The Neighbor (15 page)

And I can suddenly picture myself, sitting down on my stupid pink floral sofa, writing full force:

Dear Rachel:

I am sorry for what I did. Sorry for all the times I told you I only wanted to talk, when we both knew I just wanted to get you naked. Sorry for all the times I got you in bed, then said I only wanted what was best for you.

I’m sorry I fucked you, then told you it was all your fault. You wanted it. You needed it. I did it for you.

And I’m sorry that I still think about you every single goddamn day. How much I want you. How much I need you. How you did it just for me.

Then, just as I’m really on a roll, writing away in my head, Colleen’s voice suddenly cuts through the gloom.

“Hey, Aidan,” she calls out. “Is that your cat?”

| CHAPTER TWELVE |

The meeting started at six
A.M.
sharp. They began with the board. They had Person of Interest A: Mr. Jason Jones, relation—spouse. They had Person of Interest B: Aidan Brewster, relation—registered sex offender living on same block. From there, they outlined means, motives, and opportunity.

Means was left blank, as they lacked information on what exactly had happened to Sandra Jones. Killed, kidnapped? Ran away? Never good to make assumptions at such an early stage in an investigation, so they moved on.

Motives. Jones stood to gain millions of dollars he might otherwise lose in divorce, plus custody of his daughter. Brewster was a known sexual predator, perhaps acting out long-festering impulses.

Opportunity. Jones had an alibi for the night and time in question, but the alibi was hardly airtight. Brewster—no alibi, but could they connect Brewster to Sandra Jones? At this time, they had no phone messages, e-mails, or text messages linking the two. But geography remained in their favor. Suspect and victim lived only five houses apart. A jury could reasonably assume that Brewster and the victim had known each other in some capacity. Plus, there was the
matter of the garage where Brewster worked. Perhaps Sandra Jones had serviced her car there—they planned on asking first thing this morning.

They moved on to background. Jones was a freelance reporter and “devoted” father, who’d married a very young pregnant bride and transplanted her to South Boston from Atlanta, Georgia. He had millions of dollars in assets from sources unknown. He was deemed “uncooperative” by both Detective Miller and Sergeant Warren, which was not in his favor. He also appeared to have a fetish for bolt locks and steel doors.

Brewster, on the other hand, was a registered sex offender, having engaged in sexual relations with a fourteen-year-old. Worked the same job for the past two years, lived at the same address. His PO liked him and had called in at nine
P.M.
to report she’d found nothing suspicious at his apartment. So a plus in his favor.

Victim herself was not considered high-risk. A devoted mom and new schoolteacher, she had no history of drugs, alcohol, or sexual wantonness. Principal of the middle school described her as punctual, reliable, and conscientious. Husband claimed she’d never willingly leave her daughter. On the flip side, victim was young, living in a relatively strange city, and seemed to lack a support network of close friends and/or relatives. So they had early-twenties, socially isolated beautiful mom who spent most nights alone with her small child.

Crime scene: no sign of forced entry. No blood spatter or overt signs of violence. They had one broken lamp in the master bedroom, but no evidence it had been used as a weapon or destroyed as part of a larger struggle. They had a blue-and-green quilt that used to be on the master bed, but someone had stuffed it in the washing machine along with a purple nightshirt. They had the wife’s purse, cell phone, car keys, and vehicle all accounted for at the scene. No missing clothes, jewelry, or luggage. Husband’s truck was searched, but came up clean. Crime lab was currently searching the family’s trash. BRIC—Boston Regional Intelligence Center—would really like to search family’s computer.

At the last minute, D.D. added:
1 missing orange cat.

She stepped back from the white board. They all studied it.

When no one had anything new to add, she capped her pen and turned to the deputy superintendent of homicide.

“Sandra Jones has now been missing over twenty-four hours,” D.D. concluded. “She has not turned up at any local hospital or morgue. Nor has there been any activity on her credit cards or bank accounts during this time period. We have searched her house, her yard, the two vehicles, and her neighborhood. As of this time, we do not have a single lead on her whereabouts.”

“Cell phone?” the deputy superintendent barked.

“We are working with her cellular provider to procure a complete log of all deleted voice messages and text messages, as well as a list of all incoming and outgoing calls. In the past twenty-four hours, the activity on her cell phone has mostly been limited to her teaching position, with various staff members and students trying to track her down.”

“E-mail?” Clemente prodded.

“We tried unsuccessfully yesterday to get a warrant to seize the family computer. The judge argued Sandra Jones had not been missing for a sufficient length of time. We will resubmit our affidavit this morning, now that we have passed the twenty-four-hour benchmark for missing persons.”

“Strategy?”

D.D. took a deep breath, eyed Detective Miller. They’d been at this since five this morning, having regrouped after only a few hours of desperately needed sleep. Passing the twenty-four-hour mark was both the best and worst thing to have happened for them. On the one hand, they could officially open a case file for Sandra Jones. On the other hand, the odds of finding said female had just dropped in half. Before, they’d had a window of opportunity. Now, they had an hourly race against time, as each additional minute Sandra Jones remained missing spelled only further doom and gloom.

They needed to find her. Within the next twelve hours, or chances were, they’d be digging up a body.

“We believe we have two logical courses of action,” D.D. reported. “One, we believe the child, Clarissa Jones, may have information on what happened in her home that night. We need to force Jason Jones
to consent to a forensic interview so that we can determine what details Clarissa may have to offer.”

“How you gonna do that?”

“We’re going to tell him he either allows us to interview Clarissa, or we will declare the house a crime scene and have him and Clarissa booted from the premises. We believe that in the interest of maintaining a stable environment for his child, he’ll consent to the interview.”

Clemente looked at her. “Not if he believes his daughter may offer details that incriminate him.”

D.D. shrugged. “Either way, we’ll have information we didn’t have before.”

Clemente considered this. “Agreed. Second course of action?”

She took another deep breath. “Given the current lack of leads, we need to make a public appeal for help. It’s been twenty-four hours. We don’t know what happened to Sandra Jones. Our best bet is to get the public involved. To accomplish this mission, we’d like to form an official taskforce to handle the multitude of inquiries that would come our way. We would also need to partner with other law enforcement agencies to identify local search team leaders, as well as other avenues of investigation. Finally, we would hold a press conference by nine
A.M.
this morning, where we would post pictures of Sandra Jones along with a hotline number for caller information. Of course, a case of this nature could potentially leap straight to national attention, but then again, maybe that will be useful to our efforts.”

Clemente stared at her doubtfully.

D.D. relaxed her formal pose enough to shrug. “Hell, Chuck, media’s gonna catch wind of this sooner or later. Might as well make it on our terms.”

Clemente sighed, picked up the manila file folder in front him, tapped it a few times on the table. “Cable shows are gonna love this one.”

“We’ll need a dedicated public affairs officer,” D.D. commented.

“Ninety-five percent of ‘tips and inquiries’ are gonna be from lonely men with tinfoil hats and tales of alien abductions.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve gotten to hear from them,” D.D.
said, straight-faced. “Maybe we can assign a second officer just to update their addresses.”

Clemente snorted. “Like I got the budget and they’re ever moving out of their mothers’ basements.” He clutched the file in two hands. “Press is gonna ask you about the husband. What do you plan on saying?”

“We are pursuing all leads at this time.”

“They’ll ask if he’s cooperating with the investigation.”

“Meaning I’m gonna call him at eight-thirty
A.M.
and suggest he let us interview his daughter, just so I can answer yes to that question and save him some grief.”

“And the registered sex offender?”

D.D. hesitated. “We’re pursuing all leads at this time.”

Clemente nodded sagely. “That’s my girl. I don’t want to hear any deviation from that party line. Last thing we need leaked is that we have two equally viable persons of interest. Next thing you know, they’ll point the finger at each other, providing instant reasonable doubt to the defense attorney of choice.”

D.D. nodded, without feeling the need to volunteer that Jason Jones was already going down that path. That was the problem with profiling two suspects, and why they had written everything on an erasable white board instead of in an official police report. Because once an arrest was made, all police reports became subject to disclosure to the defense attorney, who could then take suspect B and dangle him in front of the jury as the real mastermind.
Ta-da
, one dose of reasonable doubt, delivered by the earnest detective’s own thorough investigation. Sometimes you were the windshield. Sometimes you were the bug.

“Nine
A.M.
press conference, you say?” Clemente glanced at his watch, stood from the table. “Better get cracking.”

He tapped the file one last time, like a judge adjourning the trial. Then, he was out the door, while D.D. and Miller, finally officially empowered to assemble a taskforce and pressure a suspect, scrambled to get to work.

The phone rang shortly after 8
A.M.
Jason turned his head slightly, eyed it ringing across the room on the little table by the window. He should get up, answer it. He couldn’t find the energy to move.

Ree sat on the carpet in front of him, half-eaten bowl of Cheerios sitting in front of her, her eyes glued to the TV. She was watching
Dragon Tales
, which had followed
Clifford the Big Red Dog
, which had followed
Curious George.
She had never been allowed to watch as much TV as she had watched in the past twenty-four hours. Last night, the promise of a movie had excited her. This morning, she simply appeared as glassy-eyed as he.

She had not come skipping down the hall at six-thirty
A.M.
to pounce on top of his prone form and shriek with four-year-old glee,
“Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up! Daaaaa-dddeeeee. Wake. Up!”

Instead, he had appeared in her room at seven, to find her lying wide-eyed in bed, staring up at her ceiling as if memorizing the pattern of birds and butterflies floating across the painted eaves. He had opened her blinds to another chilly March day. Got out her fleecy pink bathrobe.

She climbed out of bed without a word, took the bathrobe, found her slippers, and followed him downstairs. The cereal sounded uncommonly loud pouring from the box. The milk made a positive racket, sloshing into the daisy-patterned bowl. He hadn’t been sure they’d be able to survive the sound of the silverware, but somehow, they had made it through.

She had carried her bowl into the family room and snapped on the TV without even asking. As if she’d known he wouldn’t deny her this. And he hadn’t. He couldn’t find the heart to say,
Sit at the counter, young lady. TV will rot your brain, child. Come on, let’s have a real meal.

Somehow, brain rot seemed a minor inconvenience compared to what they were facing this morning—the second day without Sandra. The second day without Ree’s mom, and his wife, a woman who thirty-six hours ago had intentionally purged her own Internet account. A woman who had possibly left them.

Phone rang again. This time, Ree turned to stare at him. Her gaze was slightly accusing. Like, as the adult, he should know better.

So he finally slung himself off the sofa and crossed to the phone.

It was Sergeant Warren, of course. “Good morning, Mr. Jones.”

“Not really,” he replied.

“I trust you had a productive night at work.”

“Did what I had to do.” He shrugged.

“How is your daughter this morning?”

“Have you found my wife, Sergeant?”

“Well, no—”

“Then let’s cut to the chase.”

He heard her take a deep breath. “Well, as it has been more than twenty-four hours, you should know that your wife’s status has been upgraded to an official missing person.”