Lisa Gardner - The Neighbor

“No, sir. I remember how Sandy’s mom was when she was expecting. First three months, Missy could barely crawl out of bed, she was so tired and nauseous. Same thing happened to Sandra. Suddenly, she was ill, sick enough to stay home and sleep all the time. I thought she’d come down with some bug, but then it went on long enough I began to suspect the truth. Shortly thereafter, she seemed to recover. She even started going out again. It was after that period that she first mentioned this new man she’d met, Jason Johnson.”

“Wait a minute. You’re saying Sandy got knocked up, then latched onto some wealthy older guy and got him to marry her?”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

“Hey, pardon me, but wouldn’t that be cause for celebration? Your daughter goes from unwed teen mom to wealthy trophy bride in six months or less. Can’t hate Jason for that.”

“Jason Johnson took my daughter from me.”

“You told her she couldn’t get married. Come on, know your child, right? Minute you told her no, ’course she was gonna run off.”

“She was too young to be married!”

“Tell that to the guy who knocked her up. Seems to me she’s lucky she got Jason to clean up some other guy’s mess.”

“Johnson took advantage of her vulnerable state. If she hadn’t been so scared, she never would’ve left me for a stranger.”

“Left you?”

“Left the security of her home,” Maxwell amended. “Think about it, Detective. This thirty-year-old man appears out of nowhere, sweeps my vulnerable young daughter off her feet, and carries her away without so much as asking my permission.”

“You’re mad he didn’t ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage?”

“Where we live, these things matter, Detective. It’s protocol. More than that… it’s good manners.”

“You ever meet Jason?”

“Once. I was still awake when my daughter came home one night. I came out when I heard the vehicle in the drive. Jason got out of the car and walked her up the steps.”

“Doesn’t sound like such bad manners to me.”

“He was gripping her arm, Detective, tightly, right above the elbow. It struck me at the time, the way he was touching her. Possessive. Like she belonged to him.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked him if he was aware of the fact that my daughter was only eighteen.”

“Was he?”

“He said, and I quote, ‘Good evening, sir.’ Never answered my question. Never even acknowledged it. He walked right past me, escorted my daughter to the front door, then walked calmly back down the steps and got in his car. Last moment, he nodded once, said, ‘Night, sir,’ and that was that. Arrogant son of a bitch drove off like he had every right to be parading around town with a high school girl.” Maxwell shifted in his seat. “And I’ll tell you something else, Detective. Back then, when Jason spoke, he sounded just as much like a good old boy as I do. Maybe he’s gone Yankee now, but he used to be Southern, no doubt in my mind. You want to have some fun with him, take him out for some grits. Bet you he butters ’em up with the best of them.”

On the other side of the glass, D.D. made a mental note. Jason Johnson, perhaps born in Georgia or a neighboring state. Interesting. Because now that the good judge mentioned it, she’d caught an inflection in Jason’s voice from time to time. He always checked it, flattening his tone. But something lingered in the background. Apparently, their prime suspect could drawl.

“Wasn’t but two weeks later Sandy disappeared,” the judge was saying now. “Found her bed neatly made and half of her closet cleaned out. That was it, she was gone.”

“She leave you a note?”

“Nothing,” the judge stated emphatically, but he didn’t look at Miller when he said this. Maxwell’s first obvious lie.

“Now, you tell me, sir,” the judge moved on quickly, “what kind of man spirits a young girl away to a completely new life under a completely new name? Who’d do such a thing? Why would he do that kind of thing?”

Miller shrugged. “You tell me. Why do you think Jason Johnson became Jason Jones?”

“To isolate my daughter!” Maxwell said immediately. “To cut her off from her home, her town, her family. To make sure there’d be no one Sandy could call for help, once he started doing what he really wanted to do.”

“And what did Jason really want to do?”

“As you so eloquently put it, Detective, what possible reason would one man have to ‘clean up’ another man’s mess? Unless he wanted the baby. Or rather, access to a child whose mother was too young, too overwhelmed, too troubled to attempt to protect it. I’ve served on the bench over twenty years, long enough to have seen this sorry story more times than I can count. Jason Johnson is nothing but a pervert. He targeted my daughter. No doubt, he’s already grooming little Clarissa for what’s gonna happen next. He just needed to get Sandy out of the way once and for all.”

Holy crap , D.D. thought. She leaned closer to the glass. Was the good judge saying what she thought he was saying?

“Jason Jones is a pedophile?” Miller asked for the record.

“Absolutely. You know the profile as well as I do, Detective. The exhausted young wife, with a history of depression, sexual activity, drinking, drug abuse. Isolated by the older, dominant male, who slowly but surely makes her more and more dependent upon him. Jason and little Clarissa are alone together every single afternoon. That doesn’t raise any hairs on the back of your neck?”

Miller appeared to be considering the matter, without commenting. D.D., in the meantime, felt like half a dozen lightbulbs were exploding inside her head. The profile the judge gave was dead-on. And it would fill in a lot of pieces of the puzzle-Jason’s affinity for aliases, the tight rein on his daughter and wife’s social circle, his clear panic that Sandy had started digging into the family computer.

D.D. needed to get Jason’s picture faxed over to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children immediately. They would run it through their database of images culled from various exploitive images recovered from the Internet and other sex abuse cases. If they found a match, she’d have her grounds for an arrest, let alone for a fresh interview of Clarissa Jones. Suddenly, they were getting somewhere.

Except then she felt uneasy again. She remembered the way Ree had flung herself into her father’s arms following her interview, the naked tenderness on his face. At that moment, D.D. had believed their love was genuine, but maybe it was only because Ree hadn’t given their secret away?

Sometimes, this job sucked a little, and sometimes, this job sucked a lot.

Miller was still grilling the honorable Maxwell Black. “You think your daughter is dead?”

Maxwell gave the detective a pitying glance. “Have they ever found one of these women alive? Please, Jason Jones murdered my daughter; there is no doubt in my mind. Now I want justice.”

“That why you’re moving for visitation rights with your granddaughter?”

“Absolutely! I’ve been doing the same asking around you’ve been doing, Detective, and the picture I get is not pretty. My granddaughter has no close friends, no extended family, no other primary care-giver. Chances are, her father has murdered her mother. If there was ever a time when a little girl needs her grandfather, this is it.”

“You gonna push for custody?”

“I’m willing to fight.”

“Jason Jones tells us Sandy wouldn’t approve.”

“Please, Detective… Jason Jones is a liar. Look up Jason Johnson. At least know who you are dealing with.”

“You rent a car, Judge Black?”