The Girl Next Door (17 page)

The realization was satisfying in a bitter sort of way. Clutching the vial, she walked
over to the closet and picked the duffel bag up off the floor by the handles. As she
lifted it up, the duffel bag felt unexpectedly heavy. What’s he got in there? she
wondered, carrying it to the bed and setting it down on the bedspread beside the
pile of clothes.

She reached into the bag, rummaged through its contents, and her hand fell on something
metallic and cold.

Nina knew what it was before her hand unearthed it and pulled it out of the open zipper.
She knew, but she could hardly believe it. She was holding a gun. Her father had a
gun in that bag. Nina sank down on the edge of the bed, and stared at the pistol in
her hand.

She knew nothing about guns, except that they were deadly, and that her father was
not allowed to possess one. But he did, she thought. Why? Why would he do something
so dangerous and illegal? There would be no answer, she thought. She would have to
live the rest of her life wondering what Duncan Avery was really all about.

Her thoughts traveled back to his trial, and the prosecutor painting a verbal picture
of Duncan as a man who appeared dignified and respectable, but who gave in frequently
to his illicit desires. Sex and violence sprang from the same source, the D.A. said.
Didn’t it make sense that this man of uncontrollable impulses might have become violent
with his wife, a woman he wanted to be rid of?

No, Nina thought. No. She had to draw the line somewhere. She couldn’t give in to
those doubts now. Her faith in her father’s innocence had sustained her all these
years. If she started to doubt him now, she would only be hurting herself. Duncan
was beyond being hurt. No. She couldn’t allow this latest discovery or the information
about the sordid end of his life to call into question everything she had relied on
all these years.

Nina stuffed the gun into the canvas duffel bag and piled his clothes on top of it.
She zippered the top and carried it down to the kitchen, ready to take it to the trash,
where it belonged. There was a big plastic trash can out by Aunt Mary’s garage. She
would have to pick her way through the puddles in the backyard to get to it. But
as she opened the kitchen door and looked out at the dark sky and the rain, she had
a sudden, sickening thought. You weren’t allowed to throw guns into a trash can. What
if some kid found it and killed somebody with it? No, that’s why they had those occasional
days when people could turn in their firearms to the police with no questions asked.

Jesus, Dad, she thought. You just keep making my life difficult.

Nina sighed. She would have to keep her ears open for one of those occasions and bring
the gun to the police station. She definitely did not want to have to answer any questions
about it. Meanwhile …

She had to put it somewhere. It might as well go down in the basement with his other
belongings. With a sigh, Nina closed the back door and walked over to the door to
the basement. She flipped the switches at the top of the stairs. The light over the
stairs came on, but the basement itself remained dark. Must have burned out, she thought.
For a moment she hesitated. She hated going downstairs in the dark. But she knew where
Duncan’s other belongings were stored. In an area along the near wall. She could reach
that without a light. She walked down the stairs and peered, by the light of the staircase
bulb, into the dank basement. She could see the cardboard boxes she had left there
years ago. With a sigh, she carried the duffel bag over to the stack of boxes.

Her eyes unexpectedly welled with tears as she placed the shabby duffel bag on top
of the boxes she had saved for her father when he first went to prison. There would
be no further use for any of these things, she thought. He would not be needing them.
Maybe once she got rid of the gun, she would give the rest to Goodwill. If they would
have it, she thought.

A shrill ring cut through the quiet of the house, and she
jumped. It was the phone upstairs. Oh, no, she thought. What if the police have found
that woman? Dammit, I didn’t get out of here fast enough, she thought. There was no
way to tell who was on the phone. If only there were some way to screen the calls.
Aunt Mary had none of the modern conveniences. No answering machine. No Caller ID.
Nina stood at the foot of the basement steps, uncertain whether she should run to
find out or try to escape the inevitable by letting it ring. As she was pondering
her options, the ringing stopped.

Nina breathed a sigh of relief and began to mount the cellar stairs. I’m going to
get my stuff and leave, she thought. I’ll splurge on a cab to the bus stop.

As she reached the top step and entered the bright kitchen, the phone began to ring
again, as if the caller had taken a brief respite and then redialed. Why don’t you
get an answering machine? Nina wondered, thinking impatiently of her aged aunt. It’s
the twenty-first century, for God’s sake. The phone continued to ring, implacable
and demanding.

Leave me alone, she thought, glaring at it. Whoever you are. But she knew there was
no escape. If the news was out, she would have to face it. You can do it, she thought.
You have a lot of practice being steely. Nina hesitated and then picked up the phone
angrily. “What?” she said sharply into the receiver.

“Nina, it’s Andre.”

For a moment, she felt both relieved and chagrined. She had promised to call him but
she had forgotten. She’d forgotten everything but the discovery of Duncan’s gun, and
the latest information from the police. And now here was Andre on the phone, wanting
to know if he had been right. “Hello,” she said.

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” he said warily.

“No, no,” said Nina, feeling instantly apologetic. “I was afraid it might be a reporter
on the phone, so I almost didn’t answer.”

“You need to give me your cell phone number,” he said. “Here, I’ve got a pencil. Give
it to me.”

Reluctantly, Nina complied. “What do you want?” she asked in a dull voice.

“I just wanted to know-did you go to see the police?”

“Yes,” said Nina. “I went. And you were right. He was taking his medication. It wasn’t
a suicide. My father was murdered.”

She heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

“But it turned out they already knew that. They even know why,” she continued, trying
to sound matter-of-fact. “It seems he was murdered by a prostitute. You know, Andre,
it was just like you said. He wanted to live every day to the fullest.” Her effort
to make light of this news fell flat.

Andre did not reply.

She took his silence as a rebuke, and suddenly she felt angry at her father’s doctor
for urging her to seek out this information, which had proved so humiliating, even
though she knew logically that she would have found out anyway, eventually.

“Frankly, I think I might have preferred to believe it was a suicide. Is there anything
else?” she demanded.

“Have they made an arrest?” Andre asked.

“Not yet. They’re trying to track the woman down. Andre, look, I’m not in the mood
to talk, if you don’t mind …”

“So what makes them think it was a prostitute?” he said.

“She was seen by a neighbor getting into his car outside her house. The neighbor recognized
Duncan,” said Nina wearily, and realized that she had just referred to her father
by his first name, as Patrick always did. “And what else? They found him in a place
where people—you know—go to do that sort of thing …”

“That’s it?” he said. “That’s all they know?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they have other evidence. I didn’t really want all the disgusting
details. Look, I appreciate that you came by and tried to be … supportive but—”

“But they’re sure it was murder. Someone shot him.”

Nina tapped on the phone. “Yes. Hello, did you hear me? I have to go.”

“Nina, listen …” His voice was interrupted by clicking sounds. “Can you hold on a
minute? I’m still at the prison,” he said.

Before she could reply that she didn’t want to hold on he was gone and there was silence
on the phone. Nina held the receiver to her ear and closed her eyes. She didn’t want
to talk anymore. She wanted oblivion. She wanted sleep. She pictured Andre’s angular
face, his sensual lips and keen dark eyes. He was a very attractive man. He seemed
full of life. Maybe at some other time in her life she would have made an effort to
get to know him, but not now. What was the use? He was engaged and he was moving back
to Santa Fe. And she—she was depleted, depressed. Anything he had to say to her would
be about Duncan, and she didn’t want to think about Duncan anymore.

Andre came back on the line. “Nina, are you there?”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“Crisis averted,” he said. “Look, I want to see you, but I can’t get there tonight.”

“I’m tired, Andre. I’m whipped. I don’t really want to talk about all this.”

“I know you’re tired,” he said kindly, and the compassion in his voice made Nina suddenly
feel like weeping. “I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

Her tone softened. This was not the enemy. This was someone who had tried to help.
“Oh, Andre, I’m sorry to be so cranky. It was just so awful. The police chief was
trying to spare my feelings. He didn’t want me to know about my father—you know—meeting
his demise in such a … degrading way. I can’t help feeling … It sounds stupid, but
I feel … like my father betrayed me.”

“He didn’t betray you, Nina,” Andre said calmly. “They’ve got it all wrong.”

A
NDRE’S
words were like a surge of electricity that traveled through the phone wires and
jolted her. “Wrong? What do you mean ‘wrong’?” Nina cried.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “The medication he was taking, Nina …”

“Yes. What about it,” she said irritably.

“It had an unfortunate side effect that’s common to a number of antidepressants. It
rendered him impotent.”

“What? How do you know that? I mean …”

“Believe me. I know it for a fact. We discussed it very frankly. Physician to patient.
He’d tried some of the other medications that had no sexual side effects, but he got
the best results with this particular compound. I asked if it wasn’t too high a price
to pay and he assured me he could live with it. In prison, of course, it actually
made his life somewhat easier. He knew that if he wanted to resume sexual relations,
he was going to have to go off the drug for a while.”

“But he didn’t go off it,” she said.

“Exactly,” said Andre. “If he planned to seek the services of a prostitute, he knew
enough not to take his medication.”

Nina held the phone to her ear, but her face felt slack, numb.

“Are you there?” he asked.

“Yes. Are you sure?” she asked.

“Absolutely. We talked about it very frankly.”

Nina was silent for a moment. “So you’re saying …? Then the police must be lying about
this. There’s no way he would have been with a prostitute.”

“No, hold up there. I didn’t say that. He may very well have contacted this woman.
I’m just saying that he wouldn’t have solicited her for sex.”

“Why else, then?” Nina cried. “And why would she want to kill him?”

“Look, I don’t know, Nina. I don’t know all that much about your dad’s life. As much
as we talked, he never revealed all that much to me. He was kind of a secretive person.
Don’t take that the wrong way. It’s just the way he seemed to me.”

Nina sighed. “Oh no. I know exactly what you mean. He was a very private person. I’m
sorry. This is not your problem.”

“Well, not so fast. I may not know too much about Duncan’s comings and goings, but
I can tell you this. Often when a guy gets out of this place, the ones who are still
inside ask him to deliver messages to their girlfriends or their wives. Sometimes
they give a guy money to buy something for her. That kind of thing.”

Nina’s head was spinning. “Do you think he might have done that?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible,” said Andre.

“So why would the woman want to kill him?”

“Nina, we’re not talking about your most rational citizens here. They might have argued
about something. The boyfriend
might have promised her that Duncan was bringing her a gift—some gift that he didn’t
actually have for Duncan to deliver. I’ve heard of that happening. Then the girlfriend
blames the poor sucker who comes around for stealing it and the boyfriend looks like
a hero. Or Duncan might have delivered bad news and this woman just went off and killed
the messenger. I don’t know why. I’m just speculating.”

“No, of course you don’t,” Nina said. She was silent for a moment, thinking about
what he had told her. Then she took a deep breath. “You know, you’ve already … gone
out on a limb for me, Andre. For my father … I don’t have the right to ask you for
anything else. It’s just that …”

“What?” he asked.

“Could you … I mean, you’re right there at the prison. Is there any way you could
find out if any of the prisoners asked him to do them a favor like that? Asked him
to go on some kind of mission?”

Andre sighed.

“I’m sorry,” Nina said. “I feel horrible even asking you …”

“No, no, it’s all right. I know how to find out. It just might take a while to get
the answer. And I have to leave tonight for Santa Fe.”

“You’re going?” Nina asked. “For good?”

“No. I’m not moving till the New Year. But I haven’t seen … Susan … my fiancée … in
a few months. She asked me to make a trip out. So …”

“Never mind,” said Nina. “You’ve got your hands full.”

“No, I can put some feelers out here at the prison. If I find out anything I’ll call
you.”

“I would appreciate that so much,” she said, relieved.

“It’s no problem,” he said.

“I’ll …” She had started to say, “I’ll miss you,” but then she realized how silly
that sounded. She hardly knew the man. “I’ll
always be grateful to you,” she said, and the words sounded stiff and insincere to
her own ears.