The Girl Next Door (16 page)

Nina frowned. “Don’t you … aren’t you still working here, Detective Hagen?”

“No, I’m retired. They put me out to pasture,” Frank Hagen said, aiming for a jovial
tone but unable to suppress a wistful note. “Nina, about your dad …”

Chief Perry interrupted. “I’m just about to discuss that with Miss Avery in my office,”
he said firmly. “Come in, Nina.”

Nina entered and sat down in the chair in front of Chief Perry’s desk as he walked
around it, smoothing down his tie as he sat.

Frank Hagen hesitated, and then said, “Right. Well, you people have business, and
the wife’s got storm windows on my To Do list today.”

“Frank, can you close that door on your way out?”

Hagen nodded and raised a hand as he reached for the doorknob. “Yessir.”

Perry sighed as the door closed and the latch caught.

“How long ago did Lieutenant Hagen retire?” Nina asked politely.

Perry raised his eyebrows. “Let me see. It’s been about three years.” Chief Perry
gave Nina a quick, grim glance. “I hope I can make the adjustment a little better
when it’s my time to leave. He can’t quite make the break, you know? He keeps coming
around and trying to interest me in golf, and it’s really not my game.”

“I understand,” said Nina.

“So, what can I do for you, Nina?”

“I’m here about my father’s death,” said Nina.

“What about it?” Perry said.

Nina took a deep breath, and pictured Andre’s face in her mind. The certainty in his
eyes. “I have been … thinking. I was not completely satisfied with the idea that my
father took his own life. And then I was talking to my father’s physician and he asked
me about the autopsy report.”

Eugene Perry cleared his throat. He peered at Nina. “What about it?” he asked.

Nina took the slip of paper that Andre had given her last night out of her pocket.
“Dr…. um … Quinteros wanted me to find out if my father had been taking this medication
that was prescribed for him at the time of his death. This is the chemical name for
the compound he was taking.”

“Well, why don’t we look,” said Chief Perry amiably. He took the slip of paper and
put it on the desk beside him. He shuffled through the papers on his desk and pulled
out a file. “What was the medication for?” asked the chief.

Nina took a deep breath. If she told him the truth, would he just dismiss her questions
out of hand? She had to risk it. “Actually, he was taking medication for depression.
Dr. Quinteros said that if he hadn’t quit taking it, it would show up in his toxicology
screen.”

Chief Perry shook out the earpiece on a pair of half-glasses and put them on. He frowned,
scanning the densely printed paper, and ran his index finger down a column of figures.
Then, stopping his finger on the page, he glanced again at the slip of paper. “Yup,”
he said. “Here it is. Your father was taking this medication.”

Nina felt a buzzing in her veins. She leaned toward the chief. “Then I’m afraid I
have to question your conclusion that my
father killed himself. Dr. Quinteros will tell you. It’s highly unlikely if he was
taking his medication.”

Nina expected the chief to be resistant, to scoff at this idea, but instead he shook
his head. “As a matter of fact, that’s just further confirmation of what we already
know,” the chief said.

Nina sat back, surprised. “What do you mean? What do you already know?”

“It seems that … Look, Nina, I don’t know whether this is going to seem like good
news or bad news to you.” He closed the autopsy folder and set it back down on his
desk. Then he took off his glasses and fiddled with the earpiece. “The coroner’s report
indicated that your father was …” He hesitated, and then spoke in a rush. “Nina, we
now know that your father was not the one who fired the fatal shot. He may have been
trying to disarm the killer when the shot was fired.”

Nina was stunned. This information caught her completely off guard. “The killer?”

Chief Perry shifted uneasily in his chair. “Yes. Someone else shot your father. He
didn’t commit suicide.”

“But I thought …” Nina was nonplussed. “Are you sure?” she said.

Chief Perry nodded. “Yes. We know that now.”

“He definitely did not kill himself ?”

“No. According to the autopsy … no.”

Nina could hardly believe that the chief was admitting this to her. “I can’t believe
it.”

The chief looked mildly surprised. “You said you had your doubts about suicide.”

“I know. I did, but …”

“I told you we wouldn’t know for sure until after the autopsy.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“You didn’t really give me a chance. And besides, you had a
perfectly reasonable question about his tox screen and I wanted to answer it for
you.”

“When did you find out about this?” Nina said.

The chief frowned. “I’ve known this for a couple of days. But frankly, I wanted to
wait to tell you until we had some more … answers.”

“What kinds of answers? Do you know who did it? Who killed him?” she asked.

“Well, I can’t tell you too much, but we have a … a theory about the suspect. I’m
directing the inquiries that are being made and I would prefer to keep certain things
quiet right now.”

Nina had begun to tremble, and she felt lightheaded. “What inquiries … ?” she said.
“Nobody has asked me anything. Are you sure you are really investigating this? Because
I would expect your men to come and question me. You have to find out who did this,
Chief. Just because my father was … convicted of a crime is no reason to shortchange
him … or me …”

“Nina,” the chief said sharply. “I told you. We’re investigating.”

Nina was brought up short by the rebuke in his tone. But she gazed at him defiantly.
“Somebody has to fight for him,” she said.

Chief Perry shook his head. “Look. I want you to know that I find your loyalty to
your father very … absolutely admirable.”

Nina stared at him, disarmed by the compassion in his voice.

He glanced at the framed family photo on his desktop and sighed. “I’m a father myself,
Nina. You make me wonder about my own children. Would they stand by me in hard times
the way you stood by Duncan Avery?”

“I just want the truth,” she said.

“I know. And you’re right. I’ve kept certain things from you. Call me an old … fogey.
I have a daughter and I was thinking
about her. There are certain things I wouldn’t want my daughter to know about me
in the same circumstances.” Perry sighed. “I used my judgment. I thought it would
be better to wait until we had some facts, some … some proof, before we made you suffer
through another humiliation.”

Nina’s face flamed. “What are you talking about?”

Chief Perry adjusted the perfectly straight knot in his tie and frowned at the ceiling
before he spoke. “The spot by the river where your father was found. It’s secluded,
and it’s well known for … what you might call assignations of an illegal variety.”

“What kind of illegal activity?”

The chief ’s freckled complexion flushed pink. “I’m talking about prostitution. Over
the years we’ve had a number of arrests for prostitution in that area.”

“Prostitution!”

Perry nodded. “We’re proceeding on the assumption that your father may have met his
death as a result of a rendezvous, shall we say, that turned ugly. It’s not uncommon
for women in that profession to carry a concealed weapon.”

“A prostitute,” Nina scoffed. “That’s absurd.”

Chief Perry looked at her sympathetically. “I know you don’t want to think of your
father that way, but he was a normal man. A man who’d been kept away from the company
of women for many years …”

“That’s disgusting,” said Nina. “You’re just determined to make it seem as if he was
to blame …”

“Nina. We got your aunt’s records from the phone company. One of the last calls your
father made was to the number of a known prostitute. A hooker with a drug problem
whom we’ve picked up multiple times …”

Nina stared at him.

“This is what I didn’t want to tell you. We’re looking into it, but …”

“Maybe he called a wrong number. It could be anything …”

“Well, as it happens, her number was disconnected because she hadn’t been paying her
bills …”

The disconnected number. Nina suddenly remembered the number from the Post-it note,
which she had dialed when she was searching for Duncan.

“We questioned the woman’s neighbors. Someone recognized Duncan. I guess he went there
when he couldn’t get her on the phone. A neighbor saw them going off in his … your
aunt’s car. We still haven’t been able to locate her. We’re working on that.”

“Who is it?” Nina demanded.

“I can’t tell you that, Nina. But we’ll get to the bottom of it. We are investigating
and we will continue to investigate until we apprehend a suspect. All right?”

Nina gave a shuddering sigh and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to
think. I was so sure …”

“Sure of what?” the detective asked.

Nina shrugged. “I thought maybe he … I don’t know.”

“If you have any information that could help us, now’s the time to tell me about it,”
said the chief.

“It’s just that … he always said that he was innocent. He wasn’t the one who killed
my mother. I just thought he might have gone looking. You know, stirred things up
trying to find Mom’s killer … I thought it was about that.”

Chief Perry gazed at her sadly. “Your mother’s killer went to prison, Nina. Your father
knew that better than anyone.”

P
ARKED
in the nursing home lot, Nina sat behind the wheel staring through the drizzling
rain at the building, knowing she should go inside and visit her great-aunt. She knew
she had neglected Aunt Mary, and she felt guilty about it. But today, despite her
guilt, Nina was too depressed to get out of the car. She couldn’t make herself do
it. She couldn’t put on a cheerful face for anyone. Not even Aunt Mary. Not after
news like that. Her father had been killed by a prostitute?

What a sordid way for all of this to end, she thought. She did not want to know this
about her father. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. For the first time, she
felt absolutely furious at Duncan. She knew her anger was inappropriate, that she
was blaming the victim, but she couldn’t help it. This would be the last chapter of
his life story. It was horrible, and unfortunately, as Chief Perry had pointed out,
not that difficult to imagine. This was the image of her father she would never be
able to erase from her mind, no matter how hard she tried.

Nina glanced at the door to the nursing home, which had swung open. A middle-aged
aide in flowered scrubs was wheeling an ancient-looking woman out the door. The aide
stopped the wheelchair on the sidewalk under the portico, which was bordered by lavender
mums, still blooming. The patient, tiny and wizened, wrapped in a shawl, looked up
hopelessly at the drizzling skies.

Despite her own troubles, Nina felt a little pinprick of sympathy. There are worse
problems than yours, she reminded herself sternly. Quit feeling sorry for yourself
and go visit your aunt. She was there for you when your world collapsed. Nina forced
herself to open the car door and step out into the rain.

T
WO
hours later, Nina dropped her purse on the piano bench and slumped down on the sofa
in her aunt’s living room. The nursing home visit, greeted with delight by Aunt Mary,
had made Nina feel better for a little while, too. But now, back in the gloomy house,
she felt the depression descending on her again. What now? she wondered.

Nina’s skin prickled as she pictured herself surrounded, hounded by reporters after
the police arrested a hooker and charged her with killing her john, Duncan Avery.
She knew how it would be. They would ooze fake sympathy, reminding Nina of her faith
in her father—the naïve girl who believed that her father could do no wrong.

The only way to escape the curiosity seekers was to go back to New York and disappear
into the anonymity of the city. There was probably little time to waste. The arrest
could come at any moment. Nina forced herself to get up from the sofa and climb the
stairs. She had moved back into her old bedroom, since her father was gone and the
clutter from the nearly finished paint job in her aunt’s room remained. As she got
her
clothes out of the closet, she looked down and saw Duncan’s bag, still sitting where
she had left it on the closet floor, the packet of parole information still visible.

She had brought her father to this house. It was her responsibility to rid the house
of any last vestiges of his presence. With a sigh, she pulled his few shirts and the
one pair of pants that hung neatly in the sacheted closet off their hangers. She folded
them and laid them on the bed. She looked at the book he had left on the nightstand.
It was a well-thumbed copy of
Man’s Search for Meaning
by Viktor Frankl with a bookmark in it, as if Duncan had been in the process of rereading
it and had just set it down. Yeah. Set it down to go in search of a blow job, she
thought disgustedly, as she tossed the book on the meager pile of clothes. She noticed
that there was a prescription vial on the nightstand also, made out to Duncan Avery.
She’d seen it before, but she hadn’t thought much about it. Now she recognized it.
It was the prescription Andre had told her about. Should I keep this? she wondered.
It wasn’t as if anybody were ever going to use it. She held the vial over the fabric-covered
pink wastebasket and hesitated.

Then she was struck by the meaning of what she was doing. Why in the world are you
sorting through these things, she thought, as if some of them were worth packing and
saving and others weren’t? What, after all, was the point of saving her father’s meager
belongings? There were already boxes of his books and clothes in Aunt Mary’s basement
where she had carefully stored them so long ago. What was the use of putting even
more stuff down there? Fill up the duffel and throw it directly into the trash.