Lisa Gardner - The Neighbor

“Just asking,” Bobby said.

“So, being strategic , I drop that little bomb into our conversation.”

“And?”

“He doesn’t react. Nothing. Nada. His face was so blank I could’ve told him it was raining outside.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. You gotta figure if he’s surprised, well then, he should choke up, because now both his wife and unborn child might be in danger. He should jump off the couch, start asking more questions, hell, start demanding more answers. Do anything but sit there like we’re talking about the weather.”

“In other words, he probably did know,” Bobby filled in. “His wife got pregnant by another man, he kills her, now he’s covering his tracks. That’s not rocket science, D.D. Hell, that’s a national trend.”

“And if we were talking about a normal person, I’d agree with you.”

“Define ‘normal,’”Bobby said.

She sighed heavily. This is where things got murky. “Okay, so I’ve been dealing with this guy for two days now. And he’s cool. Arctic cold. Miswired in some deep fundamental way that probably should involve a lifetime of therapy, six kinds of pharmaceuticals, and a total personality transplant. But he is who he is, and I’ve noticed a pattern to his deep freeze.”

“Which is?” Bobby was starting to sound impatient. Okay, so it was almost midnight.

“The more personal something is, the more he shuts down. Like this morning. We’re interrogating his four-year-old daughter in front of him. She’s recounting her mother’s last words, which don’t sound promising, let me tell you. And this guy is leaning against the back wall as if a switch has been disconnected. He’s there, but he’s not there. That’s what I thought tonight when I told him his wife was pregnant. He disappeared. Just like that. We were both in the room together, but he’s gone.”

“Sure I can’t take a crack at him?”

“Fuck you,” D.D. informed him.

“Love you, too, babe.” She heard him yawn again, then rub his face on the other end of the phone. “Okay, so you have one really cool customer who seems to have some kind of tactical background and knows how to hold up under extreme duress. You think he’s former special ops?”

“We ran his prints through the system, but didn’t get any hits. I mean, even if he did top secret, deeply classified James Bond crap, the missions would be off the radar, but military service would put him in the system, right? We’d see that piece of the puzzle.”

“True. What does he look like?”

D.D. shrugged. “Kind of like Patrick Dempsey. Thick wavy hair, deep dark eyes-”

“Oh for heaven’s sake. I’m looking for a suspect, not a blind date.”

She blushed. Definitely, definitely needed to get laid. “Five foot eleven, hundred and seventy pounds, early thirties, dark hair and eyes, no distinguishing marks or facial hair.”

“Build?”

“Fit.”

“Now, see, that does sound like special ops. Big guys can’t make it through the endurance training, which is why you should always look out for the small guy in the room.” Bobby sounded smug as he said this. A former sniper, he fit the small, dangerous model perfectly.

“But he’d have a record,” she singsonged.

“Shit.” Bobby was starting to sound tired. “All right, what kinds of things did light up?”

“Marriage certificate, driver’s license, Social Security number, and bank accounts. Basic stuff.”

“Birth certificate?”

“Still digging.”

“Speeding tickets, traffic citations?”

“Nada.”

“Credit cards?”

“One.”

“When was it opened?”

“Ummm…” D.D. had to think about it, trying to recall what she’d read in the report. “Within the past five years.”

“Let me guess, around the same time as the bank accounts,” Bobby said.

“Now that you mention it, most of the financial activity fell around the same time Jason and his wife moved to Boston.”

“Sure, but where’d the money come from?”

“Again, we’re still digging.”

Longer pause now. “In summary,” Bobby said slowly, “you got a name, a driver’s license, and a Social Security number, with no activity before the past five years.”

D.D. jolted. She hadn’t quite thought of it that way, but now that he mentioned it… “Yeah. Okay. Only activity is from the past five years.”

“Come on, D.D., you tell me. What’s wrong with that picture?”

“Crap,” D.D. exclaimed. She whacked her steering wheel. “‘Jones’ is an alias, isn’t it? I knew it. I just knew it. I’ve been saying that all along. More we learn about the family, the more everything feels… just right. Not too busy, not too boring. Not too social, not too anti social. Everything is just right. Goddammit, if they’re with WitSec, I will slit my wrists.”

“Can’t be,” Bobby assured her.

“Why not?” She really didn’t want her case to be part of the witness protection program.

“Because if so, you’d have federal marshals already crawling all over your ass. It’s been forty-eight hours, and the wife’s disappearance is public info. No way they wouldn’t have found you.”

That made her feel better. Except: “What’s left?”

“He did it. Or she did it. But one of them has a new identity. Figure out which one.”

Coming from Bobby, D.D. took news of a probable alias as expert advice. After all, he’d married a woman who’d had at least twelve names, possibly more. Then it hit her. “Mr. Smith. Fuck. Mr. Smith!”

“Lucky Mr. Smith,” Bobby drawled.

“He’s a cat. Their cat. I never connected the dots. But think about it. The family is Mr. and Mrs. Jones, with their cat, Mr. Smith. It’s an inside joke, dammit! You’re right, they’re mocking us.”

“I vote for Mr. Arctic.”

“Ah shit,” D.D. moaned. “Just my luck. I got a prime suspect who by all appearances is a mild-mannered reporter, with a secret identity. You know who that sounds like, right?”

“I don’t know. Who?”

“Fucking Superman.”

When Jason was fourteen years old, his family had gone to the zoo. He’d been too old and cynical for these kinds of outings, but his little sister, Janie, had been madly in love with anything furry, so for Janie’s sake, he’d agreed to the zoo.

He’d do most things for Janie’s sake, a fact his mother exploited zealously.

They’d made the rounds. Eyed sleeping lions, sleeping polar bears, sleeping elephants. Really, Jason thought, how many sleeping animals did one guy need to see? They bypassed the insect exhibit without a word, but ducked into Reptile World. At ten years of age, Janie didn’t really like snakes, but still liked to squeal while looking at snakes, so it made a crazy kind of sense.

Unfortunately, the key exhibit item-the albino Burmese python-was covered up, with a sign saying, Out to Lunch. Deepest Apologies, Polly the Python.

Janie had giggled, thinking that was pretty funny. Jason had shrugged, because it seemed to him that a python would be yet one more sleeping creature, so he fell into step behind his sister as their father led them toward the door. At the last moment, however, Jason had glanced over and realized the cardboard wasn’t fully covering the glass. From this angle, he could peer right in, and Polly wasn’t out to lunch, Polly was eating lunch, a very cute-looking lunch, too, quivering on the floor while the giant snake unhinged her jaws and began the slow, laborious process of drawing the jackrabbit into her massive yellow coils.

His legs had stopped moving on their own. He’d stood there frozen for a full minute, maybe two, unable to look away, as inch by fluffy brown inch, the freshly asphyxiated body disappeared into the snake’s glistening gullet.