The Girl Next Door (9 page)

Nina slowly trolled the quiet, lamplit streets of Hoffman. She drove up and down the
streets looking for a thin man in a windbreaker. Where could he have gone? she wondered,
as she peered up driveways and along sidewalks. Once the twilight joggers and dog
walkers were finished, nobody walked around this town. Anyone who saw him might take
him for a burglar. Anyone who recognized him might take him for something worse than
that.

Nina drove along the northern perimeter of the Madison Creek Nature Preserve, and
then slowly turned down their old street. Before she even got around the corner she
had a feeling she was going to find him. It made kind of a perverse sense that he
would go there. And sure enough, as she rounded the corner,
she saw, under the light of a streetlamp, his lonely figure, standing on the sidewalk
staring up at the house. The house where she grew up. The house where her mother was
murdered.

Nina rolled up to the curb and lowered her window. Duncan turned around with a start
and then recognized her.

“Nina. What’s the matter?” he said irritably, bending down and looking into the open
window.

“Dad, I thought I better come pick you up.”

“Why?” he demanded.

She didn’t want to tell him about the newscast. It would probably be in the local
paper on Aunt Mary’s doorstep the next day. That would be soon enough. But he was
looking at her impatiently. “Why?” he repeated.

“I was just … worried. You’d been gone so long. What are you doing all the way over
here?”

“Nina, leave me alone. I know you mean well, but you are hovering over me and I can’t
stand it. You have to stop it. I’m not some child. I’m your father. I’ll come back
when I’m ready.”

Nina looked past him at the house where they had once lived. Through the branches
of the trees she could see lights glowing in every window. It had taken a long time
for someone to buy the house. Everyone knew what had happened there, and once prospective
buyers found out, they never returned. The people who finally bought it got it at
a bargain basement price. But there it stood, looking warm and homey, as if no family
had ever been torn apart and scattered to the winds because of what happened in that
house. She felt tears rise to her eyes again, but she blinked them back.

“Fine,” she said coldly. “Do what you want.” She turned away from him and began to
roll up the window. She half hoped that he would knock on the window, try to stop
her, apologize for his curtness with her. But Duncan did none of
those things. He stepped back onto the sidewalk and watched as she pulled away.

I’m only trying to help you, she thought. It’s not as if I like being here. Everything
here reminds me of all that. Of everything that happened. If you don’t want me to
help you, fine. You can handle everything by yourself, fine.

Dark thoughts jangled in her mind as she drove back to Aunt Mary’s house and pulled
into the driveway. She got out, slamming the car door, and marched up the walk toward
the front door. Halfway up the walk, she noticed that there was something on the front
door that had not been there when she left. A piece of paper had been attached there,
although its corners fluttered in the evening breeze. Her heart suddenly started to
pound and she approached slowly, looking around to see if whoever left the paper was
still around.

Don’t panic, she thought. Maybe it’s a take-out menu, or somebody came to fix something
and left a message for Aunt Mary. But she knew it wasn’t that. Nobody brought around
take-out menus at this hour. Nobody came to do repairs. She stepped up to the door
and looked at it. The message was written in capital letters in black, and it was
easy to read: WIFE KILLER. GO BACK TO JAIL WHERE YOU BELONG.

Nina tore it off the door, her face flaming. She turned and looked around her, wondering
if whoever had posted it there was still watching the house, waiting to see what their
reaction would be. Somebody knew that her father was in this house. Somebody cruel
and vindictive. The street was quiet and peaceful, the image of slumbering suburbia
on a mild autumn evening, she thought bitterly. The kind of place where no one would
think dark thoughts, or plot against his neighbor.

N
INA
went to bed before her father returned, but she couldn’t fall asleep.

She switched on the bedside lamp and lay in her aunt’s sagging double bed, looking
around at the dingy corners of the bedroom, wondering how long it had been since the
curtains had been taken down and washed, or the room had been painted. I can fix this
room up for her, Nina thought. I’ll clean it and paint it so that when she comes home
it will be fresh for her. Nina occupied herself with these plans until she heard the
front door open and then close again. Quickly she switched off the lamp so that Duncan
would not think she was waiting for him.

When Duncan came down for breakfast the next day he looked exhausted. After a night’s
sleep, Nina felt better and was back in his corner. She had hidden the posted message
in her room so that he would not see it. Whoever the sick bastard was who had hung
it on the door, Duncan did not need to know about it.

“What do we need to do today?” he said, as he slowly ate a bowl of cold cereal.

“Well, I’ve decided to give Aunt Mary’s room a freshening up. It will be a nice surprise
for her when she comes home. So, I need to go to Lowe’s and buy some paint. Maybe
you could help me move the furniture away from the walls and take down the curtains.”

“Sure,” he said absently. “You want your old room? I can sleep on the couch in the
living room. That’s fine for me.”

“No, no. I can sleep in the sewing room. There’s a sofabed in there. But we do need
to start thinking about finding you an apartment. What else do you need to do?” she
asked.

Duncan grimaced as he chewed. “God, I need to go to a dentist. My teeth are a mess.”

“Today?” she said.

“No, today I need to go to Motor Vehicles. Get a temporary license and apply for my
new license.”

“Are you allowed to do that?” she asked.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I can’t vote. I can’t drink. But I can drive,” he said.

“All right. We’ll do that.”

“I was hoping,” he said.

“What?”

“Maybe I could see my grandchildren.”

Nina tried to hide her surprise. After that humiliating boycott of dinner at her apartment,
she wondered why he would want to set himself up for rejection again so soon. Duncan
seemed to notice her reluctance.

“What’s the matter? You know I want to see them. That’s one of the reasons I came
back here.”

Nina grimaced. “I know but … Gemma’s probably working. I don’t want to disturb her,”
she said.

“Oh, I don’t expect an invitation. I meant … you know, get
a look at the kids. I haven’t even seen Patrick’s house. Could we drive by it? Maybe
the kids will be playing outside. I just want to see them.”

“I … guess we could,” said Nina, embarrassed by the pleading note in his voice. “And
we should go downtown and get you something else to wear. Something that fits.”

“You’re the boss,” he said, and she knew that was his way of trying to say he was
sorry for snapping at her the night before. She wasn’t going to tell him that she
could never hold it against him. Not after all he had suffered. He was entitled to
his anger, she thought. Even if he took it out on her.

T
HEY
completed their business for the day and drove out to Old Hoffman, the part of town
studded with fields and horse barns, where its wealthiest citizens resided. On their
way they passed the entrance to the country club.

“Is Patrick a member?” Duncan asked.

Nina was caught off guard by his question. When Patrick moved to this neighborhood
he learned that he was permanently blackballed from the club because of his father’s
crime. And Patrick had been furious—not at the country club members for their narrow-mindedness,
but at Duncan, for causing him further deprivation.

“Nina?”

“Uh … no.”

“No? Does he still play golf ?” asked Duncan.

“Yes … but … I think … Gemma was uncomfortable there. She’s not really the country
club type,” Nina said quickly. That certainly wasn’t a lie, Nina thought.

As they rounded the curve to Patrick’s house they passed the driveway leading to the
house where Lindsay Farrell’s parents
lived. It was a little odd, she thought, that Patrick had bought the next property
over from theirs. Had Lindsay moved back in with her family when she returned to town?
Was she now living right next door to Patrick?

“This is it,” said Nina. “The next one on the left. It’s hard to see it through the
trees.” Patrick’s house was covered in fieldstone and blended into the gray bark of
the surrounding trees in the November landscape. In front of the house was a large
pond with mallards gliding on its silvery surface.

Duncan peered out the window. “Wow,” he said. “How much money does your brother make,
anyway?”

“A lot. He mints the stuff,” said Nina, as she pulled to the side of the road and
let the car idle. “It’s beautiful inside, too. Patrick picked out everything.”

“What about his wife?” Duncan asked. “Isn’t that usually the wife’s job …?”

“Oh, come on, Dad,” Nina teased him. “Times have changed. It’s whoever wants to do
it these days. Anyway, Patrick’s very particular. He has very … exacting taste. He
likes everything to … look … a certain way.”

“Are they a good couple? Are they happy together?” Duncan asked.

“Patrick and Gemma …?” Nina thought about her brother and his wife. When Marsha was
killed and Lindsay dumped him, Patrick’s self-confidence faltered. He leaned on his
tutor and their relationship seemed to become much closer. Despite her coolness and
reserve, Gemma had proved loyal. She had stuck by him through the trial, through college,
when everyone else abandoned him. Nina used to think their marriage was kind of romantic.
She imagined that Patrick had been won over by Gemma’s loyalty and realized finally
that Gemma’s indifference to fashion concealed her natural attractiveness. But Nina’s
illusions had faded. Once Patrick had been proud of Gemma’s
exceptional intelligence. Now he always seemed to find fault with her. And Nina knew
they argued a lot. On her rare overnight visits she had heard them, and realized that
they sounded distressingly like her parents used to sound. But all couples argued,
she told herself, trying to think positively. “I guess they manage,” she said.

“There they are!” Duncan cried.

Nina looked where he was pointing and saw a pair of chubby little boys chasing one
another across the immaculate yard.

Before she could tell him to stop, Duncan had jumped out of the car and rushed toward
the ornate wrought-iron fence that surrounded the property. He leaned against it and
peered through the trees at the twins.

Nina got out of the car. “Dad, you shouldn’t let them see you.”

“Which one is which?” he asked. “Can you tell them apart?”

Nina squinted at the two boys and then nodded. “The one in the dark green sweatshirt
is Cody. He’s a little bit smaller than Simon.”

Duncan shook his head. “My grandsons,” he breathed, as if he could hardly believe
they were real.

Shadows were beginning to fall across the yard and Nina looked at her watch. It was
late in the day, and she didn’t want to be there when Patrick returned.

“We better not hang around here, Dad,” she said. Duncan looked wistful leaning against
the fence, drinking in the sight of the twins at play.

The boys ran shrieking after one another in the direction of the house and then Simon
put on a burst of speed and caught up with Cody, grabbing the hood of his sweatshirt
and pulling him down to the ground. They began snarling and tumbling over one another
like pudgy bear cubs, shouting insults. Simon sat down on Cody’s stomach and they
had a brief, inadudible
conference. Then Simon freed his twin and they raced in the direction of the pond.

“They’re awfully close to the water,” said Duncan. “Are they allowed to be out there
alone like that?”

“They’re okay. Dad,” said Nina. “Come on. You’ve seen them. We better go. Patrick
will not be happy if he finds you here.”

But Duncan was not listening. “Nina, look. They’re right at the edge of that pond.”

Nina looked up and down the road, watching anxiously for Patrick’s silver-blue Jaguar
to come racing around the curve.

“How do you get in here?” Duncan said. He began to search the fence for an opening.
He found a latch and lifted it.

“Dad, don’t go in there. If Patrick comes home and finds you here he’s going to be
angry. I know him.”

A splash and a horrible cry went up from the yard. The ducks squawked and rose from
the surface of the pond with a flapping of wings. Duncan was already through the gate
and running down the lawn. Nina looked toward the pond and saw Cody in the water,
shrieking and gasping. His face was bright red and he was sobbing. Nina hurried down
the lawn after her father. Duncan reached the water’s edge and put a hand out to the
boy. “Take my hand,” he demanded.

“Hey,” Simon protested. “Who are you?”

The back door of the house opened and Gemma burst out, looking alarmed. She was followed
by a short, heavyset woman with brown skin and a sullen expression on her round face.
Gemma ran toward her sons and reached them just as a muddy Cody, still wailing, spurned
Duncan’s offer of a hand and stood up in the knee-high water where he had landed.
The other woman reached the edge of the pond and stood with her hands on her ample
hips, shaking her head and muttering in Spanish.

“Cody,” Gemma cried. “Are you all right? What is going on?”

“He pushed me,” Cody shrieked, pointing at Simon.

“I did not,” Simon protested. “He fell in. This guy scared him and he fell in.” Simon
pointed at Duncan, who stood, pale and trembling, in his gray windbreaker.