Lisa Gardner: The Neighbor

“Father and daughter are sitting in the family room. I left an officer in charge. Best I can do at the moment.”

“At the moment,” she agreed, pausing in front of the doormat. “You’ve searched the home?”

“Ninety percent of it.”

“Cars?”

“Yep.”

“Outbuildings?”

“Yep.”

“Checked with local establishments, neighbors, friends, relatives, and coworkers?”

“Efforts are ongoing.”

“All without sign of Sandra Jones.”

Miller glanced at his watch. “Approximately six hours from the husband’s first call, there remains no sign of twenty-three-year-old white female Sandra Jones.”

“But you do have a potential crime scene in the master bedroom, a potential witness in Sandra’s four-year-old daughter, and a potential suspect in Sandra’s journalist husband. That about sums it up?”

“That about sums it up.” Miller gestured to the front door, revealing his first hint of impatience. “How do you wanna play it: house, husband, or kid?”

D.D. put a hand on the doorknob. She had an immediate gut reaction, but paused to think it through. These first few hours, when you had a call out, but not yet a crime, were always a critical time in an investigation. They had suspicions, but not yet probable cause; a person of interest, but not yet a prime suspect. From a legal perspective, they had just enough rope to hang themselves.

D.D. sighed, realized she wasn’t going home any time soon, and made her choice.

I’ve always been good at spotting cops. Other guys, they can bluff with a pair of deuces in poker. Me, I’m not that lucky. But I can spot cops.

I noticed the first plainclothes officer over breakfast. I’d just poured myself a bowl of Rice Crispies, and was leaning against the dull Formica counter to take a bite. I glanced out the tiny window above the kitchen sink, and there he was, framed neatly in Battenberg lace: white male subject; approximately five ten, five eleven; dark hair; dark eyes, striding south down the far sidewalk. He wore plain-front chinos, tweedish-looking sports jacket, and button-up blue collar shirt. Shoes were buffed dark brown with thick black rubber soles. His right hand held a small spiralbound notebook.

Cop.

I took a bite of cereal, chewed, swallowed, and repeated.

Second guy appeared approximately a minute and a half after the first. Bigger-six one, six two, with short-cropped blond hair and the kind of meaty jaw scrawny guys like me automatically want to punch. He wore similar tan pants, different sports jacket, and a white-collared shirt. Officer Number Two was working the right side of the street, my side of the street.

Thirty seconds later, he banged on my front door.

I took a bite of cereal, chewed, swallowed, and repeated.

My alarm goes off at 6:05 A.M. every morning, Monday through Friday. I get up, shower, shave, and change into a pair of old jeans and an old T-shirt. I’m a tighty-whities kind of guy. I also prefer knee-high white athletic socks with three navy blue bands around the top. Always have, always will.

Six thirty-five A.M., I eat a bowl of Rice Crispies, then rinse my bowl and spoon and leave them to dry on the faded green dish towel spread flat next to the stainless steel sink. Six fifty A.M., I walk to work at the local garage, where I will pull on a pair of oil-stained blue coveralls and take my place beneath the hood of a car. I’m good with my hands, meaning I’ll always have a job. But I’ll always be the guy under the hood, never the guy out front with the customers. I’ll never have that kind of job.

I work until six P.M., with an hour off at lunch. It’s a long day, but OT is the closest to real money I’ll ever get, and again, I’m good with my hands and I don’t talk much, meaning bosses don’t mind having me around. After work, I walk home. Probably heat up ravioli for dinner. Watch Seinfeld on TV. Go to bed by ten.

I don’t go out. I don’t visit bars, I never catch a movie with friends. I sleep, I eat, I work. Every single day pretty much the same as the day before. It’s not really living. More like existing.

The shrinks have a term for it: pretend normal

It’s the only way I know how to live.

I take another bite of cereal, chew, swallow, and repeat.

More knocking on the front door.

Lights are out. My landlord, Mrs. H., is in Florida visiting her grandkids, and it doesn’t make sense to waste electricity on just me.

I set down the bowl of soggy cereal and the cop chooses that moment to turn on his heel and walk back down the front steps. I move to the other side of the kitchen, where I can monitor his progress as he moves on to my neighbor’s and bangs on the door.

Canvassing. The cops are canvassing the street. And they came from the north. So something happened, probably on this street, immediately to the north.

It comes to me, what I didn’t really want to think about, but what has been floating around in the back of my mind since the instant the alarm went off and I went to the bathroom and stared at my own reflection above the sink. The noise I heard right after I snapped off the TV last night. What I probably know that I don’t want to know, but now can’t get out of my head.

I give up on breakfast and sit down hard in a kitchen chair instead.

Six forty-two A.M. Today is not going to be pretend normal after all.

Today is going to be the real thing.

I have a hard time breathing. My heart races, I can feel my palms start to sweat. And I think so many things at once, my head begins to hurt and I hear someone groan and it confuses me until I realize it is myself.

Her smile, her sweet, sweet smile. The way she looks at me, as if I’m ten feet tall, as if I can hold the world in the palm of my hand.

And then, the tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, no, no. Please, Aidan, stop. No…”

The cops will come for me. Sooner or later. Two of them, three of them, an entire SWAT team, converging upon my doorstep. That’s why guys like me exist. Because every community has gotta have a villain, and no amount of pretend normal is ever gonna change that.

Gotta think. Gotta plan. Gotta get the fuck out of here.

To where? For how long? I don’t have that kind of cash…

I try to get my breathing under control. Find some sort of comfort. Tell myself it’s gonna be all right. I’m keeping with the program. No drinking, no smoking, no Internet. I’m attending my meetings, keeping my nose clean.

Live normal, be normal, right?

None of that helps me. I fall back on old habits, on the one realization I know to be true.

I’m a damn good liar, especially when it involves the police.

D.D. started her tour in the kitchen. If she turned her head to the left and peered through the doorway, she could just make out the silhouette of a man sitting on a dark green love seat, the back of the couch covered in a rainbow-hued afghan. Jason Jones sat very still, and tucked beneath his chin was another curly-topped head, also not moving: his daughter, Ree, who appeared to have fallen sleep.

D.D. made it a point not to stare too long. She didn’t want to call attention to herself this early in the game. Miller’s instinct had been correct: They were dealing with an intelligent person of interest, who seemed to know how to navigate the legal system. Meaning they needed to get their ducks in a row, quickly, if they were going to proceed with any kind of meaningful questioning of the husband or the four-year-old potential witness.

So, she focused on the kitchen.

The kitchen, like the rest of the house, retained a semblance of period charm, while definitely showing its age. Peeling black-and-white checked linoleum. Appliances that some would call retro, but D.D. considered ancient. The room was very tiny. A curved counter-top bar offered enough space for two to perch on a pair of red vinyl bar stools. A small parlor table sat in front of the windows, but held a computer versus providing any additional seating.