Lisa Gardner: The Neighbor

“She’s pretty.”

“Mr. Smith is a boy,” he said automatically.

“Not Mr. Smith. The police lady. I like her hair.”

Jason turned back toward his daughter. Ree’s face was smudged with peanut butter in one corner, jelly in another. And she was looking at him again with her big brown eyes.

“You know you can tell me anything,” he said softly.

Ree set her sandwich down. “I know, Daddy,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She ate two green grapes half-heartedly, then rearranged the others on her plate, around the white petals of the daisy. “Do you think Mr. Smith is okay?”

“Cats have nine lives.”

“Mommys don’t.”

He didn’t know what to say. He tried to open his mouth, tried to summon some kind of vague reassuring phrase, but nothing would come out. He was mostly aware that his hands were shaking convulsively again, and he had gone cold somewhere deep down inside, where he would probably never be warm again.

“I’m tired, Daddy,” Ree said. “I want to take a nap.”

“Okay,” he said.

They headed upstairs.

Jason watched Ree brush her teeth. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

He read Ree two stories, sitting on the edge of Ree’s bed. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

He sang one song, tucked the covers around his daughter’s shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

He made it all the way to the doorway, then Ree spoke up, forcing him to turn around. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his fingers fisted beneath his elbows, where Ree couldn’t see the tremors in his hands.

“Will you stay, Daddy? Until I fall asleep?”

“Okay.”

“Mommy sang me ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’ I remember her singing ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’”

“Okay.”

Ree shifted restlessly beneath the covers. “Do you think she’s found Mr. Smith yet? Do you think she’ll come home?”

“I hope so.”

She finally lay still. “Daddy,” she whispered. “Daddy, I have a secret.”

He took a deep breath, forced his voice to sound light. “Really? Because remember the Daddy Clause.”

“The Daddy Clause?”

“Sure, the Daddy Clause. Whatever the secret, you’re allowed to tell one daddy. Then he’ll help keep the secret, too.”

“You’re my daddy.”

“Yep, and I assure you, I’m really good at keeping secrets.”

She smiled at him. Then, her mother’s daughter, she rolled over and went to sleep without saying another word.

He waited five more minutes, then eased out of the room, and just barely made it down the stairs.

He kept the picture in the kitchen utility drawer, next to the pen flashlight, green screwdriver, leftover birthday candles, and half a dozen wine charms they never used. Sandra used to tease him about the tiny photo in its cheap gilded frame.

“For God’s sake, it’s like hiding away a picture of your old high school sweetheart. Stick the frame on the mantel, Jason. She’s like family to you. I don’t mind.”

But the woman in the photo was not family. She was old-eighty, ninety, he couldn’t remember anymore. She sat in a rocking chair, birdlike frame nearly lost in a pile of voluminous hand-me-down clothes: man’s dark blue flannel shirt, belted around brown corduroy pants, nearly covered by an old Army jacket. The woman was smiling the large, gleeful smile of the elderly, like she had a secret, too, and hers was better than his.

He had loved her smile. He had loved her laugh.

She was not family, but she was the only person who, for a very long time, had made him feel safe.

He clutched her photo now. He held it to his breast like a talisman, and then his legs gave out and he sank to the kitchen floor. He started to shake again. First his hands, then his arms, then his chest, the bone-deep tremors traveling down to his thighs, his knees, his ankles, each tiny little toe.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t make a sound of protest.

But he shook so hard it felt as if his body should break apart, his flesh flying from his bones, his bones splintering into a thousand pieces.

“Goddammit, Sandy,” he said, resting his shaking head upon his shaking knees.

Then he realized, quite belatedly, that he’d better do something about the computer.

The phone rang ten minutes later. Jason didn’t feel like talking to anyone, then thought, a little foolishly, that it might be Sandy, calling from… somewhere… so he picked up.

It wasn’t his wife. It was a male voice, and the man said, “Are you home alone?”

“Who is this?”

“Is your child there?”

Jason hung up.

The phone rang again. Caller ID reported the same number. This time Jason let the machine get it. The same male voice boomed, “I’ll take that as a yes. Back yard, five minutes. You’ll want to talk to me.” Then the man hung up.

“Fuck you,” Jason told the empty kitchen. It was a foolish thing to say, but it made him feel better.

He went upstairs, checked on Ree. She was tucked almost all the way under the covers, sleeping soundly. He looked automatically for the familiar copper pile of Mr. Smith curled up at his daughter’s feet. The spot was empty, and Jason felt the familiar pang again.

“Goddammit, Sandy,” he muttered tiredly, then found his coat and stepped into his back yard.

The caller was younger than he expected. Twenty-two, twenty-three. The thin lanky build of a young man who hadn’t filled out yet and probably wouldn’t until his early thirties. The kid had scaled the wooden fence around Jason’s yard.

Now he leapt down and sprang forward a few steps, moving like a golden retriever puppy with floppy blond hair and long, rangy limbs. The kid stopped the instant he spotted Jason, then wiped his hands on his jeans. It was cold out, and he wore only a white T-shirt with faded black print and no coat. If the March chill bothered him, he didn’t show it.

“Umm, cop out front. Sure you know. Didn’t want to be seen,” the kid said, as if that explained everything. Jason noticed he wore a green elastic band around his left wrist and was snapping it absently, like a nervous habit.

“Who are you?”

“Neighbor,” the kid said. “Live five houses down. Name’s Aidan Brewster. We’ve never met.” Snap, snap, snap.

Jason said nothing.

“I, uh, keep to myself,” the kid offered, again as if that explained everything.

Jason said nothing.

“Your wife has gone missing,” the kid stated. Snap, snap.

“Who told you?”

Kid shrugged. “Didn’t have to be told. Cops are canvassing the neighborhood, looking for a missing female. A detective has set up camp outside your house, so obviously this is ground zero. You’re here. Your kid is here. Ergo, your wife is missing.” The kid started to snap the elastic again, caught himself this time, and both hands fell to his sides.

“What do you want?” Jason asked.

“Did you kill her?”

Jason looked at the boy. “Why do you think she’s dead?”

Kid shrugged. “That’s the way these things work. Report starts with a missing white female, mother of one, two, three kids. Media kicks in, search teams are organized, neighborhoods are canvassed. And then, approximately one week to three months later, the corpse is recovered from a lake, the woods, the oversized freezer in the garage. Don’t suppose you have any large blue plastic barrels, do you?”

Jason shook his head.

“Chain saws? Barbecue pits?”

“I have a child. Even if I had such items, the presence of a small child would curtail my activities.”

Kid shrugged. “Didn’t seem to stop the others from getting the job done.”