The Neighbor Read online

  | CHAPTER NINE |

  At 5:59 P.M. Sergeant D.D. Warren was a happy camper. She had a warrant to search Jason Jones’s truck. She had an appointment with a registered sex offender’s parole officer. And better yet, it was trash night in the neighborhood.

  She drove around South Boston with Detective Miller, getting the lay of the land while they plotted next steps.

  “According to Detective Rober,” Miller was reporting, “Jones kept a low profile for the afternoon. No guests, no errands, no activities. He seems to be hanging out at home with his daughter, doing his thing.”

  “Has he been out to the truck?” D.D. wanted to know.

  “Nope, hasn’t even cracked open the front door.”

  “Huh,” D.D. said. “Working on the computer? Your guy should be able to see him sitting there in the kitchen window.”

  “I asked that question, and the answer is uncertain. Afternoon sun made the view into the kitchen window unclear. But in the officer’s professional assessment, Jones spent most of the day entertaining his kid.”

  “Interesting,” D.D. said, and meant it. What a spouse did after a loved one went missing was always a source of fodder for the inquisitive detective. Did the spouse go about business as usual? Suddenly invite over a new female friend for “comfort”? Or run around purchasing accelerants and/or unusual power tools?

  In Jason’s case, his behavior seemed to be mostly defined by what he didn’t do. No relatives or friends coming over to help him cope, maybe assist with childcare. No trips to the local office supply store to blow up photos of his missing wife. No quick visits to his neighbor’s house for standard inquiries: Hey, have you happened to see my wife? Or maybe hear anything unusual last night? Oh, and by the way, catch any sign of an orange cat?

  Jason Jones’s wife disappeared and he did nothing at all.

  It’s almost as if he didn’t expect her to be found. D.D. found that fascinating.

  “Okay,” she said now, “given that Jason is holding tight, I think our first stop should be with Aidan Brewster’s PO. We got Suspicious Husband under our thumb. Now it’s time to learn more about Felonious Neighbor.”

  “Works for me,” Detective Miller said. “You know, tomorrow morning happens to be trash day for the neighborhood.” He nodded his head toward the collection of trash cans starting to proliferate on the curb. Trash in a house was private property and required a warrant. Trash on the curb, on the other hand … “Say two or three A.M., I have an officer swing by and pick up Jones’s garbage? Give us something to sort through in the morning.”

  “Ah, Detective, you read my mind.”

  “I try,” he said modestly.

  D.D. winked at him, and they swung back into the city.

  Colleen Pickler agreed to meet with them in the nondescript space that passed for her office. The floor was light gray linoleum, the walls were covered in battleship gray paint, and her filing cabinets sported a dull gray finish. In contrast, Colleen was a six-foot athletically built Amazon, sporting a head of shocking red hair and wearing a deep red blazer over a kaleidoscope T-shirt of oranges, yellows, and reds. When she first stood up from her desk, it looked like a torch had suddenly been lit in the middle of a fog bank.

  She crossed the room in three easy strides, shook their hands vigorously, then gestured them into the two low-slung blue chairs across from the desk.

  “Forgive the office,” she announced cheerfully. “I work mostly with sex offenders, and the state seems to feel that any color other than gray might overstimulate them. Clearly,” she gestured to her top, “I disagree.”

  “You work mostly with sex offenders?” D.D. asked in surprise.

  “Sure. Nicest group of parolees there is. The heroin pushers and petty burglars bolt first time they smell fresh air. Can’t track ’em down, can’t get ’em to complete a single piece of paperwork, can’t get ’em to make a meeting. The average sex offender, on the other hand, is eager to please.”

  Miller was staring up at Pickler as if he were having a religious experience. “Really?” he said, stroking his thin brown mustache, checking the motion, then smoothing it again.

  “Sure. Most of these guys are scared out of their minds. Prison was the worst thing that ever happened to them and they’re desperate not to go back. They’re very compliant, even anxious for approval. Hell, the really hard-core pedophiles will check in almost daily. I’m the only adult relationship they have, and they want to make sure I’m happy.”

  D.D. arched her brows and took a seat. “So they’re just a bunch of regular Joes.”

  Pickler shrugged. “As much as anyone is. ’Course, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think someone was behaving badly. Who is it?”

  D.D. checked her notes. “Brewster. Aidan Brewster.”

  “Aidan Brewster?” Pickler parroted. “No way!”

  “Yes way.”

  Pickler’s turn to arch a brow. But then she turned to the first gray metal filing cabinet and got busy. “B … B … Brewster. Aidan. Here we go. But I can tell you now, he’s a good kid.”

  “For a registered sex offender,” D.D. filled in dryly.

  “Ah please. Now see, this is where the system is its own worst enemy. First, the system has managed to vilify an entire class of perpetrators. Second, the system has created a class of perpetrators too big for its own good. On the one hand, you rape thirty kids, you’re a registered sex offender. On the other hand, a nineteen-year-old has consensual sex with a fourteen-year-old, and he’s also a registered sex offender. It’s like saying a serial killer is the same as the guy who gave his wife a black eye. Sure, they’re both pieces of garbage, but they’re not the same pieces of garbage.”

  “So what kind of sex offender is Aidan Brewster?” D.D. asked.

  “The nineteen-year-old who had consensual sex with his younger stepsister’s fourteen-year-old friend.”

  “He’s on probation for that?”

  “He served two years in jail for that. If she’d been a year younger, he would’ve gotten twenty. That’ll teach a boy to keep his pants zipped.”

  “Fourteen is too young to give consent,” Miller spoke up, having finally taken a seat. “Nineteen-year-old boy should know better.”

  Pickler didn’t argue. “A lesson that Brewster will get to spend the rest of his life learning. You know, being a sex offender is a one-way ticket. Brewster could be clean the next thirty years; he’ll still be a registered sex offender. Meaning every time he applies for a job, or looks for an apartment, or crosses state lines, he’ll pop up in the system. That’s a lot of baggage for a twenty-three-year-old.”

  “How’s he taking it?” D.D. asked.

  “As well as can be expected. He’s entered a treatment program for sex offenders and is attending his weekly meetings. He has an apartment, a job, the semblance of a life.”

  “Apartment,” D.D. stated.

  Pickler rattled off an address that matched what D.D.’s team had already found in the system. “Does the landlord know?” D.D. inquired.

  “I told her,” Pickler reported. “It’s not standard protocol for his level of offender, but I always think it’s better to be safe than sorry. If the landlord found out later and booted Aidan unexpectedly, that could create stress and strain. Perhaps set him adrift. As Aidan’s PO, I feel my job is to help him avoid unnecessary turmoil.”

  “How’d the landlord take it?”

  “She needed to hear the whole story, and wanted my number on speed dial. Then she seemed to be okay with it. You’d be surprised how many people are. They just want to know up front.”

  “What about the neighbors?” D.D. pressed.

  “Didn’t notify the neighbors or the local PDs,” Pickler supplied briskly. “Brewster shows up in SORD, of course, and I considered that adequate given his risk assessment and current level of programming.”

  “Meaning …?” Miller quizzed.

  “Meaning Brewster’s been doing just fine. He’s lived in the same place and h
eld the same job and attended the same weekly support group for nearly two years now. As parolees go, I’d take more just like Aidan Brewster.”

  “A regular success story,” Miller quipped.

  Pickler shrugged. “As much as one expects to see. Look, I’ve been at this eighteen years now. Sixty percent of my parolees will figure things out, maybe not the first time they’re paroled, but eventually. The other forty percent …” She shrugged again. “Some will return to prison. Some will drink themselves to death. A few will commit suicide. Technically speaking, they don’t re-offend, but I’m not sure I’d call it success. Then there are the Aidan Brewsters of the world. From a PO’s perspective, he’s a good guy, and that’s the best I can tell you.”

  “Employment?” D.D. asked with a frown.

  “Local garage. Vito’s. Kid’s really good with his hands. That’s helped him mainstream more easily than some of these guys.”

  D.D. wrote that down. “You say he’s been there two years?”

  “Their top mechanic,” Pickler specified. “His boss, Vito, can’t say enough nice things about him. Employment-wise, kid’s doing aces, which matters, given his current expenses.”

  “What expenses?” Miller wanted to know.

  “Programming. Sex offenders are responsible for treatment costs. So in Brewster’s case, that means he’s forking over sixty bucks a week for his group counseling. Then there’s the cost of his maintenance polygraph, two-fifty a pop every ten months, to make sure he’s on track. If he had an ankle bracelet he’d have to pay for that, too, but he got lucky and hit the streets the year before the GPS became SOP. Plus, he’s got Boston rent due, transportation costs, etc., etc. Not a cheap life for someone who’s starting the game with limited employment options.”

  “You mean because he can’t be around kids,” D.D. said.

  “Exactly. So even at a local garage, Brewster can only work on the cars, never at the front counter. After all, you never know when a woman might walk in with two-point-two kids.”

  “But he’s a good employee.”

  “The best.” Colleen shot them a grin. “Vito can work Brewster to the bone, and the kid’ll never complain because they both know he can’t just quit and get a job elsewhere. People think sex offenders can’t find employment. In fact, there are certain ‘savvy’ employers out there who are more than happy to have them on board.”

  Miller was frowning now. “Poor little Aidan Brewster? Couldn’t keep his hands off a fourteen-year-old, so now we should all feel sorry for him?”

  “I’m not saying that,” Colleen replied evenly. “The law is the law. I’m just saying that for most of the judicial system, you do your crime, you serve your time. Brewster went to jail, but he’s still serving time, and will be for the rest of his life. Ironically enough, he would’ve been slightly better off had he killed the girl instead of sleeping with her. And as a member of the judicial system, I’m not comfortable with that analysis.”

  D.D., however, was already pondering something else. She turned to Miller. “Do you know where the Joneses got their cars serviced?”

  He shook his head, jotted down a note. “I’ll get on it.”

  “Who are the Joneses?” Colleen asked.

  “Jason and Sandra Jones. They live on the same block as Aidan Brewster. Except sometime in the middle of last night, Sandra Jones disappeared.”

  “Ahh,” Colleen said with a sigh. She sat back in her chair, hooked her hands behind her fireball hair. “You think Aidan had something to do with it?”

  “Have to consider him.”

  “How old is Sandra Jones?”

  “Twenty-three. A sixth grade teacher at the middle school. Has a four-year-old daughter.”

  “So, you’re thinking Aidan abducted the mom from her house in the middle of the night, with the husband there?”

  “Husband was at work—he’s a local reporter.”

  Colleen narrowed her eyes. “You think Brewster was after the kid? Because Aidan’s taken four or five polygraphs where he’s had to volunteer his entire sexual history. Pedophilia has never come up.”

  “I don’t know what I think,” D.D. said. “Except, by all accounts, Sandra Jones is a very beautiful woman, and let’s face it, twenty-three isn’t that old. In fact, what does that make her? The same age as Brewster?”

  Colleen nodded. “Same age.”

  “So, we have a beautiful young mom and a registered sex offender living just houses away. Any chance that Aidan is good-looking?”

  “Sure. Shaggy blond hair. Blue eyes. Kind of surfer dude, but in a sweet sort of way.”

  Miller rolled his eyes.

  D.D., however, kept spinning the theory out. “So Sandy’s husband works most nights. Meaning she’s alone a lot, isolated with the kid. Maybe some evening she’s out in the yard with her daughter, and Aidan comes by, strikes up a conversation. Maybe the conversation leads to a relationship, which leads to …”

  “She runs away with him?” Colleen suggested.

  “Or they get into a fight. She finds out about his history, gets mad. After all, he’s been around her kid, and according to all reports, Sandra Jones would do anything for her kid.”

  “So he kills her,” Colleen said matter-of-factly

  “Like you said, these guys are desperate not to go back to prison.”

  “So Aidan Brewster seduces the lonely housewife down the street, then murders her to cover his tracks.”

  D.D.’s turn to shrug. “Stranger things have happened.”

  Colleen sighed. Picked up a pencil, bounced the eraser end on her desk half a dozen times. “All right. For the record, I think you’re off base. Aidan already entered a high-risk relationship once before and he got nailed for it big-time. Given that, I think if he saw a woman like Sandra Jones out in her yard, he’d turn around and run the other way. No need to tempt fate, right? But the fact remains, Sandra Jones is missing and Aidan Brewster is the unlucky SOB that lives down the street. Protocol is protocol, so we’d better check him out.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Colleen bounced the pencil twice more. “Timeline?”

  “Sooner versus later. We’re trying to get as much done under the radar as we can. We figure by seven A.M. tomorrow Sandra Jones will be missing more than twenty-four hours, meaning she’ll be upgraded to an official missing persons case and the media …”

  “Will swarm you like bees on honey.”

  “You got it.”

  Colleen grunted. “You said she’s pretty, a young mom, a local teacher.”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re screwed.”

  “Totally.”

  “All right. You convinced me. I’ll pay Brewster a call this evening. Do a little walk-through of his home, ask about his recent activities. See if I can sniff out anything that warrants further investigation.”

  “We’d like to help you pay that call.”

  Colleen stopped bouncing the pencil. “No dice,” she said firmly.

  “You’re not an agent of the court,” D.D. countered. “You walk through his house and see blood, violence, disarray, you can’t seize it as evidence.”

  “I can give you a call.”

  “Which will alert Brewster that we’re coming.”

  “Then I’ll sit on the sofa with him as we both wait. Look, I’m Aidan’s PO, meaning I’ve spent two years building a relationship with him. I ask him questions, I have two years’ worth of history pressuring him to answer. You ask him questions, and he’ll shut down. You’ll get nowhere.”

  D.D. thinned her lips, feeling stubborn and resigned all at once.

  “He’s a good kid,” Colleen argued softly. “For what it’s worth, I really doubt he did it.”

  “You been through this before?” Miller spoke up evenly. “Have one of your sex offenders re-offend?”

  Colleen nodded. “Three times.”

  “You see it coming?”

  Pickler sighed again. “No,” she admitted quietly. “All thre
e times … never had a clue. Guys were doing okay. They dealt with the pressure. Until one morning … they snapped. Then there was no going back.”

  | CHAPTER TEN |

  I have always been fascinated by secrets. I grew up living a lie, so of course I see subterfuge everyplace I look. That child in my classroom who always wears long sleeves, even on warm days—totally being beaten by his stepdad. That elderly woman who works at the dry cleaner with her pinched face and bony shoulders—totally being abused by her big brute of a son who hangs out around back.

  People lie. It’s as instinctive as breathing. We lie because we can’t help ourselves.

  My husband lies. He looks me in the eye as he does it. As liars go, Jason is a class act.

  I think I had known him six weeks before I figured out that beneath his restrained facade there lurked a deep ocean of bad voodoo. I noticed it in small things first. The way a drawl would sometimes creep into his voice, particularly at night when he was tired and not paying as much attention. Or the times he would say he got out of bed to watch TV, except when I turned on the TV in the morning, it would go straight to the Home & Garden channel, which I had watched last, and which Jason has no use for whatsoever.

  Sometimes, I tried to tease the truth out of him: “Hey, you just said ‘coke.’ I thought only a true Southerner asked for a coke instead of a soda.”

  “Must be hanging out with you too much,” he’d say, but I’d see a hint of wariness crease the corners of his eyes.

  Or sometimes I tried to get straight to the point. “Tell me what happened to your family. Where are your parents, your siblings?”

  He’d try to hedge. “Why does it matter? I have you now, and Clarissa. That’s the only family that matters.”

  One night, when Ree was five months old, and sleeping well, I was feeling edgy and restless, the way a nineteen-year-old girl does when she’s sitting across from a dark, handsome man and she’s looking at his hands and thinking about how gently they can cradle a newborn baby. Then thinking, much more importantly, how they might feel on her naked breasts, I found myself approaching the matter much more directly.