The Neighbor

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

D.D. was on a roll. She could feel it. First the conversation with Wayne Reynolds, then the interview with Maxwell Black. The investigation was coming together, key pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place.

The moment they were done talking to Sandy’s father, D.D. had blasted Jason Jones’s photo over to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as well as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. She was getting a solid profile in place now-known aliases, possible geographic connections, key financial information, and relevant dates. Jason had left a heavy paper trail from the past five years, after he disappeared from the radar screen. Now they were getting the sliver of insights necessary to crack his full identity wide open, including tracing his offshore funds.

At this point, D.D. was willing to bet that some other law enforcement agency in some other jurisdiction had the exact same file she did, except under a different alias. When she connected with that agency, Jason Jones/Johnson would finally be exposed, and she’d have her arrest. Preferably in time for the eleven o’clock news.

In the meantime, of course, they continued to work the basics. Currently, D.D. was reviewing several evidence reports, including preliminary findings of a trace amount of blood on the quilt they had removed from the Jones family washing machine. Unfortunately “trace amounts of blood” hardly played well on a warrant. Trace amounts because the rest had been successfully washed away? Trace amounts because Sandra Jones had had a nosebleed sometime in the past few weeks? Blood type matched Sandra’s, but not having the blood type of Jason and Clarissa on file meant that, theoretically, the blood could be theirs as well.

In other words, the evidence report alone didn’t do much for their case, but perhaps later, when combined with other relevant data, it would become one more bar in the prison slowly but surely being constructed around Jason Jones.

D.D. touched base with the BRIC team in charge of analyzing the Jones family computer. Given the current level of urgency, the team was working round the clock. It had taken most of the night to create a forensically sound copy of the computer’s hard drive. Now they were running report after report, focusing on e-mails and Internet activity. They expected to have their first update bright and early in the morning. Which made D.D. optimistic enough to assume that if she missed the eleven o’clock news, maybe she could make the morning cycle.

This was the type of momentum that made a homicide sergeant happy, and provided the whole team with enough incentive to work another long night after two previous midnight grinds. It didn’t necessarily explain, however, D.D.’s sudden interest in the honorable Maxwell Black or her need to look up the death of Missy Black eight years prior. The local sheriff’s office informed her that they’d never opened a case file on the matter, but gave her the contact information for the county ME, who would be available in the morning. The official ruling had been suicide, but the sheriff had hesitated just enough for D.D. to remain curious.

Maxwell Black bothered her. His drawl, his charm, his matter-of-fact assessment of his only child as a reckless young woman, capable of habitual lying and sexual promiscuity. It struck D.D. that Sandy spent the first two-thirds of her young life with an outgoing father who said too much, and the last third of her life with a highly compartmentalized husband who said too little. The father claimed the husband was a pedophile. The husband implied the father had been party to child abuse.

D.D. wondered if Sandy Jones had loved her husband. If she had viewed him as her white knight, her valiant savior, right up until Wednesday night when the last of her illusions had been violently, and sadly, stripped away.

Sandra Jones had now been missing three days.

D.D. didn’t believe they’d find the young mother alive.

Mostly what she hoped for at this stage of the game was to save Ree.

Ethan Hastings was having a crisis of conscience. This had never happened to him before. Being smarter than any adult he’d ever met, the teenager was naturally disparaging of them. What they couldn’t figure out, they didn’t need to know.

But now, sitting on the floor with his mother’s iPhone-yesterday’s incident at school had resulted in a total loss of computer privileges for the next month, but technically speaking, no one had said he couldn’t rifle his mother’s purse-he was reviewing e-mail and trying to figure out if he should call the police.

Ethan was worried about Mrs. Sandra. He had been ever since November, when it became clear to him that her interest in online security extended way beyond what one might need to know to teach a sixth grade social studies class.

She’d never told him she suspected her husband, which meant, of course, that he was the most likely culprit. Likewise, she’d never used the words “Internet porn,” but then again, what else would drive a pretty teacher to spend all of her free periods working with a kid like him?

Oh, she was kind about it. She knew that he worshipped her, because he wasn’t so good about hiding these things. But he got the message, loud and clear, that she was not in love with him the way he was with her. She needed him, however. She respected his skills. She appreciated his help. That was good enough for him.

Mrs. Sandra talked to him, person to person. Not many adults did that. They either tried to talk over his head, or they were so terrified of his staggering genius they avoided engaging him in conversation altogether. Or maybe they were more like his parents. They both tried to talk to him, but sounded like they were grinding their teeth the entire time.

Not Mrs. Sandra. She spoke warmly, with this pretty lilt he could listen to again and again. And she smelled of oranges. He never told anyone, but he got her to mention the name of the lotion she used. Then he bought an entire case of it online, just so he could smell her when she wasn’t around. He had the case of lotion stashed in his father’s closet, behind all the suits his father never wore, because he’d long ago figured out that his mother searched his room on a daily basis.

She tried very hard, his mother. Having a kid as bright as him couldn’t be easy. Then again, it wasn’t his fault he was so smart. He’d been born this way.

In November, after deducing that Mrs. Sandra was worried about her husband’s online activities, then determining that Mrs. Sandra’s husband was surprisingly computer savvy, Ethan had decided he needed to take further action to protect his favorite teacher.

First, he’d thought of his uncle, the only adult Ethan considered intelligent. When it came to computers, Uncle Wayne was a pro. And, better yet, he worked for the state police, meaning that if Mrs. Sandra’s husband was doing something illegal, Uncle Wayne could arrest him for it, and Sandra’s husband would go away. This had been a very good idea, in Ethan’s mind. One of his better plans.

Except Sandra’s husband hadn’t gone away. Neither, for that matter, had Uncle Wayne. Suddenly, his uncle had developed an enduring interest in JV basketball. Every Thursday night, Uncle Wayne would appear at the school, and off he and Mrs. Sandra would go, leaving Ethan all alone with pesky Ree.

Ethan had started to be annoyed by Thursday nights. It didn’t take three months of weekly meetings to hack into someone’s computer. Heck, he could’ve done it in five minutes or less.

Then it had occurred to him: Maybe he didn’t need his uncle or state police involvement after all. Maybe all he needed to do was write some code. It was called a Trojan Horse. He could tuck it into an e-mail. He could send it to Mrs. Sandra. And the Trojan Horse would open up a gateway on her computer just for him.

He would have access.

He could see what Sandra’s husband was really up to.

He could save the day.

Except that Ethan had never actually written the code before. So first he had to study it. Then he had to test it. Then he had to revise it.

Three weeks ago, he’d been ready to launch. He wrote an innocent little e-mail to Mrs. Sandra containing some links he thought she might find helpful for her social studies class. Then he’d embedded the code and sat back to wait.

It took her two days to open the e-mail, which annoyed him a little. Weren’t teachers supposed to be more responsive than that?

But the Trojan Horse passed the gates, the computer virus embedding itself instantly into Mrs. Sandra’s hard drive. Ethan tested it on day three, and yeah, he had access to the Jones family computer. Now he could sit back and catch Mr. Jones in the act-literally

Ethan had been very excited. He was gonna be on 48 Hours Investigates. A whole episode on the boy genius who nabbed a notorious child predator. Leslie Stahl would interview him, social websites would want to hire him. He’d become a one-man Internet security alpha team. A modern-day website Marine.

The first three nights, Ethan had definitely learned some things about Mr. Jones. He’d learned, in fact, quite a lot about Mr. Jones. More than he really wanted to know.

What Ethan hadn’t counted on, however, was how much he’d also learn about Mrs. Sandra.

Now he was stuck. To rat out Mr. Jones, he’d have to also rat out Mrs. Sandra, and Uncle Wayne, too.

He knew too little, he knew too much.

And Ethan Hastings was a bright enough boy to know that was a very dangerous place to be.

He picked up his mother’s iPhone, checked messages again. Told himself to call 911, set down the phone again. Maybe he could call that sergeant, the one with the blonde hair. She seemed nice enough. Then again, as his mother always told him, lies of omission were still lies, and he was pretty sure lying to the police would get him in even more trouble than school suspension and a four-week loss of computer privileges.

Ethan didn’t want to go to jail.

But he was terribly worried about Mrs. Sandra.

He picked up the iPhone again, checked messages, sighed heavily. Finally, he did the only thing he could bring himself to do. He opened a fresh e-mail box and started, Dear Uncle Wayne…

Wayne Reynolds was not a patient man. Sandra Jones had been missing for multiple days, and as far as the forensics expert could tell, the lead detectives were taking a slow boat from China to find her. Hell, he’d practically had to hand them Jason Jones on a silver platter, and still, judging from the five o’clock news, no arrests had been made.

Instead, reporters had picked up the scent of a registered sex offender living just down the street from Sandra. Some pale, freaky-looking kid with a blistered scalp they’d caught walking down the street, then literally chased all the way to an old 1950s ranch. “I didn’t do it!” the kid had cried over his shoulder. “Talk to my PO. My girlfriend was underage, that’s all, that’s all, that’s all”

Pervert had bolted into the house, and the erstwhile reporters had documented half a dozen shots of a closed door and blinds-covered windows. Really scintillating stuff.

At least Sandra’s father had entered the fray, deriding Jason Jones as a highly dangerous, manipulative man who’d isolated the beautiful young woman from her own family. The grandfather was demanding custody of Ree and had already won visitation rights to begin shortly. The old man wanted justice for his daughter and protection for his granddaughter.

The media were eating it up. And still no arrests had been made!

Wayne didn’t get it. The husband was always the primary person of interest, and as suspects went, Jason Jones was perfect. Conspicuously lacking in credible background information. Suspected by his own wife of dubious online activities. Known to disappear for long periods of time after midnight, in a job that didn’t really provide a concrete alibi. What the hell was Sergeant Warren waiting for, a pretty package with a bow on top?

Jason needed to be arrested. Because then Wayne Reynolds could finally sleep at night. God knows in the past few days he’d been frantically purging his personal computer as well as his Treo. Which was ironic, because he of all people knew he’d never get the electronic devices one hundred percent clear. He should buy a new hard drive for his computer, and “lose” his Treo, preferably while running over it with his lawn mower. Or maybe he could flatten it with his car? Toss it into the harbor?

It was funny, outsiders always assumed law enforcement officers had an advantage-they worked in the system, meaning they knew exactly what sort of misstep might trip a guy up. Except that was the problem. Wayne of all people knew how hard it was to cover one’s electronic tracks, and, being fully aware of such things, he understood just how hard his own actions would be scrutinized under a microscope.

He’d spent three months going on walks with Sandra Jones, nothing less, nothing more, but if he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself labeled as her lover and placed on administrative leave, a subject of internal investigation. Especially if the forensic computer expert “lost” his Treo, or “replaced” his home computer. That sort of thing simply wasn’t going to play.

Which made him wonder why the BPD hadn’t cracked open the Jones computer yet. They’d had it nearly twenty-four hours. Figure five to six hours to make a forensically sound copy, then getting EnCase up and running…

One to two more days, he figured, and sighed. He didn’t think his nerves could take one to two more days.

Let alone what such a long period of time might mean for Sandy.

He tried not to think about it. The cases he’d worked on before, the crime-scene photos he often viewed in his line of work. Suffocation? Stabbing? Single gunshot wound to the head?

He had tried to warn Sandy: She never should have gone away on the February vacation.

Wayne sighed heavily. Consulted the clock again. Decided to stay a little later at the crime lab, do a bit more work. Except then his Treo buzzed. He looked down, to find a message from his sister’s e-mail address.

He frowned, clicked open the message.

Five forty-five P.M. Wayne read his nephew’s startling confession.

And started to sweat in earnest.

Six P.M. Maxwell Black was sitting at a white linen-covered table in the corner of the dining room at the Ritz. His duck had just arrived, prepared with wild berry compote, and he was savoring a particularly fine Oregon Pinot Noir. Good food, fine wine, excellent service. He should be a happy camper.

Except he wasn’t. After his conversation with the detectives, the judge had returned to his hotel and immediately called his law clerk to have him do some legal research on Max’s behalf. Unfortunately, the case law unearthed by his clerk did not sound promising.

Most family courts-and Massachusetts was no exception-deferred to the birth parents as the primary caretakers in a child custody dispute. Naturally, grandparents did not start the process with any guaranteed rights, with the courts accepting the parents’ decision in the matter.

Max had assumed, however, that Sandra’s disappearance-and Jason’s resulting position as a viable suspect in his wife’s disappearance-might sway the court in his favor. Furthermore, Max was confident that Jason was not Clarissa’s biological father. Hence, with Sandra gone, Max himself was now Clarissa’s closest living relative. And surely that would count for something.

But no. Leave it to the state that had legalized gay marriage to accept in loco parentis, or the person that had served in the place of the parent, as the proper legal guardian. Which put Max back in the position of having to prove that Jason posed an immediate threat to Clarissa in order to successfully challenge the current custodial arrangement. Take it from a judge, those standards were nearly impossible to prove.

Max needed Sandy’s body to be found. He needed Jason to be arrested. Then the state would take Clarissa into custody and he could argue that as her biological grandfather it would be in the child’s best interest to live with him. That should work.

Except he had no idea how long it might take to find Sandra’s body. Frankly he’d driven by that harbor four times already and as far as he could tell, Jason Jones could’ve dumped Sandy’s body just about anywhere. It could take weeks, if not months, if not years.

It was enough to make him consider filing a case against Jason in civil court, where the burden of proof was lower. Except even in civil court, it was hard to proceed without a dead body. No corpse meant Sandra Jones might really have run off with the gardener, which meant she might really be alive and well in Mexico.

It all came back to dead bodies.

Max needed one.

Then it occurred to him. Yes, he needed a dead body. But did it necessarily have to be Sandra’s?

Seven forty-five P.M. Aidan Brewster stood at the Laundromat, folding the last load of laundry. In front of him were four stacks of white T-shirts, two stacks of blue jeans, and half a dozen smaller piles of white briefs and blue-banded athletic socks. He’d started at six P.M., after his PO had graciously picked him up from his reporter-infested property and spirited him away. Colleen had offered to take him to a hotel for the night, to let things calm down. Instead, he’d asked her to drop him off at a suburban Laundromat, someplace far away from South Boston, where the reporters would have no reason to look for him and a man could bleach his tighty whities in peace.

He could tell Colleen had been uncomfortable with the request. Or maybe it had been the trash bag after trash bag of dirty laundry he’d loaded into the trunk of her car, while three cameramen had clicked away from across the street. At least when Colleen had pulled away, the photographers had abandoned their posts, as well. No use staking out a house when you knew the target wasn’t there.

“What happened to your head?” Colleen had asked as she drove down the street.

“Kitchen fire. Left a paper plate too near a burner. Embers floated up and caught my hair on fire, but I was too busy dumping flour on the stove to notice.”

She didn’t look convinced. “You doing okay, Aidan?”

“I lost my job. I burned my head. I got my face on the evening news. No fucking way, but thanks for asking.”

“Aidan…”

He stared at her, daring her to say it. She was sorry. What a shame. Things’ll get better. Hold tight.

Pick a platitude, any platitude. The sayings were all bullshit. And he and Colleen both knew it.

She drove him the rest of the way in silence, biggest favor she ever did him.

Now he finished folding his towels, sheets, various coverlets, even three doilies. If it was a textile and it had been in his apartment, he’d washed it with Clorox color-safe bleach.

Let the police hash over that one. Let them hate him.

After this, he planned on returning to his apartment and packing up everything he owned. He was placing his entire collection of worldly possessions into four black trash bags, and he was bolting into the wind. That was it. Show over. He was done. Let his PO chase him. Let the police go apeshit looking for another registered sex offender.

He’d followed the rules, and look where it got him: The police were screwing him; his former coworkers had tried to jump him; and his neighbor, Jason Jones, just plain scared him. Then there were the reporters… Aidan wanted out. So long. See you. Bye-bye.

Which didn’t explain why he remained here, sitting on the floor of a grungy Laundromat, snapping his green elastic band and clutching a blue ballpoint pen. He’d been staring at the blank piece of notebook paper for three minutes already. He finally wrote:

Dear Rachel:

I’m an ass. It’s all my fault You should hate me.

He paused. Chewed on the end of the pen again. Snapped the band.

Thanks for sending me the letters. Maybe you hate them. Maybe you couldn’t stand to see them anymore. Guess I can’t blame you.

He crossed out words. Tried again. Crossed out more.

I love you.

I loved you. I was wrong. I’m sorry.

I won’t bother you again.

Unless, he thought. But he didn’t write it. He forcefully kept himself from writing it. If she’d wanted to see him, she could’ve done it by now. So take the hint, Aidan, old boy. She didn’t love you. She doesn’t love you. You went to prison for nothing, you pathetic, stupid, miserable sack of shit…

He picked up the pen again.

Please don’t hurt yourself.

Then, almost as an afterthought:

And don’t let Jerry hurt you either. You deserve better. You really, really do.

Sorry I fucked everything up. Have a nice life.

Aidan

He set down the pen. Reread the letter. Debated tearing it to shreds and attempting another bonfire. Held it instead. He wouldn’t send the letter. In group, the exercise was simply to write the note. Teach him empathy and remorse. Which he guess he felt, because his chest was tight, and it was hard to breathe, and he didn’t want to be sitting in the middle of a seedy Laundromat anymore. He wanted to be back in his apartment, curled up with blankets over his head. Someplace he could get lost in the dark and not think about that winter and how good her skin had felt against his, or how much of both of their lives he had destroyed.

God help him, he still loved her. He did. She was the only good thing that had ever happened to him, and she had been his step sister and he was the worst kind of monster in the world and maybe the guys at the shop should beat the snot out of him. Maybe that was the only solution for a jerkoff like him. He was a pervert. No better than Wendell the psychotic flasher. He should be destroyed.

Except, like any pervert, he didn’t really want to die. He just wanted to get through the night and maybe the next day.

So he gathered up his laundry and hailed a cab.

“Home, James,” he told the driver.

Then, sitting in the back seat of the taxi, he tore the letter into tiny, tiny bits, and flung them out the window, watching the night wind carry them away.

Nine-oh-five P.M., Jason finally had Ree down for the night. It hadn’t been easy. The growing media camp had kept them housebound for most of the day, and Ree was punchy from lack of fresh air and exercise. Then, after dinner, the first of the klieg lights had powered on, their entire house now lit up bright enough to be viewed from outer space.

Ree had complained about the spotlights. She had whined about the noise. She had demanded that he make the reporters go away, and then, when that hadn’t done the trick, she had stomped her foot and demanded that he take her to find her mother right now.

In response, he offered to color with her. Or maybe they could work on origami. Perhaps a stimulating game of checkers.

He didn’t blame her for scowling at him and storming around the house. He wanted the reporters to go away, too. He’d like their old life to resume anytime now, thank you very much.

He’d read an entire fairy novel to his daughter, all one hundred pages from beginning to end. His throat hurt, he’d lost command of the English language, but his daughter was finally asleep.

Which left him alone in the family room, blinds and curtains tightly drawn, trying to figure out what to do next. Sandra remained missing. Maxwell had a court-ordered visit with Ree. And Jason was still the primary suspect in his pregnant wife’s disappearance.

He had hoped, in his own way, that his wife had run off with a lover. He hadn’t really believed it, but he had hoped, because given all the options, that one kept Sandy safe and sound. And maybe one day she’d change her mind and return to him. He’d take her back. For Ree’s sake, for his own. He knew he was not a perfect husband, he knew he had made a terrible mistake during the family vacation. If she’d needed to punish him for that, he could take it.

But now, as day three closed and the hours dragged by, he was forced to contemplate other options. That his wife hadn’t run off. That something terrible had happened, right here, in his own home, and by some miracle, Ree had survived it. Maybe Ethan Hastings had grown frustrated with his unrequited love. Maybe Maxwell had finally found them and abducted Sandy as a ploy to gain his granddaughter. Or maybe Sandra had another lover, this mysterious computer expert, who’d grown tired of waiting for her to leave Jason.

She’d been pregnant. His baby? Someone else’s? Had that been what triggered this whole thing? Maybe, with Ethan Hastings’s help, she had figured out exactly who he was, and she had recoiled at the prospect of bearing a monster’s child. He couldn’t really blame her. He should be terrified at the thought of reproducing as well.

Except he wasn’t. He had wanted… He had hoped…

If they had ever had that moment, the one where Sandy nervously confessed they were expecting a baby together, he would’ve been touched, awed, humbled. He would have been eternally grateful.

But they never got that moment. His wife was gone, and he was left with the ghost of what might have been.

As well as the specter of impending criminal arrest.

He would take his daughter and run. Only thing that could be done, because sooner or later, Sergeant Warren was going to appear on his front porch with an arrest warrant, and a family court officer. He’d go to prison. Worse, Ree would go to foster care.

He could not let that happen. Not for his sake and not for his daughter’s.

He headed for the attic.

The access panel was in the closet of the master bedroom. He grabbed the handle in the ceiling, and pulled down the rickety folding stairs. Then he clicked on a flashlight and headed up into the pitch black gloom.

The attic space was only three feet tall, meant for storage, not comfort. He crawled along the plywood floor, shuffling around boxes of Christmas decorations until he reached the far corner. He counted two rafters over to the left, then shoved aside the exposed insulation and reached in for the flat metal box.

He pulled it out, thinking it felt lighter than he remembered. He set the flashlight down on the floor, raised the lid…

The metal box was empty. Cash, IDs, all gone. Cleared out.

Police? Sandy? Someone else? He couldn’t understand it. He’d never told anyone about his emergency escape kit. It was his little secret, one that kept him from having to bolt awake screaming every night. He was not trapped. He had an escape plan. He always had an escape plan.

And then, while his mind was still frantically trying to process what had happened to him, how it could have possibly happened to him, he became aware of something else. A noise, not far below him.

The creak of a floorboard.

Coming from his daughter’s room.