Lisa Gardner: The Neighbor

Behind her Nick and Marge were surveying the floor with spotlights while Miller remained off to the side, hands in his pockets. Having already walked through the basement once, he was merely waiting for the group to arrive at the same conclusion he’d formed hours before.

After a matter of minutes, D.D. was already getting there. The cellar reminded her of the kitchen, not too dirty, not too clean. Just about right for a family of three.

Just for kicks she checked the washer and the dryer. Then, her heart stopped in her throat.

“Oh crap,” she said, washer lid still open, one blue-and-green quilt staring her in the face.

Miller came hustling over, evidence techs on his heels. “Is that…? You’ve got to be kidding me. When I get my hands on the two yokels who first searched this space-”

“Hey, isn’t that the quilt?” Nick said, rather stupidly.

Marge was already hunched over, pulling out the comforter from the top-loading machine while being careful not to drag it on the floor.

“He washed it?” D.D. was thinking out loud. “The husband washed the quilt, but didn’t have time to dry it before calling the police? Or the wife had it in the wash all along and we’ve been chasing our tails for the past few hours?”

Marge was carefully spreading the quilt out, handing Nick one end, while holding the other. The comforter bore the deep wrinkles of a wet item that had been left in a washing machine for a bit. It smelled vaguely of detergent-fresh, clean. They fluffed it once, and a wet purple ball fell splat on the floor.

D.D. still had on latex gloves, so she did the honors. “Sandra Jones’s nightshirt, I presume,” she said, unrolling the sodden purple T-shirt, which did have a crowned chick on the front.

They studied both items for a bit, looking for faded pink stains, like the kind left behind by blood, or maybe jagged tears that might indicate a struggle. Signs of something.

D.D. had that uncomfortable feeling again. As if she was seeing something obvious but not quite getting it.

Who took the time to wash a quilt and nightshirt, but left a broken lamp in plain sight? What kind of woman disappeared, but left behind her child, her wallet, her car ?

And what kind of husband came home to discover his wife missing, but waited three hours before calling the police ?

“Attic, crawl space?” D.D. asked Miller out loud. Nick and Margie were folding up the quilt to take back to the lab. If the subject hadn’t used bleach, the comforter might still yield some evidence. They took the purple nightshirt from D.D., put it in a second bag for processing.

“No crawl space. Attic is small and mostly filled with Christmas decorations,” Miller reported.

“Closets, refrigerators, freezers, outbuildings, barbecue pits?”

“Nope, nope, nope, nope, and nope.”

“Of course, there is that big, blue harbor.”

“Yep.”

D.D. sighed heavily. Tried one last theory: “Husband’s vehicle?”

“Pickup truck. He walked out with us to peer in the back. He refused, however, to open the doors of the front cab.”

“Cautious son of a bitch.”

“Cold,” Miller corrected. “Wife’s been missing for hours now, and he hasn’t even picked up the phone to call any family or friends.”

That decided the matter for her. “All right,” D.D. said. “Let’s go meet Mr. Jones.”

When I was a little girl, I believed in God. My father would take me to church every Sunday. I would sit in Sunday school and listen to stories of His work. Afterward, we would gather in the churchyard for a potluck of fried chicken, broccoli casserole, and peach cobbler.

Then we would return home, where my mother would chase my father around the house with a meat cleaver, screaming, “I know what you’re up to, mister! Like those church hussies sit next to you just to share a hymnal!”

Round and round they would go, my parents racing around the house, myself curled up small in the front coat closet, where I could hear every word they said without having to see what would happen if my father ever lost his footing, missed a corner, tripped on a stair.

When I was a little girl, I believed in God. Every morning when I woke up and my father was still alive, I considered it a sign of His work. It wasn’t until I grew older that I started to truly understand Sunday mornings in my parents’ house. My father’s survival had nothing to do with God’s will, I came to see. It was a sign of my mama’s will. She never killed my father, because she didn’t want him to die.

No, my mama’s goal was to torture my father. To make every living moment of his life feel like an eternity in hell.

My father lived, because in my mama’s mind, death would’ve been too good for him.

“Did you find Mr. Smith?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you find Mr. Smith? My cat. Mommy went to look for him this morning, but she hasn’t come back yet.”

D.D. blinked her eyes several times rapidly. She had just opened the door at the top of the basement steps, to find herself confronted by a very solemn, curly-headed four-year-old. Apparently, Clarissa Jones was now awake and running the investigation.

“I see.”

“Ree?” A male baritone broke through the silence. Ree obediently turned around, and D.D. glanced up to find Jason Jones standing in the foyer, studying both of them.

“I want Mr. Smith,” Ree said plaintively.

Jason held out his hand and his daughter crossed to him. He didn’t utter a word to D.D., simply vanished back into the family room, his daughter at his side.

D.D. and Miller followed suit, Miller giving a faint nod of his head to excuse the uniformed officer who’d been standing guard.

The family room was small. A tiny love seat, two wooden chairs, a hope chest covered in lace doilies, which served double duty as a coffee table. A modest TV was propped on a fake-oak microwave stand in the corner. The rest of the room was occupied by a child-sized craft table, and a row of bins that housed everything from a hundred crayons to two dozen Barbies. To judge by the toys, four-year-old Ree liked the color pink.

D.D. took her time. She surveyed the room, pausing at the grainy photos framed on the mantel, the picture of a newborn baby girl, that same baby girl in an annual procession of first food, first steps, first tricycle. No other family members in the photos. No obvious signs of grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles. Just Jason, Sandra, and Ree.

She noted a small shot of a toddler clutching a very tolerant orange cat, and supposed that must be the infamous Mr. Smith.

She worked her way to the toy cubbies, glancing at the table-top and noting a half-finished coloring project featuring Cinderella with two mice. Normal things, D.D. thought. Normal toys, normal items, normal furniture for a normal family in a normal South Boston home.

Except this family wasn’t normal, or she wouldn’t be here.

She passed by the cubbies one more time, trying to get a bead on the father without turning to look at him. Most men would be agitated by now. A missing wife. Law enforcement officers encroaching on his home, intruding into his private sanctuary, picking up and handling personal photos of his family while his four-year-old daughter was present.

She felt nothing from him. Nothing at all.

It was almost as if he weren’t in the room.

She turned at last. Jason Jones was sitting on the love seat, his arm around his complacent daughter, his gaze fixed upon the empty TV screen. Up close and personal, he was everything Miller had advertised. Thick rumpled hair, masculine five o’clock shadow, nicely toned chest accentuated by a simple navy blue cotton shirt. He was sex and fatherhood and mysterious boy-next-door all rolled into one. He was an anchorwoman’s wet dream, and Miller was right-if they didn’t find Sandra Jones before the first news van found them, they were screwed.