The Neighbor (28 page)

Jason got out the syrup. Poured them glasses of orange juice, then scrambled the last two eggs in the fridge so his child would have
something besides bread dipped in sugar as a meal. He could almost hear Sandy saying now, “Waffles with maple syrup are little better than doughnuts. Honestly Jason, at least throw in a hard-boiled egg, something.”

She had never complained too much, though. Her favorite meal was angel hair pasta with pink vodka sauce, which she ate anytime they went to the North End. Pinkalicious pasta, Ree called it, and the two of them would slurp away, sharing the same bowl with gastronomic glee.

Jason’s hand shook slightly. He overshot stirring the egg, sending a yellow chunk onto the floor. He tapped by it with his toe, and Mr. Smith came over to investigate.

“The light’s off,” Ree singsonged.

“All righty, then. Let’s eat!” He used his best Jim Carrey voice, and Ree giggled. The sound of her laugh soothed him. He did not have all the answers. He was deeply troubled about what had happened today, let alone what might happen next. But he had this moment. Ree had this moment.

Moments mattered. Other people didn’t always get that. But Jason did.

They sat side by side at the counter. They ate their waffles. They drank their juice. Ree chased scrambled-egg bits around her plate, putting each bite through a maple-syrup obstacle course before finally popping it in her mouth.

Jason helped himself to another waffle. He wondered when the police would arrive to seize the family laptop. He cut his waffle into bite-sized pieces. He wondered how much Ethan Hastings had taught Sandy about computers, and why she’d never confronted Jason with her suspicions. He added half a dozen waffle bits onto Ree’s daisy plate. He wondered which would be the hardest way to lose his daughter—to the police, sticking her in foster care when they came to arrest him for Sandy’s murder, or to Sandy’s father, stating in family court that Jason Jones was not Clarissa Jane Jones’s biological father and thus should no longer be part of her life.

Ree put down her fork. “I’m full, Daddy.”

He glanced at her plate. “Four more bites of waffle, as you’re four years old.”

“No.” She hopped down from the bar stool. He caught her arm, frowning.

“Four bites, then you may be excused from the table.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

Jason blinked, set down his fork. “I’m your father, so yes, I am the boss of you.”

“No, Mommy is.”

“We both are.”

“No, only Mommy.”

“Clarissa Jane Jones, you may eat four bites of waffle, or you may sit on the timeout stair.”

Ree thrust her chin out at him. “I want Mommy.”

“Four bites.”

“Why did you yell at her? Why did you make her mad?”

“Back to your chair, Ree.”

She stomped her foot. “I want Mommy! She told me she’d come home. Mommy told me she wouldn’t leave me.”

“Ree …”

“Mommy goes to work, she comes home. She goes to the grocery store, she comes home. Mommy told me, she promised me, she’d always
come home!”

Jason felt his chest tighten. Ree had gone through an attachment phase where she’d cried and carried on every time Sandy left. So Sandy had started a little game she’d read in some parenting book, always notifying Ree when she was leaving, and always hugging Ree first thing when she got home.
“See, look at me, Ree. I’m home. I always come home. I’d never leave you. Never.”

“Mommy’s going to put me to bed,” Ree said now, chin still sticking out obstinately. “It’s her job. You go to work, she puts me to bed. Go to work, Daddy. Go on. Leave!”

“Ree …”

“I don’t want you here anymore. You have to leave. If you leave, Mommy will come home. Go to work. You have to.”

“Ree …”

“Get out, get out. I don’t want to see you anymore. You’re a big
meanie.”

“Clarissa Jane Jones.”

“Stop it, stop it!” She clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop yelling, I don’t want to hear you yelling.”

“I’m not yelling.” But his voice was rising.

His daughter continued as if she’d never heard him. “Angry feet, angry feet. I hear your mean feet on the stairs. Get out, get out, get out. I want Mommy! It’s not fair, it’s not fair.
I want my mommy!”

Then his daughter twisted away from him and ran sobbing up the stairs.

Jason let her go. He listened as Ree stormed down the hall. He caught the distant boom as she slammed her door shut. Then he was left alone at the kitchen counter, with a half-eaten waffle and a heart full of regrets.

Day two of his wife’s disappearance and his daughter was falling to pieces.

He thought, in a spurt of ironic bitterness, that Sandy had better be dead or he’d kill her for this.

The police returned at exactly 8:45
P.M.
Jason was standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the family computer, which was no longer the family computer, when they pounded up the front steps.

He opened the door. Sergeant Warren led the charge.

She thrust the search warrant in front of his face, rattling off in rapid legalese where they were allowed to go and what they were allowed to seize. As he’d suspected, they would be taking the computer, as well as miscellaneous electronic devices, including but not limited to gaming devices, iPods, BlackBerries, and Palm Pilots.

“What are gaming devices?” he asked her, as uniformed officers and forensic techs poured into his house. Across the street, klieg lights were firing up as reporters caught the action and geared up for a fresh round of photo ops.

“Xbox, Gameboys, PlayStation 2, Wii system, etc., etc.”

“Ree has a Leapster,” he offered. “If you want my advice, the Cars game is better than the Disney Princess cartridge, but, of course, the evidence techs can judge for themselves.”

D.D. regarded him coolly. “The warrant gives us permission to seize all electronics we deem necessary, sir. So yes, we will judge for ourselves.”

The “sir” rankled him, but he let it go. “Ree’s asleep,” he found himself saying. “She’s had a very long day. If you could ask the officers to please keep things quiet …”

He strove for politeness, though maybe his voice hitched a little at the end. He’d had a long day, too, which was about to become a long night.

“We’re professionals,” the sergeant informed him stiffly. “We’re not gonna ransack your house. We’re going to take it apart piece by piece very politely.”

D.D. motioned a uniformed officer over. Officer Anzaldi, it appeared, had drawn the short straw and would be serving as Jason’s babysitter for the evening. The officer led him to the family room, where Jason took a seat on the love seat, much as he had done the day before. Except no Ree this time. No tiny warm body snuggled against him, needing him, grounding him, keeping him from screaming from the frustration of it all.

So Jason closed his eyes, put his hands behind his head, and went to sleep.

When he opened his eyes, forty-five minutes had passed and Sergeant D.D. Warren was staring down at him in quiet fury.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Resting.”

“Resting? Just like that? Your wife is missing, so you’re taking a
nap?”

“It’s not like I’m going to find her while I’m being confined to a love seat, is it?”

D.D. appeared disgusted. “There is something seriously wrong with you.”

He shrugged. “Ask a SWAT guy sometime. What do you do once you’ve been activated but not yet deployed? You sleep. So when the time comes, you’re ready to go.”

“That’s how you view this? You’re some elite warrior who’s been activated, but not deployed?” She sounded dubious.

“My family is in crisis, and all I can do is stay with my daughter. Activated, but not deployed.”

“You could leave her with Grandpa.” The sergeant said the words neutrally, but there was a gleam in her eye. So she’d heard. Of course she’d heard. Apparently, all uniformed officers did these days was blab every detail of his life to Sergeant Warren.

“No thank you,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t like linen suits.”

But D.D. wasn’t going to be put off that easily. She took a seat directly across from him, resting her elbows on her knees, all casual curiosity. While from the kitchen came the sound of cupboard doors being opened, closed, drawers being pulled out and pushed in. He suspected the computer was already gone. The iPod seized from his nightstand drawer. Maybe they’d taken his clock radio, too. Every thing came with data chips these days, and any data chip could be rigged to store any kind of data. There’d been a major case just last year where a business exec had stored tons of incriminating financial docs on his son’s Xbox.

Jason had understood the terms of the search warrant just fine. He’d simply liked making the pretty blonde sergeant work for it.

“You said Sandy and her father were estranged,” D.D. stated now.

“True.”

“Why?”

“That would be Sandy’s story to tell.”

“Well, she doesn’t currently seem to be available, so perhaps you could help me out.”

He had to think about it. “I think if you asked the old man, he’d say his daughter was young, headstrong, and reckless when she met me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“And I think, as a seasoned investigator, you might wonder what had happened to make her so reckless and wild.”

“He beat her?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Call her bad names?” D.D. arched a brow.

“I think it’s more like the mom beat the living shit out of her, and
he never raised a hand to stop her. The mom died, so Sandy doesn’t have to hate her anymore. The old man, on the other hand …”

“She’s never forgiven him?”

He shrugged. “Again, you’d have to ask her.”

“Why do you have jams in your windows, Jason?”

He looked at her. “Because the world is filled with monsters, and we don’t want them getting our daughter.”

“Seems extreme.”

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

She smiled a little. It added crinkles to the corners of her eyes, revealing her age, but also making her seem suddenly softer. More approachable. She was a skilled interrogator, he realized. And he was tired, making it seem like a better and better idea to tell her everything. Lay all his problems at the feet of smart, beautiful Sergeant Warren. Let her sort out the mess.

“When was the last time Sandy talked to her father?” D.D. asked.

“Day she left town with me.”

“She never called him? Not once since moving to Boston?”

“Nope.”

“Not your wedding, not the birth of your daughter.”

“Nope.”

D.D. narrowed her eyes. “So why is he here now?”

“Claims he saw word of Sandy’s disappearance on the news and
skedaddled
for the airport.”

“I see. His estranged daughter has gone missing, so
now
he pays a visit?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

D.D. cocked her head to the side. “You’re lying to me, Jason. And you know how I know?”

He refused to answer.

“You look down and to the left. When people are trying to remember something, they look
up
and to the left. When they’re avoiding the truth, however, they look down and to the left. Interesting bit of trivia they teach us in detective school.”

“And it took you how many weeks to graduate?”

Her lips curved in that little half-smile again. “The way Officer
Hawkes understood it,” the sergeant continued, “Maxwell Black has some opinions regarding his granddaughter. Including that you’re not her real father.”

Jason didn’t answer. He wanted to. He wanted to scream that of course Ree was his daughter, would always be his daughter, could never be anything but his daughter, but the good sergeant had not asked a question, and the first rule of interrogation was never answer questions you didn’t have to.

“When was Ree born?” D.D. pressed.

“On the date listed on her birth certificate,” he said crisply. “Which I’m sure you’ve already read.”

She smiled at him again. “June twentieth, two thousand and four, I believe.”

He said nothing.

“And the day you first met Sandy?”

“Spring two thousand and three.” He made sure he looked her in the eye and absolutely, positively didn’t look down.

D.D. arched that skeptical brow again. “Sandy would’ve been only seventeen.”

“Never said the old man didn’t have reason to hate me.”

“So why does Maxwell believe you’re not Ree’s father?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“Humor me. Obviously you know him better than I do.”

“Can’t say that I know him at all. Sandy and I didn’t exactly have a meet-the-parents courtship.”

“You never met Sandy’s father before today?”

“Only in passing.”

She studied him. “What about your family?”

“Don’t have any.”

“You’re the product of immaculate conception?”

“Miracles happen every day.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “All right, Sandy’s father, then. Grandpa Black. You took his daughter from him,” she stated. “Moved to a godforsaken Yankee state and then never notified him when his granddaughter was born.”

Jason shrugged.

“I think Judge Black has good reason to be angry with both you
and Sandy. Maybe that’s why he returned now. His daughter’s gone, and his son-in-law is the prime suspect. One family’s tragedy is another man’s opportunity.”

“I will not grant him access to Ree.”

“Got a restraining order?”

“I will not grant him access to Ree.”

“What if he demands a paternity test?”

“Can’t. You read the birth certificate.”

“You’re listed as the father, ergo he has no probable cause. The Howard K. Stern defense.”

Another shrug.

D.D. smiled at him. “As I recall, the other guy won that argument.”

“Ask me who put the jams in the windows.”

“What?”

“Ask me who put the jams in the windows. You keep circling around to it. You keep digging at it like it tells you something about me.”

“All right. Who put the jams in your windows?”