The Neighbor (6 page)

“Mr. Jones,” D.D. urged impatiently. “The sooner we establish where Mr. Smith
isn’t
, the sooner we can establish where she is.”

“He,”
came Ree’s muffled voice from against her father’s chest. “Mr. Smith is a
boy
.”

D.D. didn’t respond, simply continued to study Jason Jones.

“Mr. Smith is not in the cab of my pickup truck,” Jason said quietly.

“How do you know that?”

“Because he was already gone when I came home. And just to be safe, I checked the vehicle myself.”

“With all due respect, sir, that would be our job.”

“Mr. Smith is not in my truck,” Jason repeated quietly. “And until you get a search warrant, you’ll get to take my word for it.”

“There are judges who would grant us a warrant based on your lack of cooperation alone.”

“Then I guess you’ll be back shortly, won’t you?”

“I want access to your computer,” D.D. said.

“Talk to the same judge.”

“Mr. Jones. Your
… cat
has been missing for seven hours now. No sign of her—”

“Him,” Ree’s muffled voice.

“Him
, in the neighborhood or at the usual … cat haunts. The matter is growing serious. I would think you’d want to help.”

“I love my cat,” Jones said quietly.

“Then give us access to your computer. Cooperate with us, so we can resolve this matter safely and expediently.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t?” D.D. pounced. “Or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

“And why can’t you, Mr. Jones?”

He looked at her. “Because I love my daughter more.”

Thirty minutes later, D.D. walked with Detective Miller back to her car. They had printed Jason Jones and Clarissa Jones as a matter of protocol; in order to determine if there were any strange fingerprints in the house, they had to start by identifying the prints of the known occupants. Jones had volunteered his hands, then assisted with Ree’s, who thought the whole thing was a grand adventure. Most likely, Jason had realized that one act of cooperation cost him very little-after all, there was nothing suspicious about his prints being in his own home.

Jason Jones had washed his hands. Jason Jones had washed Ree’s hands. Then he’d basically kicked the police officers out. His daughter needed to rest, he announced, and that had been that. He escorted each and every one of them to the door. No
What are you doing to find my wife
? No
Please, please please I’ll do whatever I can to help.
No
Let’s organize a search party and tackle the entire neighborhood until we find my beautiful, beloved spouse.

Not Mr. Jones. His daughter needed a nap. And that was that.

“Cold?” D.D. muttered now. “Arctic is more like it. Clearly, Mr. Jones has never heard of global warming.”

Miller let her rant.

“Kid knows something. Notice the way she shut down the moment we got past bedtime? She heard something, saw something, I don’t know. But we need a forensic interviewer, someone who specializes in children. Quick, too. More time that girl spends around dear old Dad, harder it’s going to be for her to recall any inconvenient truths.”

Miller nodded his head.

“’Course, we’re also gonna need doting Dad’s permission to interview his child, and somehow, I don’t think he’s gonna grant us access. Fascinating, don’t you think? I mean, his wife vanished in the middle of the night, leaving their daughter all alone in the house, and far from cooperating with us, or asking us any logical questions about what we’re doing to find his wife, Jason Jones sits on that sofa as mute as a mime. Where’s his shock, his disbelief, his panicked need for information? He should be calling friends and relatives. He should be digging out recent photos of his wife for us to canvass the neighborhood. He should, at the very least, be arranging for someone to watch his daughter so he can personally assist with our efforts. This guy—it’s like a switch has been thrown. He’s not even home.”

“Denial,” Miller offered up, trudging along beside her.

“We’re gonna have to do this the hard way,” D.D. declared. “Get a search warrant for Jason Jones’s truck, get an affidavit permitting us to seize the computer, as well as requesting printouts of the wife’s cell phone records. Hell, we should probably just have the entire house
frozen as a crime scene. That’d give Jason Jones something to think about.”

“Tough on the kid.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the kicker.” If the house was declared a crime scene, Jason and his daughter would be forced to evacuate. Pack a bag, move into a motel under escort from a police cruiser kind of thing. D.D. wondered what little Ree would think, giving up her garden oasis for a cheap hotel room with brown carpets and the stale scent of a decade’s worth of cigarettes. It didn’t make D.D. feel too good about things, but then she had another thought.

She stopped walking, pivoting toward Miller so abruptly, he nearly ran into her.

“If we move Jason and Ree out of the house, we’ll have to assign officers to cover them twenty-four/seven. Meaning there’ll be fewer officers actively searching for Sandra Jones, meaning our investigation will slow down during a time when it’s critical to ramp up. You know that. I know that. But Jason doesn’t know that.”

Miller frowned at her, stroked his mustache.

“Judge Banyan,” D.D. said, resuming walking at a much brisker pace. “We can prepare the affidavits now, and get ’em to her chamber right after lunch. We’ll get warrants for the computer, the truck, and dammit, we’ll have the house declared a crime scene. We’ll knock Mr. Arctic right out on his ass.”

“Wait, I thought you just said—”

“And we’ll hope,” D.D. interjected forcefully, “that when Jason Jones is given a choice between vacating his own home, or letting a certified forensic specialist talk to his child, he’ll opt for the interview.”

D.D. glanced at her watch. It was just after twelve now, and on cue, her stomach rumbled for lunch. She remembered her early-morning fantasy of an all-you-can-eat buffet, and felt just plain pissy.

“We’ll need more manpower to execute the warrants,” she added.

“All right.”

“And we’re gonna have to think of a way to broaden our search without alerting the media yet.”

“All right.”

They were at her car. D.D. paused long enough to look Miller in the eye and sigh heavily.

“This case sucks,” she declared.

“I know,” Miller said affably. “Aren’t you glad I called?”

| CHAPTER FIVE |

At 11:59, Jason finally got the last law enforcement officer out of the house. The sergeant retreated, then the lead detective, the evidence technicians, and the uniformed officers. Only a plainclothes detective remained behind, sitting obtrusively in a brown Ford Taurus parked in front. Jason could watch him from the kitchen window, the officer sitting with his gaze straight ahead, alternately yawning and taking sips of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

After another minute, Jason moved away from the window, realized that his house was all his again, and nearly staggered under the weight of what to do next.

Ree was staring at him, her big brown eyes so much like her mother’s.

“Lunch,” Jason said out loud, slightly startled by the hoarse sound of his own voice. “Let’s have lunch.”

“Daddy, did you buy Oreo cookies?”

“No.”

She exhaled heavily, turning toward the kitchen anyway. “Maybe you should call Mommy. Maybe, if she’s near a grocery store looking for Mr. Smith, she can bring home some cookies.”

“Maybe,” Jason said, and managed to get the refrigerator door open even though his hand had started to shake violently.

He made it through lunch on autopilot. Found the bread, pulled out whole wheat slices. Mixed the natural peanut butter, spread the jelly. Counted out four carrots, picked out some green grapes. Arranged it all on a flowered daisy plate with the sandwich cut on the requisite diagonal.

Ree prattled about Mr. Smith’s great escape, how no doubt he would be meeting up with Peter Rabbit and maybe they’d both come home with Alice in Wonderland. Ree was at the age where she easily blended fact and fantasy. Santa was real, the Easter Bunny was best friends with the Tooth Fairy, and there was no reason Clifford the Big Red Dog couldn’t have a play date with Mr. Smith.

She was a precocious child. All energy and high hopes and huge demands. She could throw a forty-five-minute temper tantrum over not having the right shade of pink socks to wear. And she had once spent an entire Saturday morning refusing to come out of her room because she was furious that Sandra had bought new curtains for the kitchen without consulting her first.

Yet, neither Sandra nor Jason would have it any other way.

He looked at her, Sandra looked at her, and they saw the childhood neither one of them had ever had. They saw innocence and faith and trust. They relished their daughter’s easy hugs. They lived for her infectious laugh. And they both, early on, had agreed that Ree would always come first. They would do anything for her.

Anything.

Jason glanced at the unmarked police car sitting outside his house, felt his hand curl into an automatic fist, and checked the reflex.

“She’s pretty.”

“Mr. Smith is a boy,” he said automatically.

“Not Mr. Smith. The police lady. I like her hair.”

Jason turned back toward his daughter. Ree’s face was smudged with peanut butter in one corner, jelly in another. And she was looking at him again with her big brown eyes.

“You know you can tell me anything,” he said softly.

Ree set her sandwich down. “I know, Daddy,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She ate two green grapes half-heartedly,
then rearranged the others on her plate, around the white petals of the daisy. “Do you think Mr. Smith is okay?”

“Cats have nine lives.”

“Mommys don’t.”

He didn’t know what to say. He tried to open his mouth, tried to summon some kind of vague reassuring phrase, but nothing would come out. He was mostly aware that his hands were shaking convulsively again, and he had gone cold somewhere deep down inside, where he would probably never be warm again.

“I’m tired, Daddy,” Ree said. “I want to take a nap.”

“Okay,” he said.

They headed upstairs.

Jason watched Ree brush her teeth. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

He read Ree two stories, sitting on the edge of Ree’s bed. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

He sang one song, tucked the covers around his daughter’s shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

He made it all the way to the doorway, then Ree spoke up, forcing him to turn around. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his fingers fisted beneath his elbows, where Ree couldn’t see the tremors in his hands.

“Will you stay, Daddy? Until I fall asleep?”

“Okay.”

“Mommy sang me ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’ I remember her singing ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’”

“Okay.”

Ree shifted restlessly beneath the covers. “Do you think she’s found Mr. Smith yet? Do you think she’ll come home?”

“I hope so.”

She finally lay still. “Daddy,” she whispered. “Daddy, I have a secret.”

He took a deep breath, forced his voice to sound light. “Really? Because remember the Daddy Clause.”

“The Daddy Clause?”

“Sure, the Daddy Clause. Whatever the secret, you’re allowed to tell one daddy. Then he’ll help keep the secret, too.”

“You’re my daddy.”

“Yep, and I assure you, I’m really good at keeping secrets.”

She smiled at him. Then, her mother’s daughter, she rolled over and went to sleep without saying another word.

He waited five more minutes, then eased out of the room, and just barely made it down the stairs.

He kept the picture in the kitchen utility drawer, next to the pen flashlight, green screwdriver, leftover birthday candles, and half a dozen wine charms they never used. Sandra used to tease him about the tiny photo in its cheap gilded frame.

“For God’s sake, it’s like hiding away a picture of your old high school sweetheart. Stick the frame on the mantel, Jason. She’s like family to you. I don’t mind.”

But the woman in the photo was not family. She was old—eighty, ninety, he couldn’t remember anymore. She sat in a rocking chair, birdlike frame nearly lost in a pile of voluminous hand-me-down clothes: man’s dark blue flannel shirt, belted around brown corduroy pants, nearly covered by an old Army jacket. The woman was smiling the large, gleeful smile of the elderly, like she had a secret, too, and hers was better than his.

He had loved her smile. He had loved her laugh.

She was not family, but she was the only person who, for a very long time, had made him feel safe.

He clutched her photo now. He held it to his breast like a talisman, and then his legs gave out and he sank to the kitchen floor. He started to shake again. First his hands, then his arms, then his chest, the bone-deep tremors traveling down to his thighs, his knees, his ankles, each tiny little toe.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t make a sound of protest.

But he shook so hard it felt as if his body should break apart, his flesh flying from his bones, his bones splintering into a thousand pieces.

“Goddammit, Sandy,” he said, resting his shaking head upon his shaking knees.

Then he realized, quite belatedly, that he’d better do something about the computer.

The phone rang ten minutes later. Jason didn’t feel like talking to anyone, then thought, a little foolishly, that it might be Sandy, calling from … somewhere … so he picked up.

It wasn’t his wife. It was a male voice, and the man said, “Are you home alone?”

“Who is this?”

“Is your child there?”

Jason hung up.

The phone rang again. Caller ID reported the same number. This time Jason let the machine get it. The same male voice boomed, “I’ll take that as a yes. Back yard, five minutes. You’ll want to talk to me.” Then the man hung up.

“Fuck you,” Jason told the empty kitchen. It was a foolish thing to say, but it made him feel better.