Lisa Gardner: The Neighbor

One by one, all the news vans with their enormous klieg lights, camera crews, and news reporters were suddenly packing up and pulling away. He watched the first one do a U-turn, then another, then another.

“What the hell?” he murmured. Sandra had come up behind him.

“Something bigger must’ve happened.”

“Bigger than your return from the dead?”

“They don’t know about that yet.”

“True,” he said. But the sudden darkness outside discomfited him after two nights of blazing lights. Then, suddenly, he was aware of something else. A high-pitched scrape, like tree branches against a bare window, except their property didn’t have any trees that close to the house. From the back yard, he realized, and it was already moving away from the window, toward the hall.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

But he was too late. They both heard it at the same time: the tinkling of shattering glass, someone breaking through a back window.

“Shot twice,” D.D. was reporting to Miller, who’d just arrived at the Brewster scene after being called out of bed. D.D. had been at the house for nearly twenty minutes already, so she was bringing him up to speed. “First time in the stomach, second time in the back, between the shoulder blades, apparently as he tried to crawl away.”

“Messy,” Miller observed.

“Certainly not professional. This was personal business, through and through.”

Miller straightened, wiping at the Vicks he’d smeared on his mustache. Gut shots weren’t just messy, they were smelly. Feces and blood and bile, all churned up and soaked into the carpet.

“But Wayne Reynolds was taken out with a car bomb,” Miller countered. “That’s a professional-grade hit.”

D.D. shrugged. “Guy can’t be in two places at once. So he rigs a bomb for bachelor number one, and pays a visit to bachelor number two. Either way, in one night, his competition is eliminated.”

“You think Jason Jones did it.”

“Who else had links to both men?”

“So Jones kills his wife first, in a fit of jealousy, then sets out to get revenge against the men he believes were her lovers.”

“Hey, crazier things have happened.”

Miller arched his brows, just to show his doubt. “Ethan Hastings?”

“Bolted. Maybe he heard what happened to his uncle and is scared it might be him next. Hell, maybe it could be him next.”

Miller sighed. “Crap, I hate this case. Okay, so where’s Jason Jones?”

“Sitting in his house, contained by two of Boston’s finest and most of the major news outlets.”

“Not the news outlets,” Miller corrected. “This made the airwaves. By the time I pulled up, they were already lining the street. Might want to fix your hair before you exit, because we’re tomorrow’s news lead.”

“Ah shit. Can’t anything stay quiet anymore?” D.D. selfconsciously touched her hair. It’d been nearly twenty hours since she’d last showered or tended to personal hygiene. Not the look any woman wanted to present to the world. She shook her head. “One last thing,” she informed Miller. “Out here.”

He obediently followed her to the glass sliders leading outside. The back yard was dark compared to the lights blazing around front. But Southie had small yards, mostly fenced in, which kept the media at bay.

D.D. led Miller over to the tree she had checked out during their first visit. The one with limbs perfect for climbing up to see into the Jones residence. It occurred to Miller now that those same tree branches made a nice ladder over the neighbor’s fence. And sure enough, he saw exactly what D.D. had meant.

Up on the second branch, a smudge of black, which upon closer inspection with their flashlights turned out to be a dark brown leather glove.

“Think that glove fits Jason Jones?” D.D. asked.

“I think there’s only one way to find out.”

“Hide,” Jason whispered urgently. “In the closet. Now. You’re missing, remember? No one will think to look for you.”

Sandy remained rooted in place, so he pushed her toward the open closet, getting her inside and partially closing the door.

The footsteps were on the stairs now. Slow, stealthy. Jason grabbed two pillows and shoved them under the sheets, a poor attempt at fashioning a sleeping body. Next, he pressed his back against the wall next to the door and waited. He was very aware of his four-year-old daughter, sleeping just twenty feet away. He was very aware of his pregnant wife, standing in a closet only ten feet away. It made him feel icy, preternaturally calm. Deep inside a zone, where if he had a gun, he’d be emptying a clip into the intruder by now.

The footsteps paused in the hallway, probably outside Ree’s closed door. Jason found himself holding his breath, because if the intruder opened that door, woke up Ree, tried to grab her…

A soft shuffling sound as the intruder eased forward one step, then another.

Another pause. Jason could see a shadow in the doorway, hear the sound of low, even breathing.

“Might as well come out now, son,” Maxwell Black drawled. “I heard you moving when I was coming up the stairs, so I know you’re awake. Keep this simple, and your daughter won’t get hurt.”

Jason didn’t move. He held the heavy metal flashlight by his hip, debating his options. Maxwell hadn’t stepped far enough into the room for Jason to ambush him. The crafty old man stayed a foot back from the open doorway, enough in the hallway so he could see into the room while keeping his sides protected.

The hall floor creaked slightly, a man moving backward, one step, then two, then three.

“I’m at her door now, son. All I gotta do is turn the knob, flick on her light. She’ll wake up. Ask for Daddy. What do you want me to tell her? How much do you want your little girl to know about you?”

Jason finally eased away from the wall. He moved out just slightly, enough that Maxwell could see his profile, without exposing all of his body to the hallway. He kept the flashlight behind his back.

“Little late for a social call,” Jason said evenly.

The old man chuckled. He stood in the middle of the lit hallway, outside of Ree’s room. He hadn’t been bluffing; the man had one gloved hand on Ree’s doorknob. In the other black-gloved hand, he held a gun.

“You’ve had a busy night,” Maxwell said, gun coming up, aiming somewhere around Jason’s left shoulder. “Shame you had to kill young Brewster like that. Then again, most people think death is too good for those perverts.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s not what the police are thinking. Bet they’re tossing his place right now. Finding some old love letters Sandy wrote years and years ago stuffed under his mattress. Then there’s the discarded glove here, broken branch there. I give them twenty, thirty minutes, and they’ll be here to arrest you. Means we’d better keep this quick.”

“Keep what quick?”

“Your suicide, boy. Christ almighty, you killed your wife, shot her lover. You’re wracked with guilt, consumed with remorse. No way a man like you can be a fitting father. So, of course, you came home and shot yourself. The fine detectives will find your body, read your note. They can dot the i ’s and cross the t ’s. Then I’ll take Ree away from all this sadness to a whole new life in Georgia. Don’t worry I’ll do right by her.”

Jason heard a sharp hiss of indrawn breath from the closet. He took a step closer to the doorway, trying to keep Max’s focus on him.

“I see. Well, it sounds like quite a plan, Max. But I see one flaw in it already.”

“What’s that?”

“You can’t shoot me from the hallway. Surely, you’ve learned from enough criminal cases by now. First thing that gives away a fake suicide is the lack of gunshot residue. No GSR on the contact wound means the gunshot was not self-inflicted. I’m afraid if you want this to be suicide, you’re gonna have to be up close and personal.”