jennifer came over one day while you were gone, Dad.”

  “She’s pretty, George,” Cara repeated. “Don’t you think?”

  “I probably would, but I’ve never seen her.” George was too happy to care, perhaps because of the wine or maybe because his son having a girlfriend might be one of those landmarks he’d been hoping for to show that life was back to normal.

  “And she’s crazy about Miles,” Cara said. “I can tell. But why wouldn’t she be? I mean look at these two men. Look at these two gorgeous men who live next door to me.”

  But behind the wine and the laughter and celebration, Miles saw something in Cara’s eyes that reflected the world was not nearly as rosy as she was trying to portray.

  She drank more wine—nearly finishing the bottle with George—but didn’t stay for dinner. She had to go home and change and get back to the office. That the weekend that was to have been a prolonged sales pitch had become a strategy session.

  “Do you need a ride?” Miles asked, fairly certain the wine had her over the legal limit.

  “They’re sending a car. It’ll be here in…” She checked the clock on the old stove. “Fifteen minutes! I’ve really got to go.” She swallowed what was left of her red, set her glass in the sink, and kissed George on the cheek. “Bye, Miles.”

  As Cara hurried out the door, Miles sensed his father longing for her.

  28.

  Saturday, Miles worked fifteen hours on the food truck with Juan—eight to eleven—turning out a lot of really good meals, including the street taco he’d created: shredded beef with pickled jalapenos and firecracker radishes, cilantro, and Juan tia’s special sriracha sauce. They moved from DC tourist areas during the day to hot spots at night. Miles would have kept going, but Juan’s father finally had them shut down, reminding them that tomorrow was another day.

  Miles texted his dad throughout the day, hoping he might come see him, but his father had his own work to do. When Miles got home just before midnight, he found his dad half asleep on the sofa, watching TV.

  “That was a long day for you,” George commented.

  “Yeah,” Miles replied. “But really good. You should have come.”

  His father looked out the window toward Cara’s house, which was dark except for the front pole lamp and a living room light that turned on and off by a timer.

  “You ate the chili?” Miles assumed, having seen the bowl and spoon in the sink.

  “Yeah. Cornbread, too. It was good.”

  Miles took off his sweatshirt, which smelled of sautéed beef and peppers, then opened the basement door to toss it downstairs, adding to the laundry pile at the bottom of the steps. “You should come into the city tomorrow. I’ll fix you lunch.”

  “We’ll see…”

  Miles started upstairs, but stopped when his dad said, “I talked to Aunt Kay…”

  “Mom’s not coming back,” Miles guessed, making it clear he wasn’t surprised. “It’s okay, Dad. We’re fine.”

  His father said, “She’s found someone else.”

  Miles heard the words, but assumed his dad meant to say something else.

  “He’s a principal at an elementary school where she’s going to teach.”

  “What the hell…?” Miles felt a snap of anger.

  “Sometimes…I don’t think I was ever right for her—for your mom.”

  Miles sat alongside his dad, put his arm around him. Burning with disbelief, he said, “This is because of me.”

  “No—it’s not.”

  “It’s because of what happened.”

  “Son, your mom and I had problems all along.” George’s words came slowly, weighed down with resignation. “Since before you were born. I always thought we could work through everything because I loved her so much. At least I thought I did. Now… I don’t know… Maybe I never really loved her at all. I never felt about your mother the way I feel about you. It could very well be I didn’t even know what love was until you were born.”

  #

  Miles was used to not sleeping, but tonight he was particularly restless. He felt so damned bad for his dad, who’d done so much for his mother, fine-tuning every situation to try to make her happy. It was his dad who deserved happiness—the way Cara Blakely always seemed to make him. As if she appreciated Miles’ father more than his mother ever had.

  Miles looked toward Cara’s house, now in complete darkness since the timer had turned off the living room lamp. It was two in the morning.

  Miles wondered where she was, wondered what it was about her last night that felt wrong. More than just the difference in how she dressed, or the amount she’d had to drink. She’d smiled and laughed, but without any sparkle to her eyes.

  By sunrise, Miles slept less than three hours and was already in the kitchen when his father came downstairs looking surprisingly well rested.

  Dressed in a flannel shirt and chinos—the sort of clothes he’d rarely had use for in Florida but were a good look for him—George even managed a pleasant “Good morning” as Miles poured him a cup of coffee.

  “You know, I was thinking,” Miles suggested, “we never did look into doing any fishing. Jennifer told me her dad knows some places. So maybe next weekend if the weather’s good…? I think Juan’s father would understand if I took a day off.”

  “I’d like that, but it’s going to have to wait.” George carried his coffee into the dining room and began arranging documents from a claims report on the table. “I’m going back down to Aunt Kay’s after work Friday. I need to sit down with Mom and see if we can’t figure this out.”

  Miles looked out the window. After a few moments, he told his father: “Don’t take her back.”

  #

  It didn’t occur to Miles until he was in his truck, headed to work, that his father had seemed not exactly contented this morning, but—was it relieved? As if he’d already accepted the blow that his wife of almost twenty years was seeing another man, shaken himself off, and realized he was okay—or was going to be okay. Or was part of him relieved she was no longer going to be his responsibility? Or was it denial? A false shield against the reality that his marriage had crumbled and all that time had been wasted.

  Miles was angry with his mother, although that was nothing new. He understood his killing that guy had placed a terrible strain on her. But still, in his heart, he couldn’t stop resenting that she hadn’t been stronger, hadn’t helped his dad through what had been a horrible time for him, too. And that even with Miles in jail, facing a long prison term, how her focus had been on herself—how what Miles had done affected her. What people would think of her? Her.

  Maybe lots of people were that way. His father was not.

  His dad deserved the happiness he tried to help others find—which kept bringing Miles back to Cara Blakely, certain his father was thinking about her too. Which made Miles feel worse when Cara came home late Sunday night.

  Miles was watching from his bedroom window when a car turned into her driveway: a large black BMW.

  A man, tall and well-dressed in a suit and tie, got out from behind the wheel of the luxury sedan. He opened the passenger door for Cara, who emerged in a tight-fitting dress. Together, they walked to the front door, her high heels clicking the concrete walk. They laughed quietly.

  The man went inside with Cara and stayed until almost two in the morning, when Miles, standing by his darkened bedroom window, watched the tall stranger get into his expensive car and drive away.

  29.

  “For you.” Wendy Jordan, Cara’s work colleague, slid a white envelope across the linen tablecloth.

  Monday afternoon—Halloween—the two women sat at a corner table of an exclusive Bethesda restaurant. The atmosphere was subdued, with the air of an established country club. Ornate draperies hung at tall arched windows. The wait staff was dressed unisex, in starched shirts and knotted ties—no Halloween costumes allowed.

  Cara accepted the envelope on which no addr
essee had been written nor return address imprinted. Inside was a check for $4,000, drawn on the account of a company Cara had never heard of.

  “My consulting firm,” Wendy said, her phrasing letting Cara know it wasn’t really a “consulting” business at all.

  Cara didn’t care. Maybe she should have. What mattered was the four grand. Her cousin’s check for $2,000 had arrived in Saturday’s mail. If her mother sent the check she’d promised, Cara would be close to having the retainer to cover her legal costs.

  Wendy said, “You’re a hero at work, you know.” She smiled with those perfect white teeth, her blonde hair shinier than when Cara last saw her Saturday night. “No way did anyone believe you’d land that enormous new account—except me.” Had there been champagne on the table, Wendy would have toasted herself. “I knew.”

  Weeks before, when Wendy first asked Cara to join the Raleigh team, Cara had thanked her. Now, she merely nodded.

  Wendy reached into her Louis Vuitton Montaigne bag—what Cara had assumed was a knock-off until Wendy took her to Saks last Thursday for that red dress, and two of the salesmen greeted her immediately and especially warmly. She placed a small Godiva gift box on the tablecloth in front of Cara. “If you want more, let me know.”

  Cara lifted the lid. Inside were five rich chocolate truffles, and in place of where a sixth had been was a small pile of little round pills—the meds Wendy told Cara not to be afraid to take because they weren’t addictive. They weren’t even illegal, although they were prescription. Pills that made everything…well, better. Which didn’t really mean everything was actually okay—Cara knew that now—but they helped. More than helped actually.

  Cara would take them again next time. Because there would be a next time. It had been easier than she’d expected, even though it had been a long time since Amsterdam.

  “So…” Wendy opened one of the menus the waiter had left on the table. “…business concluded. What should we have for lunch?”

  #

  As Kensington High let out Monday afternoon—many of the students leaving school in some kind of Halloween garb—Debra Vance texted Roberto Delgado, the felony unit detective investigating the Rusty Bremmer assault. She hadn’t seen Delgado since last week.

  It took over an hour, but Delgado texted back: What’s up?

  Can we meet?

  What do U have?

  Vance had figured he wouldn’t want to interrupt whatever he was doing unless there was good reason. She was an underling, after all. She texted back: Not sure. Because she’d found that was a good way to communicate with guys who outranked her: make it seem as if she needed their help.

  It worked. Delgado texted: OK. Where/when? Currently, he was at the hospital where Rusty Bremmer was still being treated, although no longer in intensive care.

  Vance chose a location convenient for Delgado, and was there waiting for him: a Whole Foods where parents with costumed little kids were doing some daylight trick-or-treating.

  Halloween was one of those rituals Vance used to expect to make her pine to have children, but didn’t. Or was she merely justifying being unmarried and childless?

  She parked in one of the last available spaces, squeezing her little red Honda between two tank-like SUVS.

  Delgado was ten minutes late. He pulled his unmarked grey sedan to the curb in front of the busy store and waited, assuming Vance would find him.

  She rapped on his passenger window and got in.

  “Afternoon,” Delgado greeted professionally.

  Before Vance could respond, a yoga mom in brand-new Lululemon half shouted at them: “You’re in a fire lane.” Delgado’s sedan was preventing her from being able to push her one-year-old in his imported stroller on a direct line to the store’s automatic doors.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Delgado responded politely and loudly enough to be heard through the windshield, commenting to Vance as he shifted into gear: “Probably a lawyer on maternity leave.”

  Vance added, “And three years from now she’ll be a judge, you’ll be in front of her, and she’ll remember you as the inconsiderate parker who endangered an entire store full of mothers and babies.”

  Delgado chuckled, “That’d be my luck.”

  Vance felt they were off to a good start. She’d never spoken with him before last Monday’s meeting, but he had a reputation of being a decent guy. In his mid-thirties, he was lean and muscled, five-nine, inches and pounds larger than the former Panamanian boxer after whom he’d been named. She asked him about Rusty Bremmer’s condition, adding: “They announced at school that he was doing better. Someone said they heard he was going to be alright.”

  “Not sure about that,” Delgado responded, piloting through the tight parking lot. “Definitely improved. But there’s still concern about brain damage.”

  “Have you been able to interview him?”

  “I’m working on that. He’s got two lawyers.”

  “Two?”

  “Colin Carter…”

  Vance groaned.

  Carter was a pain-in-the-ass criminal defense attorney known for filing mountains of pleadings in even the most basic of cases in order to justify charging way more than his peers—then again, once in a blue moon one of his wild legal theories actually worked.

  “…and Carter doesn’t want me asking Bremmer about Ben Shuman because he knows we’re looking to charge him for that. The other lawyer,” Delgado continued, “is Samantha Shannen.”

  “Don’t know her.”

  “She’s representing Bremmer to sue whoever put him in the hospital. And both lawyers put me on notice I can’t speak with their client unless they’re present.”

  “So if they’re in the room at the same time as the neurologist, the combined billable hour is—what?—three grand?”

  “I try not to think about that. The way I try not to wonder how this idiot…” Delgado pointed to a young guy in tight clothes and brightly-colored socks putting two bags of groceries into a $125,000 Mercedes. “…affords that car.”

  “Something tech,” Vance imagined from the hipster’s brainy appearance and stylish glasses. “Maybe a blog about how to be a blogger.”

  Delgado put on his blinker, waiting for the Mercedes’ spot, and asked Vance what she wanted to discuss.

  “Have you questioned Miles Peterson yet?”

  “No.”

  “I might be able to help.”

  “You have information, I need to know what it is.”

  “I don’t. But I might be able to initiate a conversation with him and get more than if he knows he’s talking to a detective—you or whoever. Because I get the impression after what he’s been through—including that thing last month when he was arrested for kidnapping his neighbor’s son—he probably doesn’t have the coziest feelings about us. About police.”

  “That thing with his neighbor’s son—Peterson wasn’t actually arrested,” Delgado pointed out.

  “Seized then, as Colin Carter would say. Pulled out of his truck, put on the ground, handcuffed…”

  “I get your point.” Delgado thought a moment—still waiting for that parking space—then said, “Look…the reason I haven’t questioned Peterson is because I’m working a tip that links him to the attack on Bremmer.”

  Vance felt a chill run through her.

  “Peterson’s been training a group of Latino guys in martial arts. Including one kid he goes to school with: Juan Arroyo. You know him?”

  “Yes.” Vance was unsettled by this news. Didn’t want to believe it.

  Delgado’s blinker signal continued to click, still waiting for that parking space, because now the hipster in the Mercedes was on his phone, texting, or perhaps updating his last review of Whole Foods’ produce, keeping the digital world abreast of his most recent thoughts.

  Delgado said, “Arroyo was supposedly also involved in that confrontation Peterson had with Bremmer at school—and may have even been the cause of it. And two of the other kids Peterson’s been training gradu
ated from Germantown last year—and played soccer with the boy whose leg Bremmer broke. Another graduated from Kensington last year. Count Peterson in the group and that makes five, the same number that assaulted Bremmer. They meet after school in this rundown gym in P.G. County. Afterwards, Peterson and Arroyo clean food trucks for Arroyo’s father.”

  Vance wondered how much of this was coincidence—wanting to believe that’s all it was. Miles was too tall to have been one of the group who beat up Bremmer. She kept coming back to that. But did that mean he hadn’t been there? “Have you interviewed any of those other boys?”

  Delgado shook his head. “I’m waiting to talk to Bremmer first, see if he recognized anyone… There’s one other thing…” Another pause, preceding another revelation.

  Vance waited.

  Delgado said, “Bremmer’s father’s rabid about what happened to his son.”

  Vance suppressed the urge to ask about Ben Shuman’s father.

  “I get five calls or texts a day from him—Otis Bremmer. Wants to know what’s happening? Who did this to his son? Telling me they should all be put away for life. And who’s going to pay if his son can’t play pro ball?”

  “Professional football? There’s a leap.”

  “Otis Bremmer doesn’t think so. But this is a guy who runs a trucking company that had a dozen over-weights and five loads pulled off the road for maintenance violations last year—in Maryland alone. Virginia and New Jersey were worse. And word I got today is he’s offering ten grand for the names of who attacked his kid.”

  Vance said, “I haven’t heard anything about that.”

  “It’s not a public offer. In fact, he denied it when I asked him.”

  “So once Mr. Bremmer gets this information…?” Vance realized.

  “Yeah—my guess is he’s not giving it to me.”

  “So he rounds up some of his former drivers who lost their CDL for one reason or another and are short on cash, and has them kick the shit out of whoever someone tells him beat up his kid?”