The Girl Next Door (32 page)

Pulling up in front of Nancy’s ranch house, I saw the tent was still on the front yard. But other evidence of a large gathering had been tidied up and cleaned away. There were still two cars in the driveway, including what looked like an airport rental, so I knew Jeanne was still around. Anne must have been there, too. But the aggrieved sisters had retired inside. Tough to blame them: the house had central air.

Getting out of my car, I labored through the heat up the front steps, then rang the doorbell. And waited. And waited some more. I pressed the button again, holding it down longer this time. More waiting.

Unreal. If they were going to pretend not to be home, they could have at least moved their cars. Who did they think they were hiding from? Helen Keller?

I knocked on the door, rapping it hard enough to make my knuckles smart. I could already feel the moisture forming on my upper lip and brow. Sometime real soon, I was going to have to lock myself in a refrigerated room for a week.

My knuckle-knocking had done no good, so I switched to a fist and boomed on the door with the fat side of my hand. I was starting to have the thought that I should have pressed a little more to get the document when I had the chance—yet another example of hindsight acing an eye exam that foresight had flunked. The time for lying back and being patient with Nancy’s family had passed. The supposedly prudent reporter was done being patient.

I was about to shift my knocking to something more like thumping when Nancy’s oldest sister opened the door. She was slightly disheveled, with one side of her bob flattened. She was dressed in the skirt of her sensible suit but not the jacket. Her white blouse was wrinkled. Her heels were gone and she had also ditched her panty hose. Yes, Anne McCaffrey had definitely gone native.

“I’m sorry, I lost track of time,” she said. “We were napping.”

I believed her. The crease of a pillowcase was pressed into her cheek.

“Sorry,” I said, then tried to come up with a hasty fib. “I just thought maybe you couldn’t hear me over the air-conditioning.”

She stood there in her bare feet, holding the door in one hand, undecided about whether to invite me in. I could see the inside of the house had not yet been cleaned, and I decided that, in addition to being groggy, she might have been hesitant to invite me in because things were still a mess. So I sought to reassure her that I could have cared less about dirty dishes, empty cups, full ashtrays, or whatever else I might find lying around.

“I know this has been a crazy day for you. I can’t imagine how you found the time to clean up out there.”

She turned to the side and covered a yawn with her non-door-holding hand. My iPhone bleeped its new mail ring tone at earsplitting volume—I had yet to fiddle with the settings to change it to vibrate—and my hand dove into my pocket to silence it. But it was too late. The noise seemed to wake up Anne just enough to want to be rid of me.

“Mr. Ross, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to come back another day. I’m just … I’m not up for this right now. And Jeanne is asleep. She needs her rest. Are you free next week? Maybe we could set up a time when we could all meet in my office.”

Yes, it was definitely time for Mr. Ross to get assertive.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I said. “My investigation into your sister’s death has … reached a critical point. Time is of the essence. You mentioned you had a document for me. Why don’t you just give it to me and I’ll be on my way.”

“I … I don’t have any copies.”

“I’ll run to a Staples and make you ten sets,” I countered.

“That’s not the point,” she said, running her hand through her hair in a gesture of frustration. “It’s complicated.”

I realized that Anne McCaffrey, who was all about staying in command of things, was trying to keep what little control she had over this situation. I also recognized a woman at the frayed end of her rope. And yet I felt I had no choice but to keep tugging on her.

“Ms. McCaffrey, with all due respect, a lot of situations get pretty complicated. I’ve been a newspaper reporter a long time. I’ve never met anyone whose life comes in a neat package with a bow on top. I don’t expect yours does, and I wouldn’t expect Nancy’s did, either. Why don’t you just show me what you have and we’ll sort it out together.”

“Well, I’m a lawyer,” she said, as if I didn’t already know. “So I don’t expect things to be neat, either. It’s … I don’t want this to be something that becomes…”

She exhaled forcefully and winced, covering her face with her hands.

“My mother is so devastated by this, and I … I just don’t need this to be … bigger than—”

“I’m afraid that may be unavoidable,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Ms. McCaffrey, I know this might not be what you want to hear,” I said, as evenly as I could. “But by the end of the day, it’s entirely possible two men will be arrested for conspiring to murder your sister.”

*   *   *

For a newspaper reporter, delivering bad news to people is part of the job, something you find yourself doing with enough frequency that you get accustomed to the range of reactions.

There are the deniers, the people who immediately insist what you’re telling them couldn’t possibly be true. There are the displacers, the people who channel that immediate rush of hurt and anger at you and hold you personally responsible for whatever you’re telling them. There are the crumblers, the people who collapse into something resembling a catatonic state, to the point where they become useless. There are the bawlers, the people who immediately start crying on you or anyone else who happens to be around.

Then there are the stoics, which is the group Anne McCaffrey fell into. She was a tough nut, and she had no plan on showing me whatever emotion, if any, she was experiencing. If I had to guess, I’d say it was resignation more than anything—like this was news she feared might be coming, and therefore had braced herself to receive.

But that was just a guess. Outwardly, all she did was run her hand through her hair again, then step aside from the doorway.

“You’d better come in,” she said wearily.

I followed her into a living room still cluttered with the detritus of Nancy’s funeral reception. Anne gazed at it like it was just one more thing in life that disappointed her. Then she looked my way, as if she was placing me in the same category, though she wouldn’t be able to clean me up as easily.

“Have a seat,” she said. Nancy’s living room had a couch against the far wall, flanked on either end by two sturdy armchairs, with a coffee table in the middle of the three pieces. I selected one of the armchairs.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“It’s no trouble. I’m going to get a glass of water for myself.”

“I’m all right, thanks.”

Just then, Jeanne came into the living room. She was wearing her black funeral dress and had been inside long enough that her glasses were actually clear.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here.”

“He just got here,” Anne said, trying not to sound defensive. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping. I was just resting,” she said, then turned to me. “Hello, Mr. Ross.”

“Hello,” I said. “And please call me Carter. I think we’re going to be getting to know each other a little bit.”

“What do you mean?” Jeanne asked.

Anne eyed her sister nervously and began trying to herd her toward the couch.

“Jeanne, why don’t you have a seat, honey?”

“Why don’t you stop telling me what to do?” she snapped.

Another sister spat was not what I needed at this (or any other) moment. So I interceded before this one got any momentum.

“Anne, on second thought, I’d really like that glass of water,” I said, and she rolled with it.

“Jeanne, would you like one?”

“No, thank you,” Jeanne said testily.

While Anne was in the kitchen, Jeanne took a seat on the couch—of her own volition, of course, not because her sister suggested it. Anne returned juggling three water glasses with a grace that would have made her waitress younger sister proud. She arrayed three coasters on the coffee table—Anne was a coaster-using kind of woman—placed the glasses on the coasters, then chose her spot on the opposite end of the couch from Jeanne.

“So, Carter,” Anne said in her most diplomatic tone, “can you please repeat to my sister what you just told me?”

I not only repeated, I elaborated, narrating for them the full rundown of what I knew, from the NLRB visiting Papadopolous to Mrs. Alfaro’s statement to the police. I tried to keep the level of detail high enough that I didn’t leave anything out, yet sparse enough that I didn’t bog down the story. Still, it took me about twenty minutes to finish it all.

When I was done, Jeanne actually looked pleased, like she had been vindicated and was waiting to whip the world’s biggest I Told You So on her older sister. Anne was still stoic.

“Gary Jackman,” she said, at last. “You said that’s one of the men’s names?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that answers that,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry, Carter,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve told us a lot, but I … we haven’t told you everything. Or anything, really. There may be more to the story. Or it may be a different story entirely.”

“There was a lot my sister was keeping from me,” Jeanne interrupted. “They were things I would have told you when we met, but I didn’t know them myself at the time.”

“I felt it was privileged information,” Anne explained, and Jeanne steadied her head just long enough to glare at her sister. This had clearly been an argument from recent days, and I just hoped they weren’t going to rehash it in front of me.

“I called you when Anne finally started telling me,” Jeanne said, “but your phone was dead.”

“Yeah, I, uh, had to switch phones,” I said. I could tell them about my employment status later. “Anyway, what about this story is going to change?”

“I should probably just show you,” Anne said. “I’ll be right back.”

She rose from the couch and walked out the front door, keeping it ajar behind her. Jeanne swayed gently. We both took sips of our water. Anne returned, bringing a burst of muggy air back into the house with her. She was carrying a brown accordion file folder. It was stiff and new and mostly empty, but she had selected a large one, obviously thinking it would expand with time. She unwrapped the band that secured the flap and handed me a sheaf of paper that had been stapled in the upper-left-hand corner.

At the top of the first page I saw: “
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY, ESSEX VICINAGE, CIVIL DIVISION
.”

It was, obviously, a complaint for a civil lawsuit, with the usual captioning. There was no case number, which meant it hadn’t been filed yet. The plaintiff was listed as “Marino, Nancy B.”

There was only one defendant. He was listed as “Caesar 710.”

*   *   *

My eyes began poring over the document. Its first assertion was that at all times relevant to the complaint, Nancy Marino was a resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey. The subsequent facts were similarly banal stuff—that she was an employee of the
Newark Eagle
-Examiner, Inc., that she was a shop steward in IFIW–Local 117 and so on. I was into pages 4 and 5 before I got to the meat of the thing, and on page 7 before I started having an inkling about what was going on.

“This … this is a complaint for sexual harassment,” I said, feeling my head cock to one side.

“That’s right,” Anne confirmed.

“But…” I said, then let my voice trail off as I refocused on the paper and continued reading.

Actually, I should say I was skimming. It usually takes me three or four trips through a document like this before I really absorb it. During my first run-through, I have a hard time keeping myself from speeding to the end.

But I was getting the highlights. It started with Caesar 710 making remarks about Nancy’s appearance, including comments about her breasts. One quote that jumped off the page was, “On several occasions, the defendant stated the plaintiff should wear tighter clothing to ‘show off your body more.’”

Then he began asking her out on dates. At first, it was just invitations to drinks, which “plaintiff rejected as being inappropriate.” It escalated from there to sexual advances, descriptions of proposed encounters that became increasingly lurid. At a certain point, the complaint alleged, Caesar 710 started initiating physical contact, fondling her thigh under a table. The complaint referred to this as assault and battery.

“Assault and battery?” I asked. “He hit her?”

“Those are legal definitions,” Anne said. “Assault is any attack that causes the defendant to fear physical harm. Battery is simply touching without consent.”

I thought of what I had learned about Nancy, how she didn’t really date or seem all that interested in it. Every description of her made her sound fairly asexual. What was it that Nikki said about her? That while all the other waitresses gabbed about a hot guy coming into the restaurant, Nancy didn’t treat them any differently from the old ladies.

I could only imagine how she would have reacted to Caesar 710’s behavior. She would have been shocked, horrified, humiliated. She probably wouldn’t have known what to do about it at first.

But eventually she would have decided to fight back. Nancy Marino was no pushover.

And this complaint was part of that fight. There were other names mentioned, also in code: Caesar 413, Caesar 168, Caesar 1224. But Caesar 710 was clearly the star of the show.

“Wow,” I said, looking up from the document when I reached the end. “So who is ‘Caesar 710’?”

“I don’t know,” Anne said.

“What do you mean?”

“She wouldn’t tell me.”

Anne continued: “She said Caesar 710 was vindictive and violent. We were e-mailing this document back and forth, and she said there was a possibility it would be, I don’t know, intercepted by someone. She thought if she put the real name in there, it would get reported back to Caesar 710. At the time, I just thought she was being paranoid.”